ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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On 2/27/2018 at 7:03 PM, Spenny said:

Ya'll Euro Netflixers got something good to look forward to.

 

Indeed! I just watched Annihilation last night, and yup, it was one of the best sci-fi movies I've seen in a long time. I hadn't even seen a trailer prior to watching it which was good because I really had no idea where it was going, and it's GOING PLACES alright. I just found out that writer-director Alex Garland also wrote Enslaved: Odyssey to the West! I loved that game! And also he secretly directed Dredd! I like this guy.

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12 hours ago, Henke said:

Alex Garland also wrote Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

? .... !
 

Honestly can't wait to see more of what this guy does.

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I don't know if it's a Netflix blooper, combined with Internet problem, but Annihilation was one of the most uncomfortable movie watching experience I had.

  • Movie is shot with willfully ignoring many photography good practices:
    • Big light sources in frame, causing lens flares and contrast to disappear
    • Actors often in darkness
    • Actors on the edge of the frame, staring out
  • Due to some of the above, loss of detail in actors' faces
  • Bad compression exacerbating the above. Even when I'm watching some DivX or whatever, I don't notice it this much, here they wanted to create some cool visuals, then ruined with bad quality

I think the first issues are done on purpose, maybe to create tension. IMHO, it kind of succeeded, but I noticed it so much that it almost removed my suspension of disbelief.

 

I think this the compression and detail issues totally may have been partially made much worse by Netflix servers for Estonia or something, because I looked at the YouTube trailer and it seemed much better.

 

Today I watched the Alex Ross Perry movie The Color Wheel on Mubi and it was quite bad compression quality but guess what it didn't bother me half as much as in Annihilation, which looks like it wants to have big budget visuals but then shows lame compression artifacts.

 

Also seems like I'm not the only one thinking this: https://www.microstockgroup.com/off-topic/annihilation-on-netflix/

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It seems more like someone uploaded a wrong file to Netflix. But also maybe the way this movie was shot just doesn't play well with (Netflix's) streaming. Usually films and TV series have more close-ups than this one, I think. And when there were close-ups the faces were in shadows. So most of the time there's no detail in the actors... It was also very wide screen 2.39:1, which means the picture will be quite small in most homes where you have 16:9.

 

[edit] The thread I linked to had some more replies now, and one suggested to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D to show debug info in Netflix. here's mine for Annihilation:

 

Playing bitrate (a/v): 96 / 910 (853x480)
Playing/Buffering vmaf: 94/94
Buffering bitrate (a/v): 96 / 910
Buffer size in Bytes (a/v): 2926949 / 26030657
Buffer size in Bytes: 28957606
Buffer size in Seconds (a/v): 232.759 / 225.713

 

Not sure how to read all of it, but if >200 seconds have been buffered it's definitely no internet issue. Seems the resolution is 480p (SD)!!!, which would explain most of the problem, but not the crappy dynamic range.

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Apparently Netflix is only playing 720p max in Firefox and Chrome!

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Yeah I think that's for DRM reasons. I think a lot of streaming services are like that. Amazon only streams its highest HD on Internet Explorer and similar browsers, I think.

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Well, I feel a bit dumb for not realizing that Netflix never showed me 1080p (I think on the PS3 it's also 720p). But then again I am sitting far enough from the screen that I sometimes can't tell the difference between 1080p and 720p.

 

And now that I found that I can get a much better image from Netflix in Edge or Internet Explorer... I realize that with those browsers, streaming video doesn't work over Steam Link. Probably the same DRM reason? With all the talk of 4K, HDR, 8K and whatnot, god damn can we get to 1080p already in 2018?

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Huh, really? What about that bundled on Edge browser for Win 10? Might actually start using it for something.

 

Edit: Alternatively, is there a Windows store app for Netflix that streams at full quality? I never really thought about using such a thing but it might make sense for that reason. 

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10 hours ago, Gwardinen said:

Edit: Alternatively, is there a Windows store app for Netflix that streams at full quality? I never really thought about using such a thing but it might make sense for that reason. 

Yes, but that also doesn't work over steam link :/

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On 3/14/2018 at 10:35 PM, Erkki said:

I don't know if it's a Netflix blooper, combined with Internet problem, but Annihilation was one of the most uncomfortable movie watching experience I had.

  • Movie is shot with willfully ignoring many photography good practices:
    • Big light sources in frame, causing lens flares and contrast to disappear
    • Actors often in darkness
    • Actors on the edge of the frame, staring out
  • Due to some of the above, loss of detail in actors' faces
  • Bad compression exacerbating the above. Even when I'm watching some DivX or whatever, I don't notice it this much, here they wanted to create some cool visuals, then ruined with bad quality

 

Yeah I watched Annihilation over the weekend (on Netflix, in the UK) and I have to wonder if there isn't something iffy with the version of the film that exists there. Typically I have no problems with streaming a clean 1080p picture from Netflix - their own shows like Riverdale and 13 Reasons Why look absurdly crisp and bright - but there seemed to be something odd going on with the levels of saturation and detail in some of the scenes, and I honestly couldn't tell whether it was down to the quality of the picture or the quality of the film making.

 

I had less trouble with the faces shrouded in darkness and the staring out of the frames (much of which, as you suggest, seemed deliberate); but some of the special effects looked amazing, and then some of them looked like cutscenes from a PS3 game. Very odd. I think it's a film where the quality of the image matters more than most but I feel like they over-egged the pudding on the effects front.

 

Still! I liked it, with reservations. For anyone who enjoys unusual sci fi or weird horror fiction it's certainly worth a look.

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2 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

I think it's a film where the quality of the image matters more than most but I feel like they over-egged the pudding on the effects front.

 

Would you say there's too much clam in the beverage?

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:tdown: I recommend avoiding Mute, the Duncan Jones movie on the 'flix. It's bad in almost every way. You get a miscast Paul Rudd, and a relatively dull cast otherwise. It's set in a cyberpunk world, but the story is neither cyber nor punk. The mystery noir story it attempts to tell is completely meandering and unfollowable. The only redeeming moments are when Paul Rudd gets to do Paul Rudd acting and be a futuristic asshole.

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Yeah, Mute fucking sucks. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time. Duncan Jones seems to be sliding slowly downhill since Moon.

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As someone who only thought Moon was "pretty good", it's been a trip seeing the rise of expectation and fall of disappointment at every subsequent Duncan Jones film. In 2009 I felt crazy hearing all the raves. Now, less so.

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Come on now the fact that his other movies haven't been good doesn't take away from Moon, which is very good. Also, Source Code was ok!

 

On 3/15/2018 at 6:21 PM, Patrick R said:

Long live physical media.

 

Agree. I've seen too many things disappear from streaming services or have scenes mangled by their aggressive compression to ever want to really rely on them.

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Warcraft is probably a top 3 video game movie. Low bar, not actually good, but, like a harvest golem, outstanding in its field.

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47 minutes ago, Spenny said:

Warcraft is probably a top 3 video game movie. Low bar, not actually good, but, like a harvest golem, outstanding in its field.

10/10, would chuckle at again

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This also happened with Neil Blompkamp, now that I think about it. Also I'm not a huge fan of Alex Garland, though response to his work seems to be trending up instead of down so maybe I'll be more into Annihilation than I was Ex Machina. Either way, me and critically acclaimed mid-budget contemporary sci-fi films don't seem to get along. Meanwhile Shane Carruth and James Ward Byrkit's work is either ignored or met with mixed response and neither of them have made a movie in 5 years. :(

 

This made me curious so I looked it up. Here are hard sci-fi films from this decade I loved: Under the Skin, Coherence, Upstream Color, World of Tomorrow. You take off the "hard" restriction and you can add Gravity, Snowpiercer, and potentially Inception & Cloud Atlas (loved at the time, doubt I'd love as much now) and potentially Contagion and Shin Godzilla (could be considered sci-fi but feel like wildly different things).

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The Good Place has received its own thread:

 

 

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13 hours ago, Spenny said:

Warcraft is probably a top 3 video game movie. Low bar, not actually good, but, like a harvest golem, outstanding in its field.

 

Whaaaaat no come oooooon. I mean I liked the Orc guy but besides him I don't actually remember anything about it.

 

My picks for Top 5 Video Game Movies:

1. Mortal Kombat - I mean come on. Lambert's crazy, chuckling portrayal of Raiden? That scene where SubZero freezes that guy? "Hey asshole, those were 500 dollar sunglasses!"? Come on!

2. D.O.A. - I don't think a lot of people have seen this one, but it's an over the top bonkers goodbad movie.

3. Resident Evil - Sure it's a bit dull, but that laser corridor scene is, like, iconic. And the ending is cool.

4. Need For Speed - It's like an only-slightly-worse version of the latest Fast & Furious movies. It's not that bad, seriously.

5. uhhhhh... Resident Evil 2 I guess.

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I've always had a soft spot for the first (not the horrible second!) Silent Hill movie. It hit the atmosphere of the games perfectly, delivered some suitable scares and was very strange. In a good way.

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15 hours ago, Patrick R said:

This also happened with Neil Blompkamp, now that I think about it. Also I'm not a huge fan of Alex Garland, though response to his work seems to be trending up instead of down so maybe I'll be more into Annihilation than I was Ex Machina. Either way, me and critically acclaimed mid-budget contemporary sci-fi films don't seem to get along. Meanwhile Shane Carruth and James Ward Byrkit's work is either ignored or met with mixed response and neither of them have made a movie in 5 years. :(

 

This made me curious so I looked it up. Here are hard sci-fi films from this decade I loved: Under the Skin, Coherence, Upstream Color, World of Tomorrow. You take off the "hard" restriction and you can add Gravity, Snowpiercer, and potentially Inception & Cloud Atlas (loved at the time, doubt I'd love as much now) and potentially Contagion and Shin Godzilla (could be considered sci-fi but feel like wildly different things).

What makes Under the Skin "hard" sci-fi but Inception, Snowpiercer, and Gravity not "hard" sci-fi?

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My conception of "hard sci-fi" may be mine alone. I feel like sci-fi films driven mainly by ideas tend to occupy one place in my mind while films driven mainly by special effects and spectacle occupy another. Of course it's not a binary and a film can do both: 2001 is a hard sci-fi and also a feat of special effects that still look incredible to this day. Ex Machina is a small-scale film with excellent CGI make-up. 

 

For me, something like Alien isn't "hard sci-fi" because while it has concepts and ideas it explores, that is all a distant second to it being a horror movie.

 

Gravity, Snowpiercer and Inception feel closer to spectacle driven Hollywood roller coasters than any of those others I branded "hard sci-fi". Gravity is a film of basically no ideas, it's all thrilling momentum and tension. Snowpiercer has very broad ideas (and a setting that only really make sense as metaphor) but is defined, to me, by it's action set-pieces. Inception, granted, IS a film of ideas but features a few too many high concept fight scenes and CGI set-pieces that separate it in my mind from something like Coherence or Under the Skin

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