ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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1 hour ago, Cordeos said:

Really liking the second season of The Expanse.

 

Ooh good, hope it hits Netflix UK soon! Spoiler tags where appropriate, please!

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On 11/2/2017 at 8:06 PM, Atlantic said:

Today, I watched Wadjda (2012), a film about an 11- or 12- year old in Saudi Arabia. It was directed by Haifaa al-Mansour, and according to Wikipedia it was "first feature film shot entirely in Saudi Arabia and the first feature-length film made by a female Saudi director."

...

If you are interested in seeing more films by female directors, and films about women, then I'd definitely add it to your watchlist.

I am and I did, also because I'm watching one movie from each country and still haven't gotten to Saudi Arabia.

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1 hour ago, Erkki said:

I am and I did, also because I'm watching one movie from each country and still haven't gotten to Saudi Arabia.

 

If you need a film from China for your list, I also recently watched Raise the Red Lantern (1991) which explores similar themes in a very different way. It's set in 1920s China, and follows a young woman as she becomes the Fourth Mistress of a wealthy family. It's also very good, but I wasn't thrilled at the ending. I'd love to hear what you or other people think.

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I liked it a lot, and the ending wasn't to my taste either, although I no longer remember it exactly - I'm watching too many movies so I may forget some details quickly. I don't think I have much to say about the movie except that I liked it a lot and I thought the visuals and sound were excellent.

 

Yesterday I saw Silences of the Palace, which is a Tunisian film that has some commonalities of theme with Raise the Red Lantern, with the remnants of a harem still living confined to a wealthy family's compound.

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The best part of Wadjda is that at one point the English subtitles say something like [Speaking in Arabic]. It's like, thanks subtitles! I know it's Arabic! What I'm really looking for is a translation of that Arabic! After all, I don't speak Arabic! That's why I have English subtitles turned on!

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I guess I had better subtitles. Didn't see that, except in one case it said "(shouts out)" when she seemed to be saying something. I liked the movie, and it made me think of two other movies I liked about kids growing up in islamic countries: Children of Heaven (1997) and Nafas/Breath (2016).

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Currently working my way through Abstract: The Art of Design so far and am realy enoying it. 

 

 

 

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Have been watching that with my partner and it is absolutely amazing. Really funny and insightful, and just...damn, Netflix, you've hit this one out of the park

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My wife is making me watch The Kettering Incident.

 

I'm 3 episodes in and I think I like it? But it also kind of feels like they are purposefully withholding way too much information from the viewer and there is so much random shit happening that makes it all a bit hard to follow. 

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3 hours ago, Zeusthecat said:

My wife is making me watch The Kettering Incident.

 

I'm 3 episodes in and I think I like it? But it also kind of feels like they are purposefully withholding way too much information from the viewer and there is so much random shit happening that makes it all a bit hard to follow. 

 

I loved it but it doesn't get massively less disorienting and weird from there. (Though Anna stops blacking out so much, which does help.)

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13 minutes ago, malkav11 said:

 

I loved it but it doesn't get massively less disorienting and weird from there. (Though Anna stops blacking out so much, which does help.)

 

Anna is a fucking trip. I am having a really hard time figuring this show out and it is in large part because everything she does seems so random and she just doesn't give a fuck about anything. Even when she blacks out she just wakes up and is like "Oh, I blacked out again and I'm all bruised and bloody, eh fuck it, I'm gonna just wander around town now and make everyone as suspicious as possible, and maybe crush a dying deer's skull with a rock". And I actually really like that aspect of it and think she's a fantastic character. It's just slightly annoying that she and everyone else seems to know something more about the shit that is going on than what the show is revealing to me, if that makes any sense.

 

I'm guessing there is some kind of big cover up with key residents of Kettering where people are being sacrificed to a government organization in exchange for economic security and those people get flung into some trans-dimensional bullshit and are trying to communicate with time traveling moths... or something that is not at all what I just said.

 

And the owner of the mill is the creepiest looking dude I have ever seen. 

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I needed a film to show to some kids in English (foreign language) class and landed on Babe: Pig in the City. It's pretty fantastic. I saw the first one as a kid and didn't fall in love with it. This one is just bonkers. It's really inventive with visuals as well as characters and plot. It's pretty weird for a kids' movie. It starts with a pretty violent looking accident and everything just goes downhill with every scene. I know it has a happy ending, but I wonder if the kids will be traumatised before that. 

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I think I'm done with Archer, I like the show, but it seems obvious from the season 8 trailer that they are still out of ideas. I didn't really like the last 3 seasons but kept watching them out of inertia I guess.
 

 

Unrelated: I am becoming more and more fascinated with how the books and show of The Expanse are lining up. Seems like they will start book 2 sometime midseason? I am happy they are giving the story enough time.

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So I just watched Nocturnal Animals and holy shit, this is an awful awful movie. Tom Ford does not know how to direct. My recommendation is to avoid it at all costs.

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4 minutes ago, Patrick R said:

So I just watched Nocturnal Animals and holy shit, this is an awful awful movie. Tom Ford does not know how to direct. My recommendation is to avoid it at all costs.

 

I'm generally curious of anything Michael Shannon is in and I liked A Single Man so I was very slightly interested in Nocturnal Animals, but I guess I'll pass.  It's not like there's a shortage of other movies with Michael Shannon in 2016 anyways.

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I will grant you that Michael Shannon is kind of incredible in it, and single-handedly saves it from being one of the worst movies of last year.

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I finally saw Trolls with my kids. It was dumb, enjoyable, and extremely predictable. On paper, it should be the worst movie but I found it oddly charming. I normally don't like musicals but this one worked for me because the musical numbers were generally decent and there was a fair amount of winking and nodding at how ridiculous all of the singing was. And it definitely helped that the art style was utterly gorgeous. I think my daughter nailed it when she said "This movie looks like Yoshi's Wooly World".

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I turned it off after 15 minutes and I've heard that the real appeal of the movie is the war scenes so maybe it gets awesome, but man, I can't believe such a mediocre sappy melodrama like Hacksaw Ridge lead Hollywood to take Mel Gibson back with open arms. I hope during the Oscar ceremony the camera cuts back to him whenever someone mentions diversity or white supremacy. I hope the host takes advantage of it and just is like "Hey, Mel Gibson, remember when that guy told his girlfriend that he hoped she got raped by a pack of N-words? Haha, boy, the Academy are real hypocritical pieces of shit, aren't they?"

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The first half is a cheese fest and the second half is like "Look at this guys guts! Look at this guys leg getting blown off isn't war hell? Oh here look at this guy charging in to battle using a dead legless guy as a shield while firing a machine gun with one hand, this definitely happened"

 

(I did not enjoy it very much)

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I just watched Celebrity and I have no fucking idea what that was.  I haven't even rated it on Letterboxd because I literally don't even know what to think.  On one hand I think it might be bad, but my gut is telling me it's good.  On the other hand I think it also might be good, but I want to say it's bad?  It's probably somewhere in the middle.  I liked Judy Davis.  I also liked Leo asking Branagh if he wanted to be in a foursome.

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Celebrity is likely bad but I love when Woody Allen does his pastiches and his take on La Dolce Vita is one of my favorites. And it was fun to see Leonardo DeCaprio in crazy shouty mode a year after Titanic when I had always taken that as a new development. 

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9 hours ago, TheLastBaron said:

I just watched Celebrity and I have no fucking idea what that was.  I haven't even rated it on Letterboxd because I literally don't even know what to think.  On one hand I think it might be bad, but my gut is telling me it's good.  On the other hand I think it also might be good, but I want to say it's bad?  It's probably somewhere in the middle.  I liked Judy Davis.  I also liked Leo asking Branagh if he wanted to be in a foursome.

 

Usually being a fan of Woody Allen movies that don't feature him in a central role - I thought Celebrity was utter shit. None of it was interesting, Brannagh felt flat (which is unsual for him). Leonardo felt like he was desperately trying to not be the Titanic guy. The culmination, given Woody Allen's fucking gross proclivities, felt twee and token rather than triumphant.

 

It was a film that got pooped on at the time, being a contrarian, I wanted to like it but I just walked away bored.

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