What are we watching now?

I just resubscribed to Netflix, the one I'm least excited about, but I have a plan now, interrupting my Armand Assante run. I plan to do the Unbreakable trilogy first, because I saw they have Split and Glass, neither of which I've seen, and Split is only available through the end of May. I love Unbreakable, so this will be fun. Then we'll watch Maestro, which I've been excited about since I read it was in production. Then back to Mr. Assante. We'll see how closely we stick to this haha.

The shitty pirate upload of Gotti combined with Assante's William Powell-esque rapid fire line delivery and his strong, awesome accent, make his dialogue a little hard to follow. But something Christopher Walken said comes to mind: "The audience doesn't have to know what you're talking about; they just have to know you know what you're talking about." I love Anthony Quinn, and I will always love Anthony Quinn. And I must say, William Forsythe is always a worker in whatever he does. He's always a supporting actor, Man, he's good. Even in hilarious crap like Stone Cold, he's the worker. He's the actor working his ass off to have the feel and effect, no matter what nonsense is going on around him. I have respect for him.
 
Unbreakable (2000): Man, M. Night Shyamalan was pure magic for a while. One of many consistently wonderful things about his early films are that the acting is fantastic across the board. Really I love everything he did until The Last Airbender. I don't know how he moved forward with kids who could not emote at all and had no inner emotion going either. I'm not saying children should be good actors; they should be kids. But I am saying that there are incredible performances by kid actors out there, and you should keep auditioning until you find a kid who inherently can act before you finish casting. Some great performances by kids: The Champ, I Am Sam, and all of M. Night Shyamalan's movies before The Last Airbender!

Anyway, Unbreakable to me just feels magical, truly filled with wonder. And made with a level of sophistication and originality you almost never see in film. Seeing it in 2024 it was as thrilling to me as when it was first released.

Now I'm really interested to see Split and Glass, because I felt very dark turn in Shyamalan after The Last Airbender, and I couldn't stand The Happening either. That was dark, but with emotionless acting with no character or personality. Just automatons regurgitating lines. But James McAvoy and Samuel L Jackson are consistently good, interesting, and compelling actors, so I'm curious of they can save his films from any bad actors he may put in their way.

I guess that's the point with M. Night Shyamalan: I used to be able to trust he would never let a bad acting performance go under his watch, but he stopped with that, and after a certain point there were a ton of bad acting performances under his watch.

He has an obsession with being critically acclaimed, but he gave up on consistent quality acting at a certain point. Both are huge problems for a director. I hope he was able to move on and get back to making incredible film again.

I saw the Visit soon after it was released, and that was easily the scariest film I've ever seen. I could barely make it to the end, so I felt his mastery as a director, even though I thought the kids were just okay as actors.

So I have cautious optimism about his work now, but I cannot shake the complete magic of his early films. He used to be able to reach a level of wonder that surpassed even stuff like E.T. And Close Encounters of The Third Kind. So you never know what he's capable of deep into his artistic career.
 
State of Epicicity said:
Unbreakable (2000): Man, M. Night Shyamalan was pure magic for a while. One of many consistently wonderful things about his early films are that the acting is fantastic across the board. Really I love everything he did until The Last Airbender. I don't know how he moved forward with kids who could not emote at all and had no inner emotion going either. I'm not saying children should be good actors; they should be kids. But I am saying that there are incredible performances by kid actors out there, and you should keep auditioning until you find a kid who inherently can act before you finish casting. Some great performances by kids: The Champ, I Am Sam, and all of M. Night Shyamalan's movies before The Last Airbender!

Anyway, Unbreakable to me just feels magical, truly filled with wonder. And made with a level of sophistication and originality you almost never see in film. Seeing it in 2024 it was as thrilling to me as when it was first released.

Now I'm really interested to see Split and Glass, because I felt very dark turn in Shyamalan after The Last Airbender, and I couldn't stand The Happening either. That was dark, but with emotionless acting with no character or personality. Just automatons regurgitating lines. But James McAvoy and Samuel L Jackson are consistently good, interesting, and compelling actors, so I'm curious of they can save his films from any bad actors he may put in their way.

I guess that's the point with M. Night Shyamalan: I used to be able to trust he would never let a bad acting performance go under his watch, but he stopped with that, and after a certain point there were a ton of bad acting performances under his watch.

He has an obsession with being critically acclaimed, but he gave up on consistent quality acting at a certain point. Both are huge problems for a director. I hope he was able to move on and get back to making incredible film again.

I saw the Visit soon after it was released, and that was easily the scariest film I've ever seen. I could barely make it to the end, so I felt his mastery as a director, even though I thought the kids were just okay as actors.

So I have cautious optimism about his work now, but I cannot shake the complete magic of his early films. He used to be able to reach a level of wonder that surpassed even stuff like E.T. And Close Encounters of The Third Kind. So you never know what he's capable of deep into his artistic career.
Click to expand...
I like Split. I like the idea of that trilogy WAAAAAAAAAY more than I like the trilogy. It's all good because of the cast and my faith in M Night, generally speaking; but the comic book vibe for me is too much in a direction I don't care for.

The Visit was awesome. I wouldn't say it's the scariest thing I have seen. But it was just excellent all around. Great script, great pacing and great story arc while working in the "found footage" style and doing it in non-irritating way (which is super difficult for that sub-genre, imo). M Night's idols are very evident in his work and that is one thing for me that has always attracted me to his films. I can see the love in them; even when the film sucks :bag
 
On a completely different tip; I have been watching a bunch of standup. Whether it be specials on Netflix or clips on YT. One that I discovered from Kill Tony is Casey Rocket. Hard to describe. ADHD comedian, doing weirdo bits that trying to describe to others really does it no justice. Super hilarious if you like weirdo comedians :ROFLMAO:
 
The best Unbreakable on Netflix is Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt!

Kimmy Schmidt Russ GIF by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Workout GIF by NETFLIX


The problem with pretty much every M.Night Shyamalalaland film is that they start out strong...then can't keep up. There's a lot of good ideas in them, but they all fall apart by the 3rd act as if they had a cool premise, good execution for first act and then winged the rest of it.
 
laxu said:
The best Unbreakable on Netflix is Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt!

Kimmy Schmidt Russ GIF by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt Workout GIF by NETFLIX


The problem with pretty much every M.Night Shyamalalaland film is that they start out strong...then can't keep up. There's a lot of good ideas in them, but they all fall apart by the 3rd act as if they had a cool premise, good execution for first act and then winged the rest of it.
Click to expand...
I honestly have always admired his ambition and intentions so much that even some of the turdiest of turds he has done have still impressed me in one way or another.
 
I saw Split then Glass back to back. James McAvoy is truly impressive; I haven't been completely blown away by an actor's performance in this way in a very long time. This made me respect the hell out of him.

I thought Split was good because of McAvoy, who was great. But Glass was too much of a comic book movie, and I just don't care about that. Those always feel like merchandising setups more than anything genuine. To me Unbreakable was a family drama, with truly great acting across the board, and it made it transcendent.

Split was a modern horror movie, with a lot of perfect looking shots and hot girls. Anya Taylor-Joy was not bad. I think modern horror generally sucks though, and other than McAvoy, this film was forgettable.

Glass was bad. The psychiatrist was such a focal point, and a truly terrible actor. She was trying to imitate a statue or something. No facial expression, very awkward positions standing or sitting. It was painful to watch. The brilliance of McAvoy was reduced, as my wife said, to a parlor trick. Just crap.

I'm starting to think Shyamalan it's actually a shitty director of actors, that, like Coppola, it was zeitgeist that paired him with great actors for a while, but he is just a guy who cannot make lemonade out of lemons. I read about his silver spoon upbringing, and that explains a lot. The moment he encounters criticism on his professional life, he skulks off like a child and starts making darker and darker films without any of his defining wonder and magic.

And the criticism of The Last Airbender was completely warranted. Fuck that guy and his elitist mentality. I might be done with his films.
 
I have always felt that way. When the former Roots Bassist (Ben Kenney) joined
the band there was something different about the vibe and feel of the entire band.

Guess he is out now, though. Brain tumours. :(

They have a new bassist.
 
la szum said:
I have always felt that way. When the former Roots Bassist (Ben Kenney) joined
the band there was something different about the vibe and feel of the entire band.

Guess he is out now, though. They have a new bassist.
Click to expand...
They have a female bassist right now, iirc? Incubus had something special on those first few albums up through Morning View. They lost me after that. And that's ok. Watching this stream again has me :chef
 
The wife and I saw them on Morning View tour when we first got together. I have a special place for them and that time. The concert was spectacular in every way. As out of body lovely experience you are ever going to get with a band that got unfairly lumped in with the nu metal era.
 
Watched a flew flicks over the weekend.

1. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire. Ugh. Any of the charm and nostalgia drummed up by the last film was firmly missing in this one. Not a fan. Not as bad as that 2016 thing but certainly not good.

2. Revenge Of The Nerds. First time for our 26 year old. He crapped his pants laughing most of the time. So much formative humor for me. :love

3. Godzilla Minus One. Bit more thoughtful than I imagined but very, very good. Glad I sat down and watched it.
 
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