What are we watching now?

[spawnofthesith]

Caught up with House of The Dragon and fully on board now. Some stuff was irritating me early on in the first season but the ship is now on course

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Anybody else as excited as I am for Season 3 of The Bear?

View attachment 24508

I'm late to this party. 1st season felt to me like it was roughly 70% longer than it needed to be. As in, I fell asleep through a couple of episodes in the middle, woke up to catch the final 2, and didn't feel like I missed anything important plot-wise? And I'd had PLENTY of "we're going to really give you the sense of panic-level anxiety that working in a kitchen is, and how a rhythm of doing the work can kind-of-sort-of feel like a calm in that raging ocean" content. Indeed, I felt like they got to the point of kind of jumping the shark on that front when they didn't turn off pre-orders and had to make 5 billion sandwiches in 3 minutes or whatever and just powered through it? But, the end was great, and the first couple of episodes of Season 2 that I've watched seem way more balanced and working-towards-a-point-that-isn't-just-raising-my-bloodpressure.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Insomnia, TDK trilogy, Dunkirk; all are killer flicks in my eyes.

Haven't seen oppenheimer or dunkirk, but up until Tenet I used to consider him one of my favorite directors of all time

 

[JiveTurkey]

I'm late to this party. 1st season felt to me like it was roughly 70% longer than it needed to be. As in, I fell asleep through a couple of episodes in the middle, woke up to catch the final 2, and didn't feel like I missed anything important plot-wise? And I'd had PLENTY of "we're going to really give you the sense of panic-level anxiety that working in a kitchen is, and how a rhythm of doing the work can kind-of-sort-of feel like a calm in that raging ocean" content. Indeed, I felt like they got to the point of kind of jumping the shark on that front when they didn't turn off pre-orders and had to make 5 billion sandwiches in 3 minutes or whatever and just powered through it? But, the end was great, and the first couple of episodes of Season 2 that I've watched seem way more balanced and working-towards-a-point-that-isn't-just-raising-my-bloodpressure.

Wait till the family Christmas episode

 

[JiveTurkey]

Haven't seen oppenheimer or dunkirk, but up until Tenet I used to consider him one of my favorite directors of all time

Yeah Tenet was a little too confusing. Even for him

 

[Boudoir Guitar]

Wait till the family Christmas episode

 

[la szum]

Exactly. It was a collection of cutscenes, like a music video. Except it didn’t stop for 2 hours.

I still found it relatively good because of the underlying story and the quality of the actors, but it was a test of will by the end.

Yup.... that last hour was brutal. The first 90 minutes or so was fast paced
and I was invested. By the time the whole "Oppenheimer is a Commie!"
teardown took place I had to power through just to finish it.

 

[Spaced Out Ace]

I am not a stickler for canon. And I think Nolan had a HUGE advantage coming after the Schumacher crap. And I just like the dude's style as well as Bale, Hardy and Ledger. I think Cillian's Scarecrow was awesome too \m/

I think when you start rearranging Canon, with plans to use the character in the future, yet had no replacement plans for that character, you've likely blown your load too soon and made a bad decision. It has not so much to do with Canon, and a lot to do with having nothing for Bane to do, other than some mildly menacing scenes and situations until Batman escapes, stops Bane, some more junk happens, roll credits.

 

[laxu]

My main gripe with the film was that nearly every scene was like 3 or 4 lines of dialog long, max. Between this and the constant flashbacks/ flash-forwards, it felt very disjointed. Hard to get invested in any of it. I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I shouldn’t have to spend an entire movie asking, “Who is this and when and why am I supposed to care?”

To be fair… we watched it across several distracted sittings, which only exacerbated this quality. Maybe if I’d been a captive audience in a theater I’d have experienced it differently. (I do know smart people with excellent taste who loved it.)

No, even in the theater it seems like it breezes through too many things too quickly so it can be a bit hard to follow.

Overall I liked it but am unlikely to want to watch it again.

 

[mbenigni]

No, even in the theater it seems like it breezes through too many things too quickly so it can be a bit hard to follow.

It’s the “Elvis” of weaponized thermonuclear physics.

 

[la szum]

Haven't seen oppenheimer or dunkirk, but up until Tenet I used to consider him one of my favorite directors of all time

Dunkirk is mesmerizing. Blows your mind that a film like that can be made, shot, and
staged that well. Visually arresting. So. Good.

As for Tenant? WTF was that?

 

[JiveTurkey]

Watched Tony Scott's Revenge last night. Costner, Anthony Quinn and Madeline Stowe. With an almost unrecognizable John Leguizamo and Miguel Ferrer. Costner goes down to Mexico to hang with a kingpin he once did some freelance work for and ends up falling in love with said kingpin's wife. It does not go good. At all. Great typical Tony Scott vibe on overall tone and look of the pic as well as interaction of the characters. This one has some mixed reviews but I have always liked it. Some quibbles with how certain things resolve aside. Good flick.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Watched Tony Scott's Revenge last night. Costner, Anthony Quinn and Madeline Stowe. With an almost unrecognizable John Leguizamo and Miguel Ferrer. Costner goes down to Mexico to hang with a kingpin he once did some freelance work for and ends up falling in love with said kingpin's wife. It does not go good. At all. Great typical Tony Scott vibe on overall tone and look of the pic as well as interaction of the characters. This one has some mixed reviews but I have always liked it. Some quibbles with how certain things resolve aside. Good flick.

Man, I've always loved that film. I do not like Kevin Costner at all, but that film is so great in general I can overlook him in general. The big surprise in that film is how badass Miguel Ferrer can be. That movie shows how just fucking cool that dude was, but the way he cast almost never showed it. Anthony Quinn was a master actor, and although he's a million years old in that, he's still powerful and scary and awesome. If you like him at all, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Viva Zapata! are two great examples of how incredible he is. I know you don't like films older than a certain point, so take these recommendations with a grain of salt.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Man, I've always loved that film. I do not like Kevin Costner at all, but that film is so great in general I can overlook him in general. The big surprise in that film is how badass Miguel Ferrer can be. That movie shows how just fucking cool that dude was, but the way he cast almost never showed it. Anthony Quinn was a master actor, and although he's a million years old in that, he's still powerful and scary and awesome. If you like him at all, Requiem for a Heavyweight and Viva Zapata! are two great examples of how incredible he is. I know you don't like films older than a certain point, so take these recommendations with a grain of salt.

I thought you were going to say Requiem for a Dream. I didn't remember Quinn being in that and it's probably for the best

I dig Costner. I don't always dig his films (because I hate sports so baseball and golf movies are a hard pass) but I do always dig the Costner vibe he brings. For whatever reason; I went dumb and was thinking Anthony Quinn was Jose Ferrer and thought it was neat that his son was playing the guy helping to take him down. Then I re-remembered I was wrong

Tony Scott's lifetime pass for me was True Romance. Speaking the most stacked cast in the history of films (that I adore, at least). This film is harder to find on streaming for whatever reason so I am glad I saw it was back on Prime so I could catch it.

 

[State of Epicicity]

Last night we watched Find Me Guilty, by my favorite director Sidney Lumet. I love how NY his films feel. There are other New Yorker directors who don't feel as NY as this guy. He grew up in the Yiddish theather as a kid actor, then went into directing live TV then film, and when he focuses on a NY story, you just feel every bit of it, and I love it. He also has this magic of making any dude he works with a better actor, in this case Vin Fucking Diesel, a guy I've never cared to follow. He's great in this, just totally filled with feel and character and personality and warmth. He's just great. Now, I said "dudes" because he seems not to care about the women he casts, and he would let terrible performances by some women go without directing them out of it. Dyan Cannon in Deathtrap is a great example. So he's my favorite, but he has problems, and that's only one of them. But for the essence that I care about, great acting and great directing, to me no one has been better. I just felt this great sense of warmth overall from this film.

I was also surprised that Peter Dinklage had a really cool feel in this. I need to find other interesting films with him. I know he's in Game of Thrones, but I've never really cared to get into that. I saw a snippet of fantastic soft core porn on that show, and that told me it's probably not worth seeing. I mean, I love softcore porn, but to me when you mix it in with something serious, it's almost always there as filler, and the movie usually has bad acting, bad directing, bad writing, and great tits. So I'd rather just watch porn then separately watch a real movie haha.

 

[State of Epicicity]

I thought you were going to say Requiem for a Dream. I didn't remember Quinn being in that and it's probably for the best

I dig Costner. I don't always dig his films (because I hate sports so baseball and golf movies are a hard pass) but I do always dig the Costner vibe he brings. For whatever reason; I went dumb and was thinking Anthony Quinn was Jose Ferrer and thought it was neat that his son was playing the guy helping to take him down. Then I re-remembered I was wrong

Tony Scott's lifetime pass for me was True Romance. Speaking the most stacked cast in the history of films (that I adore, at least). This film is harder to find on streaming for whatever reason so I am glad I saw it was back on Prime so I could catch it.

Oh Man, you're right about True Romance. I have to say I'm not a Tony Scott fan in general. I watch his films because there are usually some interesting and cool things about them, and for pure testosterone, no one has a more aggressive feel. But True Romance is a special one. Gary Oldman alone. That film is the reason I bought an all region blu ray player like a decade ago, so I could buy the film they're watching in the theater, Street Fighter with Sunny Chiba. I bought the whole series of movies back then and realized that line in the film is right: "Well, he ain't so much a good guy as he's just a bad motherfucker." And an old Sunny Chiba is the sword maker in Kill Bill, by the way!

I think for Tony Scott that Top Gun is a special film, cool in many ways, but stuff like The Fan, Beverly Hills Cop II, Spy Game and others feel kind of empty to me. I did like things about Man on Fire, but I still wish it had been a different director and better writing haha.

 

[State of Epicicity]

And about Revenge, Madeline Stowe is eye wateringly hot in that.. It's almost worth it for her alone.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Oh Man, you're right about True Romance. I have to say I'm not a Tony Scott fan in general. I watch his films because there are usually some interesting and cool things about them, and for pure testosterone, no one has a more aggressive feel. But True Romance is a special one. Gary Oldman alone. That film is the reason I bought an all region blu ray player like a decade ago, so I could buy the film they're watching in the theater, Street Fighter with Sunny Chiba. I bought the whole series of movies back then and realized that line in the film is right: "Well, he ain't so much a good guy as he's just a bad motherfucker." And an old Sunny Chiba is the sword maker in Kill Bill, by the way!

I think for Tony Scott that Top Gun is a special film, cool in many ways, but stuff like The Fan, Beverly Hills Cop II, Spy Game and others feel kind of empty to me. I did like things about Man on Fire, but I still wish it had been a different director and better writing haha.

Yeah the testosterone fest he projects can be a bit much if you aren't in the mood for it. I need to revisit The Last Boy Scout. Despite it being a football film. He's about the only director that has allowed me to tolerate a Will Smith film

And about Revenge, Madeline Stowe is eye wateringly hot in that.. It's almost worth it for her alone.

The wife and I were discussing the fact that she kind of vanished for whatever reason.

 

[State of Epicicity]

The wife and I were discussing the fact that she kind of vanished for whatever reason.

She's one of those I remember being fine as an actor, but not really memorable. I think she had her heyday in the 90s with The Last Of The Mohicans, one of my favorite films, and maybe just the fashion changed. It underlines how brutal Hollywood is for women. Ernest Borgnine can have a career for generations, but an actress is too often disposable. They just get replaced by younger actresses. Meryl Streep is a huge exception.

 

[JiveTurkey]

She's one of those I remember being fine as an actor, but not really memorable. I think she had her heyday in the 90s with The Last Of The Mohicans, one of my favorite films, and maybe just the fashion changed. It underlines how brutal Hollywood is for women. Ernest Borgnine can have a career for generations, but an actress is too often disposable. They just get replaced by younger actresses. Meryl Streep is a huge exception.

That's too bad, too. Plastic surgery or unemployment is never a good choice to have to make. Ugh.