What are we watching now?

Started Paradise late Saturday night. First episode was really good at the jump but about 90% in and I suddenly get a HUGE waft of Lost vibes (plug your eyes Drew) but ugh. Mystery all day, everyday? YES. Sci-fi world ending catastrophe; god I hope not.

Watched a second episode where more unlikable governement types entered the picture but not sure if I am going to dig this as much as I hoped? Will give another episode to see where it shifts :unsure:
 
I just had to mentioned that we tried to watch two films and had to bail very quickly:

Crippled Avengers from 1978: The acting was cartoonish, but that's an insult to cartoons. I don't know if the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest had a thing for bullying, but so many damn plots are just about some group of bullies bullying people, then people avenging. You could make a martial arts story about a million things, but to me it's so old and tired. Even my favorite of them, the Chinese Connection / Fist of Fury, is just that; I just love seeing Bruce Lee act like he's lost his damn mind! But here, to me it was just terrible acting with a flurry of action with nothing there. It was so bad we had to bail.

Hoodlum from 1997: This one hurt. I loved Deep Cover; like, I will always remember how artistic and cool and just fucking awesome that movie is. Here you have Lawrence Fishburne teaming up with Bill Duke again, and on top of that Tim Roth (always awesome) and Andy Garcia! But this reminded me of why I had low hopes for Deep Cover: my introduction to Bill Duke's directing was the Miami Vice TV show, where Duke directed one of the worst acted episodes with the most over the top violence. I had to look into it, it was so bad, and I was shocked to see it was that awesome dude from Predator who keeps muttering "I'm gonna have me some fun!" after he loses his mind. But now I've seen other TV episodes directed by him, with Crime Story (which is a truly great TV show) and others, but he truly can go from the very worst to the best, and I have no idea why. Anyway, back to Hoodlum: this was just bad in every way; nothing felt right. There was no air, no mood, no magic, just bad acting and worse directing. Tim Roth was awesome, but he's director proof, and Andy Garcia was just himself and boring off the bat. This was a period piece, so it's Bill Duke with a budget; sometimes that does make otherwise good directors bad, like James Gray with Ad Astra, but I don't know; this just sucked, so we bailed.
 
Last night we saw The Soul from 2021. I don't know Taiwanese cinema, but I happened upon the trailer with sound off, and it looked so damn cool I had to try it. It is mindbending. It's sci fi murder mystery, and the writing was cool and crazy and absolutely nuts, but it has one big problem: the acting was stoic, except for when people had to cry; then it was like the crying Olympics, and the only part of the acting that was really good. Well, one guy had to play crazy, but came off more as stupid and angst ridden then genuinely disturbed.

I still recommend it just for the plot alone, which kept blowing my hair back.
 
State of Epicicity said:
Last night we saw The Soul from 2021. I don't know Taiwanese cinema, but I happened upon the trailer with sound off, and it looked so damn cool I had to try it. It is mindbending. It's sci fi murder mystery, and the writing was cool and crazy and absolutely nuts, but it has one big problem: the acting was stoic, except for when people had to cry; then it was like the crying Olympics, and the only part of the acting that was really good. Well, one guy had to play crazy, but came off more as stupid and angst ridden then genuinely disturbed.

I still recommend it just for the plot alone, which kept blowing my hair back.
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LOL @ "crying Olympics".
 
This is nuts! If you watched American Primeval this may be of interest. Some historical background.

 
JiveTurkey said:
RIP to Gene Hackman. Such a LONG life and great acting career.
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Man, I am trying to think of what could cause him, his wife, and their dog all to be found dead and for there not to be foulplay! I'm guessing a gas leak? Brutal. I think he was a great actor, always present, with great personality and technique. I'm just happy he has such a huge body of work during the best times of American cinema. Pouring one out for my homey.
 
State of Epicicity said:
Man, I am trying to think of what could cause him, his wife, and their dog all to be found dead and for there not to be foulplay! I'm guessing a gas leak? Brutal. I think he was a great actor, always present, with great personality and technique. I'm just happy he has such a huge body of work during the best times of American cinema. Pouring one out for my homey.
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Not carbon monoxide. Apparently pills.
 
State of Epicicity said:
Man, I am trying to think of what could cause him, his wife, and their dog all to be found dead and for there not to be foulplay! I'm guessing a gas leak? Brutal. I think he was a great actor, always present, with great personality and technique. I'm just happy he has such a huge body of work during the best times of American cinema. Pouring one out for my homey.
Click to expand...
I saw on the news earlier that they had ruled out a gas leak and were calling it “suspicious”. Very sad. RIP.
 
We just watched Eye of The Tiger from 1986 with Gary Busey. Total piece of shit from head to toe. It was like a bizarre combination of a lazy First Blood mixed with Commando mixed with the Mel Gibson revenge formula, but with... Gary Busey. Yaphet Kotto was the only bright spot. I can't believe the e fucking producers got the rights to that song for this piece of shit. I also can't believe I watched it till the end.
 
Tonight we finished watching Read My Lips from 2001. This film excited the hell out of me. The directing and acting were so damn good. It was almost like the main character was the director, you're so in her head for the duration. And Vincent Cassel really reminded me of a young Robert de Niro. This is the earliest in a small collection of this director's films on The Criterion Channel right now, and I very much want to see the other two.

It was so good, even the editing and sound design were perfect. It was noir in a very fresh and original way. This was exactly what I needed to see right now: just totally fresh and inspiring and masterfully done.
 
State of Epicicity said:
We just watched Eye of The Tiger from 1986 with Gary Busey. Total piece of shit from head to toe. It was like a bizarre combination of a lazy First Blood mixed with Commando mixed with the Mel Gibson revenge formula, but with... Gary Busey. Yaphet Kotto was the only bright spot. I can't believe the e fucking producers got the rights to that song for this piece of shit. I also can't believe I watched it till the end.
Click to expand...
Not sure if I've seen that. I'm a fan of "so bad it's good" movies and a lot of 1980s stuff can fit right into that. Bring some friends over, have a few drinks, make fun of the movie and revel in its stupidity.

The trailer certainly shows promise, but maybe that's all the good bits from the movie?
 
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