What are you watching?

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I'm curious about your opinion, could you explain it?

I find Ralph Fiennes performance terrific, there are several excellent, even terrifying sequences but there are some scenes where Spielberg lapses into speechifying and even dangerously close to sentimentality (Ben Kingsley's speech, the entire last 5-10 minutes).

I also think his decision to film it in B&W seems facile compared to other filmmakers who deal with the Shoah in film like von Trotta's Marianne and Julianne. But to be fair the Shoah is an incredibly difficult subject to make a film about and it was brave, even aesthetically and morally foolhardy, of a commerical director like Spielberg to tackle it. For obvious reasons he had a deep personal connection to the subject though and that lends it an intensity unlike anything else in his filmography.

He has slowly weened himself off those indulgences. Here I'm thinking of the hardbitten ending to Munich. I was surprised and impressed by that ending.

Also the real, historical Schindler and his list is more morally ambigious character, this early on Spielberg backs away from that real life complexity whereas a film like Lincoln and Bridge of Spies are more layered and complex than that while retaining his deeply felt faith in decency (in that way he is one of few American directors who really lives up to the mantle of John Ford).
 
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We finished Picard and now started watching The Terror. Picard was fun, but this is a really cool show!

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We finished Picard and now started watching The Terror. Picard was fun, but this is a really cool show!

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Love The Terror. Haven't got around to the second season yet which is an entirely different setting and cast of characters.
 
Last night I tried, and failed, to watch a couple of movies. First was Badge of Fury, an action-comedy with Jet Li. This is the first Jet Li film that I turned off after about 15 - 20 minutes. I just couldn't get into it. I then tried to watch Police Story: Lockdown, starring Jackie Chan. Same thing; 15 - 20 minutes in, I turned it off. It was a more serious movie, and I wasn't finding Chan's character that interesting. It's also the first Chan film I haven't finished. Maybe if the stars were reversed, I might have liked them better, but as is, I couldn't get into either one.

Today I watched Batman: Soul of the Dragon. I liked the whole 70's vibe, and there was some good voice casting. Batman was more of a secondary character (much like he was in Assault on Arkham). He's an important character, but Richard Dragon is the main hero. I wasn't keen on the ending though. Still, it's nice to see DC branching out in their animated films with a unique spin on one of their major characters
 
Last night I did a double feature of Inception & Tenet. I'm a heretic in that I've never seen Inception before. I liked that one alot. Tenet was good, but not as easy to follow at times. I'm now on to the Expanse season 4, while still plugging away at NCIS
 
This past month my lads and I finished the second season The Mandalorian, as well as all of the seasons of both A Series Of Unfortunate Events, and Stranger Things. The later was really good, we are eager for more.

I have also been watching Altered Cartbon and The Boys. Finished both seasons of Altered Carbon, it was cool.
I'm one episode away from finishing second season of The Boys, and just starting the first season of The Expanse.
I'm thinking of starting Picard as well, and also returning to the fifth season of Vikings.
Have to fit Bosch in there somewhere, from fourth season onwards.

Life is good :thumbsup:
 
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The Black Hand, directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Gene Kelly in a rare non-musical role, is the rare 1950 film to deal with the Mafia directly and could be considered a late period noir except it is set during the turn of the century which gives it a distinct look and feel.

Kelly plays the son of a brave lawyer who stands up to the mob in the Italian ghetto and is murdered, the family flees back to Italy, Kelly returning years late with a switchblade and revenge on his mind. Things don't go as planned though.

The film has fine B&W photography, a great sense of place and time with striking scenes in the crowded New York ghetto and back in Italy plus many atmospheric late night street scenes that showcase Thorpe's signature professionalism and talent for tautly mounted suspense sequences.

Kelly is Irish-American although he does have the dark look of the stereotypical Italian-American, the one brief scene of him speaking Italian isn't convincing but after that shaky start he settles in and is quite good throughout.

The film has two extended suspense sequences, one where two cops are stalked on the street of Naples and another where Kelly awaits his execution at the hands of the mobsters that are first class. Yet another gem discovered via TCM.

Btw DeCaprio has the rights to a book called The Black Hand, also about the mob, but apparently unrelated to this film.

 
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I've seen the first two episodes of the new Miss Scarlet and the Duke, a period show about the first female private eye in London in the late 1800s. The first episode was trying a bit too hard to prove it's not your father's costume drama, including lifting the 'ah, but I anticipated your move and blocked it in advance' flashbacks from Leverage. The second settled down a bit and was better. The lead actress, Kate Phillips (Jane Seymour in Wolf Hall) is good as the plucky protagonist, and her contact in the police (Stuart Martin, as William Wellington, a.k.a. 'the duke') looks an amazing amount like Hugh Jackman.

The show is having some problem settling on a consistent tone. The first episode made it seem likely the series would be fairly gritty, including a scene where the protagonist is almost subjected to a genital inspection for v.d. by the police, but it's backed off a bit from that. I'd be happier with something more fluffy, to tell you the truth.
 
Watched the movie Redemption. Based on the description, and Jason Statham having a starring role, I expected an action movie, but it was more of a drama with a few brief action scenes. Still pretty enjoyable; just not what I thought I was getting into.

Watched Homefront last night, which is a lot closer to what I had initially expected from Redemption, i.e. a whole lot of Jason Statham kicking ass. This time he's doing it in rural Louisiana. I found it pretty enjoyable. James Franco did an entertaining job as the bad guy, despite one of the worst fake Louisiana accents I've ever heard.

BTW, Redemption was apparently released under the title Hummingbird outside the US.
 
We got high and watched Star Trek Beyond, it was nice to turn off my brain and just enjoy.

Well, I've never watched it high, so I have no excuse. :clown:

When I first watched it, I hated it. But it definitely felt different from the first two reboot movies. So I watched it again.

And... I determined it was OK. I can enjoy Beyond. It's not a giant middle finger directed at me like the other two movies are. I realized I can't really fault it, because Star Trek: Beyond is the kind of Star Trek plot I'd dream up when I was 12. And considering I have a Star Trek music video set in my mind to Autograph's Turn Up The Radio, I can't really fault the movie for it's Beastie Boys starship surfing scene.

The movie destroys that horrible JJ-prize in the most dismissive way possible. Then it has that scene at the end where we see Spock Prime's treasured belongings. Those two bits alone earn it at least a star each.

I gave it a view a couple of nights ago and one of the bits that stood out to me was something Uhura did. In original, if Kirk asked for intership, he'd either just click a button on his armrest or Uhura would press a single button and Kirk would be on. But in Star Trek Beyond, when Kirk asks for intership, Uhura has to hit like three different controls, stand up, unlock some safety covers, and then simultaneously flip two switches/levers to activate it. The hell? Does intership automatically arm and launch a photon barrage or something?
 
This past month my lads and I finished the second season The Mandalorian, as well as all of the seasons of both A Series Of Unfortunate Events, and Stranger Things. The later was really good, we are eager for more.

I have also been watching Altered Cartbon and The Boys. Finished both seasons of Altered Carbon, it was cool.
I'm one episode away from finishing second season of The Boys, and just starting the first season of The Expanse.
I'm thinking of starting Picard as well, and also returning to the fifth season of Vikings.
Have to fit Bosch in there somewhere, from fourth season onwards.

Life is good :thumbsup:
I'm a fan of both the Boys and the Expanse. I think they are working on season 3 of the Boys.
 
Finished The Boys, it was really good. I'm very eager for another season.

Currently watching the first season of The Expanse and fourth season of Bosch.

Lots to catchup on both, but thats the good thing these days, you can get a few years backlog done in a month or so.

In regards to The Expanse, I just missed it when it first started and I have been interested for a while.
So far it is really good, I have several seasons ahead of me so I hope it remains engaging.

Also just started Star Trek Picard, I've only done two episodes but I'm liking it so far. It's great to see Patrick Stewart as Picard again, and the production values are good.
 
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Watched The Expanse season 4 this week, as well as a couple of NCIS New Orleans episodes (trying to catch up on it). Now on to Lost in Space Season 2
 
Also just started Star Trek Picard, I've only done two episodes but I'm liking it so far. It's great to see Patrick Stewart as Picard again, and the production values are good.

By chance, I just started Picard myself this week; I've only seen one episode so far. I agree with you about Stewart and the production values. One that that bothered me, though was Picard's reaction to Dahj when she showed up at his estate. A young woman you've never met arrives out of the blue, tells you that she's just killed people and may be going crazy. Don't you call the authorities?
 
I'm debating checking out Picard after I finish Lost in Space. Or go back and finish Season 1 of Discovery. I stopped right after they got to the Mirror Mirror Universe
 
By chance, I just started Picard myself this week; I've only seen one episode so far. I agree with you about Stewart and the production values. One that that bothered me, though was Picard's reaction to Dahj when she showed up at his estate. A young woman you've never met arrives out of the blue, tells you that she's just killed people and may be going crazy. Don't you call the authorities?
yeah I totally agree, he seemed willing to trust her too readily, when in reality he would either be jump-scared, or yelling at her to get off his lawn :grin:
 
I'm debating checking out Picard after I finish Lost in Space. Or go back and finish Season 1 of Discovery. I stopped right after they got to the Mirror Mirror Universe
I only have seen first season of Discovery, but may go back to it after Picard.

I'm not sure what the reviews are like, but a mate of mine says he enjoyed second season much more than the first.

I like the gritty new take on Star Trek, but I must confess that part of me misses the inherent optimism that was in the Classic series, Next Gen, and Voyager.
 
I only have seen first season of Discovery, but may go back to it after Picard.

I'm not sure what the reviews are like, but a mate of mine says he enjoyed second season much more than the first.

I like the gritty new take on Star Trek, but I must confess that part of me misses the inherent optimism that was in the Classic series, Next Gen, and Voyager.

I struggled through the early part of season 1 (the Klingon war), but the episode in the mirror mirror universe was good (and I've read that part of the season is better than the first part).

I'm in the middle of watching Breech, the low budget sci-fi movie with Bruce Willis, Thomas Jane and Rachel Nichols (the star of Continuum). It's not bad, but nothing special. It's more zombies than aliens (there's an alien involved, but it seems to turn people into zombie like critters)
 
I enjoyed the Void - it wasn't fantastic, but it was fun enough, delivers basically what it promises.

Just finished watching Psycho Goreman...it, well it wasn't the best thing ever, but it was fun. There was some genuinelly side-splitting moments. Just , overall, it kinda felt like it was trying too hard. It was very similiar to Turbo Kid and Manborg, both movies I love, but I think they managed t find their tone a bit better.
 
yeah I totally agree, he seemed willing to trust her too readily, when in reality he would either be jump-scared, or yelling at her to get off his lawn :grin:

I watched episode 2 last night. I thought it was better than the first; I didn't miss the fight scenes and it moved the plot along more. I wonder, though, if the script gave a bit too much in the way of clues for the rest of the series. I'd better spoiler this:
One of the big mysteries set up in episode #1 is why the synthetic people on Mars suddenly mutinied and caused so much damage. Though nobody has said anything about this yet, it seems likely that this is the work of the Zhat Vash, the secret cell within the Tal Shiar that is fanatically dedicated to destroying synthetic life forms. The mutiny, after all, led to a complete embargo on them in the Federation.

We are told that the Zhat Vash are the keepers of some great secret. My guess is that it is that the Romulans are in fact a synthetic race in origin, created by the Vulcans so long ago that both have forgotten this fact.

I liked that Picard's Romulan retainers had more to do in this episode. Interestingly, Orla Brady's (she plays Laris) Irish accent came out a bit when she was pissed at Picard. I also liked the nod to Isaac Asimov, and the sign in the Borg cube: "It has been XXX days since our last assimilation."

It only hit me in this episode that, aside from Picard himself and the villain(?) Narek, essentially every other character of note in the series is female. There is Zhaban, Picard's male Romulan employee, but he's had a good deal less to do than Laris.
 
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