Current Watching

[danielmak]

I saw it at the cinema. Generally, if it's science fiction, my critical faculties disappear. Put a spaceship and some lasers in it and I'd watch nearly anything. I even rewatched Battle Beyond the Stars recently when it popped up on Netflix.

But bugger me, the only film I've ever seen duller, more irritating and more pointless than Ad Astra was the Thin Red Line. And I've seen The Love Guru.

Haha. There definitely was a Terrence Malick quality to Ad Astra. I've seen a few of Malick's films and most make the Thin Red Line seem like a high intensity action film. I did like the Thin Red Line, though.

[elguapo4]

Watched The Go-Gos earlier, having recorded it from Sky documentaries during the week. I'd recommend it definitely. Having been a fan since the early days, I knew that they were a wild living band, but never knew quite how wild. The best story was guitarist Charlotte Caffey being thrown out of Ozzy Osborne's dressing room for being out of control.

[danielmak]

The Go Gos doc is very good. I'd second that one. I'm also a fan of the first record especially and a bit of the second. I had the Stiff 7" at some point but think I gave it to my sister, which was a big mistake.

I started watching High Fidelity on Hulu. I had resisted this one, even though HP gave it a good review when it came out, because I didn't want to be disappointed. I think the movie was a big drop from the book and felt like this would be another drop in quality. I have mixed feelings. I think shifting to a female lead puts an interesting twist on the character. And I like the inclusion of more characters that surround her (including the brother and sister-in-law). It's been a while since I read the book but the series feels a bit too much like a series based on a film, as if they skipped the book altogether. I think I'm halfway through after watching 3 last night, so I will finish it tonight or in the next couple days.

[Hot Pepsi]

It gets better, but they’ve cancelled it.


I liked the film High Fidelity a lot, but I wish it didn’t cut out the scene where he’s offered a priceless record collection for peanuts because the woman selling it is getting revenge on her husband. They filmed it, but it’s not in the movie. It’s on YouTube.

The show successfully turned that into a whole episode with Parker Posey.

[Snake Plissken]

Rising Phoenix is a completely brilliant documentary about the Paralympic Games and several of the athletes. Inspirational and moving without ever being mawkish or sentimental.

[Benjm]

Watched The Go-Gos earlier, having recorded it from Sky documentaries during the week.

This is painful for me. I recorded loads of music docs from Sky Arts while it was free during the lockdown, not realising that once the channel was paywalled again the recordings would be withdrawn too.

Last night, Talking Pictures delivered the goods again with The Sleeping Partner, a late '70s Canadian thriller starring Elliott Gould and Christopher Plummer, cast against Captain Von Trapp type as a malevolent psychopath. It looked to be filmed on location in Toronto, for anyone interested in how the city looked back then.

[S. aureus]

As per as hoc's recommendation, started watching Bordertown and, at least so far, it's pretty good. Only just finished the first storyline in season, though.
I do have a rather insignificant question, in that there are lots of Finns and also a smattering of Russians (I think, though maybe I missed a detail). Are they all speaking Finnish all the time? Not speaking either I'm relying on subtitles either way.

[danielmak]

It gets better, but they’ve cancelled it.


I liked the film High Fidelity a lot, but I wish it didn’t cut out the scene where he’s offered a priceless record collection for peanuts because the woman selling it is getting revenge on her husband. They filmed it, but it’s not in the movie. It’s on YouTube.

The show successfully turned that into a whole episode with Parker Posey.

I generally enjoyed how it played out. Too bad it was cancelled but I think the audience to which it was pitched probably didn't care enough about a record store owner and music nerds taking up 1/3 of the storyline. If we compare this series to I May Destroy You, the two series are similar in terms of being multi-cultural, urban stories, 30 minutes long. Both have central characters that are a bit lost, but one has twitter fame and the other owns a record store. The context wasn't going to sell, which is too bad.

[WOM]

Worth checking out is The Vow, about the Nxivm (Nexium) cult of Keith Raniere.

[Uncle Ethan]

On to season 4 in The Wire rewatch. Best. Series. Ever.

[danielmak]

On to season 4 in The Wire rewatch. Best. Series. Ever.

Season 4 is the best, followed by Season 1. I think I've watched all five seasons three times. That's good for now.

[slackster]

I had a look at the latest Diane Morgan vehicle on BBC iplayer, Mandy. Best known for her Philomena Cunk character from Screenwipe, this is a short slapstick comedy series about the mundane adventures of a “left behind” young woman. Some good jokes, but it felt unsatisfying to me.

I then took a quick peek at the latest Frankie Boyle’s New World Order show (also BBC). He’s funny, and his talking head comedy guests are well chosen, but this seems like a radio show that you might half-listen to in the background rather than telly you need to give your full attention to.

As I was home alone, then had a delve into the Amazon Prime film catalogue. Not much recent stuff I fancied that I haven’t watched, but came across Battle of Algiers lurking in their library. I haven’t watched that for 35 years, but my god it’s still a magnificent landmark piece of film-making. I know the Cahiers de Cinema crew wrote it off in the 60s (not exactly sure why - maybe they thought the even handed portrayal wasn’t revolutionary enough), but they were very wrong on this one. Shame they don’t have more world cinema classics on there (without paying extra).

[Balderdasha]

I had a look at the latest Diane Morgan vehicle on BBC iplayer, Mandy. Best known for her Philomena Cunk character from Screenwipe, this is a short slapstick comedy series about the mundane adventures of a “left behind” young woman. Some good jokes, but it felt unsatisfying to me.

I then took a quick peek at the latest Frankie Boyle’s New World Order show (also BBC). He’s funny, and his talking head comedy guests are well chosen, but this seems like a radio show that you might half-listen to in the background rather than telly you need to give your full attention to.

As I was home alone, then had a delve into the Amazon Prime film catalogue. Not much recent stuff I fancied that I haven’t watched, but came across Battle of Algiers lurking in their library. I haven’t watched that for 35 years, but my god it’s still a magnificent landmark piece of film-making. I know the Cahiers de Cinema crew wrote it off in the 60s (not exactly sure why - maybe they thought the even handed portrayal wasn’t revolutionary enough), but they were very wrong on this one. Shame they don’t have more world cinema classics on there (without paying extra).

We've been watching a bit of Mandy. Diane Morgan is my choice for "will watch her in any old crap", but I agree that this series is nothing particularly special.

[Balderdasha]

It also amuses me that the title character has the same name as one of my Northern cousins (surname included).

[Felicity, I guess so]

Battle of Algiers is on one of my modules and I love seeing some students switch from slouched boredom at another-of-your-boring-political-films to being gripped by the drama and pounding drumbeat.

Edward Sa?d and the leading Italian left critic Fofi both criticise it for being too even-handed but for Cahiers in the late 60s it was all about form so its crime is illusionism (realism)

[Levin]

Wait, they were critical of the film because it looks too realistic? Is there somewhere I can read more about this?

[slackster]

Thanks for the Cahiers criticism clarification, Felicity. That makes sense when you compare Algiers to, say, Godard's La Chinoise: which would be a funny exploration of 60s student left sectarianism...if it wasn't so earnest and anti-realism to be virtually unwatchable for me.

[Muukalainen]

As per as hoc's recommendation, started watching Bordertown and, at least so far, it's pretty good. Only just finished the first storyline in season, though.
I do have a rather insignificant question, in that there are lots of Finns and also a smattering of Russians (I think, though maybe I missed a detail). Are they all speaking Finnish all the time? Not speaking either I'm relying on subtitles either way.

I've only seen The Doll's House in which Finnish is spoken the vast majority of the time, but Russian is used in the dialogue between Russian characters, most of whom seem to be played by Finns.

Almost forgot: do you not have English language audio available?

[Hot Pepsi]

If you get Apple +, I recommend Ted Lasso and Mythic Quest.

[S. aureus]

Haven't looked to see if there's English language audio, I prefer subtitles anyway.

[ad hoc]

The majority of Bordertown is in Finnish. If I recall correctly that first storyline about Katya had some Russian in it and then there are a couple of storylines in which there are some scenes in Russia (in which Russian is spoken).

I also always use subtitles. Can't even imagine using the dubbed soundtrack.

[Sporting]

Big fan of subtitles too.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Wait, they were critical of the film because it looks too realistic? Is there somewhere I can read more about this?

Not that it LOOKS realistic, as such (though ironically that did bother the US censors when it was released there with the on-screen clarification that “not one frame of this film is documentary “!) but the Althusserian ‘ideological apparatus’ ideas of the time saw any film that didn’t challenge mainstream narrative forms as leaving the audience trapped within the confines of the dominant ideology.

Pam Cook “The Cinema Book” is the only intro to film studies that still gives those ideas much space- everyone else heaved a huge sigh of relief after around 1985 that they could actually talk about the films again and moved on.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The majority of Bordertown is in Finnish. If I recall correctly that first storyline about Katya had some Russian in it and then there are a couple of storylines in which there are some scenes in Russia (in which Russian is spoken).

I also always use subtitles. Can't even imagine using the dubbed soundtrack.

Loved Bordertown. Got very dark in places. And yeah deffo subtitles, I can't watch dubbed stuff.

[Hot Pepsi]

I noticed that HBO Max now offers a selection of shows and movies under the category “Comfort Zone,” and one of the others - Hulu , I think - has a category called “Easy to Watch.”

They’ve finally caught up with what’s really going on.