Current Watching

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, that wouldn’t go over well.
That was not the case with CODA.
Although the lead actress isn’t really from Massachusetts. She’s British. That may have made five or six people mad.

[RobW]

I'm currently watching Yellowstone which is on 5 USA or My 5. I'm enjoying it thus far.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeah, it boggles the mind, but the world doesn’t need 10,000,000 hot takes on it, so I won’t add any except that I’m impressed by Rock’s composure but not his material.

Also, kind of a bummer for Quest Love to have to
follow that, but he’ll handle it. Great speech. Summer of Soul was a lock for the award. Fantastic film. I wish it had been a miniseries.

Coda is a worthy winner.

As I mentioned before, it came from deep in the pack to win because of how the ranked voting works. It wasn’t many people’s favorite, but you’d have to be pretty heartless or cynical not to like it at all.

A lot of people liked Dune, but a lot of people thought it was confusing and weird. A lot of people liked Drive My Car, but a lot of people don’t want to read subtitles for three hours to learn more about grief and theater in Japan. A lot of people liked Power of the Dog, but a lot of people thought it was boring and kinda nasty. Etc.

I agree entirely with all of this.

Coda was a worthy winner, and probably my personal favourite of the 10 films. It’s not perfect, and in some ways is pretty predictable, but it’s not a Green Book style embarrassing winner.

Smith’s slap looked staged to start with, but his bonkers self-justifying nonsense speech suggested it was real. The US feed cut out the audio - I was looking away when the slap itself happened so I was convinced that was cut, too. It all looked very odd and awkward.

[Hot Pepsi]

Those who think it was staged have to explain why Will Smith would agree to a careful plan to undermine what was otherwise going to be the greatest moment of his career and how they got hundreds of people in the room and in the press to go along with it.

As it is, it doesn’t make sense. But “he just snapped” is plausible.

There is no amount of money that would get him to do that just to make the Oscars more interesting.

There are lots of cheaper and easier ways to get more people to watch it.

I was watching some of the speeches on ABC’s YouTube channel. When they put up Smith’s acceptance speech, they cut off the part where he apologized to the Academy, etc. They we’re trying to pretend the incident didn’t happen.

I don’t have cable so I couldn’t watch the linear broadcast. By all accounts, it was one of the worst Oscar show broadcasts ever for many of reasons.

[caja-dglh]

I have learned a vast amount more “public knowledge” about Will Smith this morning than I would ever imagine would exist or that people were apparently talking about. That plus I missed all the jokes as they were supposedly the comedy topic of the last year.

[ursus arctos]

I simply do not understand US film star culture

[Nocturnal Submission]

Although the lead actress isn’t really from Massachusetts. She’s British. That may have made five or six people mad.

Aled Jones's daughter, no less.

[San Bernardhinault]

Her love interest is an Irish actor, too. I don't imagine the people of Cape Ann are a separate community that feel desperate under-represented and repressed so I can't see anyone thinking this is an issue.

The weird thing about this years Oscars is that I think they got the awards broadly right - from the choices on the short-lists, at least, and in terms of the films I've seen. I imagine that once I watch The Worst Person In The World, I'll feel outraged that Drive My Car beat it. But that might be it.

[Hot Pepsi]

I started Drive My Car but still have about
150 minutes left. I’d like to see Worst Person in the World.

I didn’t know who Aled Jones was or that Aled was a name people could have.

I don’t really think anyone would be upset they got a British actor to play a Cape Ann girl, but some people might wish they’d found somebody who could do the accent.

It also didn’t have anyone ever saying “Ya think ya bettah than me?” That felt unrealistic.

[ad hoc]

Aled Jones is famous for one thing and one thing only as the boy singing this on a much loved Christmas film that is on TV every year (his name is pronounced ah-led (rather than as a past tense of to ale)

[Hot Pepsi]

I assumed it was like Alex but with a d instead of an x.

[Gangster Octopus]

It's Welsh. The spelling and the pronunciation are (like Irish) not related in anyway...

[Sporting]

Welsh is pretty phonetic.

[Southport Zeb]

Aled Jones is famous for one thing and one thing only as the boy singing this on a much loved Christmas film that is on TV every year (his name is pronounced ah-led (rather than as a past tense of to ale)

The version used in The Snowman is actually sung by Peter Auty. A couple of years later Toys R Us did an advert based on The Snownman and incorporating Walking in the Air. Howard Blake re-recorded the song for the advert, but Auty's voice had broken by this point and so Aled Jones was brought in. This version was then released as a single which reached number 5 in the charts.

[Ray de Galles]

We had the choir sing 'Walking In The Air' as we signed the certificates at our wedding. We got married on December 18th and, as hypocritical atheists getting married in a church for the big occasion, wanted as much Xmas/secular-related music as possible rather than hymns so it fitted the bill.

[Ray de Galles]

I can't see where we have a standalone Ray Donovan, but the wrap-up movie aired last week. A great series, which ended with a no-ending thud. This movie really helped, fleshing out a lot of un-explored backstory and bringing it forward to a (rather) satisfying conclusion. I think they did well to tie up a lot of loose ends and give us a last look at a lot of characters, big and small.

If you have this series available somewhere, give it a season. If it doesn't hook you, that's fine. But I think it takes more than an episode or two to 'get' it.

Finally got to see it last night. It certainly did flesh out back story and tie up loose ends, though as you say still left something of a cliffhanger as to what Ray's ultimate fate might be. I suppose there was always a quandary about how much a "hero" as morally ambiguous as him would suffer for their actions or decisions. I thought it was a bit one-paced and a little too self-consciously meditative but that's been a little bit the case since the show's location moved from LA to NY anyway.

The flashback scenes were very good and the actor playing the younger Mickey was excellent, a lovely but all-too-brief scene with the young Abby too. Both of them nailed the characterisations of the regular actors in the roles perfectly. The flashbacks did put me in mind of the recent Sopranos move prequel a little too.

Would just like to see the 'Get Shorty' TV show get tied up with a fourth season/movie now but the delay since season three (perhaps exacerbated by Covid) seems to have scuppered that.

[Ray de Galles]

Watched Kimi tonight, the new Soderbergh thriller which is a modern tech take on 'Rear Window'. Soderbergh's direction is as stylish as ever, Zoe Kravitz does well to carry the film almost single-handedly and it's all pretty good for the first 75 minutes or so setting up the tense claustrophobic mood and conspiracy premise.

However, at that point the creative team seem to have decided that making a 90 minute movie was more important than doing the story justice and proceed to dash off a really unsatisfactory climax. I know people complain about movies being too long nowadays but this one needed another half hour to work itself out.

[Hot Pepsi]

The ending felt Covided.

[RobW]

I'm currently watching Yellowstone which is on 5 USA or My 5. I'm enjoying it thus far.

Binged through the first season, but 5 don't have seasons two or three. Gah. Looking online, I believe I can watch PlutoTV's More Drama channel (never heard of it).

[Ray de Galles]

The ending felt Covided.

In what way?

[San Bernardhinault]

The 90-minute-movie thing is interesting. It may have become too much of an obsession with some people, but there is something to it.

I clearly enjoy a 90 minute movie that should be 90 minutes, and a 2 1/2 hour movie that should be 2 1/2 hours. That goes without saying.

But if I'm watching a fairly average film, or a film that's not really to my tastes, it's much much easier to tolerate and not go insane with boredom over 90 minutes. You can, ironically, get away with more in a 90 minute movie. If - for example - Power of the Dog had been half an hour shorter, I might have enjoyed it a lot more.

And, more importantly, there is just a lot of bloat out there. There are lots of 150 minute movies that just haven't bothered to be edited, or which are awash without annoying false endings. Or just wasting time with endless chase/fight sequences that add nothing but time and boredom. The problem isn't 150 minute movies, the problem is 110 minute movies that someone hasn't bothered to edit, or that a director has decided is too important to show off all the unnecessary details, or a production company has thought that they really ought to use all the footage they've created and if Avengers: Endgame can run 3 hours and make that much money, then all our films should too...

[WOM]

I'm generally in the 'movies are too damn long' camp, but I'm in the 'books are too damn long' camp too. So maybe it's my issue. There's just so much pointless padding the longer they get. Tell your story and be done with it.

[Hot Pepsi]

In what way?

Like the movie just kind of ends leaving with the feeling that some parts are missing. Perhaps they couldn't film them because they'd require too many people or perhaps somebody got sick and/or they had delays and couldn't keep Zoe Kravitz any more days so they just ended it.

I can't recall any other Soderburgh films doing that. Then again, he likes to experiment, so maybe he just thought, "What would happen if we dispense with the usual 15 minutes of resolution of a story like this and just wrap it up instead."

[Ray de Galles]

It's a plausible theory, I suppose.

The film was concieved well in to the pandemic and was filmed in LA & Seattle in April/May last year so not sure how much their plans might have been curtailed. I also tend to think that issues like that become common knowledge within the industry/trades and I can't find any reference to it.

My overriding thought is that they just fluffed the ending. Enough major (and successful) movies seem to go with a Scooby Do finale that it doesn't surprise me any more.

[Hot Pepsi]

It's a plausible theory, I suppose.

The film was concieved well in to the pandemic and was filmed in LA & Seattle in April/May last year so not sure how much their plans might have been curtailed. I also tend to think that issue like that become common knowledge within the industry/trades and I can't find any reference to it.

My overriding thought is that they just fluffed the ending. Enough major (and successful) movies seem to go with a Scooby Do finale that it doesn't surprise me any more.

Yeah, that's possible. It would be Soderburgian to just try something different that doesn't work. It's fine. He makes one to three movies every year anyway and he doesn't seem to be afraid to try new things, like making a movie with iPhones.