Current Watching

[Nocturnal Submission]

Just watched Radioactive, the Marie Curie biopic.

The critics weren't overly impressed apparently but, knowing little about her life, I enjoyed it and it's never a chore to watch Rosamund Pike.

The film also provided two candidates for the AITIDKUT thread - Marie Curie's daughter also won a Nobel Prize & mother and daughter helped set-up and operate mobile radiography units on the Western Front during WWI.

[Tratorello]

******** POSSIBLE SPOILER FOR "3 BODY PROBLEM" ******
*****
*****
*****
*****
*****








Watching "3 Body Problem" and, mostly enjoying it, but it's hard to think we should be rooting for the humans when they commit one of the most horrendous terrorist attacks ever committed to screen!

[hobbes]

Paramount has an adaptation of the Playstation game Twisted Metal. I have never played the game but the first episode gives a pretty good feel for it.
It's got some cast too. Anthony Mackie, Stephanie Beatriz, Neve Campbell, Will Arnett, Thomas Hayden Church.
So far it's just shown that Mackie is better at drama than comedy.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

When Harry Met Sally popped up on BBC1 last night.
I've probably seen it 20 or 30 times because if it's on and I'm channel flicking, I'll always stop and watch.

A definite candidate for my favourite film of all time.

Good shout, it would be in my all-time top 10 for sure, probably even top 5. (My number one, as you are all absolutely *gagging* to learn, would be The Lives of Others, with Billy Wilder's The Apartment not far behind.)

[Simon G]

I completed Peep Show and absolutely loved it.

One of those shows that probably would have gone right over my head when the first series started, but it was very binge worthy.

Now I need another series to get stuck into - a colleague suggested Psyche yesterday, so will see if I can find that somewhere.

[Simon G]

I decided on Taskmaster instead. 3 episodes in and it is amazing. Why am I so late to these things?

[Ginger Yellow]

Ha, yeah, I only got turned on to Taskmaster a couple months ago. Am now at season 7.

[diggedy derek]

Well, I really enjoyed The Dropout in the end. I think it has just enough science to tell the story effectively, and details some crucial things like Siemens machines being used in Theranos labs, and the discussions around exactly how much blood they needed. The supporting cast is really good actually, and it brings to life things like shareholders and lab managers which might sound kind of boring. Stephen Fry's really good actually, even if he's kind of playing himself. There's imaginative sets and styling which like Mad Men tell their own story.

Yeah, really enjoyable watch. I thought I knew most of the story already, but this really complemented it.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I should, and kinda do, like The New Look (Amazon) for several reasons. It deals with the post-war French fashion industry via the troubles of Coco Chanel and the rise of Christian Dior. The series has a fair bit to to recommend it. Not least Chanel's collaboration with the German occupiers, and the introverted Dior's quiet commitment to both his craft and his family. It shades toward sentimentality at times but never sinks into mawkishness. At it's best it illustrates the almost overnight shift from brutal German repression to French vengefulness towards collaborators. On the downside the language bugs me. It's essentially a French story, and many of the actors are French, including Juliette Binoche as Chanel, the rest are English, like Ben Mendelsohn (Dior) or at least non-French, as is the dialogue. So what you have is a French story with some French actors speaking English, and some English speaking actors imitating French speaking people. It could just be me, but why not have a French cast and subtitles? We're all used to them these days. Otherwise recommended.

[hobbes]

Ha, yeah, I only got turned on to Taskmaster a couple months ago. Am now at season 7.

New series starts tonight.
P&I have watched it since the beginning. It's much loved in our gaff.
Getting Frank Skinner to do the first series really helped. Leant it an air of respectability and a household name that none of the other carried yet*
As did having Tim Key (who created a lot of the tasks with Alex) sort of showing everyone what was to be expected of a contestant.

*Of course Ranganathan and Widdecombe are granny's favourite these days too.

It could have been broken completely as a concept by Al Murray's turn, but (little) Alex Horne managed to rejig the tasks to make that far more difficult.

Series 5 with Bob Mortimer and Sally Phillips was my favourite.

[Simon G]

New series starts tonight.
P&I have watched it since the beginning. It's much loved in our gaff.
Getting Frank Skinner to do the first series really helped. Leant it an air of respectability and a household name that none of the other carried yet*
As did having Tim Key (who created a lot of the tasks with Alex) sort of showing everyone what was to be expected of a contestant.

*Of course Ranganathan and Widdecombe are granny's favourite these days too.

It could have been broken completely as a concept by Al Murray's turn, but (little) Alex Horne managed to rejig the tasks to make that far more difficult.

Series 5 with Bob Mortimer and Sally Phillips was my favourite.

This intrigues me - I'm currently halfway through the last episode of series 1. I agree that Frank Skinner was a brilliant addition.

[3 Colours Red]

Considering I can't get the spoiler tags to work, I'll just use white text:

Murray's main tactic was often bribery.

[Gangster Octopus]

You're watching nothing?

[3 Colours Red]

Yeah, I really should have stated that it was in response to Simon's partial emboldening of hobbes' quote.

[Slightly Brown]

I had the house to myself, so watched The Appointment with Edward Woodward, 1982. It’s on the BFI app. Starts bizarre, with this great gossamer horror jump, then turns into entirely different movie. It’s clunky and wooden but also has a domestic weirdness. No spoiler to say the end is ace. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I’m glad I watched it.

[Slightly Brown]

Asteroid City is just too much. Rushmore and The Royal Tenebaums were brilliant. But the dude just keeps making the same statement. I get he has a style but he’s like a great band that keeps playing the same tune. I’d love to see him do a film that was a bit different. You can’t just eat deserts all the time.

[Lang Spoon]

Well, I really enjoyed The Dropout in the end. I think it has just enough science to tell the story effectively, and details some crucial things like Siemens machines being used in Theranos labs, and the discussions around exactly how much blood they needed. The supporting cast is really good actually, and it brings to life things like shareholders and lab managers which might sound kind of boring. Stephen Fry's really good actually, even if he's kind of playing himself. There's imaginative sets and styling which like Mad Men tell their own story.

Yeah, really enjoyable watch. I thought I knew most of the story already, but this really complemented it.

Seyfried is great in it, for weeks Herself and I were talking in that ridiculous Thurunoous voice.

[Lang Spoon]

Asteroid City is just too much. Rushmore and The Royal Tenebaums were brilliant. But the dude just keeps making the same statement. I get he has a style but he’s like a great band that keeps playing the same tune. I’d love to see him do a film that was a bit different. You can’t just eat deserts all the time.

He's become as unbearable as Tim Burton for me.

[San Bernardhinault]

Seyfried is great in The Dropout. It was quite weird for me to see her in that kind of role because the only thing I knew her from before was singalonga-Abba. She is clearly more talented than just a musical turn.

Wes Anderson hasn't quite gone Tim Burton for me, but maybe that's because I am more charmed by whimsical symmetry tics than by cliched gothic; and because I'd watch Bill Murray, TIlda Swinton and Jeff Goldblum 100 times before I'd watch Johnny Depp. That said, when he's being his most arch-Anderson, like in parts of the most recent two (Asteroid City and French Despatch), it can get very grating. But Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr Fox, Isle of Dogs and Grand Budapest would be a good return for a career for almost anybody.

[Hot Pepsi]

I suspect our culture is better when we have more films like Asteroid City that some people score 100 and others score below 40, rather than a lot of movies that consistently get a lot of 60s and 70s.

[DPDPDPDP]

Just finished watching ITV’s Six Four, a 4 part political-crime drama which had very good reviews and was set in Scotland. Extremely meh for me. A very confusing storyline with a very open ended conclusion which results in the viewer almost deciding how the story end, but which really shouts “there’s going to be a second series”

[Sean of the Shed]

Asteroid City just completely overdid it with the West Anderson quirkiness. It was too self indulgent in the same way as a Michael Bay film is with CGI.
I think the problem is that Anderson had become too much of a big deal and has become surrounded by people on and off the set that just think the sun shines out of his arse for 24 hours a day and there is no longer a critical eye there to provide a filter.

[Slightly Brown]

Seyfried is great in The Dropout. It was quite weird for me to see her in that kind of role because the only thing I knew her from before was singalonga-Abba. She is clearly more talented than just a musical turn.

Wes Anderson hasn't quite gone Tim Burton for me, but maybe that's because I am more charmed by whimsical symmetry tics than by cliched gothic; and because I'd watch Bill Murray, TIlda Swinton and Jeff Goldblum 100 times before I'd watch Johnny Depp. That said, when he's being his most arch-Anderson, like in parts of the most recent two (Asteroid City and French Despatch), it can get very grating. But Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, Fantastic Mr Fox, Isle of Dogs and Grand Budapest would be a good return for a career for almost anybody.

We met Bill Murray. We were at some golf thing becuase my step-daughter liked some dude that was playing. We went and watched Murray becuase of course you would and he immediately took a shine to Mrs Slightly. Coming over and talking. Laying it on thick. I’m standing there like a fanny pretending I don’t love the guy.

Cut to the end of the round and we go to the bar. Everyone is trying to get photos with him but we just chatted to him like a normal person. I buy him and gin & tonic as he tells us about him and Willem Dafoe doing yoga. Anyway. We say we’ve got to drive back to Edinburgh so nice to meet you. We’re walking through the carpark and he bursts out the fire door - I shit you not - and says “stay cool, people.” We waved, got in the car and sat in silence…then lost our shit. Did that just fucking happen? Anyway, he’s now married to my wife and I have an anecdote. That bits not true.

[Hot Pepsi]

Asteroid City just completely overdid it with the West Anderson quirkiness. It was too self indulgent in the same way as a Michael Bay film is with CGI.
I think the problem is that Anderson had become too much of a big deal and has become surrounded by people on and off the set that just think the sun shines out of his arse for 24 hours a day and there is no longer a critical eye there to provide a filter.

I don’t agree with that at all.

He has his thing. Enough people like it to cover the costs of
making the film, plus some. The people that find it too extra can just go watch something else.

We have way too many films trying to appease a wide audience. Most of those are dull.

[Hot Pepsi]

That’s not my experience. I liked all of his last few films a lot.

Still, I liked the two animated films the most.