Current Watching

[DCI Harry Batt]

(I'm now rewatching Fringe, from the beginning. I never quite finished it last time. It's hugely silly.)

[Sunderporinostesta]

The Outlaws episode 6 is on iplayer from this morning. Just finished it. I’ve enjoyed it.

[Sits]

We started watching that but gave up after 3 and a half episodes

I’m trying to remember whether we finished Midnight Mass or not. We got further than that, and it was getting weirder by the minute, but I can’t remember how it ends. I’ll ask Mrs. S, maybe I was asleep.

[Hot Pepsi]

I enjoyed Jungle Cruise. A lot like Disney’s Pirates films and other standard family-friendly adventure stuff, but it Emily Blunt and The Rock are charming and it has some nice action bits.

Same with Shang Chi. It would have been better in a theater, but I’m glad I didn’t pay $12 to see it and had it available on a sick day.

[hobbes]

(I'm now rewatching Fringe, from the beginning. I never quite finished it last time. It's hugely silly.)

Hugely silly and hugely great. It's one of my favourite shows ever (although the premise of the first few episodes got sort of "ejected" by halfway through session 1 in favour of a different idea.)

[DCI Harry Batt]

Yeah I've long wondered what that show would have been like.

[WOM]

We're just wrapping up S3 of Narcos: Mexico. It's a continuation (sort of) of Narcos, which for 3 seasons told the story of the drug trade in Columbia in the Escobar and then Cali cartel years.

Can't speak highly enough about it, and you should give it a go if you haven't already.

Mostly subtitled Spanish with about 30% spoken English. Violent, but very well told stories and solid production.

[Satchmo Distel]

Howlin' Wolf documentary on Amazon Prime is a good insight into his life and times but inevitably shaped around the footage, which is all from 1965-1966. I'd have liked more on what distinguished his singing and playing from those of Muddy Waters, BB King etc. It's best viewed as an invitation to investigate his catalogue.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Is the clip of him climbing the stage curtains included?

[Benjm]

We've watched the first two episodes of Close To Me, Channel 4's Sunday night domestic suspense drama. It is entertaining hokum so far. The family have an enviable modern home and there's some good location shots in Hastings. Not sure where the amnesia based plot is going to go. Christopher Eccleston is reminding me slightly of Neil Warnock, which makes it hard to look past him as the villain.

[Sits]

We finished Midnight Mass on Netflix this evening. Stick with it - “shit got weird” for the penultimate few episodes but it all falls into place for the finale.

[Tratorello]

Red Notice, a Netflix action film with Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and Gal Godot, seems to be getting very mediocre reviews but we watched it yesterday and thought it was an excellent popcorn blockbuster style movie that was great fun throughout.

I think what saved it from being like most po-faced and dull modern movies is that it was pitched perfectly between being self aware but without going into complete parody. All three leads were good and, as much as I try, I can't not love Ryan Reynolds when he's goofing around.

Plotwise it's complete nonsense but in the best tradition of Raiders/Romancing the Stone and, pretty much, every other adventure film throughout the ages don't analyse it too closely and it's a lot of fun.

My only real issues with it are 1) the title, "Red Notice", is so generically bland we almost didn't watch it (What's wrong with Montana Reynold's and the Quest for Cleopatra's Eggs?) and 2) it's not entirely clear who the bad guys/antagonists are. There's only, really, one character who's an actual "bad guy" so, at some points, it's a bit tricky to work out who we're supposed to be rooting for. Having said that it kind of gets around that by using the A Team device of thousands of bullets being fired but no one, ever getting hit.

[San Bernardhinault]

King Richard about Venus and Serena on HBO Max. It wasn't bad and was pretty interesting and perfectly watchable. But it's pretty pathetic, as my wife observed, that the first movie on the subject of these absolutely iconic women is about a man.

The other thing is that I think because I have become conditioned to Sports Film tropes, the amount of obstacle that the sisters had to overcome wasn't as much as I was expecting. But that's probably the fault of the genre rather than the film and probably to the film's credit that it didn't invent extra drama just for the sake of creating a predictable movie.

[Hot Pepsi]

King Richard about Venus and Serena on HBO Max. It wasn't bad and was pretty interesting and perfectly watchable. But it's pretty pathetic, as my wife observed, that the first movie on the subject of these absolutely iconic women is about a man.

The other thing is that I think because I have become conditioned to Sports Film tropes, the amount of obstacle that the sisters had to overcome wasn't as much as I was expecting. But that's probably the fault of the genre rather than the film and probably to the film's credit that it didn't invent extra drama just for the sake of creating a predictable movie.

It’s ok. Good performances, but more of a PR exercise than a film. The kids just move from triumph to triumph. That’s not really very interesting.

It glosses over, for example, that Richard had a whole other family that he just abandoned. Or that he moved the family from Long Beach to Compton because he thought it would make them tougher. I guess that worked. But his oldest stepdaughter was murdered in Compton. Feels like that could have been mentioned.

It’s also a good example of survivor’s bias. For every Richard Williams, there are thousands of “dads with a plan” whose kids peak in high school and just feel resentment and regret. A lot of his decisions were probably bad. It just worked out because Venus and Serena were generational talents who are also very sharp. And their mom’s contribution probably deserved more screen time.

The Andre Agassi story would be more interesting.

[ad hoc]

We saw Late Night before I left. Written by and Co starring Mindy Kaling from The Office . (Emma Thompson being the other star). It felt like it was going to be really good for the first half, but then it tailed off and became a bit clichéd and boring in the second half. Thompson was really good, but I'd only give it 6.5 out of 10

[ad hoc]

Meanwhile, this sounds really good https://www.al-monitor.com/originals...t-turkeys-jews

[WOM]

Just finished S3 of the French comedy Family Business and I (we, actually) can't recommend it highly enough. Just freakin' hilarious.

[Tony C]

Just finished ‘Showtrial’ on BBC iplayer and really enjoyed. Céline Buckens and Tracy Ifeachor were excellent in it.

[Discordant Resonance]

Just saw Inferno - complete bobbins, of course, but amusing to watch Omar Sy, Sidse Babette Knudsen and Paul Ritter blatantly phoning it in for the pay cheque.

[Ray de Galles]

I took my younger two to see Eternals on Friday night. Expectations were not high and there was a certain amount of MCU completism about it. The first two thirds were prosaic, flat and frictionless but the final act was actually pretty good and went some way to redeeming it.

Some engaging performances just about keep you involved but Richard Madden proves yet again he is one of the worst actors on the planet, I'm talking Clive Owen bad. Angelina Jolie ran him close in terms of "smell the fart acting", mind. I can't say I'd recommend the film but it was better than WW84, at least.

The whole family watched The Green Knight last night on streaming and - while it was interesting, ambitious and visually lush - the balance of 90% symbolism to 10% narrative was all wrong for me. I'm only vaguely familiar with the original source material and I'm sure someone with an in-depth knowledge of it and the wider styles & themes it it deals in would get more out of it but I was left ultimately underwhelmed.

[San Bernardhinault]

Thinking of Angelina Jolie, I watched Those Who Wish Me Dead on the plane the other day. Jolie was dogshit, as was the movie. It was perfectly fine as an in-flight movie as the most prosaic “thriller by numbers” you could imagine. I will tell you that Jolie is a forest firefighter in the back woods of Montana and there are killers trying to chase down a father and son. You have already written the script in your head and got it mostly right but your dialogue is more interesting. You could miss any part of the film because you’re distracted by the views or your fellow passengers and you will actually have missed nothing.

[Ray de Galles]

King Richard about Venus and Serena on HBO Max. It wasn't bad and was pretty interesting and perfectly watchable. But it's pretty pathetic, as my wife observed, that the first movie on the subject of these absolutely iconic women is about a man.

I've thought exactly the same any time I've seen anything about the film. Presenting the Williams sisters story through the prism of their father seems like the central idea for an SNL skit.

[Lang Spoon]

Saw Little Fish last night , very affecting, great performances.

[ursus arctos]

The Williams sisters are executive producers for King Richard, which raises an interesting question about their degree of influence over the framing

[Hot Pepsi]

Yeah.
That might also explain why it’s framed the way it is. They care more about the image of their parents than their own. I suppose that’s understandable. But it doesn’t make for a great film.

It goes to the heart of why I don’t really like tennis. I can’t into a sport where I’m expected to root for individuals and pretend they’re my friends or that I relate to them as people. And “rooting for greatness” or “icons” is downright Nietschean, in a bad way.

I vastly prefer rooting for laundry based on geography. The suspension of disbelief just makes more sense to me.