Current Watching

[Logan Mountstuart]

Last of Us episode 3 was rather brilliant.

God yes. The middle part was up there with the opening 10 minutes of Up.

[slackster]

Happy Valley series 3 has been another good watch. The plot may be little more than the usual cop-show hokum, but the acting is terrific and the little domestic moments and laughs amongst the villainy keep you hooked. Finale is on BBC this Sunday, and there’s been plenty of gossip about how it might end…

[Sean of the Shed]

Yep, can't wait. I've quite enjoyed watching a series week by week for a change, it really ramps up the anticipation.

[Muukalainen]

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. I've just finished watching the third and final series of Kaikki synnit (All the Sins) and, unfortunately, it doesn't live up to the promise shown by the earlier series. I realised that I couldn't remember much from the first two series, so I re-watched them as a pre-cursor to watching the third series. Complex plot lines, which were well handled in the earlier series, leave you wondering what is the role of this person? or why did this happen? in this final series.

A minor detail is that I found out, by chance, that there are two villages called Varjakka just to the south of Oulu. They're situated about 15 km apart as the crow flies, but more like 50 km by road because there's a bay to go round.

Kaikki synnit is well worth watching for two and three-quarter series, but my gut feeling from the final one-quarter is "it doesn't make sense". Apparently, it's been sold to 30+ countries though I've no idea which ones. I watched it on viaplay: is this available elsewhere?

[Sam]

Cunk on Earth is available on Netflix (outside the UK). It is very funny indeed and has given me a 'Pump Up The Jam' earworm I can't shake. When we've finished it my girlfriend's going to rewatch it with the subtitles set to Spanish, because she wants to see how they've translated all the jokes.

[Snake Plissken]

I frickin love Cunk. It's so cleverly stupid.

[Snake Plissken]

Anyway, The Life And Death Of Ian Cognito is on Amazon Prime. Having had the privilege of seeing him do a set where he absolutely ripped the roof off the place, it's going to be an interesting watch.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I frickin love Cunk. It's so cleverly stupid.

I love one episode every couple of weeks. It's the visual equivalent of eating jelly beans. A few are great but many more in one sitting and you'll regret it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Well, that was a bit of a disappointment. I've just finished watching the third and final series of Kaikki synnit (All the Sins) and, unfortunately, it doesn't live up to the promise shown by the earlier series. I realised that I couldn't remember much from the first two series, so I re-watched them as a pre-cursor to watching the third series. Complex plot lines, which were well handled in the earlier series, leave you wondering what is the role of this person? or why did this happen? in this final series.

A minor detail is that I found out, by chance, that there are two villages called Varjakka just to the south of Oulu. They're situated about 15 km apart as the crow flies, but more like 50 km by road because there's a bay to go round.

Kaikki synnit is well worth watching for two and three-quarter series, but my gut feeling from the final one-quarter is "it doesn't make sense". Apparently, it's been sold to 30+ countries though I've no idea which ones. I watched it on viaplay: is this available elsewhere?

I've spotted Viaplay and it has a lot of that kind of thing and I'm very very tempted.

The clips I've seen of Cunk stuff have never made me want to watch it.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Stumbled across The Police on Rock Goes to College on BBC4 last night.
Sting wasn't very blond and looked a bit gaunt.
The programme itself was recorded at Hatfield Poly in 79 so was anthropologically interesting for the rare shots of the crowd.
Quite enjoyable, I might try to dig out more from that series.

[Snake Plissken]

Bank of Dave

You know when you watch a film shot in locations you know well, and you can spot the joins where a character turns down a street and is suddenly haf a mile away? Try an entire film of that, but throw in the plot as well.

It's very solidly done and you will have an enjoyable hour and forty minutes with a nice glass of wine but I couldn't shake the subconscious confusion "hey, they're in the Royal Dyche... and now they're not", or "yeah, I remember that happening... but it didn't happen that way."

[big dog]

With an empty house for a few days, I banged out the following films;

The Pledge: A somewhat shaky directorial effort from Sean Penn that also managed to have some especially creepy and unsettling scenes (in particular, the last 20 mins but also the scene where a sea of agitated turkeys part in front of Jack Nicholson like the red sea as he comes to deliver some bad news).

Election 1 & 2: A really slick Hong Kong gangster film with no violence gets followed up a similarly slick but *very* violent sequel.

Stalker (there is an HD version on Youtube): Wow....that was certainly something.

[ad hoc]

Has their been a conversation on here about "Great Freedom"? Brilliant German film following a slowly building friendship in prison between a murderer and a gay bloke. The murderer never leaves, while the main character gets regularly re-convicted for deviancy or perversion or however the West German legal system defined homosexuality (it's set between 45 and 69 which is the year homosexuality was decriminalised in the FRG) . I know that this description doesn't make it sound like much (yet another film depicting two unlikely people becoming friends) but it's really good.

Also never crossed my mind before that upon liberation from the concentration camps in 1945, gays just got stuck in regular prisons. Hard to imagine the cruelty of that.

[diggedy derek]

Finally watched Drive My Car after everyone telling me about it. Loved it. There's a lot of similarities to his excellent Happy Hour and also his compelling but flawed Asako I & II. Some of the plot twists sometimes felt a bit too on the nose but, ultimately, I really loved the characters. If I was in the cinema I would have bawled my eyes out I'm sure.

[diggedy derek]

[SPOILERS ... yes siree there are SPOILERS here....] My wife guessed, and it would have been fantastic, that Misaki might have ended up playing Vanya. After all, she would have known the lines better than anyone. It would have fitted in very well to the film's and the director's themes of difference in his work.

[jwdd27]

Watched a Sky documentary about Fatboy Slim's near disastrous 2002 free concert on Brighton beach. I was expecting a Fyre festival type doc pointing out how awful it was, but, probably because Norman Cook is prominently featured, it was about how great it all was, although it got a bit hairy at times.
His annoying fans came across as mainstream wankers and were captioned as "ravers", ffs. The man himself and his entourage also came across badly, suggesting that they paid for everything, when it's obvious that Channel 4 and the council contributed significantly.

Anyway, one of the "lessons learned" is basically that there are no more free gigs anywhere, thanks Norm.

[hobbes]

I love one episode every couple of weeks. It's the visual equivalent of eating jelly beans. A few are great but many more in one sitting and you'll regret it.

It's the interview bits I struggle with. If the person is in on it that's fine. But if they're wasting someone's time and often actively making them look stupid then I can't be doing with it.
I suppose they all have to sign a release, but.

Likewise I hate when programmes do "person on the street" interviews to make them look bad or stupid and rely on the "look mum, I'm on telly" appeal to get them to agree.

[Gangster Octopus]

Hobbesian rightfulness.

[Mr Delicieux]

With an empty house for a few days, I banged out the following films;

Stalker (there is an HD version on Youtube): Wow....that was certainly something.

When I started seeing the lady I'm now married to, I wanted to watch something with her but was concerned that it might be too slow-paced for her sensibilities so voiced my concern, to which she replied that one of her favourite films was Stalker, which we watched the following evening. I'm not lying when I say that there was more than one occasion where I thought the film had frozen, but no, that was just the scene!

A fascinating piece of cinema, one that has me lamenting just how much we in the UK almost always look West for our cultural references.

[WOM]

We enjoyed Sons of Anarchy and now we're enjoying Mayans M.C., the Latino 'sequel'. It's not great...it might not even be good...but it's enjoyable, and not too taxing on the brain.

[Satchmo Distel]

We already know this because you told us in post number 10032

[diggedy derek]

God, absolutely love Stalker. Sad to say Tarkovsky's great composer Edward Artemiev, whose work is so striking in that film, died recently.

[Ray de Galles]

My wife and I have spent the cold, quiet hibernatory period since the new year catching up on all the shows we meant to watch in 2022.

So far that's been Bad Sisters, both series of Slow Horses and The English. We thought they were all excellent but the latter is an absolute masterpiece.

The Bear is next.

[Femme Folle]

Louis Litt is an infuriating little motherfucking troll.

That’s the post. #IFKYK

[Femme Folle]

But kudos to the actor, Rick Hoffman, for making me despise his character so much. It has been years since I've felt so angry about a fictional person.

I have been watching Suits, if that wasn't obvious to anyone who has never seen it. I don't know why I hadn't been interested until now, but I also didn't discover Lost until a million years after it finished. I guess that's what I do.