Current Watching

[ad hoc]

Heh…next up, Inside Man with David Tenant and Stanley Tucci. I dare you.

I saw that when it was first out. Yep, crap. But I liked the Tucci scenes, just hated the Tennant bits. Erin Carter was way way worse.

[WOM]

So incredibly crap. So, crap in fact that it actually sucked us into watching to see how much more ridiculous it would be. It never disappointed. Funniest moment was at the very end when they set it up for a second series. Yeah, right, like anyone's going to give you more money for this.

Heh…next up, Inside Man with David Tenant and Stanley Tucci. I dare you.

[WOM]

Watched The Greatest Night In Pop (or at least I think that's what it's called), the documentary on Netflix on the making of We Are The World.

I was curious and I’ll eventually watch it, but it was and remains such a terribly middling song.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

Watched The Greatest Night In Pop (or at least I think that's what it's called), the documentary on Netflix on the making of We Are The World.

While it is no Get Back, it's worth watching if you have any interest in that era of American music. Stevie Wonder (clearly pissed off that they'd finished writing the song before he gets there) tries to include some lines in Swahili into the lyrics, prompting Waylon Jennings to quietly walk out of proceedings, but Bob Geldof talks Wonder out of the idea, not least on the grounds that Swahili isn't spoken in Ethiopia. And Al Jarreau overdoes it on the free booze while waiting for his line to come, and can barely deliver it when required.

It's mentioned that only the artists were allowed into the studios, with no managers or PAs, meaning they were stuck with each other for several hours and had to make small talk, a situation that Bob Dylan clearly didn't enjoy.

[ad hoc]

Who Is Erin Carter? on Netflix.

Crap, crap, crapity crap. Watch at your peril.

So incredibly crap. So, crap in fact that it actually sucked us into watching to see how much more ridiculous it would be. It never disappointed. Funniest moment was at the very end when they set it up for a second series. Yeah, right, like anyone's going to give you more money for this.

[Fargo Boyle]

Re. Leon, there are at least two versions. From Wiki;

There is an extended version of the film, referred to as "international version", "version longue", or "version intégrale". Containing 25 minutes of additional footage, it is sometimes called the "Director's Cut" but Besson refers to the original version as the Director's Cut and the new version as "The Long Version".^[35]

According to Besson, this is the version he wanted to release, but for the fact that the extra scenes tested poorly with Los Angeles preview audiences. The additional material is found in the film's second act, and it depicts more of the interactions and relationship between Léon and Mathilda, as well as explicitly demonstrating how Mathilda accompanies Léon on several of his hits as "a full co-conspirator", to further her training as a contract killer

[WOM]

Mr and Mrs Smith on Amazon is good. It is sort of based on the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film of that title, but is really nothing like it except that it’s about assassins using the titular code names.

It has action and violence, but isn’t shiny and cool like the film. The leads are played by Maya Erskine and Donald Glover, who start out more like dissolute Brooklyn hipsters than action stars.

We’re really enjoying this too. Also, just finished The Brothers Sun. It’s a comedy / drama / action thing about a Triad linked Taiwanese family in LA. Lots to recommend it.

[danielmak]

in which Reno tells Mathilda what brought him to the States and drove him to become a hitman. I was so thrown I rewound to check I hadn't blacked out or something, and that scene is definitely not in the Netflix version of the film I just watched ... but the run time is identical to that given by Wiki. Anyone have any idea what's going on there? I could understand (although from the description on Wiki it would be a strange scene to cut) if the run time was different, but it isn't.

I saw the film in the cinema and a couple times over the years and I have no recollection of that scene at all. I would speculate that the scene might be on a DVD or Blu-ray that was an extended cut.

The other thing that doesn't make sense is that Leon was the cleaner in Le Femme Nikita. He seemed to be a French cleaner at that time. Certainly spoke french. I can't remember if he lives or dies in Le Femme Nikita but he's shot up in that one. I guess he could have survived and gone back to the US.

EDIT: OK, I just looked up Le Femme Nikita Wiki and the character was Viktor, not Leon.

[San Bernardhinault]

Woody Allen is up for an Oscar 45 years after the fact?

Oops. Will edit. It was past my bedtime.

[steveeeeeeeee]

Surprised there is no mention of Miners' Strike 1984: The Battle for Britain, as far as I can see. Both episodes have been excellent. There's a big aspect of being told what you already knew, but the first episode focussing on Derbyshire and Shirebrook was enlightening for me. Having read GB84 by David Peace, one of the most shocking things is what seemed like aspects of fantasy in Peace's book was very much reality with blood thirsty Metropolitan Police officers being bussed in to bust some heads. Thatcher's actions are of course indefensible, but I would be interested to hear the thoughts of OTF on Scargill, who comes across as an out of touch megalomaniac obsessed at proving he could damage Thatcher, whatever the cost. Like most wars, it's the people, most of who are loyal and brave, that suffer and really have no voice whatsoever because the NUM didn't listen to them and the government was determined to destroy them.

[ursus arctos]

Not just me, then.

I think he must mean Oppenheimer, though it certainly is a striking juxtaposition.

[ad hoc]

Woody Allen is up for an Oscar 45 years after the fact?

[San Bernardhinault]

Continuing the Oscar marathon, tonight was Manhattan (oops, I meant Oppenheimer of course). A bit of a difference of opinion in this house. I thought it was great. Engaging , enjoyable, interestingly constructed, told me stuff I didn’t know. But if you were crafting a film specifically for me, a combination of nuclear fear, courtroom drama, recentish US history, politics and quantum mechanics wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

TWWSPUWM is not a great fan of historical pieces and was annoyed by and sometimes confused by the fractured timeline, unsure about what happened when and felt that perhaps some clarification for people who didn’t start off as WWII nerds might have been useful.

She got a bit bored. I didn’t. Three hours of this felt half as long as 2 hours of Maestro and a quarter as long as Killers Of The Flower Moon. This is a film that earned its run time. Not wasteful or baggy or pointless.

In a side note, I learned on a bike ride last week that Klaus Fuchs was the great uncle of a bloke I cycle with. A separate fascinating aside about him is the actor who played him was also in the very excellent but under appreciated Manhattan TV show on the same subject. Perhaps not the most famous cast member but funny how he doubled up in Los Alamos fiction.

[Sam]

Just finished watching Léon The Professional. Thoroughly enjoyed it, although Gary Oldman's baddie stuck out as just slightly more cartoonish than everyone else in a way that jarred a little (in particular when he cracks his pills of drugs between his teeth and does that bendy-back thing). I often look up things I've just watched, and something on the Wiki page for this film is baffling me (spoilers ahead): the plot summary on the Wiki page describes a scene in between Tony being tortured by Stanfield and Mathilda waking up Reno then going out to buy food, in which Reno tells Mathilda what brought him to the States and drove him to become a hitman. I was so thrown I rewound to check I hadn't blacked out or something, and that scene is definitely not in the Netflix version of the film I just watched ... but the run time is identical to that given by Wiki. Anyone have any idea what's going on there? I could understand (although from the description on Wiki it would be a strange scene to cut) if the run time was different, but it isn't.

[Sits]

A bit late to Boy Swallows Universe having been deterred by the title. After about ten minutes for me to get over my wariness of any Aussie drama, began enjoying it. Performances are great, especially the boy and even Bryan Brown who’s not hamming too much.

[danielmak]

I'm really enjoying the latest True Detective. Although it's a bit too mystical in a haunting sci-fi kind of way, the police story and location-based context for that police story is really good. I'm hoping it doesn't end with a big letdown a la the first series. I remember reading all of these nuanced theories about each episode during the first series, which ended up being way smarter than what happened with that series. This one has a chance to make up for that foolishness.

[Hot Pepsi]

Mr and Mrs Smith on Amazon is good. It is sort of based on the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film of that title, but is really nothing like it except that it’s about assassins using the titular code names.

It has action and violence, but isn’t shiny and cool like the film. The leads are played by Maya Erskine and Donald Glover, who start out more like dissolute Brooklyn hipsters than action stars.

[RaggedTrousered]

Both very good films. CODA is the obvious next film if you want films about deafness.

Thanks for the recommendation San B - we have a trial of Apple TV to look forward to when we return to Edinburgh so I hope to see it soon.

[Come along, Min]

Tried watching Christine for the second time again last night after family turned in. No mini existential crisis to stop me this time around but the reheated over-creamy carbonara, some dry, hard garlic bread slices and a phat glass of 2 and a half week opened rioja sent me to sleep half way through and I woke up on the sofa at 4.30am before stumbling to bed.

It was very enjoyable up until falling asleep. The lead guy is unsympathetically good. Carpenter's work, excellent. The aim is to finish it when everyone shuffles off for work/school. Day off today.

[Hot Pepsi]

I think it's more complicated than that but I don't really have the time to go into it right now. I didn't love it, so I'm reluctant to go to bat for it, but I don't think it was the shallow nothingness that everybody else on here seems to have seen

Shallow doesn’t seem to be the right word. Opaque might be better.

[San Bernardhinault]

Finished watching Beef tonight. What a fantastic show. Kept on surprising me. The last episode wasn’t the best, but even then it had the power to shock.

[Sits]

Another Aussie drama set in nice rural spots which I most definitely would not recommend: Darby & Joan. Greta Scaachi and Bryan Brown solve daft crimes from a camper van in tropical Queensland. Does that tell you enough?

[Bored Of Education]

Thirded on Sound Of Metal. As someone with tinnitus and increasing hearing loss, I was concerned it was going trigger that off but it was fine. As a dedicated user, I was pleased to hear they did screenings with subtitles.

Just finished the second series of The Tourist. Silly but entertaining

[San Bernardhinault]

I am definitely on HP's side of things here. There just wasn't a whole lot of drama to the drama and as I wasn't engaged by other aspects of the story that meant there wasn't much to grab on to. It's a lot better than Purple Rain, though, even if I find the music much less interesting and the waving-the-arms-around-a-lot-composer thing as utterly unnecessary and ridiculous.

[ad hoc]

I think it's more complicated than that but I don't really have the time to go into it right now. I didn't love it, so I'm reluctant to go to bat for it, but I don't think it was the shallow nothingness that everybody else on here seems to have seen