Whatcha Been Watching?

[Alex79]

We watched Searching last night. If you've not heard of it, a single dad's teenage daughter goes missing. The entire film takes place on the dads computer screen. Video calls, Internet searches, news footage. It's an interesting idea, and wasn't nearly as annoying as I thought it could possibly be. The film was actually very good, although the end felt a little rushed and took a bit of a leap of logic, I think.

[DomsBeard]

Daredevil season 3 is amazing. It was worth sticking through The Defenders for. The guy who plays Kingpin really is something else

[duskvstweak]

We watched Searching last night. If you've not heard of it, a single dad's teenage daughter goes missing. The entire film takes place on the dads computer screen. Video calls, Internet searches, news footage. It's an interesting idea, and wasn't nearly as annoying as I thought it could possibly be. The film was actually very good, although the end felt a little rushed and took a bit of a leap of logic, I think.

I really enjoyed it. Thought it was very well down with it's own limitations. Kept the tension strong for most of the movie.

[duskvstweak]

So, I have not liked Netflix's Castlevania series. Like, at all. I've found it slow and boring, pretentious, weirdly focused on Catholicism AND lacking the kinetic energy and fun soundtrack of the games. However, there was one part that I quite enjoyed that made me smile...

Spoiler: show

In the second to last episode of the 2nd season, for about five minutes, there's an extend action scene where the heroes finally show themselves to be dangerous vampire killers of the legendary quality. Not only that, the music kicks in and it's Bloody Tears! As the whole thing was happening, I kept asking, "Why wasn't this the whole series?" I don't know why they could get five minutes so right and get 12 episodes wrong, but there it is.

[DomsBeard]

Netflix didnt have the budget to give Cavill a beard in The Witcher

[duskvstweak]

Netflix didnt have the budget to give Cavill a beard in The Witcher

Just use his leftover Justice League facial hair! I don't get it!

[Alex79]

Clearly his beard will be growing in real time, guys. Come on now.

[Alex79]

Just watched Summer Of '84. I thought it was a highly enjoyable film with a great ending. Reminded me in equal measure of Stranger Things, Stand By Me and The Goonies, without really being like any of those things. Worth watching.

[duskvstweak]

Just watched Summer Of '84. I thought it was a highly enjoyable film with a great ending. Reminded me in equal measure of Stranger Things, Stand By Me and The Goonies, without really being like any of those things. Worth watching.

I'll add it to my list!

[duskvstweak]

I've been in a mood lately, so I watched The Raid, Man of Tai Chi, Rumble in the Bronx and IP Man, all for the first time. I need more!

[JaySevenZero]

I've been in a mood lately, so I watched The Raid, Man of Tai Chi, Rumble in the Bronx and IP Man, all for the first time. I need more!

Then I'd recommend watching 'The Night Comes for Us" on Netflix

[Alex79]

I watched the four episode James Acaster thing on Netflix over the last couple of days. Aside from ripping Stewart Lee off slightly on one of them, it's some of the best stand up I've seen in quite a while.

Speaking of which, Daniel Kitson currently had a show available to 'rent' for £3 on his website. His stuff is notoriously difficult to get on video (as in it doesn't even exist), so I'll definitely be checking that out over the weekend.

[Joshihatsumitsu]

I've been in a mood lately, so I watched The Raid, Man of Tai Chi, Rumble in the Bronx and IP Man, all for the first time. I need more!

Then I'd recommend watching 'The Night Comes for Us" on Netflix

Ha! I just watched that this week, and would totally second that recommendation!

Really wish more of Timo Tjahjanto's movies were so easily available...

[Alex79]

We just watched Hold The Dark, a new film on Netflix from the guy who directed Green Room.

I didn't really like it. It has a lot of positives. Each scene taken out of context is actually really good, but together it just didn't form a coherent story. I like films open to interpretation, but this just felt vague for the sake of it.

Tough to recommend, but I'm interested if anyone else has watched it?

[Joshihatsumitsu]

We just watched Hold The Dark, a new film on Netflix from the guy who directed Green Room.

I didn't really like it. It has a lot of positives. Each scene taken out of context is actually really good, but together it just didn't form a coherent story. I like films open to interpretation, but this just felt vague for the sake of it.

Tough to recommend, but I'm interested if anyone else has watched it?

I kinda felt the same way. I think the issue lies with Macon Blair's screenplay (Blue Ruin and Green Room were written, as well as directed, by Jeremy Saulnier) which compared to previous films is far more meandering. Cutting half an hour out of it's running time would improve it considerably.

There's some amazing scenes in Hold the Dark, and I would still recommend it with tempered expectations. It's definitely no Blue Ruin.

[Pitwar]

I've been catching up on Better Call Saul, and have 3 episodes of season 3 left to go, then it's on to season 4.

I'm going to say it, it's better than Breaking Bad, which was a series I adored so this is high praise indeed.

[Alex79]

I started season four last night. It's really good, but I don't know if I enjoy it more than Breaking Bad. I do think the somewhat glacial pace works, and the characters are brilliant, but I wouldn't mind a little more, I don't know, stuff happening..?

[Joshihatsumitsu]

I wanted more Timo Tjahanto on Netflix, and I got what I wanted! I recently watched Headshot (2016) and May the Devil Take You (2018).

Headshot is easily the better of the two, and it felt like a bit of a warm up to 2018's The Night Comes for Us (similar to how Merantau felt like a warm up to The Raid).

May the Devil Take You suffers a bit from it's long running time. I'm going to go with my typical solution of cut a good half hour out, and tighten it up. There's a good movie somewhere in there, and visually it's strong, but I got a bit bored at times, and while a quicker pace wouldn't have fixed everything, it would have kept my attention better.

It's not unique to that movie alone: there are plenty of Netflix movies meandering around the two hour mark, for no other reason than because they can. I used to seek out director's cuts and extended versions of films, thinking that's what the artist intended, and that the studio interfered.

But as I get older I start to prefer the theatrical cut, and realised that sometimes there's a very good reason things get left out, and usually it's a decision based on what's best for the final product, not what's best for the artist ego.

It's not always easy to take a step back from something you've injected so much of your time and effort, and to be objective, and having someone else be a little bit ruthless can make something better.

[duskvstweak]

I saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and, while I might be too old and set in my ways to ever say that Spider-Man 2 isn't my favorite, I might have to accept that this new movie might possibly be the best Spider-Man movie yet. I really enjoyed it, loved all the characters, the visual style, the music and I found it to be exciting and inspiring. It's really great, did a lot more for me than Homecoming.

Also saw Creed II. Very good movie with a little less agency than the first. But, it does a good job making all the characters sympathetic, so much so that I wasn't sure who I wanted to win the fight at the end. And Michael B. Jordan does a lot with a little in this one. If you liked Creed, or are a Rocky fan, absolutely see it.

[KSubzero1000]

I watched House of Saddam, a BBC/HBO co-production mini-series about the rise and fall of the former Iraqi dictator.

It bears most of the flaws of the made-for-TV format: The production values are rather low, it's sometimes noticeable that the actors only had a limited number of takes to perfect their scenes, and the writing suffers from the same low-rent-Godfather syndrome that the vast majority of western scripts involving violent patriarchal structures have had for the past 40+ years. But I found it rather interesting for the most part, if only because it tries to show a (mostly) local perspective on his reign and family dynamics. Not outstanding in any way, but definitely worth watching if you're interested in pseudo-documentary fiction.