Okay, just watched the first episode of the new season of Sherlock.
Spoilers ahead. Maybe. I dunno. But there's a good chance.
*****
Uh oh. That was pretty bad. I didn't expect it to be that bad.
The whole Sherlock-is-back thing was handled so awkwardly. The entire episode was awkward. Also, kind of formulaic.
Oh, great, we have a new evil mastermind.
So, Watson's girlfriend may or may not be more than she seems. She knew what a skip code was, and seemed way too eager to get Watson and Holmes back together again.
Y'know what, I don't even feel like typing anymore about this show. I'll see if it picks up in the next episode. Not too confident.
Oh, yeah, would've been cool if they could've spent more time showing the London underground train system and even that train geek's model train in his home. But that's just the train geek in me speaking, not a criticism of the show.
I really liked Sherlock. Oh well. After casting about a bit we're now working our way through It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia which is Hilarious. I watched Style Wars the other day - highly recommend that. Also watched Barbarella; that's pretty awful, and a little bit awesome too. It's awfome. We also recently started Game of Thrones. And then slightly later finished all three back seasons. We both loved that too. Complaints though - my wife really hates seeing Dire Wolves or Horses get killed. I kind of wonder if it's going anywhere. I mean you could just sort of infinitely go on with things slowly happening couldn't you. But oh well, if it doesn't really get anywhere I'm fine, I just would prefer that at some point they just leave off though, rather than somehow trying to shoehorn everything into a nonsense ending - I'm looking at you Lost- I was fine with your meandering, but not so fine with that ending. Although I guess it could have been worse. I guess most of that belonged in a different thread /laz
Is Fishing With John still on streaming? That I highly, highly recommend. Ooh and also we both love, love, loved An Idiot Abroad. I can't remember when I ever laughed so hard at tv; maybe late period Seinfeld. But if you try Idiot and don't like it, I don't wanna hear about it. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea. But we loved it.
More Sherlock: I knew that they were going to run through the possible resolutions of the cliffhanger, so I was expecting an episode more dedicated to metacriticism of fanboy/comic book logic than a new mystery. Moreover, the resolution of the first series cliffhanger was so random, I was not expecting much. On the other hand, I feel that the dismantling of Moriarty's organization was far too trivialized.
I want to see season three of Sherlock now that it's streaming. I'm rewatching the first two seasons with my wife. The dialogue in most BBC shows alway seems so much smarter than so many American shows. Sherlock's contempt for the police in the first episode of season one is hilarious.
New Luther episodes will have to wait until Wednesday.
Muscles Shoals: good documentary, nothing controversial. Could have given more details about the Hall-Wexler feud and explain why Hall was adverse to recording later Rock bands. Thanks, BigD
Europa Report: a smart space opera in the style of 2001. Among the better uses of the found-footage style.
Last Days on Mars: unwatchable.
Flyboys: by the numbers war drama taking place in WWI. Complex dog fighting scenes that captivated my son.
Happy People: Werner Herzong on autopilot. Not deep.
Final Countdown: more of an old friend than a decent movie. Indeed, there's almost no story, just a lot of cool planes.
Sand Pebbles: AWESOME. I can't believe I never watched this before.
I've been streaming a little more this summer. Netflix has always had a good selection of off the path stuff:
John Dies at the End. A very trippy horror/sci-fi movie. One part Burroughs Naked Lunch and the other part, some kind of college age stoner party movie.
Rid of Me. A women moves to her husband's hometown after he lost a job. His annoying friends are mean to her and he leaves her for his old high school flame. Thanks to punk rock she gets over his boring self. Also a fairly decent representation of depression.
Catching up on this thread - somehow missed it for a few months. A couple of totally separate things I've read this week that are relevant to earlier discussions
Sherlock - it has been announced that there will be a Christmas special filmed in early 2015 plus a new three part series to be filmed later in 2015, so it is going to be a while before we see it on our screens again.
Elites in Britain - I was only reading this night. On average if you attend an independent, fee paying school in the UK compared to a state school, with equivalent qualifications you will earn over £200,000 more by the time you are 50. I know where I went wrong - I had the wrong parents!!
@greg, unless there is more data that sounds as if it could potentially be more correlation than causation (i.e. Maybe having the kind of parents that can send you to fee paying schools gives you advantages that lead to certain economic outcomes apart from, or at least in tandem with, whatever the school is or is not doing relative to state schools. I wonder, was there any sign in the did of effort to tease out any of that kind of thing? Without it the stat is kind of limited in what we can infer from it.
My wife and I were blown away by the first episodes of The Paradise. It's an adaptation of Zola's Au bonheur des dames, although it seems to focus more exclusively on the department store as an organism without attending to Zola's broader social tableau. There's a unique take on pleasure and comportment. The direction is a treat, owing much to Tavernier and Malle.
I really need to get caught up on this thread. I have been watching a bunch of movies on Netflix lately. Let's start with the one I saw last night...
Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
So, it's a documentary about born again christians in their twenties making money at blackjack by learning how to count cards. They don't call it gambling. They call it taking from the casinos. The movie had some promise, but ultimately had all the drama and insight of an average episode of "Extreme Couponing."
It has some hidden camera footage of them in casinos doing their thing, but only tiny snippets. Lots of interviews with themselves. They love being interviewed.
The things that could've been compelling, like how they built their group up, how they went about getting the financing, that all gets glossed over pretty quickly. The grind of going from casino to casino on a long trip (they often get recognized as card counters and get kicked out) could've been interesting, but they do too many interviews with a close-up shot, thus negating any opportunity for the viewer to get a sense of the passing of time and place.
Some of them are kind of whiny.
The most telling moment is when they bring in a non-Christian to their club. From the clips they've shown, apparently he was one of their bigger winners. But, also, apparently, from at least one interview, there was one (or more) people in the club who didn't like that there was a "non-believer" in the group. Eventually he gets kicked out because one member says that god told him that the non-believer was stealing from the group. At first the guy said that two other people told him that, but when pressed on it, he said, no, it was just god.
This guy sounded very loopy during the interview.
Naturally, the group kicked out the non-believer.
They spend a lot of time justifying their gambling and how it doesn't say anything bad about their faith or their religion, but then, ultimately, they go and put a huge black mark against organized religion in the end. Despite how loopy that one member sounded, they'd rather not question his faith, and decided it's easier to question the integrity of a member who doesn't share their own faith. So, they kick him out and say several times on camera, oh, no it's not because we thought he was stealing... even though, of course, it was discussion of theft that brought it all up in the first place.
They were losing lots of money, and they couldn't figure out why. "The math says we shouldn't be losing!" - like I said, whiny.
They keep making these passive aggressive statements scattered throughout the movie, stuff like, well, there's got to a be a reason we're not making money. I mean, it couldn't be that someone here is stealing, because we're all good christians.
What a great opportunity to use the non-believer as a scapegoat.
But he's not the only one they kick out of the club. After the first half of the movie sets up how it's faith first, gambling second and how important their friendly gatherings are to them (we're all family here kind of thing), when the losing continues, they begin kicking their "family" out of the club by letting go members who aren't winning at cards. Guh.
Also, way too many shots of these guys holding up cash and then talking about how much money they made in comparison to the number of hours they "worked" (gambled) to get it. They even have a little graphic under each of those shots like they would on Extreme Couponing... $2,200 for 27 hours of work! Whatever.
I kept thinking the movie was going to get better, but it got gradually worse, and then I reached that tipping point of Netflix streaming, where I've gone this far so I may as well finish it off, because it'll just take me a half-hour before I find something else to watch.
This movie wasn't very good. I watched it so you didn't have to.
And actually, one of the aspects of the first half of the movie that did work well was the shots of them in various religious activities... in church leading a sermon or playing music before an assembly in various churches or house gatherings or in parks... y'know, doing the stuff that they do for their particular religion. I also thought it would've been compelling to hear they fit in gambling with their religious teaching, and a one or two of them had some thoughtful comments and expressed some very human doubts about how it all worked. One in particular resolved that conflict by just stating very honestly how much he hated casinos and how he thought they were black hole of human existence... that kind of "hating" was right up my alley.
But too many others tried to turn it into some noble venture, that their cause was just so they could do no wrong kind of thing (which the film proved otherwise). Not surprisingly, it's the others that came off a bit whiny.
Man, I really need to go through my recent viewing history. I know I've seen better ones than this lately.
-A whole bunch of interviews & vignettes of truckers across America. Surprisingly watchable and engaging. None of the interviews goes on for too long to get tedious but they aren't also all too short to where it just seems like a lot of sound bites. A range of topics covered, but mostly around the job of trucking. The best part of the film is the b-roll... which is OUTSTANDING. All the shots of backroads, of truck stops and countryside, of cities and ports and loading facilities... it so puts you in the scene. It's very similar to the way that True Detective really finds the beauty and ugliness simultaneously of its "territory."
Definitely recommend it for that. And if the interviews get tedious for you, then put on a favorite album and watch it on mute.
I expected it was going to be something I watched for two minutes then quit, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Good stuff.
-A three-part "movie" that has Daniel Craig as some sort of Russian history professor specialist dude who, while visiting Russia, is turned onto this conspiracy about Stalin from some old-school soldier.
Each of the three parts gets increasingly hokey. The writing is only mediocre. The acting is pretty bad, too. Craig looks embarrassed to even be on set at times. But, good god, I'm not sure I've seen footage of how brutally depressing Russia is post-Communism. There's some fantastic scenes that really bring Russia into the forefront. The city shots are best, but the backwoods and small town shots are just as good. I wasn't particularly taken with the movie, but I'm glad I watched it the one time for the scenery.
@CWO0 - I totally know what you mean about secondary material. It's where I spend most of my time on Netflix (not counting endless reruns of a couple tv shows).
Another recent one:
Dark Portals: The Chronicles of Vidocq
-This was a strange one. The real reason to watch the thing is the way it was shot. It's like some sort of glaring hyper-realism, where all the details are brought to the forefront and everything else is right in your face. The colors are brilliant. The sound is odd. Y'know what, here's a screenshot or three...
It's a murder mystery with a strong mystical bent. The movie throws you right into the mix and expects you to catch up, but doesn't make it too difficult. It's in French w/English subtitles. I didn't find this distracting. The filming, as I mentioned, is fantastic. It's a well written story and the acting was decent and appropriate for the scenes and story, which are kind of over-the-top. There are some beautiful scenes and some brutal ones, too... kind of a mix of Great Gatsby (new version) and The Cell (old version). Or, perhaps, to use a music reference... it's not unlike the REM "Losing My Religion" video... but even bolder.
Anyways, I really enjoyed it for many reasons, and found myself searching to see if they'd made any others in the "chronicles." Unfortunately, it appears there's nothing else.
This made for a really good, winter weekend afternoon movie.
I just had Danger 5 recommended to me recently and started watching it. It's a campy spy tv show about a group of Allied spies trying to take out Hitler and his talking attack dogs, dinosaurs, robot humans, and converted Allied soldiers. It's from Australia and made just a few years ago. A little of Archer, that movie with puppet spies, and bad 60's tv shows.
My favorite quirk: Characters that provide a mixed drink recipe right before dying
I just got a Netflix subscription and have been enjoying the music documentaries. In the past couple of weeks I've watched docs on Big Star, Ginger Baker, Muscle Shoals, Kathleen Hanna, and last year's Oscar winner, 20 Feet From Stardom. All really good. Also started binge-watching Breaking Bad and have cranked (pun intended) through the first two seasons.
This really ought to be filed under Guilty As Hell Pleasures, but Netflix now has all four seasons of Spartacus - all the graphic novel style blood and over the top gore anyone could hope for, and naked bodies of all description - it was ancient Rome after all. The star of Season 1 became ill with some kind of leukemia and ultimately passed away, so Season 2 became a prequel, then they brought in a new Spartacus for Seasons 3 and 4. It is a festival of questionable taste, but we liked it.
Anybody else watching Daredevil? I'm hooked, but then I am a comic book guy, and in fact read the run of Frank Miller DD comics that inspired this series. As it's shaping up, the most interesting character is the villainous Kingpin, hulkingly played by Vincent D'Onofrio.
Daredevil is a blind attorney whose other senses are super-heightened; otherwise no powers beyond the ability to give and take a punch. His spleen must have been ruptured 5 or 6 times now, it would seem to me. It is building into an absorbing show, but you must have some tolerance for violence. There is a memorable moment when an SUV is creatively used as a murder weapon, for example.
I have that one on my mental list for when I get to it - I've seen it recommended elsewhere. I'm still working on TNG (reached season 3, episode 13), which at my rate of TV consumption (maybe an episode every couple of weeks if I think of it) is going to take a while. I have made it to the last episode of Ken Burns jazz too, which enjoys the advantage of being more compatible with a glass of wine with my wife.
I've gotten through about half of Daredevil and enjoy it. The action sequences in particular are really well done. That scene when he's totally broken and still goes to rescue the boy was amazing - total Oldboy. It's very interesting to me because he's one of those characters that I know practically nothing about. I mean, I don't think I even knew he was blind until Stick and Elektra showed up in a Wolverine comic...
We did finally finish The X-Files, and I even sucked up and watched the last season. While there's lots of "if only they had a smartphone" moments, the show holds up remarkably well and Gillian Anderson is simply the best. The 2 replacements might have even worked if they hadn't tried so hard to immediately shove them down our throats as the next Mulder and Scully (seriously, his kid was killed instead of his sister abducted, the skeptic/believer roles were there but reversed, possible love interest was touched on almost immediately). Most of all it was really cool to realize just how influential the show was.
For anyone interested in horror movies, I highly recommend The Babadook - currently streaming. The first half is a little rough, but the second half is freakin' great.
Ok, sometimes you just have to use a computer instead of a phone...
Rather quickly binge finished Daredevil already, loved it!
D'Onofrio made a great Kingpin, awesome bad guy, but somehow managed to remain a little bit of sympathetic character I thought.
I never was much of a comic book guy, but Daredevil was always a personal favorite; I think because he was the man without fear, which seemed to be his real power, and seemed pretty cool to a kid with lots of fears.
I was glad they did a good job with it; happy to see there's a couple more small hero series coming too (one stars the junkie girlfriend from Breaking Bad).
I also really liked the way they made it play into the devastation from the Avengers movie.
For anyone interested in horror movies, I highly recommend The Babadook - currently streaming. The first half is a little rough, but the second half is freakin' great.
I'd also suggest "Housebound", a New Zealand horror comedy that I accidentally discovered recently.
And Frank! How could I forget to recommend that here. Really enjoyed it. So much fun for anyone who likes the indie music scene and worries about taking things too seriously. Yet another fake band in a movie whose music I love.
Pretty stupendous event in one of the latter (11, I think) episodes of Daredevil. Not sure when a show has hooked me so much in that 'what happens next' way. I may avoid this thread until I've watched the last couple episodes!
Interested in seeing Grace & Frankie with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. And I'll be able to watch it with my wife, who justifiably can't handle the violence in DD.
Comments
Spoilers ahead. Maybe. I dunno. But there's a good chance.
*****
Uh oh. That was pretty bad. I didn't expect it to be that bad.
The whole Sherlock-is-back thing was handled so awkwardly. The entire episode was awkward. Also, kind of formulaic.
Oh, great, we have a new evil mastermind.
So, Watson's girlfriend may or may not be more than she seems. She knew what a skip code was, and seemed way too eager to get Watson and Holmes back together again.
Y'know what, I don't even feel like typing anymore about this show. I'll see if it picks up in the next episode. Not too confident.
Oh, yeah, would've been cool if they could've spent more time showing the London underground train system and even that train geek's model train in his home. But that's just the train geek in me speaking, not a criticism of the show.
/furniture
Is Fishing With John still on streaming? That I highly, highly recommend. Ooh and also we both love, love, loved An Idiot Abroad. I can't remember when I ever laughed so hard at tv; maybe late period Seinfeld. But if you try Idiot and don't like it, I don't wanna hear about it. It's probably not everyone's cup of tea. But we loved it.
Test edit
Muscles Shoals: good documentary, nothing controversial. Could have given more details about the Hall-Wexler feud and explain why Hall was adverse to recording later Rock bands. Thanks, BigD
Europa Report: a smart space opera in the style of 2001. Among the better uses of the found-footage style.
Last Days on Mars: unwatchable.
Flyboys: by the numbers war drama taking place in WWI. Complex dog fighting scenes that captivated my son.
Happy People: Werner Herzong on autopilot. Not deep.
Final Countdown: more of an old friend than a decent movie. Indeed, there's almost no story, just a lot of cool planes.
Sand Pebbles: AWESOME. I can't believe I never watched this before.
John Dies at the End. A very trippy horror/sci-fi movie. One part Burroughs Naked Lunch and the other part, some kind of college age stoner party movie.
Rid of Me. A women moves to her husband's hometown after he lost a job. His annoying friends are mean to her and he leaves her for his old high school flame. Thanks to punk rock she gets over his boring self. Also a fairly decent representation of depression.
Sherlock - it has been announced that there will be a Christmas special filmed in early 2015 plus a new three part series to be filmed later in 2015, so it is going to be a while before we see it on our screens again.
Elites in Britain - I was only reading this night. On average if you attend an independent, fee paying school in the UK compared to a state school, with equivalent qualifications you will earn over £200,000 more by the time you are 50. I know where I went wrong - I had the wrong parents!!
Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians
So, it's a documentary about born again christians in their twenties making money at blackjack by learning how to count cards. They don't call it gambling. They call it taking from the casinos. The movie had some promise, but ultimately had all the drama and insight of an average episode of "Extreme Couponing."
It has some hidden camera footage of them in casinos doing their thing, but only tiny snippets. Lots of interviews with themselves. They love being interviewed.
The things that could've been compelling, like how they built their group up, how they went about getting the financing, that all gets glossed over pretty quickly. The grind of going from casino to casino on a long trip (they often get recognized as card counters and get kicked out) could've been interesting, but they do too many interviews with a close-up shot, thus negating any opportunity for the viewer to get a sense of the passing of time and place.
Some of them are kind of whiny.
The most telling moment is when they bring in a non-Christian to their club. From the clips they've shown, apparently he was one of their bigger winners. But, also, apparently, from at least one interview, there was one (or more) people in the club who didn't like that there was a "non-believer" in the group. Eventually he gets kicked out because one member says that god told him that the non-believer was stealing from the group. At first the guy said that two other people told him that, but when pressed on it, he said, no, it was just god.
This guy sounded very loopy during the interview.
Naturally, the group kicked out the non-believer.
They spend a lot of time justifying their gambling and how it doesn't say anything bad about their faith or their religion, but then, ultimately, they go and put a huge black mark against organized religion in the end. Despite how loopy that one member sounded, they'd rather not question his faith, and decided it's easier to question the integrity of a member who doesn't share their own faith. So, they kick him out and say several times on camera, oh, no it's not because we thought he was stealing... even though, of course, it was discussion of theft that brought it all up in the first place.
They were losing lots of money, and they couldn't figure out why. "The math says we shouldn't be losing!" - like I said, whiny.
They keep making these passive aggressive statements scattered throughout the movie, stuff like, well, there's got to a be a reason we're not making money. I mean, it couldn't be that someone here is stealing, because we're all good christians.
What a great opportunity to use the non-believer as a scapegoat.
But he's not the only one they kick out of the club. After the first half of the movie sets up how it's faith first, gambling second and how important their friendly gatherings are to them (we're all family here kind of thing), when the losing continues, they begin kicking their "family" out of the club by letting go members who aren't winning at cards. Guh.
Also, way too many shots of these guys holding up cash and then talking about how much money they made in comparison to the number of hours they "worked" (gambled) to get it. They even have a little graphic under each of those shots like they would on Extreme Couponing... $2,200 for 27 hours of work! Whatever.
I kept thinking the movie was going to get better, but it got gradually worse, and then I reached that tipping point of Netflix streaming, where I've gone this far so I may as well finish it off, because it'll just take me a half-hour before I find something else to watch.
This movie wasn't very good. I watched it so you didn't have to.
You're welcome
/monies
But too many others tried to turn it into some noble venture, that their cause was just so they could do no wrong kind of thing (which the film proved otherwise). Not surprisingly, it's the others that came off a bit whiny.
Man, I really need to go through my recent viewing history. I know I've seen better ones than this lately.
Big Rig
-A whole bunch of interviews & vignettes of truckers across America. Surprisingly watchable and engaging. None of the interviews goes on for too long to get tedious but they aren't also all too short to where it just seems like a lot of sound bites. A range of topics covered, but mostly around the job of trucking. The best part of the film is the b-roll... which is OUTSTANDING. All the shots of backroads, of truck stops and countryside, of cities and ports and loading facilities... it so puts you in the scene. It's very similar to the way that True Detective really finds the beauty and ugliness simultaneously of its "territory."
Definitely recommend it for that. And if the interviews get tedious for you, then put on a favorite album and watch it on mute.
I expected it was going to be something I watched for two minutes then quit, but I enjoyed the whole thing. Good stuff.
Archangel
-A three-part "movie" that has Daniel Craig as some sort of Russian history professor specialist dude who, while visiting Russia, is turned onto this conspiracy about Stalin from some old-school soldier.
Each of the three parts gets increasingly hokey. The writing is only mediocre. The acting is pretty bad, too. Craig looks embarrassed to even be on set at times. But, good god, I'm not sure I've seen footage of how brutally depressing Russia is post-Communism. There's some fantastic scenes that really bring Russia into the forefront. The city shots are best, but the backwoods and small town shots are just as good. I wasn't particularly taken with the movie, but I'm glad I watched it the one time for the scenery.
Another recent one:
Dark Portals: The Chronicles of Vidocq
-This was a strange one. The real reason to watch the thing is the way it was shot. It's like some sort of glaring hyper-realism, where all the details are brought to the forefront and everything else is right in your face. The colors are brilliant. The sound is odd. Y'know what, here's a screenshot or three...
It's a murder mystery with a strong mystical bent. The movie throws you right into the mix and expects you to catch up, but doesn't make it too difficult. It's in French w/English subtitles. I didn't find this distracting. The filming, as I mentioned, is fantastic. It's a well written story and the acting was decent and appropriate for the scenes and story, which are kind of over-the-top. There are some beautiful scenes and some brutal ones, too... kind of a mix of Great Gatsby (new version) and The Cell (old version). Or, perhaps, to use a music reference... it's not unlike the REM "Losing My Religion" video... but even bolder.
Anyways, I really enjoyed it for many reasons, and found myself searching to see if they'd made any others in the "chronicles." Unfortunately, it appears there's nothing else.
This made for a really good, winter weekend afternoon movie.
testing
We did finally finish The X-Files, and I even sucked up and watched the last season. While there's lots of "if only they had a smartphone" moments, the show holds up remarkably well and Gillian Anderson is simply the best. The 2 replacements might have even worked if they hadn't tried so hard to immediately shove them down our throats as the next Mulder and Scully (seriously, his kid was killed instead of his sister abducted, the skeptic/believer roles were there but reversed, possible love interest was touched on almost immediately). Most of all it was really cool to realize just how influential the show was.
For anyone interested in horror movies, I highly recommend The Babadook - currently streaming. The first half is a little rough, but the second half is freakin' great.
Rather quickly binge finished Daredevil already, loved it!
D'Onofrio made a great Kingpin, awesome bad guy, but somehow managed to remain a little bit of sympathetic character I thought.
I never was much of a comic book guy, but Daredevil was always a personal favorite; I think because he was the man without fear, which seemed to be his real power, and seemed pretty cool to a kid with lots of fears.
I was glad they did a good job with it; happy to see there's a couple more small hero series coming too (one stars the junkie girlfriend from Breaking Bad).
I also really liked the way they made it play into the devastation from the Avengers movie.
Just watched this and really liked it and could imagine people here liking it.
And Frank! How could I forget to recommend that here. Really enjoyed it. So much fun for anyone who likes the indie music scene and worries about taking things too seriously. Yet another fake band in a movie whose music I love.