Now Watching, Films/ movies discussion Options

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

The first 3 were fun. Lots of excitement, lots of adventure. I especially enjoyed that all the main characters had their own agendas, and were often quite willing to stab the others in the back to fulfill said agendas. Fun movies.

The latter two were pretty much just cash grabs by Johnny Depp and Disney. Nothing really special to be honest.

I mostly agree, though I will say I will watch the 4th one just for Penélope Cruz as Angelica.

But yeah, the 4th and 5th were not great.

[SubRosa]

I am watching the 'new' Race To Witch Mountain, with The Rock. One of the kids is Alexander Ludwig, back when he was little, before he became Cato the Elder, or Bjorn Ironsides. Wow, it is wild to see him so young.

Twice now the film had two cosplayers dressed like stormtroopers. That got my attention because this is a Disney movie. But it was made in 2009, 4 years before Disney bought Lucasfilm. If some other company did this now, Disney would sue them. They sued a day care center for having a mural of Winnie the Pooh.

[treydog]

Watched the first installment of the "Grant" mini-series on the History Channel- (which was actually showing "history" for a change!)

The material is first rate- I have some doubts about the accuracy of certain design elements, but the factual parts, as well as the acting, are quite good.

However, we sat through 2 hours, of which it seemed at least HALF was repetitive ads. We will wait for the other 2 installments to be available in a different format.

[mALX]

Watched the first installment of the "Grant" mini-series on the History Channel- (which was actually showing "history" for a change!)

The material is first rate- I have some doubts about the accuracy of certain design elements, but the factual parts, as well as the acting, are quite good.

However, we sat through 2 hours, of which it seemed at least HALF was repetitive ads. We will wait for the other 2 installments to be available in a different format.

I almost watched this too! I really wanted to see it; but at the last minute a friend called and we ended up talking through it.

What really bothers me about the electronic recording devices that the cable TV and Satellite use now is that you can no longer edit out the commercials while taping these things (or even after it is taped) like you used to be able to with the VCRs. Really irritating; because the constant ads end up draining my interest in the shows based on their sheer number of interruptions and length of time I have to wait through each before seeing the show I was trying to watch each time.

So yeah; I'll wait till it comes out in some other format too.

[Renee]

Ikea Heights. It is a soap opera which takes place entirely in an Ikea store. It is hilarious.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9gkYw35Vws

Supposedly, Ikea workers and management had no idea what was going on. This is real!

[SubRosa]

I watched the first two episodes of Stargirl. It is good. I enjoyed it a lot. It is a very fun show. The beginning was a little confusing, as it starts out in what seems like the 50s. Then it fast-forwards a decade, to the current day. So that was not the 50s. In a couple scenes one of the characters is looking at a villain's dossier, and it lists his date of birth as being in 1971. So that opening scene had to be at least 1990 something, if not later. Maybe 2010.

But other than that oddness, it is enjoyable. I like the characters, I like the setup for the story. I look forward to more.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Decided to give Avatar: The Last Airbender a go since the whole series was recently released on Netflix. I’m only a few episodes into it. It’s a Nickelodeon show so it’s very kiddish, but I can see that it has potential to be a fun series.

[SubRosa]

I just finished watching 4 episodes of the live action Moribito series on Amazon. Sadly, those are the only ones they have, even though I think there are over a dozen episodes. There is also an older anime: Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, that I saw years ago. These new live action episodes are an hour each, and roughly tell the same story as that the anime did. They do it a lot quicker, as it all wraps up about 2/3rds though the fourth episode. Then it starts into what is clearly a new arc.

If you do watch them, do it in this order:
Guardian of the Spirit
The Hunter and the Hunted
Fight to the Death
Trail of Blood

It was good, really good. It stars Haruka Ayase, who is just awesome. She also starred in Ichi from some years back. While it is a Japanese production, and the actors and spoken language are Japanese, the setting feels more like Korea. It is an Asian fantasy world. So I guess where Westerners think of a fantasy world as Merry Olde England, Japanese think of it as Merry Olde Silla. Which is not a slam. It just might look more like a Korean show than a Japanese one.

Both the live action series and the older anime are based on a book series by Nahoko Uehashi. I am seriously tempted to pick up the first one and give it a read. She really builds a rich and engaging fantasy world, and peoples it with interesting characters.

[Decrepit]

Criterion recently released the movie 1985 Russian anti-war film Come and See on DVD and Blu-ray. This movie has been on my want-lest for years. I decided to take the plunge. Ordered it off Amazon. It arrived Friday, 10 Jul 2020. I watched it that afternoon. Magnificent! Harrowing too.

For those not in the know (and those that are, I suppose), the film follows a Belarus youngster as he joins the 'resistance', then experiences the horrors of war. Extreme horrors, realistically portrayed. We first see him as an innocent, naive, eager recruit. Ere film's end he has morphed into something quite different.

As you might imagine, I give the film my highest recommendation. Well, so long as you aren't looking for lighthearted entertainment.

[SubRosa]

I watched The Old Guard today on Netflix. It was good. A solid sci-fi movie about a group of immortals. Charlize Theron once again rules as an Action Girl, and Kiki Layne is really good as the literal new blood. I loved her character's name - Nile. The story is simple, but good. The characters are well written, with each one having a solid background that clearly informs their actions. So you look back and think, of course he did that, how could he not have?

It was definitely a big step up from the last Netfix action movie I saw - Extraction. That was just gun porn. This is gun porn with a story and characters and heart.

The ending sets up a sequel, which I hope happens.

[SubRosa]

Just finished watching Terminator: Dark Fate. I wish I had seen it sooner, because it was really good. Linda Hamilton returns as the most awesome grandma in the world. And Ahnold is as cool as ever. They are not the real stars though. Mackenzie Davis and Natalia Reyes are.

I like that unlike the last few Terminator attempts, they did not stick with the Skynet is still sending robots back to kill John Conner. The movie starts with John Conner being killed by a Terminator. Apparently more than one had been sent back, and even though they had stopped Skynet, those other Terminators were still running around in the past, even though their own future had been unmade. It was one of those Terminators that did the deed.

So who is the big bad this time around? An AI called Legion developed by someone other than Cyberdyne, for different reasons. Similar result though. A Terminator is sent back to kill Natalia Reyes, and Mackenzie Davis is an augmented resistance fighter sent to rescue her. Mackenzie was awesome. I loved the scars that covered her body. You could see where they vivisected her in order to implant her cybernetic parts.

The new Terminator was really cool too. It was really two Terminators in one. There was a flowy, gooey one like the one Robert Patrick played in T2. And it had sort of a base unit that was similar to one of the T-800s without any skin. The gooey part normally rides on the endoskeleton, and does all its normal mimicking stuff, and creating weapons from its body, and so on. But it can also jump off the endoskeleton, and the two act autonomously.

Anway, fun movie. Well worth the watch.

[mirocu]

Saw two episodes of American Dad last night, and one of them was really good! Not only better than a filler episode, but better than an above average episode!


It involved Stan finding an old fat TV. It was busted up but seemingly not broken but when he got it home he couldn't get any station to work on it, no matter how he twisted the antennas. It just produced static. But as he was fiddling with it late at night in the basement, something suddenly popped on. It was a leisure type of show from the 60s where the courteous presenter in a skyline apartment had some well-dressed guests mingling with cocktails all while smooth jazz was being played and everything had a nice, calm atmosphere. A really feelgood type of thing.

However, it was all a bit weird. For starters, the TV only ever showed the same episode over and over again, night after night. There was never a new episode, only re-runs of the same one. Also, Stan begun to notice oddities within that very same episode. While the presenter always said the same lines and it was all the same overall, suddenly there was a different waitress serving drinks by the piano and a character could be missing from a scene or added. This led Stan to start taking notes, writing down all his observations and of course some humorous theories and deductions.
Wanting to find out more about the show, Stan went to the local TV station in order to ask as the internet came up with nothing. The TV station however was unhelpful too as the manager denied ever having aired a show like that ever. Stan did get help though as other persons had asked about the show before and the manager knew where they were meeting up to discuss it.

Stan decided to meet up with them but when he entered the room (in a library I think) there was only one person there. All the others had disappeared. The remaining guy freaked Stan out though with his quirky behaviour so he rushed home to continue making observations on his own. However, that very night as he was watching the same episode once again, another character had been introduced. Someone he recognized.

It was the guy from the meeting.

[Decrepit]

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Still, it saddens me to announce the death of Golden Era Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, 1 Jul 1916 - 25 Jul 2020.

(For you younglings, she played a leading role in the 1939 Gone With the Wind and was Errol Flynn's love-interest in a string of classic Hollywood swashbucklers, including one of my all-time favorites, The Adventures of Robin Hood.

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Still, it saddens me to announce the death of Golden Era Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, 1 Jul 1916 - 25 Jul 2020.

(For you younglings, she played a leading role in the 1939 Gone With the Wind and was Errol Flynn's love-interest in a string of classic Hollywood swashbucklers, including one of my all-time favorites, The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Yeah saw this on the news the other day. It’s sad, but, boy, what a life span! RIP Ms. de Havilland.

[mALX]

It was bound to happen sooner rather than later. Still, it saddens me to announce the death of Golden Era Hollywood legend Olivia de Havilland, 1 Jul 1916 - 25 Jul 2020.

(For you younglings, she played a leading role in the 1939 Gone With the Wind and was Errol Flynn's love-interest in a string of classic Hollywood swashbucklers, including one of my all-time favorites, The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Yeah saw this on the news the other day. It’s sad, but, boy, what a life span! RIP Ms. de Havilland.

Ditto what Khajiit said. 104 years; that is a wonderfully long and full life.

[Dark Reaper]

Well...I learned Seagulls don't just eat rabbits but can inhale the poor things ! Keep small pets away from seagulls.

This post has been edited by Dark Reaper: Aug 1 2020, 03:35 AM

[TheCheshireKhajiit]

Well...I learned Seagulls don't just eat rabbits but can inhale the poor things ! Keep small pets away from seagulls.

This post has been edited by TheCheshireKhajiit: Aug 1 2020, 12:05 PM

[Dark Reaper]

So...beautiful!

[Decrepit]

I finished watching this excellent documentary:

(YouTube Video) "What Happened To Herculaneum? | The Other Pompeii | Absolute History" (YouTube Video)

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Aug 8 2020, 01:22 AM

[SubRosa]

I finished watching the first season of Stargirl today. It was fun! A good show, with interesting characters. The bad guys are menacing, and tend to kill each other more than anyone else. We see all of the heroes grow into their parts. The plot is nothing special, but it does have its twists and turns that work. Definitely great for binging.