What are you watching? - 2025

Did you see Friends From College? The trailer reminded me of that but older and less funny / interesting despite the cast.

We watched Long Bright River starting Amanda Seyfried. It was pretty good for this kind of gritty American crime drama.

2 Likes

Watched Havoc with Tom Hardy on Netflix last night, I’m a big fan of Hardy and some of his movies( Taboo, Mad Max, Peaky Blinders) but this was so bad I was actually embarrassed :disappointed:
Not sure what I was expecting, but it sure wasn’t that garbage. Even the original Venom was better than that, which I just saw on the flight back from CDMX.
Also watched the first three episodes of Severance on my flights, which I didn’t think I would enjoy but I really liked it. Maybe enough to subscribe to Apple TV?

2 Likes

I thought she was good in this. Very different for her.

1 Like

We saved the current season to binge in Berlin.

Really enjoyed the first season.

1 Like

I agree. I mostly remember her from an Atom Egoyan film, Chloe

I didn’t realize that she was in one of his 2023 film Seven Veils. Not my cup of tea so I’ll skip that one

I haven’t watched Mean Girls. I haven’t seen her in that many shows and movies.

1 Like

Big Love way back when.

1 Like

nearly finished with Towards Zero. it’s worth a look with an fantastic cast and impeccable production. kind of over-plotted like a lot of Christie, but that’s forgiven when you can watch Anjelica Huston parry with a bunch of irascible youths. it’s a bit slow to unfold, but i’m happy to hang around these brats in this lovely coastal milieu.

I love anything Agatha Christie, and I enjoyed this.

The newer makings of Christie are often a bit slicker than they need to be for the story, but that’s a small nit.

2 Likes

We finally got around to A Man on the Inside, and did a couple of mini-binges (four episodes each over two nights). Loved it, and love how it’s set up for a second season. I have no idea what he’s like in person, but Ted Danson just comes across as a really nice guy. One very small nit: When he and his daughter were supposed to be driving Interstate 80 from Sacramento to SF, in one place it clearly was NOT Interstate 80, and in another place, it looked like they were going the wrong way (cranes at a port were on the wrong side of the road).

2 Likes

Ha! I love how shows use landmarks to convey their location like they’re at the beach in Santa Monica and driving by the Hollywood sign 5 minutes later (30-40 minute drive). The show Halt and Catch Fire put everyone in Silicon Valley for the last two seasons and it drove me crazy how backgrounds in summer, when it’s very brown and dry, had obvious lush Georgia backgrounds. Shows in SF seem to have in their contracts “must have obligatory gg bridge, Lombard street and Chinatown entrance in background.”

2 Likes

When Thirtysomething was on, I’d look for palm trees in the Philadelphia neighborhood (filmed in South Pasadena, CA). There usually was one.

2 Likes

I have to remind myself to shut off my brain about this kind of stuff or it drives me crazy.

The other day we were watching a movie and one of the main characters had no highlights in one scene and highlights in the next, and I had to pause it just to yell “continuity!!!” at the screen.

Location shots that are clearly the wrong location which I’m familiar with are another of those triggers.

1 Like

Now it would be filmed in Canada!

1 Like

The Facebook movie (The Social Network) was filmed at Johns Hopkins, not Harvard, and friends of mine who went to the latter kept naming their campus buildings from scene to scene :joy: We had to rewatch the movie to actually catch what was happening aside from the campus tour :rofl:

3 Likes

I felt that way about Lola Rennt.

Her path is impossible if you know the layout of the city.

That incongruity happens a lot in famous locations, of course, but folks who don’t know the city would never notice :slightly_smiling_face:

2 Likes

Agreed on Havoc, I didn’t even finish. Mob Land is pretty good, on Paramount or Peacock. It’s a good cast, somewhat predictable. Helen Mirren ad Pierce Brosnan make an interesting couple.

2 Likes

It’s the time of the year, here in north/western Europe, where we remember the end of the second world war. Today is remembrance day in the Netherlands and tomorrow liberation day (day off from work!). So, that means I’ll be watching more war movies than usual. Just finished watching The Great Escape, with Steve McQueen. Not as good as I had remembered, but still okay, if only to watch McQueen, who has become somewhat of a cult figure in men’s wear these days.

A while ago I rewatched Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1987?), about the US of A fighting in Vietnam. Which is now also being remembered I believe (50 years since its end). The movie is wonderful, one of the better/best movies about this episode in history and even among war movies in general. Read an article the other day how failing in the Vietnam war is still subconsciously at play in current day US’ affairs.

Just started Band of Brothers now, the mini series. On HBO max. Tonight our local tv will show oscar winner La Vita è Bella, but I won’t be watching (too heart breaking in my memory). If one gets the chance to see our country’s most famous director’s (Paul Verhoeven of Robocop/Showgirls’ fame) war movie Soldier of Orange please do, it’s still probably my favourite war movie of all time.

5 Likes

Totally agree with you on Platoon. I made my 16 year old son watch it before we went to Vietnam on holiday, so he had some idea of the background to what has happened there not so long ago. We visited the War Remnants museum in HCMC - my son couldn’t bear to look at some of the exhibits and had to walk out. Our tour guide also didn’t come into the museum with us, she said it made her too sad and she already knew of the extent of the tragedy that had befallen the country through war.

In Vietnam, they call it the American War!

4 Likes

Will try and check it out, thanks for the recommendation.

My favourite war (really, anti-war) movie of all time is Grave of the Fireflies, set in Japan towards the end of WW2:

It is based on a book written by a Japanese survivor of WW2, depicting his own experience of losing his younger sister to starvation after they were orphaned in the war. The film is from Studio Ghibli and is absolutely heartbreaking.

3 Likes