I’m back on Netflix. Watched The Perfect Couple, watching Lincoln Lawyer, The Diplomat, Great British baking Show and Dinner Live Holiday Edition. And season 8 of Dexter.
3 Likes
Well, there’s a MASSIVE twist in the final episode, so the rest of the show feels like a red herring. Just stupid.
Oh my, that is intriguing. Next time I’m on Apple I’ll have to watch, just to satisfy my curiosity.
1 Like
We should have named our 15#+ black cat ‘Ferdinand’.
Spitting image (personality from the book’—I have not seen the movie). You can almost ‘see’ the daydreams.
2 Likes
I finally saw The Substance last night. I liked it. @Lectroid already put a pretty detailed review up that I mostly agree with. I picked up on the Terry Gilliam-eqsue wide angle lens stuff, while BF picked up on the Kubrik influences. Definitely a lot of Cronenberg in Act 3 with the make-up choices for the final transformation (and some Lynch Elephant Man). Very impressed with Demi Moore. I will be thinking about this one for a while.
2 Likes
meandering around. re-watching a lot of material which i’ve seen before. sometimes you want to know what you’re going to get.
somehow i found myself on Unstoppable (2010, Tony Scott). i assume it was a bomb, as i barely remember it and never thought to watch it (i’ll give anything a chance). it’s a Denzel & Chris Pine vehicle. once you’re in, it’s kind of exactly what you would expect (for better and for worse). i think the elevator pitch was: ‘what if we did Top Gun, but on a TRAIN!’ i just wanted to watch something where Denzel was doing his thing. and he did, and i loved it just for that.
4 Likes
Saw this movie a few weeks ago for the same reasons as you and was also pleasantly surprised.
1 Like
Yea we figured out the real story before the last episode so it was a bit disappointing to be right.
Season 2 of Bad Sisters up next. Season 1 was hilarious. Hope S2 doesn’t disappoint.
2 Likes
My Old Ass, with (briefly) Aubry Plaza and Maisy Stella. This is a sweet, poignant coming-to-adulthood tale, very picturesque, moderately funny. It’s also fewer than 90 minutes, so yay to that. All the performances were pretty great, but it’s not hard to figure out where the plot is going.
3 Likes
The girl was very good in it, but yeah - fairly predictable.
Ten seconds after Elliot meets Chad, and you see how nice he is, H & I turned to each other and said “Oh, he dies.”
1 Like
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut
It’s not only hilarious, its soundtrack is awesome too, as you observed. What’s particularly great about it is how perfectly it does each ‘type’ of song from a musical. The gleeful opening number (“Uncle Fucker”), the inspirational motivation song (“What would Brian Boitano Do?”) and the sincere “hope in the darkest hour” number of “La Resistance”.
It surprised me not at all that they ended up writing a critically and popularly acclaimed musical (The Book of Mormon). They clearly have both an excellent knowledge and affection for the form, to spoof it so perfectly.
3 Likes
The Rings of Power (2 seasons, on Amazon Prime)
It’s the ‘prequel’ series to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. So you might think it’s based on The Silmarilion, Tolkien’s posthumously published ‘history’ of Middle Earth. But that’s not what Amazon has rights to. They have rights to Lord of the Rings, and thus anything that’s also in the appendix of that book. The family trees and brief summaries of events serve as a jumping off point for a story that follows the big main plot points of Middle Earth “cannon” but is very much doing its own thing, pulling the story away from its more mythic proportions and instead relying on more individual conflict in a much more conventional story. The result is that it’s all VERY pretty, and it all LOOKS like LorR, but feels more like The Hobbit movies; weirdly padded with beats that seem to belong to a different type of modern story, rather than one written explicitly to resemble ancient mythology.
But still a perfectly serviceable vehicle for swords and monsters and magic and adorable Hobbits and Dwarves (the dwarves are frankly the best characters of the bunch).
My only major complaint: The actor they cast as a young Elrond looks absolutely NOTHING like Hugo Weaving. In fact, he bares a strong resemblance to Neil Patrick Harris, aka Doogie Howser. His acting is fine, but I can’t shake his adorable baby face. The rest of the cast playing roles also found in the movie (Galadriel, Gandalf) all at least look like they COULD potentially turn into Cate Blanchett or Ian McKellan.
Also, a lot of very online folks made all sorts of noise about (gasp) non-white people being cast as elves, dwarves, and hobbits, because in a world of dragons and magic rings, it’s non-racial purity that threatens their suspension of disbelief. Such concerns are, needless to say, utterly without merit. This series isn’t perfect, but darker-skinned imaginary races are not among its flaws.
3 Likes
Heretic (2024) - dir. Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) are two young Mormon missionaries, knocking on doors to speak to folks about their church. On their list is Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant), who had previously expressed interest. Grant invites the girls in, out of the impending storm, assuring them his wife is just in back making pie, and he’s anxious to speak to them about their Lord and Savior.
Mr. Reed is not being sincere. Something’s very off.
What follows is a tense horror/thriller that has all sorts of conversations about faith and belief without ever REALLY being about any of them. Grant’s Mr. Reed spouts off like a cynical college sophomore who’s a bong-rip into his new “atheism” rant. And some of the girls’ snarky or clever responses seem more like the writers being clever, rather than the characters. But the verbal gymnastics are not really the point. Or rather, the arguments they’re making aren’t. Instead, the movie takes some really interesting and unexpected turns, both in the 2nd and 3rd acts, that kept me guessing and interested in where it was all headed.
Grant is experiencing somewhat of a villainous renaissance (see The Gentlemen, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves), turning his rom-com affable charm into something creepy and oily, and it works so very well.
I give it a good 4/5 religious texts with highly questionable origins.
4 Likes
I’ve been looking for your take on this film.
Season 2 of Tulsa King dropped the fun for fury and I lost interest.
2 Likes
Great musical & lyrical talent.
BOM is one of very few musicals I can stomach. The South Park Mormon episode was a good preview.
Much prefer Grant as a creep. What a nice 2nd coming.
I felt this way about Avenue Q, which was a disturbingly accurate Sesame Street parody. South Park is pretty strictly Disney. The song “Up There” is awfully close to “Part of Their World” from The Little Mermaid.
1 Like
