TV/Movies Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

Just watched Manchester by the Sea.  Casey Affleck won best actor for playing man with tragic past tryiing to deal with tragic past.  Beautiful and heartbreaking.

[celedhring]

Manchester by the Sea is up there in my "saddest movies of all time" list.

[Josquius]

The title just irks me. I can't help but think of Manchester Manchester.
Saltburn is similar. But at least it doesn't include a geographically incorrect descriptor.

[garbon]

The title just irks me. I can't help but think of Manchester Manchester.
Saltburn is similar. But at least it doesn't include a geographically incorrect descriptor.

[Savonarola]

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

And they all lived happily ever after, or did they?

Joel McCrea is a down on his luck inventor and his wife, Claudette Colbert, decides that she's holding him back, so she comes to Palm Beach for a divorce.  On the train, after a number of misadventures, she meets a thinly veiled caricature of John D. Rockefeller played by Rudy Vallee.  Joel McCrea flies down to stop the divorce where he meets Vallee's five-times married sister (in order to make it acceptable to the Production Code, two of her marriages had been annulled), played by Mary Astor.  Colbert and McCrea pretend to be brother and sister; in comedies of this era the divorce can't go through so they get back together, but, as luck would have it both Colbert and McCrea have identical twins.  And they all lived happily ever after, or did they?

That's quite a cast, and Colbert is always a delight and it's one of Preston Sturges's fine screwball comedies. I didn't know Florida was a place for quickee divorces in the 1940s.   

[mongers]

The title just irks me. I can't help but think of Manchester Manchester.
Saltburn is similar. But at least it doesn't include a geographically incorrect descriptor.

Josq, you might like this an episode mainly about the Stockton and Darlington railway:

The Architecture the Railways Built

[mongers]

Only ever watched them on release in the cinema, so I bought the extended versions of the three Lord of the Rings films, that should keep me occupied for a few hours.   

Or looking at the runtimes, maybe a dozen.   

[Threviel]

Due to family sickness (colds and shit, nothing serious) we've been watching some series.

The English. A few years old cowboy thingy. Very very good, not a candle-lit room as far as the eye could see.

American Primeval. Wanting more westerns I started watching this. This atrociously dumb shit. Spoilers ahead which won't matter cause it sucks something fierce. Premise is good, the Utah wars just before the civil war. Mormons trying to create their own state going around killing settlers and indians and vice versa. Soldiers trying to keep the peace, but not strong enough.

We meet the protective naive mother trope, the rugged frontiersman with a heart of gold trope, the cartoonishly evil bounty hunter trope, the helpful indian girl trope (this time mute), the noble savage, and so on. Everything dialled up to 11.

The first episode is something akin to violence porn, but it feels off. It's just too much and it's dumb. For example cattle running right into a wagon that our heroine is hiding under, destroying the wagons so they have to find another hiding place. 1 singular cow is not suicidal and won't run into things head first, it may look cool but 1 second of thought and it's just dumb.

One guy gets scalped, but that's ok since he's only half scalped and then he falls asleep. The day after he wakes up again and then he only needs some stitches and he's up and about again. Everyone keeps getting punches to the head and pass out, but that's ok cause they wake up from their life altering traumatic brain injury after a few hours only to get a new one again, which again is not a problem at all.

One hero gets a supersonic arrow through his thigh, breaks of the ends sticking out and then it's never mentioned again, unless one looks closely at his limp. Which he doesn't have for long cause then he's shot and passes out from blood loss, which is not a problem cause some convenient indians take care of him for two days and he's up and about again with no ill effects.

I stopped watching, but one story line was interesting, a mormon woman on the victim side of a massacre where her husband was seemingly killed. She gets tied up for a rape-fest together with her female travelling companions and some other women. Some other group of indians arrive, kill the would-be-rapists and start slitting the throats of the women one by one. But our heroine faces her death so bravely that the noble savage of course saves her and brings her to his village. Where she's tied up outside for a few days, but that's ok cause she didn't need to go the toilet anyhow. Thoroughly traumatised as she must be I read up on wikipedia what happens to her. Apparently the noble savage, the dude that cold bloodily slit the throats of her travelling friends for no reason at all, did something nice so she fell in love or something. It's just so fucking dumb.

Anyway, not a candle-lit room as far as the eye could see so that's good at least.

[Josephus]

I liked American Primeval. I don't disagree with your comments, and god, it was ALL violence porn not just the first episode, but I found the main story engaging enough. I like westerns and there's not enough of them. I even liked Kevin Costner's recent one.

[Threviel]

Yeah, it is very much better than most TV, I'll give it that. And the visuals are stunning.

[mongers]

'Zero Day' - despite the online and some review criticisms, I enjoyed it; De Niro put in a worthy performance, not phoning it in for the pay-check.   

[Darth Wagtaros]

The Unbreakable Boy. Better than I expected, for that that is worth.

[Josquius]

Family Pack- a French made for netflix film which really has heavy vibes of being an algorithmically generated made for netflix film.
They really should have just called it La Jumanji Francaise. They don't waste time with much exposition or character introduction or anything. Just boom. Right into it. Jean Reno is a old guy with dementia whose son, who doesn't look much younger than him, and family are trying to play a board game with. Who'd have thought it they get sucked into the board game.
Its got all the depth of a foot massager. But its fun nonetheless. My resident Francophone found all the musical references particularly funny.

The title just irks me. I can't help but think of Manchester Manchester.
Saltburn is similar. But at least it doesn't include a geographically incorrect descriptor.

Josq, you might like this an episode mainly about the Stockton and Darlington railway:

The Architecture the Railways Built

"Its called the Stockton and Darlington railway but it actually runs to Shildon 8 miles beyond Darlington."
Yes. This is my thing. Thanks.

[Duque de Bragança]

Family Pack- a French made for netflix film which really has heavy vibes of being an algorithmically generated made for netflix film.
They really should have just called it La Jumanji Francaise. They don't waste time with much exposition or character introduction or anything. Just boom. Right into it. Jean Reno is a old guy with dementia whose son, who doesn't look much younger than him, and family are trying to play a board game with. Who'd have thought it they get sucked into the board game.
Its got all the depth of a foot massager. But its fun nonetheless. My resident Francophone found all the musical references particularly funny.

Loup-Garous in French, from the board game name.Not very well known, as far as I can tell. The movie, not the game.

[celedhring]

Loup Garous is very popular in Spain. It's probably the most popular social deduction game (I mean, it's just a game of Werewolf with cards and a few tokens).

Haven't seen the film, but the trailer made it look like a Jumanji clone, which is a hard pass for me.