TV/Movies Megathread

[celedhring]

Oooh, a WWI Hollywood film. This wasn't on my radar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcmZN0Mbl04

Rumor is that it's shot to look like a single take like Birdman. I kinda hope that's not the case, it would feel gimmicky.

[Admiral Yi]

Was all of birdman one ginormous take?

[Savonarola]

Interstellar (2014)

Blight is destroying crops and depriving the earth of oxygen!  If we don't leave for the stars we're all going to die!  Mankind's fate rests in the hands of Matthew McConaughey; so, yeah, we're doomed.  Don't worry, though, he has brainy chick Anne Hathaway (the actress, not the wife of William Shakespeare) to help him, so, yeah, we're doomed, DOOMED, DOOMED!



This film really went out of its way to be scientifically accurate.  There are a couple things that are a little fanciful (for instance liftoff from a planet which had so great a relativistic mass that an hour is seven years on earth would require an extraordinary amount of thrust); but a big budget Hollywood film that depicts relativistic mass is so rare that they can be forgiven.  [spoiler]The time travel was a little less forgivable, but as Neil deGrasse Tyson pointed out that we don't know what is beyond the event horizon of a black hole; who's to say that Jessica Chastain's bedroom isn't on the other side?  (Okay, he didn't quite put it like that, but he should have.)[/spoiler]

The movie is a little slow at points; and probably not as thought provoking as it would like to have been, but I thought it was worthwhile.

[Savonarola]

I was reading more on Salvador Dalí; and came across a reference to a film he and Harpo Marx wanted to make for the Marx Brother's called Giraffes on Horseback Salad.  In 1996 a screenplay for that was found in 1996.  I see that there was a graphic novel was made based on the screenplay;  NPR just did a story about it.

I did read the Graphic Novel; it's not as weird as it could have been.  That is, it's not "Duck Soup" meets "Un Chien Andalou"; it's more like if Luis Luis Buñuel had directed "A Night at the Opera" in the years of the Production Code.  Irving Thalberg (if he had lived) might have been able to make something like this work.  Harpo and Salvador Dalí pitched this to Luis B. Mayer and (unsurprisingly) he didn't get it.  (Groucho thought the idea was a turkey, so maybe it wouldn't have been made even under more favorable circumstances.)

[Habbaku]

Was all of birdman one ginormous take?

No, they edit it to mostly appear to be so. But there are some solid breaks between a couple of scenes IIRC.

[Habbaku]

Oooh, a WWI Hollywood film. This wasn't on my radar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcmZN0Mbl04

Rumor is that it's shot to look like a single take like Birdman. I kinda hope that's not the case, it would feel gimmicky.

I'm skeptical, but looking forward to that as well. I'll take whatever Great War stuff is thrown at me.

[Valmy]

Seem like a Battle of Passchendaele version of Saving Private Ryan. Interesting.

[Tonitrus]

The new Netflix Sci fi. I've seen the first ep

And... Ack. It really seems like they're trying to tick all their demographic boxes doesn't it.
It's just.... Dumb. Hot young 20 somethings without uniforms are put in charge of an interstellar starship.
That the US has for some reason.
A fleet in fact.
Yet has never been beyond sirius.

Yeah, I stopped after 10 minutes or so.

I powered through to episode 8(of 10)...and then I couldn't take the stupid anymore.

[The Brain]

Seem like a Battle of Passchendaele version of Saving Private Ryan. Interesting.

I'm still scarred by that Passchendaele movie which was about the Canadian home front.

[The Brain]

I'm a few episodes into Euphoria. I really like it. It deals with sex and drugs and stuff in a dare I say it mature manner.

[viper37]

in a dare I say it mature manner.

lots of nudity?

[The Brain]

in a dare I say it mature manner.

lots of nudity?

Yes.

[Savonarola]

Cabaret (1972)

New Hollywood makes a musical; the results are what you'd expect.  There were a few big movie musicals in the 70s (Fiddler on the Roof, Grease) but for the most part the genre had fallen on hard times and was mostly relegated to fare for children (Robin Hood, The Aristocats, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Muppet Movie.)  There are a few, like Cabaret, with darker themes; in this case the rise of Nazi Germany.

The story is a little different than the play; almost every song is sung either by Joel Gray or Liza Minnelli on the stage at the Kit-Kat Club.  The songs are commentaries on the plot, but don't move the stories forward.  A number of songs were cut from the play these are used as background music.  I thought Liza Minnelli was a lot like her mother^1. in that she wasn't the best singer; but an incredible performer, one who could make every song her own.  That is the biggest change from the play; her character is supposed to be an untalented hack who is never going to be a star.

1.)  Judy Garland, you heathens

[Admiral Yi]

I think John Wick has made the neckbeard cool.

I'm watching Broadchurch and Detective Inspector Who has an ample neckbeard.

[The Brain]

I'm a few episodes into Euphoria. I really like it. It deals with sex and drugs and stuff in a dare I say it mature manner.

Finished the season. It's a very good show.