TV/Movies Megathread

[Syt]

Saw a Twitter account do a slightly tongue in cheek review of the new Vikings show. One of their sticking points: too many torches/candles in a number of scenes.

[Savonarola]

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Even by the standards of a vampire movie this pushes the boundaries of credibility; the part where Keanu Reeves is paid money to act is simply not believable. 

 

(I'm also sorry I made fun of Keanu's "Acting" in The Matrix; I didn't realize how much his craft had developed between this film and The Matrix.)

This is remarkably faithful to the book; even keeping some of the epistolary nature of the novel (that may not have been a great idea as Bram Stoker's prose is often overly florid.)  The biggest change from the book is that Dracula is looking for his lost (reincarnated) love; a theme that plays out in Universal Studios "Mummy" movies rather than their Dracula movies.  Gary Oldman's Dracula is great, and Anthony Hopkins does a good job at making van Helsing unsettling.

[celedhring]

So, I started watching Reacher. It is indeed good mindless fun.

[The Larch]

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

This is remarkably faithful to the book; even keeping some of the epistolary nature of the novel (that may not have been a great idea as Bram Stoker's prose is often overly florid.)

AFAIK this is the only film ever that has tried to replicate that epistolary format in the big screen, it really makes for a very distinctive and original narrative, I really enjoyed that when I first watched the film. I do have a soft spot for it, besides the formal fidelity it takes lots of liberties with the themes, but it's so visually stunning that I get very forgiving of it turning Dracula from a monster into a lovelorn dramatic undead.

[celedhring]

Coppola's Dracula feels like an NBA player trying a highlight play every time he gets the ball. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There are a bunch of extremely silly scenes.

[The Brain]

Coppola's Dracula is awesome.

[The Larch]

Coppola's Dracula feels like an NBA player trying a highlight play every time he gets the ball. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There are a bunch of extremely silly scenes.

Do you dare to rank the silliest scenes? 

[Syt]

I'm five episodes into The Boys. It's a good show, but it seems a bit too edgelord to me, at least in this point in time. Might hit differently some time else.

I feel it also likes to add innocent or sympathetic characters to either kill them, hurt them or otherwise seriously threaten them in order to bait emotional reactions from the viewers - not a trope I particularly like, and a reason I stopped watching House of Cards during season 2, because this tends to make me quite uncomfortable.

Used sparsely, or with more build up/"downtime" between these moments (think Breaking Bad which gives you some room to breathe in between) I find it quite effective, but an overload of it (or mixed with a super-edgy tone) is a major turn off for me. I have a higher tolerance for it in comics or animated shows, but even there I don't like it overdone.

So after looking around I've decided to rewatch BoJack Horseman, because that show hasn't really left my headspace yet. The more conventional early episodes honestly hit a lot different if you've watched the show before and have a quite intimate knowledge of their inner angels and demons.

[The Larch]

If you think the TV show is edgelord you better never read the comics then.  It's that, several times over, and it's also the reason why I stopped reading them. The TV show is actually somehow toned down from the original material. 

It's been a while since I watched the 1st season, which are the innocent/sympathetic characters that you're thinking about? I mean, Hughie's girlfriend is exactly that, for instance.

[garbon]

I'm five episodes into The Boys. It's a good show, but it seems a bit too edgelord to me, at least in this point in time. Might hit differently some time else.

I feel it also likes to add innocent or sympathetic characters to either kill them, hurt them or otherwise seriously threaten them in order to bait emotional reactions from the viewers - not a trope I particularly like, and a reason I stopped watching House of Cards during season 2, because this tends to make me quite uncomfortable.

Used sparsely, or with more build up/"downtime" between these moments (think Breaking Bad which gives you some room to breathe in between) I find it quite effective, but an overload of it (or mixed with a super-edgy tone) is a major turn off for me. I have a higher tolerance for it in comics or animated shows, but even there I don't like it overdone.

So after looking around I've decided to rewatch BoJack Horseman, because that show hasn't really left my headspace yet. The more conventional early episodes honestly hit a lot different if you've watched the show before and have a quite intimate knowledge of their inner angels and demons.

I gave it season 1 but ultimately gave up at start of season 2 for similar reasons.

[Syt]

It's been a while since I watched the 1st season, which are the innocent/sympathetic characters that you're thinking about? I mean, Hughie's girlfriend is exactly that, for instance.

Wish there were spoiler tags. I'm thinking Popclaw (more tragic/naive, I guess), her landlord, the plane ... well, should use plural, I guess. Starbright as a character in general (she reminds me of the journalist in S1 in House of Cards a lot). Plus characters where I'm not sure (yet) whether their inclusion in the story isn't mainly in order to give protagonists a weakness (Maeve's ex, Hughie's dad, Stillwell's baby) with a chance of them ending up being fridged.

OTOH, the dolphin scene with The Deep was hilarious.

I may give the comics a try (I did pick up the bundle from Humnble ages ago). I like Ennis in general, even though he can be a bit over the top for shock value sometimes and some of his stuff have me more rolling my eyes, like when in his Punisher run that barman hooks up the police detective with a transvestite, a rapist (IIRC?) and what's heavily implied to be his own mom. Some of his writing also hasn't aged terribly well, I guess.

[Syt]

I will say, though, that it's trippy to watch Simon Pegg what I guess is him trying to fake an American accent?

[Syt]

I gave it season 1 but ultimately gave up at start of season 2 for similar reasons.

It might be different if it leaned more into the absurdity and upped the comedy to make it more palatable, maybe? I'm thinking of F is For Family which had some really edgy and gross stuff, but it also had good character drama IMHO. As it stands the tone reminds me mostly of the comic Wanted about how an evil cabal of supervillains destroyed the superheroes and secretly run the world. Though that story has even less redeeming qualities and is purely edgy/angsty teenager power fantasy. (I haven't seen the movie version.)

It's a shame, because I think the actors are all doing a great job, esp. Karl Urban who needs to be in all the things (well, most of the things).

At a younger age I had a higher tolerance for such stories, though. Come to think of it, it's also one of the reasons I didn't feel particularly compelled to watch Game of Thrones (having read two and a half books of it).

[The Larch]

It's been a while since I watched the 1st season, which are the innocent/sympathetic characters that you're thinking about? I mean, Hughie's girlfriend is exactly that, for instance.

Wish there were spoiler tags. I'm thinking Popclaw (more tragic/naive, I guess), her landlord, the plane ... well, should use plural, I guess. Starbright as a character in general (she reminds me of the journalist in S1 in House of Cards a lot). Plus characters where I'm not sure (yet) whether their inclusion in the story isn't mainly in order to give protagonists a weakness (Maeve's ex, Hughie's dad, Stillwell's baby) with a chance of them ending up being fridged.

Mmm, well, many of those characters I'd say are in the innocent victims/collateral damage of the out of control "heroes" of that particular universe. Starlight is also a bit like that in the comics, being the totally naive, wholesome Midwestern at first and then being subjected to so much abuse/exploitation by the other heroes that she ends up getting cynical/jaded/hardened and standing up for herself, this process is not as exagerated in the show, and is also faster, I think. As for fridging, in the show, besides Hughie's GF, no other blatant example comes to mind

OTOH, the dolphin scene with The Deep was hilarious.

That one was hillarious.  The Deep is definitely the butt of so many jokes, and is shown to be so pathetic, that you end up almost pitying him, even after having already been shown to be a complete jerk. He does get so much comeuppance that you even think that he's had enough.

I may give the comics a try (I did pick up the bundle from Humnble ages ago). I like Ennis in general, even though he can be a bit over the top for shock value sometimes and some of his stuff have me more rolling my eyes, like when in his Punisher run that barman hooks up the police detective with a transvestite, a rapist (IIRC?) and what's heavily implied to be his own mom. Some of his writing also hasn't aged terribly well, I guess.

Yeah, Ennis tends to push the evenlope at lot, to th epoint of becoming a bit ridiculous. That's the impression I got from the comic version of The Boys, and by the time you witness the nth over the top atrocity I just went "Ok, I've had enough, the humour doesn't compensate for this".

[Syt]

That one was hillarious.  The Deep is definitely the butt of so many jokes, and is shown to be so pathetic, that you end up almost pitying him, even after having already been shown to be a complete jerk. He does get so much comeuppance that you even think that he's had enough.

I mean it make sense - most of the Seven very very obviously map to the Justice League:
Homelander = Superman
Queen Maeve = Wonder Woman
A-Train = Flash
Black Noir = Batman
The Deep = Aquaman
(Not sure who Translucent and Starbright would map to? Not a big JL nerd.)

Aquaman is often made fun of and not taken serious by readers, so it's pretty obvious they're playing to that perception here. It might have been more interesting to subvert that expectation, though. Overall, I feel the story is going for a critique of how superheroes might affect the world IRL, but it comes across like Watchmen if written for 90s radical and exxxtreme teenagerz.