TV/Movies Megathread

[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.

[The Larch]

The further the show goes, and the more about the dealings behind the scenes are known and how the Vought Corporation operates, the more interesting the story becomes. The exxxtreme teenagerz are The Boys themselves, I'd say. 

[garbon]

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).

I ultimately agree with this:
https://screenrant.com/invincible-boys-amazon-superhero-show-violence-consequences/

Invincible fixes a major problem in Amazon's other superhero TV series, The Boys. Both properties are based on successful comic book series of the same name: Invincible, by Robert Kirkman, and The Boys by Garth Ennis. Although the two are set in separate worlds, there are similarities between their stories, which involve a world where superheroes run amok — but unlike The Boys, Kirkman's Invincible treats violence with a critical eye.
...

This key difference between Invincible and The Boys reflects how the former treats violence more seriously. Although fighting is common in Invincible, and is a key aspect of its satire of the superhero genre, Invincible never glorifies violence the way that The Boys does. The animated series is careful to remind viewers that fighting comes with consequences: in Invincible episode 5, Mark is beaten to a pulp in a fight that, while exciting, is never humorous. Conversely, in The Boys, gore is often used for both shock value and laughs. The stakes for the protagonists are actually quite low — no key "good guy" has been seriously hurt (and the recurring ones who do typically die in darkly-funny circumstances). The Boys is incredibly entertaining, but it does avoid handling violence in a responsible way. While the show certainly criticizes celebrity culture and corporate interest, it takes an almost nihilistic tone regarding violence.

[Josquius]

Speaking of the boys I have watched a few episodes of the diabolical spin off.
It's... Yeah. Weird. Very interesting they've some big name voice actors even for tiny bits. Unlike a lot of animation spin offs they even recast characters with more famous actors. Which is curious

[Syt]

@garbon, That's an interesting article and I agree with it to a point. I think there's room in entertainment for content with gratuitous, cartoonishly exaggerated violence - it can be cathartic, or work as comedy. At the same time the show tries to deal with high drama and serious topics, so it clashes a lot and doesn't work as a parody for me. It reminds me of "mature" video games, where "mature" usually means a lot of swearing and graphic violence, not "grown up" storytelling.

I'm coming back to BoJack - that show deals with some very heavy themes for almost its entire run, but it also has a plot where Jessica Biel becomes chieftain of a trapped entourage of celebrities and political supporters who eat Zach Braff's charred remains, and a multi-episide arc where a badly built homemade sexbot becomes CEO of a tech company. Somehow that's causing less dissonance in my head.

[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.

Do you dare to rank the silliest scenes? 

It's been a while, but the ones that stick with me.

1. "Oceans of time" (the entire scene, not just the quote).
2. The lesbo moment between Lucy and Mina and the chase in the labyrinth - all the "sexy" parts kinda play out like a Red Shoe Diaries episode at times 
3. Some of the stuff at the castle, it's been parodied to death for a reason. The moment with the wives in particular.
4. The dance with the candles.
5. Every time he overuses dissolves and overlays, which is all the friggin' time. 
6. All the accents 

There's a bunch of action/scary scenes in the last third which I remember being quite stupid/silly (the bed splashed with blood  ), but I can't pinpoint the particulars.

[HVC]

@garbon, That's an interesting article and I agree with it to a point. I think there's room in entertainment for content with gratuitous, cartoonishly exaggerated violence - it can be cathartic, or work as comedy. At the same time the show tries to deal with high drama and serious topics, so it clashes a lot and doesn't work as a parody for me. It reminds me of "mature" video games, where "mature" usually means a lot of swearing and graphic violence, not "grown up" storytelling.

I'm coming back to BoJack - that show deals with some very heavy themes for almost its entire run, but it also has a plot where Jessica Biel becomes chieftain of a trapped entourage of celebrities and political supporters who eat Zach Braff's charred remains, and a multi-episide arc where a badly built homemade sexbot becomes CEO of a tech company. Somehow that's causing less dissonance in my head.

I think invincible and bojack get a big hand from being animated.  The amount of violence in invincible far outweighs the boys, and a real life bojack would be unwatchable.

[Syt]

Also true. And there's of course Rick & Morty which is very extreme in its content which probably only works as irreverent cartoon. I think with The Boys the cynical, nihilistic tone together with its constant high stakes tension with little to no reprieve that makes it quite uncomfortable to me. Again, might click for me at another time, but not right now.

[celedhring]

Well, The Batman was quite disappointing. And it's also 3 hours long...

[Syt]

Question to the room: If I very much enjoyed BoJack Horseman, would I like Californication? I think I watched a few episodes ages ago, but don't remember much.

[Savonarola]

The Amazing Spiderman (2012)

This film raises many questions.  Where did Sister Bertrille and Captain Willard meet?  Was she his air support in 'Nam?  Did she leave the church for him?  Does Dennis Hopper fit into this at all?  Unfortunately the film leaves these questions unresolved and instead focuses on this 30 year old "Genius" who still is in high school, and the adventures he goes on after getting bitten by a spider.  Even back then Hollywood was totally out of ideas.

  

There was only one direction to go after Spiderman 3; and while this isn't as fun as the first two Toby McGuire Spiderman films it does has its moments.  Denis Leary makes a great Captain Stacy.  Andrew Garfield manages to emphasize Spiderman's spiderness and he conveys the guilt that drives Spiderman much better than McGuire did (though he's really not believable as a high school student.)

[Sheilbh]

I thought I'd learned my lesson after the last Star Wars film and my unshakeable conviction that I have enough streaming services. But here we are
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWTfhyvzTx0

[Syt]

I thought I'd learned my lesson after the last Star Wars film and my unshakeable conviction that I have enough streaming services. But here we are
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWTfhyvzTx0

We have a dedicated Star Wars thread, you know? (where I already posted )

[Sheilbh]

I stopped reading it once new stuff started coming out because I wouldn't get Disney Plus. Feels like that might change