TV/Movies Megathread

[Berkut]

The Sopranos.

And the ending? WTF? Screen to black? That's just...dumb.

They shot him.

I thought the ending was dumb because it just didn't fit in with show. 

The show never hesitated to show everyone else's gory demise, so why is Tony so special?

I think it was just a cop out from the writers not wanting to show Tony getting what was coming to him.

[grumbler]

I thought the ending was dumb because it just didn't fit in with show.

The show never hesitated to show everyone else's gory demise, so why is Tony so special?

I think it was just a cop out from the writers not wanting to show Tony getting what was coming to him.

Why would the showrunners not want to show Tony getting what was coming to him, if they were looking for an unambiguous ending?  The show never hesitated to show everyone else's gory demise, so why is Tony so special?

I think the showrunners just wanted to add yet another ambiguous moment that the viewer would have to interpret for themselves.

[Sheilbh]

The Forgiven. It's a weird one - I enjoyed this film but I don't think I'd recommend it to anyone.

It's about a couple, played by Ralph Fiennes and Jessica Chastain, in an unhappy snipey marriage who are going to a party in the desert in Morocco. Fiennes is drinking all day as they do this 400 mile journey and as they turn off for the lush castle in the desert they run over a Moroccan boy. The police investigation is dealt with quickly and satisfied it was just an accident, but the next day the boy's father turns up to collect the body and asks that Fiennes comes with him to bury the boy.

The film then splits into two with Fiennes - whose character is broad-brush offensive with various racist, Islamophobic and homophobic comments on the way - going into the desert with some Berbers, while Chastain stays at this insanely over-the-top party and starts flirting with an American banker. Those two tracks run in parallel for most of the rest of the film - and I'm not convinced it works. The party scenes are just a little too broad. There's loads of pretty caricature-ish side characters who pop up in the party (a French photographer, an English lord, a Moroccan author etc) but don't really ever flesh out.

The cinematography is gorgeous. I think Chastain is really good and I really liked Matt Smith as one of the gay hosts of this decadent weekend. Ismael Kanater as the boy's father is very good as well.

I think it's an adaptation by John Michael McDonagh - who did the Guard and Calvary (both of which I loved) - so it's not a film that wears its themes lightly. In this case white privilege but also contrasting that with other codes/worldviews, guilt, redemption etc. But I think it either needed to cut some flab and be a shorter, leaner film - or expand those side characters and other perspective, possibly as a short TV series. It felt like it fell between those stools and I'm not sure there's enough other good stuff to make it worth it - but it is gorgeous.

It was, however, a lot better than I expected from the trailer:

[FunkMonk]

The genius of the Sopranos was that it always left us uncertain as to whether we pitied Tony, or loathed him.  An ambiguous ending to an ambiguous show worked for me.  I'm quite sure that Tony was dead 30 second after the fade to black, but others hold differently, and that's okay.

I wonder if my ambivalence is because I never pitied Tony, just loathed him. He was a despicable human being, and even his "virtues" turned out to just be complete selfishness.

Just curious, but is this also your read of Walter White?

[Berkut]

The genius of the Sopranos was that it always left us uncertain as to whether we pitied Tony, or loathed him.  An ambiguous ending to an ambiguous show worked for me.  I'm quite sure that Tony was dead 30 second after the fade to black, but others hold differently, and that's okay.

I wonder if my ambivalence is because I never pitied Tony, just loathed him. He was a despicable human being, and even his "virtues" turned out to just be complete selfishness.

Just curious, but is this also your read of Walter White?

Nope, not at all.

White became a monster, Tony was a monster all along.

[FunkMonk]

Cool, I can see that. I've only watched the first season of The Sopranos yet I kind of feel that same as you do. I mean, Tony is sympathetic at times but I felt more connected to Walter, especially in the earlier seasons of Breaking Bad.

[Darth Wagtaros]

First episode of She Hulk was pretty lame. Second and third have picked up, and it is fun enough.

[celedhring]

First episode of She Hulk was pretty lame. Second and third have picked up, and it is fun enough.

Yeah, third episode is the first time I enjoyed this show. It's the first one where they really embrace the "superhuman lawyer show" concept and it brings out a few laughs.

[Josephus]

The Sopranos.

And the ending? WTF? Screen to black? That's just...dumb.

They shot him.

I thought the ending was dumb because it just didn't fit in with show.

The show never hesitated to show everyone else's gory demise, so why is Tony so special?

I think it was just a cop out from the writers not wanting to show Tony getting what was coming to him.

Keep in mind The Sopranos ran before the binge-watch phenomenon and people would watch the show every Sunday and the next morning at work it would be much discussed. The producers wanted to go with an ambiguous ending that would have people talking about for---well, 20 years it seems. It was a good ending. It didn't out and out show Tony being shot because it was deliberately meant to be open to interpretation. The show runners only recently came out and said "this is what happened."

Another theory at the time was that Tony wasn't shot at all...that it was just another day in his life, and life went on as normal after the diner.

[Syt]

In BoJack Horseman the ending was meant to be him marrying his therapist and settling down, but Todd used the only reel of the film to rappel out of a window, and it tore. Which is why the show ends as it does.

[celedhring]

Third episode of House of the Dragon is pretty damn good (except the final action scene, which was pretty dumb) and possibly Considine's finest hour so far in the show.

[garbon]

Third episode of House of the Dragon is pretty damn good (except the final action scene, which was pretty dumb) and possibly Considine's finest hour so far in the show.

More pugs, please.

[Razgovory]

First episode of She Hulk was pretty lame. Second and third have picked up, and it is fun enough.

First episode of She Hulk was pretty lame. Second and third have picked up, and it is fun enough.

Yeah, third episode is the first time I enjoyed this show. It's the first one where they really embrace the "superhuman lawyer show" concept and it brings out a few laughs.

Harvey Birdman did that 20 years ago.

[Syt]

Cross of Iron (Sam Peckinpah, 1977)

One of my dad's favorite movies. He loved his WW2 stories, and especially ones with "good, righteous enlisted men/NCOs vs. evil officers" narratives. He watched this and A Bridge Too Far almost once a month.

I hadn't watched it in quite a while and this was the first time in English, which is a bit weird considering the main characters are all German, with many of them played by German speaking actors (except Col. Brandt, Steiner, and Cpt. Kiesel AFAIR).

It's still a bleak, violent, anti-war fever dream that seems to last too long (which may or may not have been the point). Peckinpah was in a serious phase of alcohol and drug abuse when he made this, so it's surprising the movie turned out as well as it did. With David Warner recently deceased I think almost all main character actors in this have in the meantime died (James Mason, Maximilian Schell, James Coburn, Klaus Löwitsch and the other German actors).

I still think the intro is excellent, how it starts on glamorous nazi propaganda and images of early victories, transitioning to images of German defeat, intercut with images of a laughing Hitler at the Berghof, while the music switches between military march and German children's song (Hänschen Klein being about a boy going out in the world, the mother's sorrow and the boy returning as a man, unrecognizable to sister and mother).

The movie was shot in Yugoslavia, so the production could use T-34/85 tanks that the Yugoslavs still had. They were post-war models (the 1960 version can be IDed quite easily by its wheels), but they're a lot better than having American M-48s with German crosses painted on them. (Come to think of it, some of those tanks might have seen action again in the 90s.)

[The Brain]

I haven't seen Cross of Iron in years, but I think the intro, hospital scene, and the end is good.