TV/Movies Megathread

[Sheilbh]

She's playing mothers lots now, say, Parallel Mothers a couple of years ago too

[Duque de Bragança]

'Lansky' - a workmanlike ganster biopic, OK, but no real suspense anywhere.

So not this one fortunately:


Before Sav asks, it has nothing to do with John Woo, yet its originality leaves a lot to desire. 

Well the first 5-10 minutes as shown here was 'awesome':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHD1YJUXvSU

So you bite the bullet, without subtitles?
Impressive.

Also the imdb entry hasn't got any user reviews yet, Duque maybe you should do the honours?

  Glad to see IMDB has still has lands to explore. 

I second the idea of Duque doing a review for this!

  Now I feel strangely and strongly compelled to do so.

[Savonarola]

How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)

A bit short (even the 90 minute run time is padded out by the orchestra playing the overture live and vignettes of New York for the first eight minutes) but a lot of fun.  This is Lauren Bacall's first foray into comedy, she handles it well.  One of Hollywood's greatest meta-lines comes from this one, where Lauren Bacall tries to convince David Powell that their age difference is no great barrier:

What I'm trying to tell you , J.D., is that I've always liked older men. Look at Roosevelt, look at Churchill, look at that old fellow, what's his name, in "African Queen". Absolutely crazy about him!

(Though Bogart was a few years younger than David Powell.)

And you can see the impact of the production code in one of the lines, as Dorothy Parker's "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses" becomes:  "Men aren't attentive to girls who wear glasses."  You couldn't even say "Passes" in that sense.

IMDB's inability to get the joke is on full display over the following exchange:

Betty Grable: I wouldn't mind marrying a Vanderbilt?
Marilyn Monroe: Or Mr. Cadillac.
Lauren Bacall: No such person. I checked.
Betty Grable: Is there a Mr. Texaco?

This ends up in the "Goofs" section because there was indeed a Mr. Cadillac; but, of course, Marilyn doesn't mean that she wants to marry Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac (for one thing he had been dead for over 200 years when the film was made.)

[Savonarola]

And the latest Hollywood Scandal:

American actress Judy Garland's blackface photo resurfaces after decades, causes controversy



I hope Judy's career can recover from this.   

[Sheilbh]

Lie With Me.

Based on a best selling autobiographical French novel, about a famous gay writer who returns to his small hometown for the first time in 35 years. There he meets the son of his high school lover. He finds that his lover died and his son basically wants information about his father's life.

This was fine - solidly 3 out of 5 stars. In part I think it's that a lot of the story is something that we have seen before, that gay coming of age with one part too full of shame to live openly. It is well told and I think admirably sensual and purely focused on just the two boys rather than talky and social. It feels as well-tread a story as, say, a period drama. It is, however, well shot and the countryside looks beautiful.

But I think it's slightly elevated by Victor Belmondo's performance as the son and also, frankly, the uncanniness of him on screen. He looks so like Jean-Paul Belmondo, his grandfather, at times it's startling - it feels almost Peter Cushing in Rogue One. I think it's a great performance but also a poetic bit of casting.

[FunkMonk]

I just finished Ted Lasso. Probably the best way they could have ended the series. They more or less stuck the landing with that finale.

Not Succession level perfection for an ending, but still really good quality television.

[Josquius]

Anyone watching witcher?
They've somehow managed to surpass s2 for badness. It's a terrible fantasy soap in which nothing makes sense

Series 1. Series  1 was genuinely very good. Costuming was a bit awry and whoever decided the dwarves should be people with dwarfism should be shot.  But overall a really good show.

But since then the more they've decided to ignore the books the worse it is getting.

Wtf happened to the end of series 2 wild hunt dimension stuff? Just forgotten.
They randomly show up again one episode with zero warning or hints of what is going on. I only know as I've read the books and played the games. If you haven't.... Wow

Sadly it seems the Internet agrees it's bad though they seem to have got it into their heads this is because some characters, mainly triss, are black

[HVC]

I made it halfway through the third episode of season 3. Almost funny how badly they messed up an established IP with a well known star.  If you want to do your own thing why not do your own thing? Why pay for something your want to ignore anyway.

There was actually an article where a producer complained they had to dumb down the plot because American audiences are too stupid to follow along complex story arcs.

[Barrister]

Fear of a Black Hat (1993)

It's This Is Spinal Tap for Hip Hop (going so far as to copy Spinal Tap's most famous running gag; the group's managers keep dying in increasingly bizarre and horrific ways, the way Spinal Tap's drummers did); still it is really funny, especially if you remember MTV right before grunge conquered the universe.  (They even have the guy who used to do MTV News in the movie.)  Some of the jokes are a little too tied to the time (dealing with Paula Abdul, Vanilla Ice and C+C Music Factory) so I don't think it's the classic that Spinal Tap is, on the other hand it was a nice bit
 of early nineties nostalgia.

I remember watching that in the mid to late 90s - thinking it was damn funny.  Never seen it since, so who knows what "d think of it now.

[Admiral Yi]

What do youse guys think of Kate Beckinsale's acting?

Just watched a clip about the demise of Kate's career that mentioned a lot of box office flops and a lot in which the critics panned her acting.

I was kind of taken aback, so I'm curious about other opinions.

And if you're curious I stumbled on to this clip when I started searching for good latex shots from Underworld.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR5Vr4Tamcs

[Oexmelin]

I really liked her in Love and Friendship, which suggests to me she has been done a disservice by the vampire chic silly movies.

[Sheilbh]

Worth noting she has made some allegations about Weinstein and said that she felt she was "punished" by him because of a row they had - don't know the details but I think that happened when she was breaking through and just before she moved into action films. So that might be related.

Honestly I don't know. I remember really liking her in something but I can't remember what and it might have been on TV. Looking at her films I don't think I've actually seen many, so no opinion really.

[The Brain]

I haven't really thought about her acting when watching her movies. I suppose this means that I don't find it awful.

[Syt]

Season one of black mirror.

I liked it.

Ep. 1: Clearly inspired by stories of David Cameron's porcine adventures.
Ep. 2: Very on the nose criticism of capitalist consumerist society by taking it to its extreme, and how such a system can assimilate its critics and make them part of the machine.
Ep. 3.: What if everybody had perfect memories of everything at all times? Turns out it might be a bit of a nightmare.

[viper37]

What do youse guys think of Kate Beckinsale's acting?

She's a great actress.  But she's hasn't been given the greatest material to shine in.
As much as I like Selene in Underworld, her main co-star wasn't the most expressive one to exchange with.
And then Van Helsing was a boring movie.
She also had smaller roles in smaller movies, playing the love interest, mainly.