TV/Movies Megathread

[The Brain]

The Veil, S1. Mysterious agent travels with mysterious terrorist woman. Can the big bad be prevented? I liked that you didn't know where things were going, I didn't like the huge holes in the logic. SPOILER: There's also a basic dramatic problem in the fact that the ISIS woman is completely despicable (duh!) so you never care what happens to her, and it's also hard to shake the suspicion that the writers want the audience to think that she sometimes has a point. For the curious: radiation levels of hospital sources are greatly exaggerated for dramatic effect, and the box to transport them would have to weigh several tons instead of like 50 kg or something as portrayed.

[Eddie Teach]

The 8 Show. Another entry in the budding genre of dystopian Asian reality game show/Stanford prison experiments. 

[Valmy]

In Top Secret, why is the resistance speaking with a French accent? They're in East Germany FFS.

Because it was the French Resistance.

In East Germany? The movie seems nonsensical to me.

Yeah. I hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

[Admiral Yi]

My roommate conned me into watching Black Orpheus.  Lots of dancing, not a good movie.

[celedhring]

Watched Furiosa, it's certainly not Fury Road and appreciate that it goes into a different direction. There's probably just a couple big set action pieces in the whole 2 hours and a half. There's much more worldbuilding and character work - reminded me more of 2 and 3 in that regard. The ending is being criticised for being anticlimatic but I personally loved it.

The movie's uneven, mind you, but I loved that Miller has been able to make something that's just not another sequel. Hemsworth is a great villain - an incompetent charismatic blowhard who's nonetheless frightening. Taylor-Joy is also fine but it's hard to foget Theron in this. And she probably has less than 20 lines in the entire thing (many of them obvious ADRs too).

[Duque de Bragança]

The problem with Furiosa is the obnoxious CGI, quite a step down from Fury Road.

[Razgovory]

CGI?  I loved the stunt work in Fury Road.

[Duque de Bragança]

Precisely. A lot more CGI in Furiosa and egregious.

[celedhring]

Furiosa has a lot more noticeable CGI than Fury Road, but it's still far better than your average modern action flick in that regard. Certainly the least of the movie's problems.

[Duque de Bragança]

Agree with the first part, I have seen worse, however, the comparison is with Fury Road. Furiosa has other problems indeed but the crappy CGI can be really obnoxious at times.

Of course, Mel Gibson is still no longer Mad Max, the biggest issue. 

[Syt]

Archer Season 14 is not as good as the show was, but occasionally still has some fun nuggets.

(About a mission to Ibiza)

Lana: Now, obviously, we've got an important job here--
Archer: Yeah, figuring out why you're not calling it "Ibitha."
Lana: Because, dumbass, it's spelled with a Z.
Archer: Ha! Tell it to Peter of Castile, lisping king of Spain, originator of the fricative shift.
Zara: That's a myth.
Archer: I think you mean "myz."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_Spanish_coronal_fricatives#Castilian_'lisp';

A persistent urban legend claims that the prevalence of the sound /θ/ in Spanish can be traced to a Spanish king who spoke with a lisp, whose pronunciation spread via prestige borrowing to the rest of the population. This myth has been discredited by scholars.[1] Lundeberg (1947) traces the origins of the legend to a chronicle of Pero López de Ayala which says that Peter of Castile "lisped a little" ("ceceaba un poco"). However, Peter reigned in the 14th century and the sound /θ/ began to develop in the 16th century (see below). Moreover, a true lisp would not give rise to the systematic distinction between /s/ and /θ/ that characterizes Standard Peninsular pronunciation. For example, a lisp would lead one to pronounce siento ('I feel') and ciento ('hundred') the same (as [ˈθjento]) whereas in standard peninsular Spanish they are pronounced [ˈsjento] and [ˈθjento].

The misnomer "Castilian lisp" is used occasionally to refer to the presence of [θ] in Peninsular pronunciation (in both distinción and ceceo varieties).

[Sheilbh]

On the cultural impact of covid - this film sounds very interesting (five stars in the Guardian):
https://www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/may/16/an-unfinished-film-review-china-covid-lou-ye

[Savonarola]

Delta Space Mission (1984)

Straight out of Ceaușescu's Romania, this is a trippy children's science fiction adventure tale with a promising enough premise; rather than having the supercomputer explode when it contemplates love (like in Alphaville), what if it, instead, fell in love?  The result is that is causes rocks to come to life in order to capture the love interest and things like that; plus there's a bunch of Star Wars and 2001 rip offs.  It's not very good, but it is  weird.  I think if, as a child, you downed a bottle of cold medication and watched "Our Star Blazers" this is quite similar to the result you would have gotten.

[Duque de Bragança]

A bit weirder than René Laloux's SF animation films, such as La Planète Sauvage (The Fantastic Planet), but I can't help but think about his movies when I see that Romanian SF. Vinegar Syndrome has released a second one, The Son of the Stars (1985).

Gandahar, René Laloux's animation film made in Juche (!) Korea is getting a UHD /  4K blu-ray release soon, over here.

[Syt]

Finished Cheers. Season 11 was a nice wrap up, bringing back many of the recurring characters of previous seasons, and providing a good send off.

Overall, really enjoyed the show. It had its ups and downs - by Season 4/5, the relationship between Diane and Sam had started to wear thin, and they seemed unnecessarily cruel towards each other. It picked up again in Season 6, and from here on out the rest of the cast moves more into the limelight. Sure, there had been episodes focused on the rest of the crew, but after Diane's departure, they really come into their own. Like most shows, it still becomes a bit tired by seasons 9 and 10 (especially since they didn't really seem know what to do with Rebecca).

I admit, I still like Frasier better, but it was good to see his "origins". Of course his character changed between Cheers and his spin off, but not too much. He was more down to Earth at Cheers, but eh. ANd some of the inconsistencies (saying his father had died and had been an astronaut, not mentioning his brother) were played for laughs. The biggest inconsistency is his mother, who is described basically as a saint in Frasier, but in her one appearance on Cheers was an unhinged psycho.

That said, seeing Frasier and Lilith together was great. I always loved their chemistry on Frasier, and seeing them in their "good" days was fun. And to see some of the back story (like the oft mentioned window ledge scene).

Tempted to just continue with Frasier now - not on Paramount/Amazon, though. Cheers was the HD remaster, preserved in 4:3. For Frasier they went with 16:9. And it seems they expanded the image out slightly to the left/right, but chop of  the top/bottom. During the VHS days I bemoaned widescreen movies having their image chopped up into 4:3. Very annoying that this trend of "IT HAS TO FIT PEOPLE'S SCREENS!!" still persist unabated. 

I supposed, I will have stick my own HD, erm, copies again.