TV/Movies Megathread

[Maladict]

The Lives of Others. Good film.

Yes, great final scene at the bookstore.

[Syt]

First two episodes of new season of Better Call Saul have been quite good. The tempo is down a bit from the end of Season 4, which is fine. Still loving this show.

[Tonitrus]

Recently, I've binged-watched a couple popular shows that I haven't watched before:

Parks & Recreation = I liked it.
The Office (US version) = I watched UK version awhile back...thought it was pretty awful.  People say the US version is supposed to better...it is better, but I still don't like it.

[Threviel]

A while ago I watched a French-Austrian show called Maximilian, about the Holy Roman Emperor.

Excellent, seemed on the realistic side of historical tv-shows.

[Syt]

A while ago I watched a French-Austrian show called Maximilian, about the Holy Roman Emperor.

Excellent, seemed on the realistic side of historical tv-shows.

I noticed it recently in a YouTube video of experts reviewing depictions of old timey fighting in movies, and they were appreciative of the movie:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awioL9P8RPw

Still haven't watched it yet.

[Threviel]

That youtube video is why I tracked it down.

[crazy canuck]

Hanna

TV series on Amazon Prime, inspired by the movie of the same name.  This time, they actually have a solid actress to play the part.

It's part coming of age, part thriller à la Bourne Identity.

Hanna is a 15 year old teenager who's been raised by her "father", alone, in a Poland forest since her birth.  Her mother was enrolled in a secret CIA program where they modified the kids DNA to create super soldiers.  Eric, the "father", was the one who recruited Hanna's mother, but as he fell in love with her, he stole the baby and escape with his new family, unfortunately, the mother was killed by the CIA baddies trying to cover their act.

15 years later, Hanna dreams of the outside world, seeks to break the barriers her father confined her to and she meets some people and attract the CIA's attention.  The former program head is now trying to get her back by any means possible.

Hanna has been raised as the perfect killing machine, but she is just a 15 year old teenager, totally ignorant of the world outside of her forest...  There are some very nice scenes when she tries to act as a normal teenager, when she's awed by the life she never really hard.  She's torn between her desire for normalcy and her mission of survival.

It starts a bit slow, mostly repeating half the movie in the first hour, but by the 3rd episode, I think it becomes a great show and you're really invested in the characters presented on screen.

Thanks for the recommendation.  I am enjoying it.

[Razgovory]

One episode of the Outsider left.  I think I found out the problem with this show.  They revealed the monster too early.  The audience learns about the monster and the audience has to wait several more hours till all the heroes figure accept it.  Also it could be about five hours shorter.

"I'm a defense attorney, I can believe anything" is a great line, though.

[celedhring]

Binged Altered Carbon season 2. It's way less trashy than season 1, which is both good and bad. Meaning that the show is entertaining and with less downright awful moments, but it seems to consciously take a few steps back every time it seems that it could get weird/interesting.

[Sheilbh]

Getting to the final season of GoT and I get some of the complaints - there are some horrendous soundtrack decisions in this season.

But one thought I have (I only read the first few books) is some of the issues seem fundamental to the series. In particular the pacing of the different narrative strands doesn't work, but I think that was an issue in the first book.

Edit: And also the person who should have become monarch is clearly Lady Mormont.

Edit And they makes some bad character decisions which pitch scenes that could be good in the wrong way.

[grumbler]

Sheilbh, I think that some of the difference in pacing in the story arcs was deliberate; the first book was supposed to focus our attention on King's Landing, so events there moved apace while events elsewhere were deliberately slower.  In the second book, things are changed, and it's in the Riverlands that things move apace and King's Landing where they are slow.

The real problem with the show, IMO, wasn't the soundtrack decisions, but the decision to simply shed all of the subordinate story arcs rather than resolving them.  When you are done we can talk about this in the GoT thread.

[Duque de Bragança]

Polanski's movie won best direction at the french Oscars.

Sometimes I'm ashamed of our backwardness.

I did not watch the movie so I cannot comment on its value, regardless of considerations about Polanski or even the intent (painting himself as a victim like Dreyfus as some critics stated), but Polanski did not attend the Césars.
I hope however I can still watch the Fearless Vampire Killers, my favorite of his, and even better IMO than the movies he lovingly parodies and/or pays tribute.

[Sheilbh]

The real problem with the show, IMO, wasn't the soundtrack decisions, but the decision to simply shed all of the subordinate story arcs rather than resolving them.  When you are done we can talk about this in the GoT thread.

Yes. I mention soundtrack because there's one scene in the northern battle where the soundtrack totally distracted me and it was very jarring and annoying.

[The Larch]

I hope however I can still watch the Fearless Vampire Killers, my favorite of his, and even better IMO than the movies he lovingly parodies and/or pays tribute.

I only recently discovered that there's also an apparently extremely camp musical based on the movie, and since then I'm dreaming on watching it some day. 

[The Brain]

The real problem with the show, IMO, wasn't the soundtrack decisions, but the decision to simply shed all of the subordinate story arcs rather than resolving them.  When you are done we can talk about this in the GoT thread.

Yes. I mention soundtrack because there's one scene in the northern battle where the soundtrack totally distracted me and it was very jarring and annoying.

Sadly the soundtrack didn't manage to distract me. Other than thinking they should have played Yakety Sax during the [spoiler]Arya chase[/spoiler] scene. And YouTube says I wasn't the only one.