TV/Movies Megathread

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Sliders taught me that might not work out

True enough (the sliders case crossed my mind as I was making the post)

[The Brain]

The Midnight Club, S1. I liked it, I think it's very well made.

Frankenstein. Not a good movie, I might finish it later but it wasn't interesting enough to finish in one sitting. Apart from severe general blandness, my biggest objection is that they make Frankenstein a simple Reanimator who assembles pre-owned body parts. The whole point of the book is that Frankenstein creates life, and that the Creature confronts his Creator. Book Frankenstein uses body parts in his R&D to understand how the body works, but he doesn't use them for production.

[garbon]

Midnight Club is only 1 season, I believe.

[Josquius]

Fantastic Four First Steps.

Decent.
The big thing that shines through is that it's interesting it has so many vibes in common with the new superman film.
From different studios but both going against norms for superhero films and going back to the proper vintage "that won't work on film" silliness.
I wonder what's with this. Was one in production first and the other followed or is it just where our culture has got?
Either way big vibes of the old thing where you commonly used to get 2 films on the same topic at the same time.

Anyway.
This one.... Yeah. Not perfect. Lacks development in many places. Lots of places it could have, should have, done better. The silver surfer, especially the human torch relationship.... It feels heavily cut.
Speaking of the torch. Man does this film show he's the main guy of the team. And just how useless Reed is in terms of powers.

I like how the film just jumps straight into these guys being superstars and goes from there. Vintage 60s feel is good too.

I was kind of spoiled before seeing the film.... But differently. And spoilers. Thought they would fail to save the world and end up in the prime universe.
Again wonder if this was intentional misdirection.

I do think the film really highlights thoughts ive had for a while that the marvel cinematic universe sucks.
Avengers should be a special one off once in a blue moon bit of fan service. Not a tent pole, central to how the universe works

[Josephus]

The Midnight Club, S1. I liked it, I think it's very well made.

Frankenstein. Not a good movie, I might finish it later but it wasn't interesting enough to finish in one sitting. Apart from severe general blandness, my biggest objection is that they make Frankenstein a simple Reanimator who assembles pre-owned body parts. The whole point of the book is that Frankenstein creates life, and that the Creature confronts his Creator. Book Frankenstein uses body parts in his R&D to understand how the body works, but he doesn't use them for production.

saw Frankenstein last night; and found it pretty slow.

I also thought the Midnight Club was boring.

[The Brain]

The Midnight Club, S1. I liked it, I think it's very well made.

Frankenstein. Not a good movie, I might finish it later but it wasn't interesting enough to finish in one sitting. Apart from severe general blandness, my biggest objection is that they make Frankenstein a simple Reanimator who assembles pre-owned body parts. The whole point of the book is that Frankenstein creates life, and that the Creature confronts his Creator. Book Frankenstein uses body parts in his R&D to understand how the body works, but he doesn't use them for production.

Finished Frankenstein. Still not good.

[The Brain]

The Voyeurs. Young Republican woman starts spying on her neighbors. Not good.

[celedhring]

Been watching Alien Earth. The first 3 episodes I thought were a right mess, but it picked up in the fourth when I was about to drop the show altogether.

[Syt]

Been continuing the Veep rewatch, and not sure if I want to go on. As garbon said it's quite prescient in many regards. I'm in early season 3, and seeing e.g. interests of young mothers sidelined because of blackmail from the seniors lobby (under a "Faustus" poster no less, very subtle ), or tech industry pretending to be unpolitical but trading political favor ("I thought you said you were not political?" - "We see ourselves as post-tax.") in exchange for what content gets put front page, or Jonah starting his blog trying to disrupt legacy media (esp. keeping in mind where his story is headed in S7 .... yeah, a bit too real at the moment.

[Norgy]

I finally got around to watch "Get Back".

When in primary school we got an assignment to write 10 pages or more about whatever subject we wanted. I chose The Beatles. They were not yet "phony Beatlemania" to my mind.

Philip Norman's biography about them was my birthday gift in 1982, I think. So as per usual, I thought I knew a lot. I borrowed more books from the library (me and my library card never were far from each other).

I remember the radio being on that December day in 1980 when John Lennon was shot.
Well. More to the point.
It is fairly long-winded this biopic of The Beatles. They seem to be high for most of the time, but it gives few answers, in my opinion, as to why the four split, but offers a lot of insight to how good they were together and how their creative process was.

Lennon really was an arse. Sir Paul the work-aholic obsessive, Harrison the one who went his own way, Ringo was there and maybe the better drummer of him and Pete Best, I do not really have a frame of reference.

They were tired. And went for one last big hurrah.

I liked it.

As a side note, my teacher commented with red pencil on my work: It seems like you like John Lennon a lot, as half of your assignment is on his childhood. It would be better if you focused a bit more on all subjects. As is the case of most of your schoolwork, you are focused on one thing.

[Valmy]

I thought that documentary was amazing. Definitely gave me late stage Beatlemania. I always really liked the Beatles, the first album I remember listening to was the Magical Mystery Tour. But I learned to really love them after watching that documentary. McCartney especially. He clearly really loved the band and was trying to keep it all together and was terrified things were not working out, but his personal foibles of perfectionism and inability to really listen to anybody else kept getting in the way. Also the crazy love between John and Paul was...really interesting to watch.

And yes John was on heroin and was clearly not his best. Him trashing George over I, Me, Mine was particularly a low point. But at other times he was hilarious and supportive and just a great friend. It seemed to vary by the day.

I thought George's album from the 1980s, Cloud 9, was total garbage when I was a kid due to it way overplaying on the radio. Especially "I've Got my Mind Set on You." And then he was the grumpiest of grumpy middle aged boomers during the 1990s, he basically hated everything. So he was my least favorite Beatle so it was nice to see him young and having a good time. And I got how obnoxious it had to have been to put up with John and Paul all the time. Also he had just been caught cheating on his wife so his personal life was falling apart so that couldn't have helped.

John and Paul helping George with Something and George helping Ringo with Octopus' Garden were cool.

Anyway Get Back is great. I still don't really know how they made their music even watching it happen. It would be like one of them would come in with a song (or that scene where you see Paul just inventing Get Back out of nothing) and the other guys would get this thoughtful look on their faces and just seemingly invent their own parts spontaneously just listening to it (and then Paul would suggest they do something else). Is this wizardry? Or how rock bands usually work? I don't know. It was crazy to see.

[Norgy]

I thought that documentary was amazing. Definitely gave me late stage Beatlemania. I always really liked the Beatles, the first album I remember listening to was the Magical Mystery Tour. But I learned to really love them after watching that documentary. McCartney especially. He clearly really loved the band and was trying to keep it all together and was terrified things were not working out, but his personal foibles of perfectionism and inability to really listen to anybody else kept getting in the way. Also the crazy love between John and Paul was...really interesting to watch.

And yes John was on heroin and was clearly not his best. Him trashing George over I, Me, Mine was particularly a low point. But at other times he was hilarious and supportive and just a great friend. It seemed to vary by the day.

I thought George's album from the 1980s, Cloud 9, was total garbage when I was a kid due to it way overplaying on the radio. Especially "I've Got my Mind Set on You." And then he was the grumpiest of grumpy middle aged boomers during the 1990s, he basically hated everything. So he was my least favorite Beatle so it was nice to see him young and having a good time. And I got how obnoxious it had to have been to put up with John and Paul all the time. Also he had just been caught cheating on his wife so his personal life was falling apart so that couldn't have helped.

John and Paul helping George with Something and George helping Ringo with Octopus' Garden were cool.

Anyway Get Back is great. I still don't really know how they made their music even watching it happen. It would be like one of them would come in with a song (or that scene where you see Paul just inventing Get Back out of nothing) and the other guys would get this thoughtful look on their faces and just seemingly invent their own parts spontaneously just listening to it (and then Paul would suggest they do something else). Is this wizardry? Or how rock bands usually work? I don't know. It was crazy to see.

I largely agree an all accounts. Who knew that "across the universe" actually worked? 

George Harrison's solo material was quite uninspired, although, I have to say I heard it in the 90s.
When he teamed up for The Travelling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan, it sounded pretty great even for a teenager hooked on German and Swedish pop.

If I have to pick a Lennon solo song, it is from his last LP. It is "Watching the wheels".
If I have to pick a Sir Paul song, it is obviously "Live and Let Die".
If I have to pick a George Harrison song, it will always be "While my guitar gently weeps". Yes, it was not a solo album, but this Languish.

Let's not talk about Ringo except with this:

[Admiral Yi]

I was ready to go full ballistic because I've always loved George's persona.

I wanted to type out a list of all his amazing songs to CRUSH HIS ENEMIES.  Unfortunately after scrolling his discography I could only come up with three that I really liked. My Sweet Lord, What is Life, and Crackerbox Palace.  Set on you is OK.

  

[The Minsky Moment]

Ringo was there and maybe the better drummer of him and Pete Best, I do not really have a frame of reference.

Yes he was a better drummer than Pete Best.  Best got the job because his Mom owned a club where the band played.
Ringo got the job because he fit in with the group and was the best rock drummer in Liverpool in 1962.

[Razgovory]