TV/Movies Megathread

[Josephus]

Anyone watch Animal Kingdom? It's a very underrated show, not much talk about it. It's very good. It's basically about a family run by Ellen Barkin, with four adult sons and one nephew, who engage in crimes like bank heists etc. out of L.A. But it's also about the family dynamic and power struggle within it. If you havent seen it I highly recommend it.

[celedhring]

God I love a deserved one star hatchet job. I will possibly watch this film:

I don't know it looks more like the kind of so-bad-it's-bad film where it's more fun to read the reviews of it than whatching it.

[Sheilbh]

I don't know it looks more like the kind of so-bad-it's-bad film where it's more fun to read the reviews of it than whatching it.

Yeah - it's already been picked up by the cult cinema in London. I may see if it gets added to the roster of regulars.

[crazy canuck]

I don't know it looks more like the kind of so-bad-it's-bad film where it's more fun to read the reviews of it than whatching it.

Yeah - it's already been picked up by the cult cinema in London. I may see if it gets added to the roster of regulars.

Unsexy bits of an 80s porn film has got to be the best cinematic insult I have read. The reviewer Must have been waiting for a special moment to pull that one out of the bag.

[Berkut]

The Sopranos.

Oddly enough, I never actually really watched the Sopranos. Maybe a season or two at the beginning.

So I watched all 7 seasons the last few months.

Overall, kind of "meh". It is not nearly as good as The Wire, for example.

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

[celedhring]

Went around and finished Sandman. Stand by my original opinion, when the show is good it's because the base material is good, rather than it being a great adaptation. The efforts to create a season-long arc are pretty bad and feel forced, and the show shines when it's allowed to just tell standalone narratives, like the Death episode or the 11th episode (it helps that Dream of a Thousand Cats is one of my favorite Sandman stories, and I have a professional interest in the Calliope story).

[frunk]

Just started watching Kleo on NPR's recommendation.

Young woman with bad haircut, more interesting and likeable than hott, works as assassin for the Stasi just as the wall is coming down.

Likeable and interesting might be a German thing.  Like the chick in Run Lola Run/Bourne Identity.

I just started watching it tonight; rather enjoyable fun.

I just finished it today.  Overall enjoyable with some really dumb moments.  Too many action sequences have really dumb sequences of events, and too frequently one character will not kill another even though they have every opportunity and motive to do so, or kill/attempt to kill someone without a good reason.  It gets pretty random after a certain point.

It's like someone really liked John Woo style standoffs, but didn't have the patience to maintain them for any length of time.

[crazy canuck]

The Sopranos.

Oddly enough, I never actually really watched the Sopranos. Maybe a season or two at the beginning.

So I watched all 7 seasons the last few months.

Overall, kind of "meh". It is not nearly as good as The Wire, for example.

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

I agree with the Wire being better.  But iirc the Sapranos was ground breaking stuff for its time, but now looks a bit meh compared to what we now get on our streaming services.

[viper37]

The Sopranos.

Oddly enough, I never actually really watched the Sopranos. Maybe a season or two at the beginning.

So I watched all 7 seasons the last few months.

Overall, kind of "meh". It is not nearly as good as The Wire, for example.

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

I really liked the Sopranos, all seasons.  I was frustrated with the ending too, I thought I missed something, but no, that's the author's choice to fuck with us.  I still think it's one of the greatest tv show produced.

Never watched The Wire though, didn't appeal to me at the time.

[grumbler]

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.

[Tamas]

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 read that the show creator said in an interview once that the point is - does it matter? His life could only end being shot or being sent to prison, meantime he had to spend it always looking behind his back even on a family outing. Which works for me.

[Josephus]

The Sopranos.

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

They shot him.

[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.

[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.