[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Finished watching Dead Ringers. Since it's (loosely) inspired by a Cronenberg film I was expecting it to be like Human Centipede but with pregnant people and/or twins / babies, but it's not like that.

Even the Cronenberg film was apparently more of a psychological thriller---though unlike the film

Spoiler

there are no grotesque mutants, nightmarish torture implements being used instead of medical instruments, or disembowelment with said torture implements.

Great performances by Rachel Weisz as the identical twins. Of course I was smitten at first with the manic sex-fiend who's into 'unethical' human experiments (that

Spoiler

don't actually cause anyone lasting harm, and iirc are mainly considered 'unethical' just because of the 'oh no she's playing Go*, growing babies in a lab or trying to delay menopause, horror of horrors' factor

). At least until she

Spoiler

dissed mathematics and got uber-clingy.

The script is pretty good. While I'd generally advocate against complaining that events aren't sufficiently set up or explained, I do think this show would have been a bit more satisfying with some more set up and development---another episode or two might have been great. In particular,

Spoiler

Elliot stabbing the woman in the bladder and Beverly being so depressed she wanted to die didn't have enough set up or foreshadowing iirc---while on a philosophical level I think it's good to sometimes have characters act in ways we can't easily fit into naive folk psychological narratives, and to have events be unpredictable, these actions just seemed too tacked on, even with RW's otherwise great performances. Though perhaps on a rewatch I'd notice more foreshadowing---if only in the subtleties of her body language....

Be aware that after the main closing credits of the final episode there are some final scenes---almost missed those.

I liked that like Swarm

Spoiler

the mentally disturbed killer gets a happy and triumphant ending. Possibly setting up a second season?...

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

increasingly, there's only one kind of big project the movie industry is interested in, a new genre that starts with running down a list of the properties the studio already owns before mashing them together. Movies like Ready Player One and Space Jam: A New Legacy function less as stories and more as guided tours of Warner Bros' intellectual property vaults; Marvel's Fantastic Four movie—another fruit of the Fox acquisition—might still be years away, but they wasted no time dropping a multiversal double of Mr. Fantastic into the latest Doctor Strange, just to prove they could. Spider-Man: No Way Home gathered Tom Holland's, Andrew Garfield's, and Tobey Maguire's Peter Parkers together like a collector showing off a complete set, a nifty feat of scheduling if not much else, and Warners' forthcoming The Flash, which use its multiverse-hopping to suck Michael Keaton's Batman into DC's rebooted cinematic universe, looks to be taking a similar tack. IP also has its own origin stories now, in movies like Air, Flamin' Hot, Blackberry, and Tetris, where humans are overshadowed by the iconic brands they created. Even Free Guy, a movie that frames franchise culture as the death of individuality, ends with

Spoiler

its hero brandishing a lightsaber and Captain America's shield.

What matters in IP Cinema isn't whether a property is attached to a good story, or any story at all—the ideal properties have no authors to meddle in the creative process. All that matters is that it tickles our hippocampi with an itch of recognition, something to make it stand out in the endless river of content. [...]

The most pop-savvy creators have learned to turn this environment to their advantage [...]

[...]

Spoiler

(At least when comic books left you hanging, they only did it for a month.)

But its triumph just makes the thought of slogging back to the multiplex to see another once-promising auteur's attempt to make magic with someone else's toys even harder to contemplate.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the first great movie in a new genre. (slate.com)

Wonder if that critic's ever heard of Shakespeare... prolly not.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Should stress that I'd assumed Dead Ringers would be hard to watch because of gross and nightmarish on-screen content---but it really wasn't. Nowhere near as disturbing (visually, at least) as, say, American Horror Story.

There was some subtle foreshadowing that I'd forgotten about or not gotten before, but I think it would have been a bit more emotionally resonant with more set-up. For example,

Spoiler

showing Beverly struggling with suicidal ideations, Beverly and Elliot talking about 'merging' etc., Elliot fantasizing about stabbing her patients or the babies....

Though that would have made it harder to watch....

Still the relative lack of overt set-up is a good reminder that

Spoiler

it's not always obvious when people are suicidal or on the brink of violence, we don't have full access to the motivations etc. of others or what's going on inside their heads (at least not until AI brain scans or neural links get closer to that...).... Some have criticized Elliot's ready acceptance of Beverly's desire to die, but that probably demonstrates that Elliot understands her much better than the audience does---most likely she'd been contemplating suicide for a long time.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 June 2023 - 10:33 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tennant and Sheen are magic together.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 07 June 2023 - 06:43 PM, said:

Tennant and Sheen are magic together.

For once Bing's AI search was actually more useful than a standard Google search:

Quote

Premiere episode [...] July 28[...] Series episodes will premiere weekly on Fridays.

Good Omens Season 2 Release Date and All Updates (whenamzn.com)

Boo. Oh well, won't try to shoot the angel (despite being an American...).

[QuickTidal]

HBO Max's CLONE HIGH reboot dropped 6 of it's reported 10 episodes onot the streaming service, so I gave them a watch.

Now I should preface this by saying that I ADORE the whole first season of the show from the early aughts, and quite frankly I didn't think that the show could fly as well without the irreverent comedy Lynchpin that was Ghandi....but it was surprisingly really good?

Like Miller & Lord have basically ported the plot of 21 JUMP STREET onto the show....in that the clones that were frozen in 2003 in the original run of the show's season 1 finale...are now being woken up in 2023 to find not only is it 20 years later and that there are OTHER newer clones that have aged and attend school with them....but that the social climate in 2023 is nothing like what it was in 2003, and thus they struggle to be "teens" in a world they don't really recognize....where Joan is now "cool" for being and outsider, and the "cool" kids at the school are now the outsiders in general, and Cleo's popularity is not a thing. It makes things very interesting and was a smart choice narratively.

Love the new characters too, I didn't think I would, but Harriet Tubman is great, as are Confucius and Topher Bus (Christopher Columbus hiding his name so he won't be canceled)....but the real standout here is Frida Kahlo. She is 100% the Ghandi stand-in for the laughs and irreverence, and she's hilarious and a really welcome addition to the cast. When she talks to her unibrow I die of laughter. Great stuff.

I really enjoyed the first 4 eps, but I struggled a bit with eps 5 and 6 which felt like wheel-spinning eps...I'm exited to see what eps 7-10 bring when they drop.

Note: I'm also impressed that even though they've changed voice actors for Cleo (for reasons?), I'm glad they've invented a new foil character for Scudworth to go up against who could be voiced by Cleo's old voice actor Christa Miller. And quite frankly the fact that they did that and didn't give one of the new characters to voice actor Michael McDonald who voiced Ghandi in the original run feeds my theory that Ghandi will be back in the finale. I can't see any other reason to leave him out of the cast while they found a role for Miller to voice instead of Cleo.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 13 June 2023 - 04:07 PM, said:

...Frida Kahlo...When she talks to her unibrow ...

SOLD

[Tiste Simeon]

I really want to watch that show, my fave Biol Lawrence is involved (incidentally his wife is Christa Miller) and everything he touches is good IMO (Scrubs being a classic of course and more recently Ted Lasso and Shrinking). So yeah I definitely need to watch both the original and the reboot.

[QuickTidal]

I admit to being VERY interested in this due to the clear anime vibe it's throwing off. The DC animated stuff is always decent to great in my books (really enjoying the Tomorrowverse movies for instance)....but this looks to be giving off a totally different and almost more cozy vibe...46 year old me is all about cozy TV.

Anyways, I'll definitely be watching.

[Tsundoku]

Renewals and cancellations. Some of it is rather old news, but I guess it's a completist/ongoing updates kind of list.

Andor is only a 2-season show. Gutted.

https://editorial.ro...-tv-shows-2023/

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 18 June 2023 - 10:30 AM

[Tsundoku]

So apparently some of you are fans of the book(s)? NFI myself. Trailer is bereft of pretty much any info, so no spoilers I guess?

[Primateus]

Tsundoku, on 18 June 2023 - 10:25 AM, said:

Renewals and cancellations. Some of it is rather old news, but I guess it's a completist/ongoing updates kind of list.

Andor is only a 2-season show. Gutted.

https://editorial.ro...-tv-shows-2023/

Was it supposed to be more than two seasons?

[Tsundoku]

Primateus, on 23 June 2023 - 11:59 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 18 June 2023 - 10:25 AM, said:

Renewals and cancellations. Some of it is rather old news, but I guess it's a completist/ongoing updates kind of list.

Andor is only a 2-season show. Gutted.

https://editorial.ro...-tv-shows-2023/

Was it supposed to be more than two seasons?

No idea, but it's just annoying that quality like that gets 2 seasons while so much absolute drivel gets renewed ad infinitum.

[QuickTidal]

Last two eps of CLONE HIGH for the season were both really good. Glad it's back, excited to see what next season holds!

[Primateus]

Tsundoku, on 23 June 2023 - 12:08 PM, said:

Primateus, on 23 June 2023 - 11:59 AM, said:

Tsundoku, on 18 June 2023 - 10:25 AM, said:

Renewals and cancellations. Some of it is rather old news, but I guess it's a completist/ongoing updates kind of list.

Andor is only a 2-season show. Gutted.

https://editorial.ro...-tv-shows-2023/

Was it supposed to be more than two seasons?

No idea, but it's just annoying that quality like that gets 2 seasons while so much absolute drivel gets renewed ad infinitum.

That is entirely understandable. Though I think the reason dumbed down drivel gets more content is exactly because it is dumbed down drivel. It's easier to consume, whereas a show like Andor is heavier and requires more attention.

[Briar King]

Been rerererererewatching Justified(yay we get new episodes soon!), The Sopranos and Boardwalk Empire.

[QuickTidal]

Somebody help BK, he's stuck in the 2000's!

[Briar King]

Watched a show called Perfect Match on Netflix before they hit us with the password sharing shit. Sister even canceled and redid a new account and we had access for one day before it hit us again on this new account. Sucks.

Anyway it was a nice and steamy horny watch!!!!!!

[Slow Ben]

Slow Ben, on 30 May 2023 - 08:48 PM, said:

Awesome I can’t wait to dig into the last season. Wrapping up the last half of succession, then Barry.

Finished Succession. 4 season and I can’t really say whether I liked it or not. It was interesting, and I couldn’t stop watching, but I wouldn’t say that I really liked it. If that makes sense.


Realized The Bear season 2 was out so Barry got pushed to on deck.

The Bear!

[champ]

Slow Ben, on 27 June 2023 - 02:57 AM, said:

Slow Ben, on 30 May 2023 - 08:48 PM, said:

Awesome I can't wait to dig into the last season. Wrapping up the last half of succession, then Barry.

Finished Succession. 4 season and I can't really say whether I liked it or not. It was interesting, and I couldn't stop watching, but I wouldn't say that I really liked it. If that makes sense.


Realized The Bear season 2 was out so Barry got pushed to on deck.

The Bear!

The Bear season 2 is fantastic and has a very special and stress inducing episode, even more so than the first season. It also tops the first season in quality too which I didn't expect.

This post has been edited by champ: 27 June 2023 - 08:20 AM