I just watched Prince of Persia. Pretty boring unfortunately :(Yes ! big probs. The Arabian Nights set of stories IS very much Muslim-era fantasy. The manners and background of that era are quite clear in the stories. I remember having a paperback version (at 12, so it was pretty 'racey' for me B-) ), with nice painted cover, of course, of the original British traveller and diplomat Sir Richard Burton's Victorian-era translation into English.
It's basically an Arabian nights style fantasy ….
Niggle: I THINK it's set in some ancient pre-Mulsim period…
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Comic Talk and General Discussion *
What are you watching right now?
As someone who hates zombie stories, I surprised myself by first choosing to watch and then quite enjoying The Girl with All the Gifts. It's a zombie movie on Netflix. It had the usual zombie movie tropes. Characters were likable, acting was great. It had the right tone, always that note of hope. The protagonist (a young girl) was really good. The ending was surprising. It left me satisfied. Zombie premise was similar to The Last of Us, a brain fungus thing. Anyway, I recommend it. Even as a hater of zombie movies.
Before I chose to watch a zombie movie, I first tried to watch a fantasy/fairy tale movie (because I usually like that genre), Red Riding Hood. Awful. I tried to give it a chance. I really did. I let it play for half and hour. But good God was it boring. It had the ambiance of boring. No characters. No mood. And for some reason, medieval peasant women all wearing pristine modern make-up.
I also watched the new Unsolved Mysteries today. Same types of stories as the original, slightly different format. Narrated by witnesses/family. Best part was the familiar music. Only six episodes, which is kinda a let-down. Five were unsolved murders/disappearances, and one was a UFO story. If you liked the original and/or crime documentaries, you'll probably enjoy it.
I watched the anime series BNA (Brand New Animal, but also the plot involves DNA).
Synopsis: A race of beings called beastmen have their own self-governing city in Japan to prevent conflicts with humans. A human teenager mysteriously transforms into a beastman and takes refuge in the city. She befriends a lone wolf detective and looks for a way to become human again.
My impressions: It's a well-paced anime series. At twelve episodes long, the plot moves forward at a good pace and comes to a satisfying conclusion. Some of it was very predictable, but there were enough mysteries and unexpected bits to stay interesting. It has the tone I like in anime, which is a balance of light mood/characters and serious situations. It is a shonen anime for sure, with a battle in every episode. Dub was good with very prolific/familiar voice actors.
Tbh, not memorable, groundbreaking, or emotional. But a fun ride. It's a solid show. And it's a complete series. A decent way to burn some time if you like anime. (It has too much over-the-top battle stuff for anyone who is not into shonen anime, though.)
I re-watched Strictly Ballroom
It holds up. This film was great! Very typical Baz Luhrmann movie: very stylised story and performances with colour saturation turned up to 11.
It was a fun story and a good snapshot of a weird part of Australian culture, with really good dancing, some great flamenco, and an ugly woman turned beauty that really WAS ugly looking and genuinely pretty during her transformation.
Worth noting that this film was a huge inspiration on culture world wide, spawning all the celeb dance shows (Strictly come dancing, Dancing with the stars), which in turn spawned the revival of the talent shows (such and such's got talent, The Voice etc), and that in turn inspired shows like Glee.
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Now I'm re-watching MythBusters.
Weird to think that it only aired first in 2003! Not really that long ago. I seriously thought it was from back in the 1990s. Adam is a young 30 year old there, playing the fool while Jamie is stolid. There's a lot of naughtiness and sexual jokes. Adam is like an venerable grandfather now. huge difference!
Interesting trivia (to me), is that the people who made the show were "Beyond Productions". They began in Australia by making a show called "Towards 2000" back in the 80s about future technology and advances in science for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). Eventually they went to commercial TV on channel 7 and changed their name to "Beyond 2000". i love how they kept that part of the name and continued to make science focused shows.
I'm currently rewatching Deadbeat because I enjoy paranormal stuff that doesn't take itself seriously. Deadbeat is about a broke, lazy guy whose only friend is his drug dealer. He can see ghosts and helps them cross over to the afterlife.
@ozone: I tried watching Mythbusters back in the day, but it irritated me so much. They were trying to appear scientific but never used scientific method. I'm sure it was a fun show regardless, but I just couldn't get past my irritation.
usedbooks wrote:It was the same with me.
@ozone: I tried watching Mythbusters back in the day, but it irritated me so much. They were trying to appear scientific but never used scientific method. I'm sure it was a fun show regardless, but I just couldn't get past my irritation.
But then in I got into it again later because I was curious about the myths…
Originally I thought they we trying to be urban myth and science experts who were trying to definitely prove things.
Looking back on it now I have a much better perspective: I see it as two movie SFX pros who are very different from each other taking on challenges and trying to tackle them in the best way they can and TRYING to be reasonably scientific about it.
It's cool. You can read all the tensions under the surface between the two, knowing that they didn't really like each other s friends (only workmates). You realise that none of it is done on sets, those are all real places, it's Jamie's working SFX shop, all those high speed cameras and things they use in the myths have to be bought and sourced (they didn't have an unlimited budget back then). Despite the clever cutting and interstertial effects it's a very real show and I could easily see myself at a workbench trying to tackle things the same way.
I just binged the entirety of 12 Oz. Mouse (Well, up til now, as they are currently airing a new 3rd season, which I have now idea why or how it got revived though I suspect it might be partly due to Adult Swim losing Family Guy next year and needing to quickly greenlight everything needed to make up for the soon to be empty timeslots.).
First few episodes make it feel like it's just going to be episodic insane nonsense not unlike Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Then……well.
It kinda becomes a weird, almost Surrealist Horror in nature, and I am not entirely sure what the hell the plot is, but there definitely IS one.
Wondering what other old Adult Swim shows are gonna be revived as a result of this show's revival and the Family Guy loss next year (And Bob's Burgers in 2023.).
I also suspect Toonami and anime in general are gonna play a bigger role as a result of said loss.
2016 Ghostbusters
I liked the cast but this version was clearly made for children, which was weird given the creepy, sexy nature of the original. The action, jokes, visuals and effects were all aimed at young kids. Looked like something from a cheap playstation game made 15 years ago.
It's a decent children's movie, but a disappointing addition to the cannon.
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Moana
This was an excellent film- good for kids AND adults. Love the way it took on Polynesian mythology. Weird that they didn't mention battle or war once though… a lot of the culture of those people is about that. I mean they're basically the same as the Vikings. BUT nevertheless there's more to culture than violence. It was a lovely looking film with great songs, good character design and a story that I haven't seen covered before in a popular film (ahem *Ghostbustes* cough). The cast were great too. Loved the Rock as Maui.
One weird thing about the 2016 Ghostbusters- Kate McKinnon's character was wearing all sorts of cheap cosplay googles and glasses the whole time- stuff that was constantly advertised on Facebook and E-bay a while ago.
They were always on her face and I remember these things always being all over the web… So the costume people just raided Ebay for cheap stuff for the character.
Netflix Greenlit the remaining 4 seasons for Dragon Prince.
We getting the full series y'all.
………Wondering what triggered it though, probably the lack of live action content due to the virus and the fact animation can be done from home and thus Animated Content will be in higher demand due to it being able to still be produced.
Two pre-code Hollywood classics. Millie(1931) and Of Human Bandage (1934)
Me and my old movies. Millie is some great melodrama that sets up a bunch of tropes used and abused by any number of other movies.
Of Human Bondage is Leslie Howard and Bette Davis in a role she got robbed of an Oscar nomination.
Watching these get a sense of deja vu because of all the stuff that stole and copied from them.
And I love Bette Davis.
Going through Pixar Disney films I've never seen right now.
Zootropia:
Good touching film. Simplistic allegory on racism/profiling/cultural bigotry etc. It was pretty good but he story was a bit too "TV". Not as deep as you want for a movie.
Wreck it Ralph 2:
It was ok… Ralph and Penelope (?) discover the net… So there were fun cameos of big internet companies, but it was way too sanitised for actual internet commentary. This one was way too shallow and kiddy based.
I would have preferred to see a film based more around the builder guy and his girlfriend. There was a better story in those two.
Cars:
This was cool. It's the same story as you get in something like Doc Hollywood- Bigshot gets marooned in a small town and learns to love it, making deep connections with the weirdo residents and learning life lessons. I liked it a lot.
Cars 2:
This takes the supporting character Mater and gives him a fish out of water mistaken identity spy comedy thriller. It was ok, lots of action but basically a more child-focussed story than the first film. Would have preferred more focus on Lightning McQueen, his GF and the people in the town again or at least the Piston Cup racing circuit.
Ozone, I completely agree with your assessment on, well all your most recent film comments, but especially ghostbusters. It'll be interesting to see how the new one turns out as it's a sequel to the old ones.
I've been watching Cursed on netflix, it's an interesting take on the merlin/arthur story even with the added grrl power and such. Despite trying to place itself historically with viking raiders, bits about rome and such it might as well have been pure fantasy as there's nothing remotely historical about it. Which is fine, it's nice to have an effects heavy fantasy series and it makes the more modern attitudes and ethnic diversity fit better than trying to be realistic. I can just imagine some people getting angry at a mixed race Arthur being side lined to a teenage girl.
Ghost Stories on Netflix - an Indian Anthology horror film.
I didn't completely understand the endings on one or two of the story - or I understood but they didn't have the 'punch' I would have expected.
But the stories are full of butt-clenching tension. Nice, understated horror film making in terms of visual/audio style (mostly).
I find it interesting how Indian people slip in and out of English while they talk - I have some friends who do the same so fluidly. i guess certain words/concepts are just better expressed in English?
In the movie, that's how everyone talked and the subtitles would pop on only when they weren't speaking English. Was interesting to me, anyway.
I'd give the flick a 7 or 7.5. Pretty good!
Been watching Glitch Techs, which was apparently a Nick show that Nick Greenlit, but then didn't want and handed it to Netflix.
And HOO BOY was THAT a mistake on Nick's part, as this show is FANTASTIC!
It's so fun, it has plenty of references to gaming (The First Episode has Angriest Pat and Matt McMuscles in it for a brief moment (And was originally also gonna have Woolie and Liam.).) that are actually, you know, references and not what writers think Gaming is.
It's kind of amazing how good it is and how faithful to gaming it is.
I have no idea why Nick didn't want it for themselves, but Netflix was very smart to grab it, holy shit what was Nickelodeon thinking? This could have been their next big show.
Oh Well, guess Nick's loss is Netflix's gain.
Which Netflix is gonna need because the Big Sick has basically halted development of pretty much all live action stuff, which will lead to basically every channel/streaming service who have animation studios having to make up the difference.
Can we talk about that for a second? How The Virus has changed the dynamic for Live Action and Animation movies/show right now?
Banes wrote:I find it interesting how Indian people slip in and out of English while they talk - I have some friends who do the same so fluidly. i guess certain words/concepts are just better expressed in English?As I understnad it it's more that English is the defacto lingua-franca there… They have a lot of different languages in the country and few people speak them all. Hindi is meant to be the official language but people will generally learn English as a second language instead.
So it could be that, yeah some ideas are better expressed in English but mainly because the English speaker is meant to be a Pashtun or Peshawa or something and rather than speak in their own language (which no other Indians would understand), they talk English instead?
-Trying to embark on number 2 of the new starwars trilogy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_India#Prominent_languages_of_India
Relevant, they got ALOT.
I'd recommend Freedom at Midnight about Indian Independence and how it was decided to make one of the main languages English. One Indian Nationalist party member said that Britain's greatest gift to India as colonizers was a common language that made the various peoples of India into one Nationality and that the language was English.
I took Third World history in college because it was taught by my favorite professor. The future Sistah Souljah was another student in the class.
ozoneocean wrote:When I was stuck in the airport ( JAL flight diverted from Heathrow "due to fog" - it was twice as thick in Orly ) for 12 hours, there were some (I assumed) West Africans in a group, 2 in traditional dress, 3 in business suits. It was interesting to listen to them drift between languages - French (some of which I could pick up), their own different ones, and some English. In the middle of a French spell, one patted his pockets and said "I need some fags !" (cigarettes) "Avoir un peu de moi" "No, I need to buy a packet" He went off to a machine; the others reverted to some African dialect…Banes wrote:I find it interesting how Indian people slip in and out of English while they talk - I have some friends who do the same so fluidly. i guess certain words/concepts are just better expressed in English?They have a lot of different languages in the country and few people speak them all. Hindi is meant to be the official language but people will generally learn English as a second language instead.
UNTRACEABLE - Diane Lane, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross, Colin Hanks. From 2008, but hard to find anything these days. A psycho kills his victims on line with millions watching his site. Have no idea where this goof got all the money to finance his high-tech equipment as he doesn't get paid anything, but it's some kind of revenge for his father's suicide shown on news TV. Diane leads a team of FBI types searching for clues. Half way thru we see who the bad guy is but would've been better if not until final scenes. Still not a bad watch, love Diane, gets a 3 on the Moizmeter.
I enjoyed the second season of The Umbrella Academy. It wasn't as "heavy" as the first season but pretty much the same premise. (The siblings are trying to stop the apocalypse they are also the cause of, but a different apocalypse this time.) The historical setting created an interesting stage. The romantic arcs were sweet and touching. Like the first season, the soundtrack was fantastic and set a nice tone/pace for action sequences.
I also watched Fe@rless, which is an animated movie about a teenage gamer accidentally bringing the characters from his space superhero game into the real world. It was definitely a kids' movie, not much adult appeal or references. A solid movie, nothing really spectacular or memorable but not bad.
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