What's this Barry thing?
I'm currently watching Good Omens
I think that was a joint project between Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.
The premise is that the Antichrist is being born and the end of the world is near so an angel and demon are teaming up to try and stop it.
It's a very nice looking fantasy series with many great actors and high production values.
The one trouble for me is that the logic of the world and even the ethics that the authors are espousing through the story are paper thin… Think about anything in it for more that 2 seconds and it melts away like wax.
Even so the performances are so good that you can shut your brain of fairly easily.
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What are you watching right now?
Those Who Wish Me Dead - Angelina Jolie, Finn Little, Jon Bernthal, Aiden Gillen, Nicholas Hoult, Medina Senghore. Angelina is a forest fire fighter who is haunted by a rescue she didn't make years ago. She now finds this young boy (Finn) who saw his father killed by these crooks (Gillen, Hoult) as he had a list of nasty men in politics. Jon and Medina help out sort of. It gets a 2 on the Moizmeter.
usedbooks wrote:The four horsemen are there… They haven't ridden horses yet in the part I've seen but I saw Famine and War, played by that lady from Catch.
I enjoyed the Good Omens serial. It was more cohesive than the book. Of course, as with all book adaptations, it left out some of the bits I liked (most notably the other four riders of the apocalypse), but cutting some things did help streamline the story.
——————-
I finally saw two movies that came out in the 1990s that I've been avoiding for ages XD
First up Face Off
I avoided this because it was supposed to be ultra violent and also I was so disappointed to Nicholas Cage for turning into a big budget action star. After Raising Arizona I had hopes for him… Though that was an outlier in reality and Nicholas has always been a crazy actor who does whatever he wants.
The story of Face Off is that an FBI agent wants to hunt down a "terrorist for hire" because of the bad stuff he's done but also for killing his son years ago. He hunts him down and defeats him but there's still a bomb in LA somewhere and the only one who knows where it is, is the terrorist's brother and he wont talk to anyone BUT his brother. So the FBI guy swaps faces with the terrorist and goes to prison so he can con the brother…
And lots of crazy stuff happens.
Basically Face Off is a silly crazy Hong Kong mad action film from the 80s that's been copy and pasted to the USA in the 90s with English speaking actors and a Hollywood budget. It has all of the insane tropes and ideas of the maddest Hong Kong action films or even crazy Japanese animes from the early 90s… It's strange to see an American version.
This film is John Woo's mutant baby,
Second up White Men Can't Jump
I avoided this because it was heavily promoted as a sports film and sport bores me to tears… Also the promo tended to focus on the machismo of the characters and that's a real turn off. It was sold as a comedy sports film that had this buddy thing with Harrilson and Snipes, with the funky, bouncy 90s rap in the background… ew.
The story is about two poor men with poor families who struggle at the very bottom of society, literally scamming money where and when they can to get by, they even scam each other and are unrepentant and nasty about it.
Woody is a white basketball player from the Midwest who was very good but had to leave for various reasons. Weaselly is a low level scammer living in LA in a crime ridden neighborhood.
The two team up to scam money from people who play 2 on 2 basketball at small courts. Weaselly talks big, shows off an insults the players, brags and says he can beat any of them and is willing to bet lots of money, they can pair him with any other team mate. Woody hangs out looking dorky and white, so the guys pick him to be Weaselly's useless partner. Then they both trash talk and brag at the other team while beating them and taking all the money…
It's a more intelligent and thoughtful film than it was promoted as or than its stupid title would suggest. It's an interesting, if slightly facile look at poverty in LA in the 1990s. It ends on a slightly down note.
-BOTH movies have people saying the titular line over and over in a super obvious way.
Ozoneocean wrote:I meant The Other Four Horsemen (from the book): Grievous Bodily Harm, Really Cool People, Cruelty to Animals, and Embarrassing Personal Problemsusedbooks wrote:The four horsemen are there… They haven't ridden horses yet in the part I've seen but I saw Famine and War, played by that lady from Catch.
I enjoyed the Good Omens serial. It was more cohesive than the book. Of course, as with all book adaptations, it left out some of the bits I liked (most notably the other four riders of the apocalypse), but cutting some things did help streamline the story.
The book has eight horsemen. Because four mortal bikers are mistaken for the other four.
Ozoneocean wrote:
What's this Barry thing?
maybe it's about an R&B singer with the silkiest bass voice wot you ever heard. Awwwwww, yeah…
I was re-watching Arpeggio of Blue Steel on Crunchyroll last night and saw a banner for SPY x FAMILY, clicked on it and started watching, that kid is something else.
dpat57 wrote:The blue steel thing is a strange anime about ships with weird sigils isn't it?
I was re-watching Arpeggio of Blue Steel on Crunchyroll last night and saw a banner for SPY x FAMILY, clicked on it and started watching, that kid is something else.
Dave Mire wrote:Noooo… It just doesn't appeal to me. The idea of a dark, dramatic take on a character from a much loved movie, especially since it's based on the version of him from the terrible written prequel movies, is very unappealing XD
Is anybody watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series?
It's like saying "We're going to give you a new dark drama series about James Bond! But it's based on David Niven's portrayal from the weird Casino Royale movie…"
That's a hard sell, even if it does try and bridge it with the original film.
—————————
I watched "Down with Love"
Staring Obi-Wan's Ewan McGregor, Renee Zwellger, and David Hyde Pierce.
It was a fun, silly film. The story is set in he late 1960s. A Midwestern girl comes to New York to promote her book about female sexual empowerment and gets in a weird relationship with the super ladies man Catcher Bloch, played by McGregor, WITH his natural accent.
The movie is ultra-stylised in a VERY 1960s way, so much so you can be fooled that it really IS a 1960s quirky sex-comedy farce staring Shirley MacLaine and Tony Curtis or maybe even Peter Sellers. It's quite amazing in that way. David Hyde Pierce is a perfect Tony Randall.
Some small parts were a little cheekier than a 1960s film but it was mostly SPOT on. Not a Pastiche or an imitation but a pure homage.
The story even had the same stupid, illogical twists and turns of a 1960s story, but you don't care because it all fits.
It was a good experience.
Indeed, the cool pimped-up enemy warships are commanded by anime girls in cute dresses who take their duties very seriously. Can a lone submarine somehow get past the sinister Fleet of Fog to deliver a new warhead to the U.S. that could change the war? It's well worth the ride.
Ozoneocean wrote:
The blue steel thing is a strange anime about ships with weird sigils isn't it?dpat57 wrote:
I was re-watching Arpeggio of Blue Steel on Crunchyroll last night and saw a banner for SPY x FAMILY, clicked on it and started watching, that kid is something else.
Dave Mire wrote:
Is anybody watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series?
I tapped out after the Boba Fett show, so I haven't watched. Saw a couple reviews here and there.
I'm still interested in some of the behind-the-scenes stuff on Star Wars. But even that interest is fading, haha.
Started watching The Orville, which is back after a LONG hiatus. Wow, this show is now more Star Trek than Star Trek. They've pulled way back on the comedy, though there are still a few funny moments, character-based, and the occasional joke. I'm really liking it so far.
I'm watching the new season of The Orville.
Banes, you were right, it's much more dramatic now. The writing is still pretty heavy handed but maybe not quite as much as it was. It IS more Star Trek than ever now though, espey with the music.
They get the same thing wrong as all SciFi shows though 🤣
They have massive, high speed space warships with light speed energy weapons dogfighting each other super close like WW1 bi-planes, super slowly…
Most SciFi shows always do this.
Earth warships stopped fighting each other at close visual range in WW2, even in WW1 they started to do that. And in the modern world virtually no close range dogfights happen with fighter jets, it's all done beyond visual range now.
Think about the situation in space where you can see for millions of Kilometers and your weapons have collossol range… No fights will ever happen up close unless it's a special case. Most fights would happen where the enemy is only a little blip on a sensor.
Banes wrote:Dave Mire wrote:
Is anybody watching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series?
I tapped out after the Boba Fett show, so I haven't watched. Saw a couple reviews here and there.
I'm still interested in some of the behind-the-scenes stuff on Star Wars. But even that interest is fading, haha.
Started watching The Orville, which is back after a LONG hiatus. Wow, this show is now more Star Trek than Star Trek. They've pulled way back on the comedy, though there are still a few funny moments, character-based, and the occasional joke. I'm really liking it so far.
Yeah they made bona fett boring. The best if that was the episode when Mando showed up. Obi wan is okay except the action scenes are crap. They make daytime soap fights look exciting.
Ozoneocean wrote:
I'm watching the new season of The Orville.
Banes, you were right, it's much more dramatic now. The writing is still pretty heavy handed but maybe not quite as much as it was. It IS more Star Trek than ever now though, espey with the music.
They get the same thing wrong as all SciFi shows though 🤣
They have massive, high speed space warships with light speed energy weapons dogfighting each other super close like WW1 bi-planes, super slowly…
Most SciFi shows always do this.
Earth warships stopped fighting each other at close visual range in WW2, even in WW1 they started to do that. And in the modern world virtually no close range dogfights happen with fighter jets, it's all done beyond visual range now.
Think about the situation in space where you can see for millions of Kilometers and your weapons have collossol range… No fights will ever happen up close unless it's a special case. Most fights would happen where the enemy is only a little blip on a sensor.
Ozoneocean wrote:
I'm watching the new season of The Orville.
Banes, you were right, it's much more dramatic now. The writing is still pretty heavy handed but maybe not quite as much as it was. It IS more Star Trek than ever now though, espey with the music.
They get the same thing wrong as all SciFi shows though 🤣
They have massive, high speed space warships with light speed energy weapons dogfighting each other super close like WW1 bi-planes, super slowly…
Most SciFi shows always do this.
Earth warships stopped fighting each other at close visual range in WW2, even in WW1 they started to do that. And in the modern world virtually no close range dogfights happen with fighter jets, it's all done beyond visual range now.
Think about the situation in space where you can see for millions of Kilometers and your weapons have collossol range… No fights will ever happen up close unless it's a special case. Most fights would happen where the enemy is only a little blip on a sensor.
The expanse is the best for this. Or was I suppose as it's finished now. To be fair when it comes to sci fi shows it's hard to beat.
Ozoneocean got it right when he said it's a mix of WW1 and WW2 dogfighting with some ship close quarter action. The classic ST:TOS Balance of Terror is straight from the Enemy Below about hunting a U-Boat and Star Wars A New Hope
is directly from Dambusters . There's a side by side comparison of Star Wars and Dambusters attack runs that is uncanny. Lucas copied it.
They're going for what looks best on screen. Recent WW2 air war movies have had ridiculous CGI too with turns way too tight and silly maneuvers all for the screen and to hell with realism. Don't see great air to air sequences like Battle of Britain (with real aircraft) even for well documented encounters like Midway. The recent Midway movie was silly with the turns and Dauntless SBD as fighters. Two recent films about the Poles in Battle of Britain weren't quite as bad though again it's all about keeping the dogfight maneuvers on screen.
I've seen Red Tails , Mission of Honor/Hurricane , 303 Squadron and Dauntless all recently. Red Tails was about the Tuskegee airmen and the air combat scenes are total fantasy. All suffer from stuffing air combat maneuvers into a movie screen so all the turns are way too tight and Red Tails has some silly moves and P-51 taking on Me-262 in dogfights. The ones about the Poles in the Battle of Britain are much better and Dauntless is a low budget take off on Midway though does get the bombing runs right and includes Wildcats that the big budget movie left out.
Ozoneocean wrote:Yeah I want a vast blazing starscape with two almost unnoticeable points of light at opposite corners, one of them flares brightly and vanishes, battle over. That's the kind of stirring space battles us real Sci-Fi fans need to see, none of this poseur crap. Hands up (dammit where are the smileys in this place?) those of us who have done a comic page mocking this age-old complaint.
They get the same thing wrong as all SciFi shows though 🤣
They have massive, high speed space warships with light speed energy weapons dogfighting each other super close like WW1 bi-planes, super slowly…
Most SciFi shows always do this.
dpat57 wrote:♥️Ozoneocean wrote:Yeah I want a vast blazing starscape with two almost unnoticeable points of light at opposite corners, one of them flares brightly and vanishes, battle over. That's the kind of stirring space battles us real Sci-Fi fans need to see, none of this poseur crap. Hands up (dammit where are the smileys in this place?) those of us who have done a comic page mocking this age-old complaint.
They get the same thing wrong as all SciFi shows though 🤣
They have massive, high speed space warships with light speed energy weapons dogfighting each other super close like WW1 bi-planes, super slowly…
Most SciFi shows always do this.
"I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe, hmmm.
… attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate…"
I finally sat through the Jason Mamoa Conan.
All of it.
It wasn't more true to the character than the Arnold Schwarzenegger films as some have said. It was less true all in all except in certain key aspects-
-Jason had darker skin and hair, more like Conan.
- Jason's Conan was smarter,
-There was more magic.
Apart from that the origin story they included wasn't good. It was absolutely based on the Arnold Conan origin, but without showing Conan as a slave which he never was in the books, so that's meant to make it technically more true… Except it's LESS true since that origin was only there FOR the Arnold story!
Without slave Conan we don't need to see Conan as a boy. We don't need to see his dead mum or have a revenge story about the death of his dad and the scene with the sword forging or the rifle of steel. In the Arnold version that stuff enhanced his Nietzschean mythos and the legend of his forging. In the Mamoa version, since he was never a slave it just weakens his character because there's no contrast or journey from that origin and so no point to it.
Asside from that the Arnold version included the real Conan origin anyway (from the books), which was the assult on the tower. This movie didn't have that.
A lot of the action in the Mamoa dim was very Conan though, showing him fighting with strength and cunning. But he could have used a much heavier sword. Clearly his prop weapon weighed nothing and it shows…
While Arnold's was very much overweight and that added to his performance.
THE 355 - Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Fan Bingbing, Lupita Nyong'o, Sebastian Stan. 5 women working for different gov agencies decide to get together to find a "drive" (looks like a cell phone) that can alter history? Bad guy Sebastian also in the hunt and tries to stop the girls. Beyond ridiculous fight scenes galore. Do they find it and who cares….a 1 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
CRISIS - Gary Oldman, Luke Evans, Evangeline Lilly, Armie Hammer and a cast of thousands, ridiculous over-cast leaves little interest in anyone. Just under 2 hrs and some summaries take longer to read than to watch movie. A cure for drug use seems found but alas, doesn't work, or at least I think it didn't, got lost with all those characters. Would have been better to just concentrate on a few but keeps jumping to the point where I couldn't follow whoever that was and what they were doing. An almost 2 on the Moizmeter,
Rewatched Crisis and second viewing made a bit more sense, so it now gets a 2 1/2, always liked Gary Oldman in anything.
Just finish watching Russian Doll. I liked it. It’s raunchy, lewd, trippy, confusing and part time funny. I liked the reset time issues along with the memory still intact. The series to me flow like a comic book. It’s a nice time loop and trippy space/time travel series. When the universe starts to collapse or re-adjust itself things get trippy. I’m Purposely Leaving out details so that if you decide to watch it, you get the same feeling I got of, “where is this story going?” So no names, or plots. Just watch. It rated “R” or “MA”.
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