Thread "What are you watching right now?" in forum "Comic Talk and General Discussion *"

Posted at 3:06PM, Jun. 26, 2022

Ozoneocean wrote:
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.

Now you are going to make me watch it now. I had no intention of watch this new version of Conan but you said a few things I need to see myself. I wonder why they took out the Slave Origin? Is it the same universe or an alternate crap we all know and love? Am I going to cringe when I see his sword? You said it is light. Welp, I guess I find out soon.

Posted at 7:06PM, Jun. 27, 2022

cdmalcolm1 wrote:
Now you are going to make me watch it now. I had no intention of watch this new version of Conan but you said a few things I need to see myself. I wonder why they took out the Slave Origin? Is it the same universe or an alternate crap we all know and love? Am I going to cringe when I see his sword? You said it is light. Welp, I guess I find out soon.

- They removed the slave origin because they wanted to make it more like the original stories
- It's the same universe but a total reboot.
- The sword looks ok enough, but if you've seen enough real sword usage you can recognise there's no heft to it at all and that's a little off-putting, it looks like he's using a light prop, which of course he is XD

Also, this Conan is a lot meaner and more savage than the Arny version. There was a sort of honour to the Arnold version, especially in fights. This one is just a mean shit. I like the honourable version more, it fits in with the hero archetype more, which is WHY we like the character. Brutality for brutality's sake has never been my thing.

Posted at 11:06PM, Jun. 27, 2022

Invincible and the boys

These 2 shows turned out way better than I thought they would.

Posted at 3:06AM, Jun. 28, 2022

mightguy15 wrote:
Invincible and the boys

These 2 shows turned out way better than I thought they would.

Watching the Boys myself. Amazon Prime is my only service. Heard a lot about and decided to check it out. I generally haven't liked superhero series since the 1966 Batman or the Linda Carter Wonder Woman. That's campy me. This is good because it's like how I thought supes would be in the real world.

Posted at 4:06PM, Jun. 28, 2022

Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness.
Not bad I suppose, convoluted and all over the place and barely stops to breathe but some good stuff in there. Some dodgy cgi, it's like they aren't even trying to make it look real.

Also went back and watched the rest of Obi wan. Actually pretty good all in. Definitely ended better than it started.

Posted at 2:07PM, Jul. 5, 2022

I liked the second half of Obi-Wan. Despite the sequels being terrible, McGregor and Christianson have great chemistry together. It was nice seeing them again. They succeeded in connecting Anakin to Vader much better than the prequels did.

Watched an indy horror film in the vein of The Babadook called "The Arbors". Really did well depicting social anxiety and mental illness.

Also watched Last Night in Soho. If you can get past the heavy-handed message, that all men suck, it is an engaging and beautiful movie. This is the movie Suckerpunch was trying to be.

Posted at 8:07AM, Jul. 6, 2022

Yeah the second half of Obi wan really turned it around.

Currently on stranger things season 4, the jury is out/ I mean it's good but where I've got to things aren't quite coming together. Hopefully that changes.

Posted at 8:07PM, Jul. 11, 2022

Genejoke wrote:
Doctor Strange in the multiverse of madness.

It wasn't bad, but it didn't have a proper ending from all the threads that were set up so it was more like an episode in a TV series than a contained movie, even in terms of sequel bait.
———–

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
Also watched Last Night in Soho. If you can get past the heavy-handed message, that all men suck, it is an engaging and beautiful movie. This is the movie Suckerpunch was trying to be.

The message of Suckerpunch wasn't that men suck, it was about self sacrifice being more important than self preservation. The protagonist achieved salvation through her own destruction.
Sorry if that wasn't what you meant :)
The other day I learned that my mum knows the star of Babbadook. She used to live pretty close. She's also in the great 20s detective series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries.

————–

I saw The Valet the other night

It was REALLY good. I thought it'd probably be a sappy light romantic comedy but it was more than that, it was genuinely really touching.

The scenario is that a movie star having a secret affair with a married billionaire developer. While secretly leaving a hotel late at night they get into an argument which attracts the paparazzi. A Vallet riding home on his bike crashes into their parked car and gets in the photos.

The next day there's speculation in the gossip columns whether the star is dating the billionaire. The billionaire's his wife sees this and starts to get furious… The Movie star also sees this and worries that her new film will tank because of people focussing on the scandal.
The clever manager of the billionaire comes up with a plan to make it look like the sar was actually dating the Vallet from the photo and it was just a coincidence that the billionare happened to be there…

So he convinces the vallet to start a fake relationship with the star.

Normally the way this story would go is that the star and the vallet would actually fall in love for real… but no. None of that or the other expected love subpolts go the way you've think they would. This is actually a really nice film about friendship and diversity.

Posted at 11:07AM, Jul. 12, 2022

SICARIO - (2015) Emily Blunt (be still my heart), Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Maximiliano Hernandez. US agents trying to hinder Mexican drug cartels near border (ElPaso?) Josh hires Emily to assist while Benicio seems to be working on his own for revenge re killing of his wife and young daughter by cartel leader. Many police are corrupt on either side, Benicio starts killing them to get to the main bad guy. Poor Emily is stuck trying to figure out who's what. A bit confusing but still a good watch getting a 3 on the Moizmeter.

Posted at 6:07PM, Jul. 12, 2022

The Moizmeter is good enough for me.

Posted at 5:07AM, Jul. 15, 2022

Watching the latest season of The Orville.
It's dropped the comedy and gown straight to drama.
I really like that it takes so much influence from Star Trek the next Generation.

However, Seth MacFarlane is not a clever man… He'd like to be, but he's just not. He can't do subtle and he doesn't even understand the intricacies of the ideas that he uses. For example - in several episodes they take on the idea of female empowerment and subjugation within a male-centric culture, but all they really do is use old ideas of gender based biological determinism. It's so disappointing that they don't understand that :(

So they're not giving us a new an interesting way of looking at a social issue like the real Star Trek would, rather they always give us old traditional views presented in fancy ways so they LOOK progressive.

Seth is an old fashioned Gen-Xer… Us Gen Xers often have surprisingly old-fashioned views that we think are clever and new 😅

Posted at 8:07AM, Jul. 17, 2022

I just saw Spiderman Homecoming.
Oh I so hated it.

It had a really pretty good villain, the stakes were not ridiculously high, there weren't masses of meaningless Cthulhu monsters (or any), and there wasn't a secret big boss introduced right at the end, so it avoided all the terrible tropes Marvel movies always seem to fall afoul off.

But the young highschool kid Spiderman was SOOOOOOOOOO irritating. He's meant to be in his final year of highschool but he acts like a 12 year old the whole time. And young creepy aunt May was awful. And his geeky friends were just ew. Even the bully was geeky. I so, so, so, so hated the Tom Holland Spiderman in that film.
His homemade suit sucked too. And the digital animated scenes of hm with the suit on were so bad. Stretchy gumby crap.

Holland is a good actor, it's just that how his character was written and how he portrayed it was not enjoyable.

Posted at 4:07PM, Jul. 18, 2022

I just finished Season 1 of Teenage Bounty Hunters, a show that the Pandemic sadly killed off.

Maddie Phillips and Angelica Bette Fellini both give hilarious star-making performances. This show does such a great job of showing instead of telling. The girls start "twin speaking" and nobody turns to the camera to explain what they were doing because you know they've been growing up around all these kids for years.

At least three plots come to light in the second half of the season explaining the characters' behavior in the first half.

Posted at 11:07AM, Jul. 22, 2022

Watching Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels on Netflix after getting drunk on cider. I blame the UK for this effect:P

Posted at 12:07PM, Jul. 23, 2022

To be fair that's not a bad thing to blame us for. There's definitely nworse things🤣

Posted at 3:07AM, Jul. 29, 2022

Andreas_Helixfinger wrote:
Watching Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels on Netflix after getting drunk on cider. I blame the UK for this effect:P

I liked that one way better than Guy Ritchie's other films.
—————

I just watched Hell Comes to Frogtown
This has always had a bit of a cult status I think, maybe because of the good makeup and costumes, or more likely because it stars Roddy Piper as the titular "Hell".
Sandahl Bergman is also in it as a sexy scientist. It's not much of a role for her but it's good to see her in other movies besides her best outing in Conan the Barbarian.

This is a very small scale, cheaply made post apocalypse sexploitation film, with good the performances and costumes in spite of the cheapness. Still it'd be better as a TV show than a movie.

The premise is that nuclear war has ended society but it has been rebuilt with women in charge. The nukes also caused most people to be infertile and also the creation of human/frog mutant people.
Piper's character has been imprisoned by a sadistic police officer who's all set on torturing him but he's saved by officials from the MedTech company. They need him for breeding because he's fertile. His job will be to go with some army-women into the wastes and, help rescue and impregnate a bunch of women captured by the Frogtown mutants.

It's funny and a little bit sexy. It has a tiny cast and a silly story but it's fun and the mutant makeup and effects are great.

Posted at 3:07AM, Jul. 29, 2022

I love Hell Comes to Frogtown It's the kind of movie I'd like to make if I ever the intestinal fortitude to make a pitch.

Posted at 8:08PM, Aug. 3, 2022

bravo1102 wrote:
I love Hell Comes to Frogtown It's the kind of movie I'd like to make if I ever the intestinal fortitude to make a pitch.

It's a very Barvo type story! Also very reminiscent of PitFace's Putrid Meat.
Also reminds me super strongly of LEXX- Interestingly it seems it often comes packaged in a double feature with Pal Donovan's (LEXX showrunner) DefCon4.
Classic sexy post apocalypse fun film :D

There are also two sequels! The second on stars massive faced Robet Z'Dar and Lou Ferrigno, and the last one is a weird D movie apparently.

Posted at 10:08PM, Aug. 3, 2022

There's sequels to Hell comes to frogtown? I'll have to find a way to watch them.

Posted at 6:08PM, Aug. 8, 2022

The Sandman- I'm really enjoying the live adaptation that I have been waiting for to arrive on netflix. The casting is very well done and elements from the comic to the show are incredibly transitioned. I keep pausing parts of the show to famous images of the comic. Bravo chaps. Hopefully it isn't canceled after season 1 and they adapt the whole comic.

Posted at 7:08AM, Aug. 12, 2022

ONE PIECE - Friends have been telling me to watch this anime forever. I finally have been making my way through the anime series even though there are over 1000 episodes now. I believe they started making the anime back in the late 90's. At the beginning I had a rough time watching because the background art looked so washed out. The art is pretty rough the first couple seasons but the characters and stories kept me invested. I've made it past the Alabasta arc and the show and art keeps improving in my opinion. The villains that pop up are always creative and the main characters seem to keep evolving. So overall I'm enjoying the show. My one big issue that I can't get over is the show is terrible at drawing women! They all look the same except for their hair and the anatomy is horrible. The women have these tiny waists that don't match the body. It's like lupin the 3rd art, pretty terrible.

Posted at 7:08PM, Aug. 12, 2022

Right now I'm watching an extremely rude elderly woman attempt to tune a ukulele. Any other customer I'd offer assistance but this old bitches manners would make the Kray twins uncomfortable.

Posted at 5:08AM, Aug. 18, 2022

Been rewatching all the Predator movies, cause they're in a conveneint collection on Disney right now.

Predator is still a perfect movie and Predators is still the best of the sequel/crossover bunch. Prey was mostly a pleasant surprise as it didn't lean too far into being a parody or ripping off the original beat for beat… but it could have been so much more. I wish it had committed fully to its grittyness. I whole-heartedly agree with what one reviewer said, the movie would have benefitted from not having any dialgoue at all. (I guess you sorta achieve that if you watch the Comanche version without subtitles… which i did. Recommended viewing experience.)

Predators though succeeds where Prey fails, it builds upon the original and subverts your expectations. Perfect example: the sacrifice scene. The original had the iconic Billy stays behind moment, when it cuts away and you don't get to see the duel… Predators subverts this and gives us a full-on Yakuza VS Yautja duel in all its glory. How can you not love that? And probably the biggest reason it deserves resepct: it doesn't shy away from giving you a bad ending. They ain't making it out of there alive and you know it.

Posted at 4:08AM, Aug. 20, 2022

TheJagged wrote:
Predator is still a perfect movie

True.
And the funny thing this that the characters are hyper-masculine to a "toxic" level, but that doesn't matter because the film is not espousing or promoting that way of life, it's just showing people with those characteristics battle this alien monster.
It's pretty neutral about them really, no value judgments either way. No comeuppance or rewards, moralising or ethics based on the type of people they are, like you get too much of in lessor action films then and now, it's just them as they are in a fight with the creature.
That makes it work so well.

Jason Moon wrote:
ONE PIECE -

I really tried with the show, but once they got to that place in the clouds and started fighting the lightning god guy it all fell apart for me. That's where I got tired of the continuous cycle of it and just couldn't do another round.

ALL long-running Shonnen anime are the same in that the same things just repeat over and over in each arc: We're having good time, getting stronger, having fun- Oh no! There's a new enemy. He's super strong, we can't beat him! We need to train. Now let's come up with a plan… We had a big final battle and finally beat the enemy… Lets start having a good time again and get stronger. Oh no! There's a new enemy…

With other Shonnen anime they are not as long running so you can pretend you haven't seen it all before and just squeak through another arc, but there are too many in One Piece. No mater how different they are in story-line the character patters and plots are too similar.
So I gave up on it lol!
I wish you luck!

Posted at 11:08AM, Aug. 21, 2022

She-Hulk. Funny and it reminded me of the comic when I use to buy them. I like it better than Ms. Marvel and I liked Ms. Marvel the series. (And I’m into Green women.)