ANTIBIRTH - Chloe Sevigny, Meg Tilly and another very unattractive woman. Quite possibly the worst and most disgusting movie I've ever seen. Haven't seen Meg Tilly for quite awhile so that's why I toughed it out, she must've lost a bet. A big goose egg on the Moizmeter.
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DENIAL - Rachel Weisz, Tom Wilkinson, Timothy Spall, Andrew Scott. Based on Holocaust denial trial. Spall, sues Rachel for libel. Her legal team must show Spall's denial theory is deliberately incorrect, at least I think that was their case. Oh well, they know more than me I guess. Many scenes totally unnecessary and what was that thing Tom picked up at Auschwitz? Gets a 2 on the Moizmeter.
You own this thread Moiz.
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One long anime series I've recently gone through was Gintama.
It was only the 50 episodes of the 2015 series on though. I can't find dubs of the earlier 300 or so episodes.
It's an interesting series. The world is modern day Japan but customs and clothing are all based on the Edo era.
The chief protagonist is a drunk, lazy semi-retired samurai with white hair (he's probably only in his late 20s though), and his small group of cohorts: a small woman dressed in Chinese style who's amazingly strong and from another planet, her huge dog which she rides, and dorky assistant with glasses who's very prim and shocked by everything.
They're known as "odd-jobs" because that's how that make their living.
Then there are a group of authoritarian police who're also samurai, and the final main group are the Joi-rebels… who're samurai. They're all sort of in conflict.
The show has obviously had a LOT of development prior to the 2015 series but that's a strength when coming in late because the characters obviously have a lot of history and at this stage it's been around long enough they they're brave enough to do wacky things with the format.
The very first episode is amazing- The odd-jobs crew discover a strange clock that stops time and proceed to give the audience a bit of a tour through the workings of their world, playing around, messing things up and ripping the fourth wall to pieces.
As the show goes on there are a lot of wacky episodes and the occasional super serious one that's interspersed into it for some reason, usually they're all done in 3 episode arcs.
My faves were the one where aliens reverse the sex of every single person in the district (That was hilarious), and another where a character pretends she's really sick so her friends would be guilted into caring for her but she can't find a good time to come clean and so the farce keeps on escalating and escalating till she has to pretend that she's dead during a massive state funeral held in her honour!
Unfortunately the find arc goes in the opposite direction to the wackyiness and lays on he drama MASSIVELY heavily. There's still a lot of comedy interspersed, but the drama is that sort of brutal brother against brother / self sacrifice, honour preserving BULLSHIT that the Japanese LOVE and I absolutely hate, and it ramps up and up and up to farcical levels almost as some sort of Po-faced meta joke. I have the final two episodes to watch now and I'm not really looking forward to them.
DEEPWATER HORIZON - Mark Wahlberg, Kurt Russell, Kate Hudson, John Malkovich, Gina Rodriguez. Based on 2010 oil rig disaster. Mark and Kurt are inspectors worried about short-cuts on safety regulations, whilst oil co. executives want to get pumping going so they can make lots of money. Suddenly, BOOM! Thar she blows! Worst contamination of the ocean ever! Amazingly only 11 dead. Confrontational scenes added for drama. A 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
IN THE SHADOW OF IRIS - Romain Duris, Charlotte Le Bon, Jalil Lespert. In French but sub-titles not too bad. Baffling mystery made even more baffling as scenes not shown in chronological order! Poor me was left trying to piece it all together and I'm not too sure yet. Another watch may help. Rich banker's wife gets kidnapped and ransom demanded. Bodies getting moved around really confusing. I think I'm close to figuring it out and maybe the last scene wasn't the last scene? An almost 3 on the Moizmeter.
2nd century Dutch was probably old German… I'm sure you can understand that :D
Seaking of hard to understand:
"Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere"
This anime is fooking impenetrable!
The only good episode so far was the first one where a bunch of classmates wearing cool scifi uniforms and with cool scfi powers have a race to see who can land a hit on their teacher- which will win them 5 absences from school.
There are witches on broomsticks, huge robots, a giant knight, an incubus, all sorts of scifi babes… It's a really cool bunch.
Unfortunately the rest of the episodes are all about the broader story arc and there's NOTHING in the show to help you understand it. None of it is relatable. The story setup is just WAY too bloody weird for a start so being dropped into the middle of it makes it impossible to understand events.
The premise of the back story is that 200 years ago humans went into space, were forced back to earth, the earth was uninhabitable except for Japan so the Japanese got to live there while everyone else had to live in "pocket dimensions". And for SOME reason they all had to relive ancient history in order to find out where we went wrong so they can get back to space… (UGH, deep breath…)
The pocket dimensions later invaded Japan and now the Japanese all live on a flying ship called "Musashi". There are other people on flying ships too… They're all watched over by the authority that checks to see whether people are reliving history properly…
(Make sense yet? Not to ME it bloody doesn't!)
Musashi is governed by the students at the schools- school president etc… I have no idea why or how.
All that is just backstory and does not illuminate what's happening in the main story of the show at all.
With garbage like this you don't need exposition to explain things, what you need is scenes and actions that are understandable and make you care, a few GOOD characters to stick with who you can discover the world through.
This show has none of that. It's a great example of how to do things badly.
Now for 2 masked horror thrillers:
WHITE SETTLERS (alternate title: The Bloodlands) Pollyanna McIntosh, Lee Williams. Married London couple move to isolated house in Scotland, evidently the location of an old battle betwixt Scots & Brits. Soon things start to go bump in the night. Pig-masked men terrorize the couple, all leading to a puzzling ending leaving me saying, so now what? A 2 on the Swine-O-Meter.
PRESERVATION - Wrenn Schmidt, Aaron Staton, Pablo Schreiber, Cody Saintgnue.
Married couple and brother head into the woods for a hunting weekend. Both men jerks and soon enuf, things go bump in the night again! 3 masked men are stalking them and murder is their game. Looks bad, who will win? So many faults here but don't ask questions, just watch. A 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
note: I find masks scary, even funny ones…there's just something about them that gives me the creeps.
LAERTE-SE - Laerte Coutinho. Documentary on the Brazilian cartoonist and now transgender Laerte. She is now mid-sixties and didn't cross gender until 2009. I've never heard of her but she is well known in Brazil for magazine and newspaper comics. Still not on hormones and no surgery planned, didn't even change her name but lives full-time as a woman and passes fairly well. Many of her comics shown but need English sub-titles unless you can read the Brazilian Portuguese. Quite interesting getting a 3 on the Moizmeter.
ALL WE HAD - Katie Holmes, Stefania LaVie Owen, Eve Lindley, Luke Wilson, Richard Kind. Katie's directorial debut about an aimless woman and her 14 yr old daughter. Always packing up "all we had" into their beater and heading nowhere in particular, they break down in a small town and for the first time, start taking roots, altho not without many troubles. A little tedious at times getting a 2 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
Farscape , I just started the third season. Each episode keeps getting better. It is riveting.
Panfilov's 28 Men A high quality war film made on a modest budget (indeed crowd funded) that is better than Saving Pvt Ryan It is a legendary story that was much exaggerated for wartime propaganda, but a very good movie and a fine story. Remember as said in The Man who shot Liberty Valence "when the legend becomes history, print the legend."
bravo1102 wrote:
Farscape , I just started the third season. Each episode keeps getting better. It is riveting.
That was the greatest tragedy of the show. :(
It kept getting better and better and then… poof, gone.
Who cares about Firefly? It never really gave us much and we didn't lose much. With Farscape though we lost SO much more.
moizmad wrote:Sounds very interesting!
LAERTE-SE - Laerte Coutinho. Documentary on the Brazilian cartoonist and now transgender Laerte. She is now mid-sixties and didn't cross gender until 2009. I've never heard of her but she is well known in Brazil for magazine and newspaper comics. Still not on hormones and no surgery planned, didn't even change her name but lives full-time as a woman and passes fairly well. Many of her comics shown but need English sub-titles unless you can read the Brazilian Portuguese. Quite interesting getting a 3 on the Moizmeter.
I just sat down and completed watching all the episodes of Master of None Season Two in one evening (on a work night!) I really liked the first season, but season two was so much more. It was a beautiful work that had a storyline and flow that reminded me a lot of Louie. It brought up interesting concepts like modern day dating using apps, religion, and relationships.
My favorite part of the series was the usage of different languages. There was a whole half-hour block where people were communicating in ASL. In addition, Italian was used frequently.
I am really happy that a show like this exists because it shines a better light on millenials instead of a derogatory one.
CHRISTINE - Rebecca Hall, Tracy Letts, Michael C. Hall, Maria Dizzia. Based on true story of TV newscaster in Florida. She wanted bigger stories but her boss had her covering flower shows etc. She also suffered from depression, still a virgin, socially awkward and a bit of a plain jane. Super performance from Rebecca, they had her drabbed down, wig, bushy eyebrows, no glam make-up. Leads to stunning finale. A 3 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN - James McAvoy, Daniel Radcliffe, Andrew Scott and can't remember actress' name (her part was totally unnecessary anyway). New take on the old story from Igor's (Radcliffe) point of view. For starters, Frankenstein's assistant's name was NOT Igor, it was Fritz! The new monster had nothing on Boris Karloff and was only there at end. Didn't capture my imagination altho I always like Andrew Scott in anything. A 1 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
LITTLE FISH - Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Sam Neill, Dustin Nguyen. From 2005. Near Sydney, Cate and just about everyone she knows is struggling with heroin addiction. I found it hard keeping track of who related to who but basically Cate is drug free for 4 years and trying to start her own business but can't raise the cash. Dustin has just returned from my town Vancouver, and he really was here doing 21 Jump Street many years ago, and he fools Cate into thinking he's a stockbroker and can raise her cash, but he's really a drug-dealer and things get messy. I got lost at end with the bit about "the money" and may have to watch again. A 3 on the Moizmeter.
PASSENGERS - Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne. Interstellar spaceship is carrying 5258 folks to a new life on distant planet. Chris' sleep pod awakens him only 30 years into 120 year journey and no way to return to hyper-sleep. All alone he awakens J Law which condemns her to same fate. Things start to go wrong. Sheen is robotic bartender and Fish is Captain who also awakens early but is not well. Apparently ship is travelling at 50% of light-speed which made me wonder how Chris' space walks were possible, was he also zapping along at that speed outside ship? Not much action and no monsters but a love story betwix Chris and Jenn, getting a 3 on the Moizmeter.
THE CHILDHOOD OF A LEADER - Tom Sweet, Berenice Beju, Liam Cunningham, Robert Pattinson, Stacy Martin, Yolande Moreau. Directed by actor Brady Corbet (Funny Games). Little boy Tom, who looks like a girl, deals with disinterested parents in 1918 France. Spends alot of time alone, has a few tantrums. I had to sleep on it to figure out ending and I think I have. Hint: Pattinson is the clue. A 3 on the Moizmeter.
THE LOBSTER - Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, John C. Reilly. Some say this is funny, not this woman, more like too stupid for words. At 2 hours I should be given an Oscar for sticking it out, kept hoping it would make some sense but notta, gets a 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
moizmad wrote:
THE LOBSTER - Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, John C. Reilly. Some say this is funny, not this woman, more like too stupid for words. At 2 hours I should be given an Oscar for sticking it out, kept hoping it would make some sense but notta, gets a 1/2 on the Moizmeter.
I liked The Lobster. I thought it hilariously deflated the mystique of romantic love in our society. I am guessing that whoever wrote it has not had good luck in their intimate relationships.
I am just starting in on the latest season of "Orange is the new Black". It has been my favorite TV show since season one, but I feel that this season is a little bit improbable. It's supposed to portray a prison riot, but it feels more like a picnic.
I also recently saw "Akounak tedalat taha tazoughai " (Rain the color blue with a little red in it) (2015), which is a Touareg adaptation of Prince's "Purple Rain", set in Niger, and scored with the music of Mdou Moctar
Another good one is "Kiki" (2016) which is a documentary of New York's underground LGBTQ dance scene. It's sort of like the 2016 sequel to "Paris is burning" (1990)
Just a note to @Moizmad: I really enjoy your mini reviews, what with their straightforward plot summaries, minus spoilers, and rationales for your conclusions. I don't always have the same viewing experience, but I do enjoy your insights.
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I recently binged on HBO's Westworld. I never saw the original film, although I remember seeing the film's promos. At the time I was 180 from being attracted to a horror film with a western setting. But when I get pneumonia I find I'm open to new experiences so I checked it out.
It has the expected HBO trademarks: great dialogue, good pacing, great acting, and a penchant for nudity (because it's appropriate to the story point and because 'WE CAN! WE'RE HBO!). All in all, a nearly flawless production. It successfully suspended my reality.
So I liked it, and didn't. Wonderful eye candy, but so sad. The ending satisfied, but in the current political climate, it was also especially haunting. Also, I believe physical condition colors perception and, even though I'm recovering nicely, the pneumonia probably factored into my assessment as well.
I recommend it, but it hit too close to home for me – I won't be upset if this is the only season.
SNOWDEN - Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Melissa Leo, Tom Wilkinson, Zachary Quinto, Rhys Ifans, Shailene Woodley. Follows the career of Edward Snowden (JGL) who joined the CIA as a computer expert, working out of various international locales and promotions. Also his personal relationship with gf (Shailene). Then his discovery of his government's Big Brother activities which lead him to blowing the whistle and subsequent hideaway in Russia. Hey, maybe he was in on the Trump/Russian election hack? A bit lengthy and a bit tedious for me getting a 2 1/2 on the Hack-O-Meter.
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