What DVD / Video did you watch last night? (pt3)
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trabuquera
Modesty Bag
Bingeing on 2/3ds of the first season of OUTLANDER. Very mixed feelings so far - I love the feminism, the genre-warping, actual human drama allowed for by slow pacing, gratuitous cameos from every good Scottish actor ever, great cliffhangers and outright genius acting from Tobias Menzies .... but I hate the bossy-knowall-millennial moralising, the anachronisms and crap history, the schlocky romance and the chocolate-box (shortbread box?) Highland kitsch. I'll make up my mind when I've finished it.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
The Maniac remake. Made me feel a tad uncomfortable, but I 'enjoyed' it. It does feel a bit weird that this can be on TV, though!
red & green
Well-Known Member
I love the costumes .....
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
... well, watched the rest of it now. Blimey 
- not surprising this didn't get run on UK TV ahead of the independence referendum ... it takes some very dark turns indeed in the final episodes, while the rest of the drama gets sappier and sappier.
I STILL can't make up my mind if I really like it or not - whether I watch the next series will hinge on how much Tobias Menzies there might be in it, as he really makes the whole thing. A total masterclass in English Evil Acting. (He got voted best telly villain of the year by Yahoo commenters, not that that is the biggest accolade going).
Anyway, Highlander: surprisingly explicit bodice-ripper with some unusual twists and high production values. Worth watching if you like historical (or slash) fiction.
- not surprising this didn't get run on UK TV ahead of the independence referendum ... it takes some very dark turns indeed in the final episodes, while the rest of the drama gets sappier and sappier.I STILL can't make up my mind if I really like it or not - whether I watch the next series will hinge on how much Tobias Menzies there might be in it, as he really makes the whole thing. A total masterclass in English Evil Acting. (He got voted best telly villain of the year by Yahoo commenters, not that that is the biggest accolade going).
Anyway, Highlander: surprisingly explicit bodice-ripper with some unusual twists and high production values. Worth watching if you like historical (or slash) fiction.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
Wee Man
This is a relatively by-the-numbers gansters rise and fall sort of thing but its set in glasgow. Worth it for the inventive swearing and generally well acted. John Hanna plays a machiavellian menace in it. Much more uderstated than his role as Batiatus in Spartacus.
Parralels
Standard many worlds tale. Theres a building, every thirty six hours it shifts to another version of earth. Always great for storytelling that device right? They went to TWO other earths! one was a bombed out wasteland where they spent 20 mins being expositioned at. Then some on that loks like apple won the tech wars. What a swizz. Capable but unispired acting, plot holes, a motiveless baddie and plot device wasted by only gong to two other earths. Seriously, I got more out of a Sliders two parter
This is a relatively by-the-numbers gansters rise and fall sort of thing but its set in glasgow. Worth it for the inventive swearing and generally well acted. John Hanna plays a machiavellian menace in it. Much more uderstated than his role as Batiatus in Spartacus.
Parralels
Standard many worlds tale. Theres a building, every thirty six hours it shifts to another version of earth. Always great for storytelling that device right? They went to TWO other earths! one was a bombed out wasteland where they spent 20 mins being expositioned at. Then some on that loks like apple won the tech wars. What a swizz. Capable but unispired acting, plot holes, a motiveless baddie and plot device wasted by only gong to two other earths. Seriously, I got more out of a Sliders two parter
Voley
🐀
I'm halfway through 'Manhunt' HBO's feature-length doc about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. I like its style - no interviewer as such, just lots of CIA folk explaining what they did. When we get to waterboarding etc the CIA really hang themselves - the levels of arrogance displayed are pretty scary. I'm sure others would watch it and think they were totally justified. Good doc that lets you make your own mind up. Will watch the second half tonight.
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Nightcrawler: With Jake Gyllenhaal. A Travis Bickle like creepy outsider takes the streets to video crime scenes and sells them to a media outlet. Great performances, great cinematography. A very good, and dark, satire.
rubbershoes
not the only raver in the village
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Yes, it wasn't needed, but it didn't really harm the film too much.
The $700 prada jacket he wears throughout bothered me more...
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
Also watched The Rite. Stupid film about excorcism with Anthony Hopkins. Rubbish.
Johnny Vodka
The Abominable Scotsman
Under The Skin. Normally a fan of cinematic strangeness, but not sure I enjoyed this much.
8den
No I'm pretty sure that was 8ball...
And the voice over
Nanker Phelge
Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.
I've started watching Ray Donovan. Has anyone perservered with it and is it worth sticking with?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
I keep meaning to try it, one of me mates has gone on about how great it is for the last couple of years
krtek a houby
Merry Xmas!
Death and the Compass. Alex Cox's lo-fi, ambitious, comic book take on a Borges short story. It's on youtube and the audio is a bit ropey; some scenes you'd swear there's only one mic! Think Dick Tracy meets The City and The City; it's even weirder. Hadn't seen it for years and this was the completed version from '96. Like it.
Voley
🐀
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Another HBO doc. This one's good, too. No huge surprises, although there's a section that dealt with the abuse/intimidation of former members that was unreal. How they managed to get tax exempt status was pretty incredible too. Best bits are the totally nauseating footage of their conferences, though. At one of their awards ceremonies Tom Cruise is pretty much deified. 
Worth watching.
Worth watching.red & green
Well-Known Member
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief. Another HBO doc. This one's good, too. No huge surprises, although there's a section that dealt with the abuse/intimidation of former members that was unreal. How they managed to get tax exempt status was pretty incredible too. Best bits are the totally nauseating footage of their conferences, though. At one of their awards ceremonies Tom Cruise is pretty much deified.
Thought the best bit was when that person reached the top level
and had the secrets revealed ......
Voley
🐀
Yeah that was funny. Refreshing to see that someone who'd gone all the way through their brainwashing could recognise it as a load of total drivel though.
Kuso
drinking like george best, gettin less women
The first season is good, but by the second they'd clearly run out of ideas and the third is awful, with terrible new characters introduced
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
The Salvation- Swedish Western lol actually beautifully shot and with all the tell tale hallmarks of spaghetti westerns . I enjoyed it.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_(TV_series)
been watching this on Netflix - super expensive ($150m) tv series made in 2011 that was cancelled after 1 season - time travelling jurassic park sort of thing - it ain't great tbf, I can see why it was cancelled
been watching this on Netflix - super expensive ($150m) tv series made in 2011 that was cancelled after 1 season - time travelling jurassic park sort of thing - it ain't great tbf, I can see why it was cancelled
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
This program actually made me angry when it came out. I'd been looking forward to it. It offended me with how shit it was- the pedigree of the show makers was quality, the trails looked good and it sounded like a good excuse for a sci fi dinosaur mash up. I made two and a half episodes. The bits in the pilot set in the crappy future they were fleeing from were more interesting.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_(TV_series)
been watching this on Netflix - super expensive ($150m) tv series made in 2011 that was cancelled after 1 season - time travelling jurassic park sort of thing - it ain't great tbf, I can see why it was cancelled
I caught up with eps 1-3 of SyFys second series of Z Nation, a zombie apocalypse series with twisted humour.
trabuquera
Modesty Bag
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996 TV dramatization) - bleakish tale adapted from a 19th-century Bronte novel - yet another one with a plain, but spirited and moral woman resisting and finally vanquishing the whims and requirements of various rich bounders or pushy men from further down the social scale. It's sort of interesting because you can see what really got Victorian prudery/moralism off the ground after the Regency period - which in hindsight seems so much more fun. The vices of the elite (drink, shagging, blood sports, rude jokes) are painted as really serious moral offences which hurt everyone including our straitlaced heroine. Unfortunately she's such a sourfaced prig that I sympathised more with the hellraising rake husband drinking himself to death. Tara Fitzgerald is good and not too likeable, Rupert Graves is a right tit as the drunk spouse, Toby Stephens is babyfaced and northern as another pretender to her hand.
The Outsiders - 1983 adaptation of the S E Hinton novel, filmed by Francis Ford Coppola, and with many of the actors you'd recognise from the more famous and artier Rumble Fish (which was the one in b & w, Outsiders is in colour.) It's really weird, in retrospect - a sort of mythic approach to 1950s teen gangs and rumbles, in lurid colour and even more lurid melodrama, overripe with sexual subtext as an absolute parade of teeny tiny teenage actors you know much better these days (Patrick Swayze! Matt Dillon! Emilio Estevez! Ralph Macchio! Rob Lowe! dozens and dozens more!) prat about half-naked or in fetishized "greaser" gear. Script is a shambles and most of the acting is amateurish at best, but worth it for a nostalgia trip if you're of a certain age.
Narcos ep 1 I'm not convinced. Wagner Moura is terrific (as always) as the main man, but it all seems a bit of a mishmash, it's not clear whose story is being told or why, the emotion is lacking and it just seems a really Anglo reading of the whole tale. I cannot express enough how much I despair that it's 2015 and these stories still have to be forced down a US audience's throat through the cunning ploy of having one young, blonde, English-speaking kickass DEA agent as a narrator ... if this is really, as it keeps reminding us, the story which changed life across Latin America and brought Colombia nearly to its knees, then being all yankee-friendly in this way is just not the right approach. But I'll keep watching.
The Outsiders - 1983 adaptation of the S E Hinton novel, filmed by Francis Ford Coppola, and with many of the actors you'd recognise from the more famous and artier Rumble Fish (which was the one in b & w, Outsiders is in colour.) It's really weird, in retrospect - a sort of mythic approach to 1950s teen gangs and rumbles, in lurid colour and even more lurid melodrama, overripe with sexual subtext as an absolute parade of teeny tiny teenage actors you know much better these days (Patrick Swayze! Matt Dillon! Emilio Estevez! Ralph Macchio! Rob Lowe! dozens and dozens more!) prat about half-naked or in fetishized "greaser" gear. Script is a shambles and most of the acting is amateurish at best, but worth it for a nostalgia trip if you're of a certain age.
Narcos ep 1 I'm not convinced. Wagner Moura is terrific (as always) as the main man, but it all seems a bit of a mishmash, it's not clear whose story is being told or why, the emotion is lacking and it just seems a really Anglo reading of the whole tale. I cannot express enough how much I despair that it's 2015 and these stories still have to be forced down a US audience's throat through the cunning ploy of having one young, blonde, English-speaking kickass DEA agent as a narrator ... if this is really, as it keeps reminding us, the story which changed life across Latin America and brought Colombia nearly to its knees, then being all yankee-friendly in this way is just not the right approach. But I'll keep watching.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
cost an absolute fortune as well, totally fucked it up - like the look of Z Nation, might see if I can watch that somewhere.
Yetman
Cheesecar Fucksquad #1
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I particularly liked how baddie from the nuked out shit world used tech from the slightly-more-advanced-than-us world to hack the systems set up by the core world people who I don't even know what. Cannabis is a hell of a drug, I should have sacked it off halfway throughI've seen this. It's proper testicles innit
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