The "I just saw" thread

[Commissar Caligula_]

House of card season 5

First half is a little slow

the second is brilliant.

I watched the first 4 episodes of that yesterday, I'm enjoying it massively.
Have you seen the British ​House of Cards?

[John Doe]

Have you seen the British ​House of Cards?

it's on my to-watch list.

[Commissar Caligula_]

I just watched Fat Pizza vs Houso's (a movie about two Australian TV shows made by the same people). It didn't live up to either show, and was quite a disappointment

House of Cards Season 5 Spoilers

House of Cards Season 5 was also quite a disappointment. I think the earlier seasons went too big too early, and this season couldn't live up to the hype. It kind of felt like at the end of the last season Frank was going to go to war, but then this season the creators got sidetracked by Donald Trump and decided to focus on Frank attempting to legitimise his power (and failing). So all up, Donald Trump ruined House of Cards for me which is a huge shame because I really enjoyed the earlier seasons.

[Knight of Heaven]

I just think they kinda repeated themselfs in season 5.

Also disapointed.

[Kyriakos]

Twin Peaks Return is (imo) already a train-wreck. Ep5 was terrible, and ep6 was really equally abysmal writing/concept. I feat that Lynch, presenting something he can't realistically twist into a "it was a person's delusion", is now showing very low-level plot, including apparently parts of a soul captured on some place on virtue of it having a cylindrical shape and being near an electric circuit :/


And the above is by far not the worst of this series.


It is all summed up in this image:

[John Doe]

I just think they kinda repeated themselfs in season 5.

Also disapointed.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I thought season 4 was cheesy with husband and wife running as president-vice president, yet in season 5 there is appearing split between Claire and Francis, there is now a delectable distrust between the two. Jane and Usher are two good addition to the show. Francis sacrificed "unlucky" Doug without the blink of an eye, I never saw it coming. I thought it was a better season.

[Commissar Caligula_]

I'm watching Black Mirror at the moment. It appears to be a series of totally unconnected episodes that kinda critique society.
Eg one episode everyone can play back their memories at will and even see other peoples memories, another episode people have to ride exercise bikes all day and fat people are hated by society.

Its strange, but quite well made.

[Akrotatos]

The episode with the memories made me sit there for a few minutes and think how it would feel for my gf to do the same thing to me. I stopped watching after the bike episode though.

It's a great series but every effing episode affected me for some unknown reason. Kudos to the writers I guess?

[Condottiere 40K]

Ghostbusters: Chickflick- So I watched it with a relatively open mind. It's not bad.

It's not bad because they spent far too much money on the film for it to be that; it is, however, mediocre.

If you look at the cast list, you may think that you can't lose with this movie. There's these things called dialogue and chemistry, and they don't really exist.

I thought the Dean was played by Dan Aykroyd, and he was giving them appropriately enough the finger. It seemed directionless and the actors were basically phoning it in.

Cecily Strong seems to be sum it up correctly: "It's just another publicity stunt by these incredibly sad and lonely women."

[Condottiere 40K]

Power Rangers - I think I may have watched five minutes of this series when i was in the States; I don't think I missed anything.

The reboot of the Breakfast Club isn't bad, the plot sucks and the dialogue isn't exactly sparkling, but you do detect some chemistry between the cast, except with Brian Cranston, since the spaceship sequences were a little cringeworthy. The robot seems a little spaced out as well.

Elizabeth Banks seems to be having a good time as Rita, and the kids family interactions are actually the most interesting parts of the movie.

I grew up with super sentai flavoured television, and outside of parodies, not nostalgic.

However, Power Rangers is worth a watch.

[John Doe]

War Machine: a parody and caricature of the American war machine in Afghanistan, it's rather good and funny in the first 2/3 of the movie, but it changes course for the worst in the final third. It could have been a great film.

[Niles Crane]

Altered States (1980) is one hell of a weird movie. Still, it was nice to see young Nina Sharp from Fringe naked.

[Spear Dog]

Just watched the last episode of the series; 'The Young Pope'. Very impressive.

Jude Law is a revelation as the orphan boy Lenny Belardo raised by nuns and elevated through priesthood to the youngest and first US American Pope, Pious XIII. Since being abandoned by his hippy parents Lenny has only known the world of the Catholic church. He emerges from this upbringing as a very unconventional, controversial and unfathomable Pope who is at once ultra conservative and almost sacrilegiously challenging of the Divine while at the same time reputedly a bona fide old school saint dealing out miracles.

This Pope is harsh and critical of the contemporary church and the free-style interpretation of theology rife in modern Catholicism. His disposition allows for a plot of introspection into the basic tenets of faith that accompany the position and spiritual authority of the Pope, particularly the dogma of Infallibility and Divine Intervention which traditionally characterise the selection of the Pope and the governance of the Church by the Pope (sorely damaged by the recent retirement of Pope Benedict XVI after only 8 years). Jude Law sinks his jaws into this confronting yet divine character and shakes up the debate like a pit-bull latched onto a chihuahua. His performance is engrossing.

The direction of Paolo Sorrentino is spot on, mixing hostility with serenity to emphasise the hypocracy of the Vatican contrast against the supposed spirituality of the Church. There is an ethereal texture to this series greatly enhanced by the tableaux-centric cinematography of Luca Bigazzi. His work instills an exquisite beauty of stillness and simplicity that contradicts the contemporary ethos of a chaotic world. In The Young Pope, inside the Vatican under Lenny, that world is somewhere else.

In the Golden age of television, this cinematography is perhaps the best I've seen (mindful that context influences opinion).

While this is probably not the best TV series ever made, the Catholic Church has never been dealt with like this before, never been portrayed on film like this before and never been had such a brutal, public, theological rectal exam. Never. For those paying attention this is ground breaking.

***admin could probably move this to the reviews thread (just realised it existed ).

[Halie Satanus]

Arthur - Legend of the sword..

Firstly, David Beckham is in it for about two minutes and has 4-5 lines. Meh...

Not sure whether I liked it or hated it but it's entertaining. As an FX driven fantasy/action movie it's spectacular. The scenery, cinematography, lighting, action scenes and FX are all top notch, the acting too is largely good. Jude Law is effectively nasty as the bad guy and Charlie Hunnam puts in a decent shift as the reluctant heir to the throne. But, this is a Guy Ritchie movie and he doesn't conform his style of directing for this genre. Nor does he get his cast to eschew the cockney accents. There's also his habit of zooming through a load of cut scenes to quickly move the story on and tell the story in both real time and flashbacks, which is great for heist/gangster movies but doesn't really suit in this genre.

Worth a watch on a rainy Sunday.

[Commissar Caligula_]

The Hot Chick
Honestly, education departments and schools across this flat Earth of ours should get rid of the faked moon landing footage and boring films like To Kill A Mockingbird and just use this film to teach children. It was a masterpiece on so many levels; technical, emotional, narrative, special effects, immersion.

[Kyriakos]

^Speaking of that, the new film "The evil within" features the very hot girl from that Starship Troopers film ^_^

Generally The evil within has some cool imagery, but ultimately it could have been done better, and the actual story was sort of formulaic for this kind of horror. Still worth a look, i think.

[Condottiere 40K]

Kong: Skull Island - It's not about the monkey, it's about coming to terms with Vietnam. Maybe a slasher movie.

The humans didn't leave much of an impression, except for Captain Ahab.

Tight, fast paced, without too much time spent on gore porn.

Worth watching.

[Lord of the Drunk Penguin]

Alien: Covenant

Albino xenomorphs and androids blowing flutes.
Nah, just nah...

[John Doe]

vis a vis season 1: There are holes in the story telling and at time some poor acting but its originality and twist&turn salvage the thing. In Spanish with subtitles and available free on channelfour

[Condottiere 40K]

Ghost In The Shell - First, forget what you know of the anime, and watch this with an empty mind.

Well, you generally can't; but you do end up with an empty feeling.

I was going to compare it to Blade Runner and Total Recall, but no, it's more like Lynch's Dune with more action: the ambiance and the sets are correct but the dialogue sucks and seems delivered statically.

It's not a question of whitewashing, Johansson has no feel for the character; I think she only got the part to get studio backing and financing, based on the similarity with her Black widow character. There's too much dialogue exposition in the first half, and if you don't know what's going on, not enough in the second.

Moving wallpaper.

Not really worth it except for fans.