So what are you watching?

TheRejectionist

TheRejectionist
I tried to separate art from the artist as @Zachowon (or some other poster reccomended IF it is wrong) and watched HBO's The Last of Us.

Now, with the exception of Pedro Pascal's liberal thought on Twatter, the race-swapping of the main protagonist's daughter and brother, with Ellie and Tess not looking like the video game counterparts...

I liked the first half of the 1st episode so far. Seems to be generally a good effort done.

AND it is from Neil Cuckmann and HBO, the same wankers that did the Last Of Us Part 2 and Velma's, now the worst rated animated show of all of history...
 

Zachowon

The Army Life for me! The POG life for me!
Founder
I have heard it is good.
They did change a few things but I have understood the acting makes up for it.

@TheRejectionist separate the art from the artist helps a lot when you want to watch series. Especially with Hollywood being Hollywood
 

TheRejectionist

TheRejectionist
I have heard it is good.
They did change a few things but I have understood the acting makes up for it.

@TheRejectionist separate the art from the artist helps a lot when you want to watch series. Especially with Hollywood being Hollywood

It wasn't hard in this case...but others...eh.

Let's just say I have 200 more gigabytes out 1 terabyte of space thanks to political correctness.
 

Argent

Well-known member
So I just watched Buzz Lightyear.

I can see why it did not do great. It fell in the same hole that Treasure Planet and Tlantis the Lost empire did. It is not a normal pixar movie and is very much a more action adventure movie aimed at an older audience.

Overall it was pretty standard movie. Buzz as the vet that doesn't need any one. A mission only he can complete with the establishment telling him to stand down only to be proven right. A bunch of green rookies that all manage to help Buzz and teach him that teamwork matters.

The big complaints I have seen is that cat was dumb and his frist partner was a lesbain. The cat kinda of wroked for me and had some decent jokes like helping Buzz escape he shoots a guard. Buzz asked if that tranquilizer was ment for him. Instead the cat tells Buzz that he brought him 5 mintues. So overall as comic relief the cat was ok and filled its role decently.

As for Buzz's partner. She was pretty standard with surpising enough was a black lesbain women it was not brought up. Overall the only reason you know she was a lesbain was when you saw her partner in the montage. Even when her daughter was a rookie in the later in the movie race or sex was never mentioned. Instead it was all about living up to the family name.

So much less wokeism then I thought from comments online.


The biggest down side was the villain which used the future Buzz coming back to fix things. It is an overused scf-fi plot that I have never liked.


So overall an average movie that could have been live action blockbuster but a disappointment compared to other Pixar movies.
 

Culsu

Agent of the Central Plasma
Founder
Started watching Alice in Borderland, I'm down to S01E06. So far it's well worth my time.
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Overall the only reason you know she was a lesbain was when you saw her partner in the montage.
Seemed like it was made an overly big-deal in the US in some circles. At the same time, unsurprised to see it be the five-second, meaningless moment that can be cut-out for release in China and the Middle East without impacting the plot or sales.
Blah blah blah, insert usual criticism of corporations virtue-signaling being devoid of any actual virtue, blah blah blah.

In my own adventuring--rewatched 'Almost Heroes' for a probably double-digit time. Chris Farley comedy about a supposed less-famous expedition to the Atlantic Ocean competing with Lewis & Clark in the American Colonial Era. But, of course, the leader is a pompous idiot, Farley's a drunken lout, and most of the crew follow in his footsteps. There's a lot of quotable lines ("I have no brother. It was me! I ate sheep shit!") and just great situation comedy, topped-up by Chris Farley having...Chris Farley-scale reactions and faces to things. There's a segment where he's repeatedly attacked by an eagle that's...probably on youtube and well-worth watching on its own.

Plus there's a bunch of French and Spaniard bashing, so that's always a good time. :p
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
Watched City Hunter: Bay City Wars

It's animated, Japanese Die Hard, but the attackers motive isn't money. But a lot of the big Die Hard things are present in half the time. it's got exploding rooftop leading to the hero rope-diving off the side, hero shooting a few holes in the glass before busting through it, Hero's girlfriend being at the party and captured by terrorists, obstructive bureaucrats whose following of the playbook gets people killed (this time being from the American CIA instead of the FBI--which is a fun and amusing mirror to see), and exploding floor(s) of a skyscraper. Only big differences are an added car chase and subtracted bare feet as a plot-point.

Is part of a series I haven't seen prequels of, so there was some references between characters about others I didn't get, but it stood alone well enough (and is related to Cat's Eye--another late-80s anime that I have seen). Maybe not 'substantial', but a whole lot of fun (only ~40 minutes long, so gunfights, fistfights, and car chases make up a majority of the runtime).

Notable funny bit: main character is jonesing after a random lady walking by and compliments her legs while pawing after her like a dog. Proceeds to get headkicked by the lady and collapses, to which she merely flexes and gives a "Thanks, I workout." response before walking away. It's, like, a throwaway twenty-second scene near the opening of things that sticks out in my mind as a tone-setter/character-establisher and made me giggle.

The downside of watching and enjoying this though...Is that now I have another thing (with multiple movies, and seasons of tv-length episodes) to add to the watch-list.
 

Robovski

Well-known member
Catching the second season of Record of Ragnarok which is a goofy but cool arena fight anime where humanity is fighting for it's existence against the gods.
 

Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
Handyman Saito in Another World.

It's slice of life comedy, and it's bloody hilarious.

You have the isekai'd handyman who picks locks, repairs their armour, et cetera; you have the warrior who's in love with said handyman; you have the greedy fairy who ships the two; and finally you have an archmage who is OP as fuck... when he remembers his spells, and he doesn't do bizzare shit like teleport and fuse with golems, or forgetting that he's not undead and running with a horde of zombies...

Oh, and that world's measurement size is based on the dick size of an ancient king, and the fairy is about one of those units (which she says "please don't look at me like that"), haha.

Second episode in (dub) and I'm laughing my arse off.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
Well, this is a thing ... Moonshiners. It's hilarious.

In the ep. they start with fresh spruce sap. Along the way they turn it into beer and then distill it.

Channel surfing, FTW!

EDIT: Now they're onto Peach Brandy and discussing a still from the 1930s.
 
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Jormungandr

The Midgard Wyrm
Founder
I've been watching in sub simulcast and it's been great. The campfire cooking one is also fun and new this season.
The fairy is goddamn hilarious with her ribbing Raelza about her crush on Saitou.

Also, that moment where her "light armour" comes undone at the seams had me almost spitting my drink -- jiggle, jiggle!

Oh, and "it's a legendary monster that only eats metal!", and his being punched by a half-naked Raelza had me cackling like a madman.

It's only been a few episodes, but I'm shipping Saitou and Raelza already.

Also, that shopkeeper he hangs around with is surprisingly blood-thirsty. "Oh, you want to poison her instead of stabbing her?"
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
I saw the first two episodes of Lovecraft Country since HBO apparently fobbed it off on Tubi for free streaming now. I am a fan of Cosmic Horror so despite my many millions of reservations, I decided to give this show a watch.

Right off the bat... it's not terrible. It's competently made.

But it's still shite because the name of the show is Lovecraft Country when it could be called "Contemporary Modern Fantasy That Takes Place During Civil Rights Era Road Trip Series" which in all honestly, would've been legit as a concept, even as a woke/liberal concept and totally workable.

The fearsome SHOGGOTHS showed up in the very first episode.

They're like doggos with four legs and they like to burrow and are afraid of lights, including flashlights and headlights. And if you get bit by them, you turn into a Shoggoth-Doggo, just as Lovecraft intended. There's a cult as well called the 'Sons of Adam' which is your basic All White Supremicist Old Boys Club that does spooky ritual cult shit. They seem like a bunch of Rich Patricians and they lord over a town of country bumpkins but IIRC, the show takes place in Massachusetts (ie Lovecraft Country) but everyone in New England behaves like its the Antebellum South. Like they even have people who are descendants of slaveholders and in one town, they sat down in some diner and immediately a group of armed White people tried to kill them, police were about to extrajudicially execute them for violating a sundown law etc etc.

Anyways the Lovecraft here is just window dressing. It easily could've been a non-Lovecraft Modern Fantasy show and probably be better for it. You could even mention shit like Lovecraft and Clark Ashton S,ith (who was referenced in the show) and whatnot.

The show sometimes feels cheap... and it never has a cosmic/eldritch horror feel. I wouldn't even say it has a horror feel. The night time scenes are well lit, the monsters aren't scary, the magic use is like out of Dungeons and Dragons and it has the same atmospheric feel of the (decent) ReAnimator films but instead of being somewhat camp in tone, this TV show is legitimately trying to make me feel some sort of horror and drama for the experiences these people are going through? And it don't.

It fails to correlate the themes of bigotry and racism and whatnot in a Lovecraftian setting as well. There are a few moments where I almost think this film has something, but the writing is too immature and impatient to let the story simmer and develop. Which is weird, because the second episode especially felt slow as fuck. I felt like I had just watched a movie or three or four episodes but literally was only two one hour episodes in. A lot of this show was boring and dragged.

Also it had Korean Ninja Chicks... well one Korean Ninja Chick.

🤷‍♀️

Watchable? Yes.

Entertaining? I guess?

Lovecraftian? Fuck no.

Watched the almost three hour long Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie after this and somehow despite all of the bloat in that film, it felt shorter than Lovecraft Country's second episode.
 
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prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
This description of Lovecraft Country makes me think of, like, 'Supernatural' but trying to be serious and deep.
Which...Well, I was never a big fan of Supernatural being silly and stupid, so that same concept trying to be serious sounds like an absolute slog.

I (re)watched Book of Eli after not seeing it since about the time it came out. A post-apocalyptic action movie from 2010--before that whole genre (d)evolved with The Walking Dead and all other media into an infinite bog-water of zombie-apocalypse stuff. Film's basically as much a Western as it is post-apocalyptic...Mad Max meets High Plains Drifter...Eli, played (wonderfully) by Denzel Washington, is on a Mission From God to go west through apocalypse-America protecting a book (take a guess which)--the last of its kind after copies were burned/lost in the apocalypse. Eli stumbles into a city run by an evil governor (Gary Oldman, also doing a great role) who just so-happens to be looking for that particular book--because it can be used to control people and make them obey.

Hijinks ensue. Some action scenes that hold up, if being a little 'comic book-y'. But it's a good comic book-y.

Twists follow the action scenes that make you either go 'Huh' in wonder or 'huh' in somewhat of disdain, depending on whether you're a stickler for realism. But the 'realism' isn't really the point so much as the story and especially allegory, and the film really succeeds at being a good allegory. There's a bunch of biblical allusion (to the point you'll definitely enjoy it more if your familiar with the Bible--particularly Revelations), and you can kind'a ponder whether the apocalypse wasn't Revelations coming through and you're watching a better-done Left Behind type of thing. There's even a line midway through where Eli is explaining the apocalypse, and his summary was that a war tore a hole in the sky and 'the sun came down' and, uh...Pretty sure there's shades of implication that might/could mean 'the son came down'. But it's never out-and-out stated just as another, much more obvious and physical bit about the setting and what you're seeing is never out-and-out stated--so you get that Blade Runner style ability of questioning both the character and the underpinnings of the story and it's such a fun feeling...

Even pretty minor characters get neat little arcs to them that fit the story and fit the broader theme being shot for, for instance
the governor's second-in-command, who is shown being a pretty stone-cold enforcer for the guy hesitates a few times in the face of Eli surviving shit he shouldn't have survived and the governor's increasingly-maniacal orders. He's still doing this evil shit, but you get the impression he has some remorse, especially when he sees the book the governor wants is The Bible. In the end he is killed, but while he has the chance in his last moments to avenge himself...he instead walks away into the light, takes off his sunglasses/goggles, and dies. It's very...sinner's redemption and penitent thief on the other cross from Jesus type of character arc.


Anyhow, if anyone hasn't seen it would unhesitatingly recommend it--even if the religious metaphor isn't to your interest it's a fun romp on purely action 'pulp Western' grounds with some fun characters (and Gary Oldman chewing scenery).
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
I knew I was going to have to watch it with my wife sooner or later so I decided last night was it. Man, what a dumb movie. I'm pretty well over Marvel movies but these aren't superheroes.
Yeah, Wakanda Forever is perhaps peak Marvel falling on its face (so far).

The wisecracks aren't very wise (har har, the soldier-lady is not diplomatic and has no hair har har), The almost-sympathetic older lady who is shown being something besides an asshole (even if behaving that way other times) gets killed off, Yucatan Hermes the villain is laughable, and there's just nobody who isn't an asshole to root for, including (especially) the 'heroes'.
...Okay, I take that back, there's the one dude from the gorilla chest-beating tribe who isn't an asshole and is easy to root for, but he's on screen for, like, a total of three minutes maybe.

Writers/Director desperately needed editing and advice or...Disney should've just scrapped things when Boseman went.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
This description of Lovecraft Country makes me think of, like, 'Supernatural' but trying to be serious and deep.
Which...Well, I was never a big fan of Supernatural being silly and stupid, so that same concept trying to be serious sounds like an absolute slog.

Actually it seems it's only the first two episodes that are a road trip. The next few episodes take place in Upper Chicago (the White part) and the quality is still uneven. There's one legitimately clever part involving a plot of a doppelganger/skin walking type of body horror that's legitimately clever and well set up but falls back to common decidedly non-Cosmic Horror tropes and more social justice messaging.

There's a cringe... I guess it's an Exorcism of this evil White Ghost done via voodoo and some weird circle of Black Gospel Choir types screeching and chanting to dispel him... Mind boggling.

There was also an Indiana Jones style adventure... Like the bit where they walk across an invisible bridge and other puzzles. Oh and then an Arawak Two Spirit shows up.

Yeah... I don't how but they injected a nonbinary Native American character.

Also one of the Black Men is a Closet gay. Like I look away for a moment then suddenly there's a full on Black Man on Black Twink Sodomy going on. It was not tasteful either.

But then we got to this episode which takes place during the Korean War (a prequel I guess) which intrigued me... For about ten minutes. The main character in this episode is a Korean Nurse who works in a Hospital. They complain about how the Americans are just as bad as the Communists, raping Women and in the only hospital scenes where she's treating an injured White Soldier the soldier is screaming "Get away from me Gook bitch!" And attacks her despite having a visibly shattered leg. They are also mortified by the anti communist lynchings and how the American MPs are nearby and don't do anything about them.

Bought halfway through the episode i thought in spite of all the clever things that were rattling around in this show... I just couldn't be arsed anymore.

I have heard good things but do I have to have played the game to like it?

Started watching the first few episodes of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and having not played the game I can say you can pretty easily follow the story. First episode is really strong but it kinda meanders after that. Still a good show overall so far though. Stuff happens but it hasn't really drawn me in yet.
 
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