[watching] What have you viewed recently? (II)

My little granddaughter loves "Spidey and Friends"
 
I watched Glass Onion last night, the second of the Knives Out films. Great fun murder mystery that twists and feels perhaps a little more on the nose now with the way that the Tech Bros are behaving.
 
Conclave my friends generally liked it, but I felt I had watched it for 3 hours but it's runtime was 1h50m.
 
Watched Fletch on Netflix and it was light hearted fun.
 
Enjoyed Black Doves on Netflix. Sure, the tradecraft was dire but I was working around how that could be addressed. Carried along with its energy.
 
Finished watching seasons 1 & 2 of The Eminence In Shadow on Netflix. If I was still a teenage boy this would be my favourite show ever, hitting loads of the classic harem manga/anime tropes as hard as it can manage. The gratuitous bikini episode in season 2 was a particular highlight, with the nice touch that the clueless harem protagonist (obviously not present) was still the excuse for the episode via one of the show's standard misunderstandings.

Recommended for the recovering teenage boy.
 
Finally finished The Umbrella Academy on Netflix. I enjoyed it, but it was a very downbeat ending.
I perhaps should have started again as it was a while since I watched the previous seasons.

No regrets at following four seasons of the very dysfunctional Hargreeves family though.
 
The Instigators (Apple TV+) - a Matt Damon and Casey Affleck heist-gone-sideways movie that's entertaining but does struggle to find its feet really. There are moments it suggests that it's meant to be darkly comical but then it flips to playing it safe. I did like the curve balls though.

The Gorge (Apple TV+) - a monster movie crossed with a love story. Decent effects, a bit silly but lots of energy carried this through. The design of the threat was done very nicely. Enjoyed it, but perhaps really a popcorn movie.
 
Finished my re-watch of the Green Man which I first saw ten years ago but couldn't recall much about. I was prompted to see it again after reading the novel by Kingsley Amis. It's a reasonably faithful adaptation but I was disappointed that it didn't feature the eponymous creature. In the book it's a genuinely frightening composite monster, sort of like a golem made from various bits of wood material. All we get in the TV series is a sub-Evil Dead nasty tree. I'd guess the FX budget might have something to do with this. The special effects are pretty poor even for 1990 and a big wooden golem chasing people down the lane would almost certainly broken the bank and probably have looked pretty duff. On the plus side it's got some nice location shooting around Cerne Abbas and some good performances including a genuinely chilling appearance from the late Michael Culver as the undead but "still injaynious" Dr Underhill, and a highly amusing comic turn from Nickolas Grace as a trendy vicar.
 
I know I am late to the party but I just watched The Batman currently on Netflix. Loved it, the extra dash of emo brooding seemed just right for me and it was suitably grungy tech driven.
Still my favourite, although Daredevil comes close.
 
Had the box set of series 1-4 Blakes 7 as a retirement present. Just started watching them again - haven't seen them since 1978!
Still remember - 1978 - Star Wars, CE3K, Star Trek TMP. Everything nice, upbeat etc. And then the first episode of B7! Esp the scene towards the end when the litigator and GF get killed. TV audiences must have been reeling as to what had hit them.
Settling down now for a watching - taking it slow to enjoy every episode
 
Both Star Trek TMP and Star Wars ANH both had stark or darker tones to them as well, especially the latter with a blooded served arm and charred skeletal remains. Blake's 7 episodes were broadcast at 7:15pm, much later than Doctor Who, and yet the latter was often filled with death and violence as well.
 
TETRIS: a fun mix of determination, threat, risk, greed, comedy, Soviet dystopia and collapse, universal goodnness and loathsome Maxwells. A great story, vibrantly told. Highly recommended.
 
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So I finished Jessica Jones Season 1 this week (as part of my Marvel Defenders rewatch). Enjoyable and even harder edged than I remembered. I know where my love of the City of Mist RPG comes from. I've already started Daredevil Season 2 (I'm watching them in chronological order) and it's great seeing various supporting characters popping up between series.

Ten years on this still stands up as some of the best TV I've seen.
 
Watched Douglas Adams: The Man Who Imagined Our Future today. Brought back memories of discovering The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, working at H2G2, transitioning to the BBC and then going on to work for Douglas' widow for a number of years. Well worth a watch if you are able to.

www.sky.com

Douglas Adams: The Man Who Imagined Our Future

...Imagined Our Future. Douglas Adams was a visionary in sci-fi, comedy and activism, campaigning for endangered species and climate change long before his time.
www.sky.com www.sky.com
 
Severance. It's probably been said before, elsewhere, but it could be The Prisoner for the 21st century.
The last episode of S2 felt very thusly influenced, well, that plus a sprinkling of the fleeing the church scene from The Graduate.
More than a little David Lynch influence there as well.
Rumoured to be a S3 in the making though they left S2 with an air of finality and not sure where they will take it.

Slow Horses. I got a temporary Apple TV sub specifically for Severance, but decided to give this one a go though espionage dramas are not typically my thing. Fell in love with it. Worth the price of entry for Gary Oldman's character Jackson Lamb. S4 felt a little unfinished so hoping there is another season in the pipe later this year.

Daredevil: Reborn. My favourite Marvel characters are Dr Strange, Silver Surfer and Iron Man. But close behind them come the street-level vigilantes of Hell's Kitchen, and The Kingpin is one of my favourite villains (perhaps only eclipsed by Dr Doom). Suffice to say then that I am enjoying this.

Wheel of Time. It is what it is. Every time the party who are out travelling with Moiraine crest another rocky hill and see another mind-boggling, beautiful / impressive vista sprawling vastly ahead of them and there's a sudden burst of "uplifting music" I cringe a little bit. Once you notice it, you'll find it either annoying or bemusing. It's fairly digestible fantasy and satisfies my appetite for such. I take it for granted that it diverges hugely from the books.

So, finally, I watched Rollerball.
I remember at the time (when I was 10), it was hyped as this big, shockingly violent action film. But really, apart from a few bits of guys on roller skates duffing each other up, it's a very introspective, slow-moving film with lots of philosophical musings about individual freedom vs. organised society.

Its political compass is a bit haywire because it depicts a corporate dystopia, but the corporate government is trying to crush individual freedom and demonstrate through the game of Rollerball the "futility of individual effort". But when corporations get involved in politics, it's more usually the case that they champion the notion of individual freedom in order to justify deregulating their own greed and malpractice. The Rollerball dystopia is like a mashup of 1984 and Brave New World that doesn't quite make sense.
 
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