I just watch it for the action and suspense, not accurate social commentary.
- Status
CZroe
Lifer
- Jun 24, 2001
- 24,195
- 856
- 126
Well, it's sowing the seeds among viewers with its own social commentary regardless.
ultimatebob
Lifer
- Jul 1, 2001
- 25,135
- 2,445
- 126
I'm watching the first season of Better Than Us on Netflix. I'd give it a 7/10. It's decent lower budget Sci-Fi with an interesting story line.
Do yourself a favor and turn off the lame English voiceover. The show seems more sinister and believable in it's native Russian with English subtitles.
Do yourself a favor and turn off the lame English voiceover. The show seems more sinister and believable in it's native Russian with English subtitles.
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 110,602
- 29,234
- 146
yeah, that season 2 was just utter dreck. I can't believe anyone wouldn't be laughing their asses off at how stupid and lame this season was, by episode 6 or so. It became a fricking nonsense video game.
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 110,602
- 29,234
- 146
yeah, but even that was nonsense, lol. a video game. It's not a Jack Ryan story anymore.
It's the equivalent of Jack Ryan to what the JJ Abrams Star Trek are to Star Trek.
These didn't really have any kind of suspense that I noticed. :\
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 82,854
- 17,365
- 136
I started Reno 911 a long time ago, never got around to finishing it.
Decided to make another attempt. I forgot about something clever they did. Working in the COPS format, they blurred out a lot of suspects, that enabled them to use the core cast for multiple non-recurring characters, since you cant see their face. It was smart.
Decided to make another attempt. I forgot about something clever they did. Working in the COPS format, they blurred out a lot of suspects, that enabled them to use the core cast for multiple non-recurring characters, since you cant see their face. It was smart.
olds
Elite Member
- Mar 3, 2000
- 50,056
- 716
- 126
Literally watching "Extraction" with Chris Hemsworth right now. Wife is out of town and I wanted to watch an action movie.
I realize we are supposed to suspend reality and common sense for movies but man, this is a lot.
Apparently the bad guys are psychic and know where Chris is at all times. It is beyond belief.
.5/10
I realize we are supposed to suspend reality and common sense for movies but man, this is a lot.
Apparently the bad guys are psychic and know where Chris is at all times. It is beyond belief.
.5/10
purbeast0
No Lifer
- Sep 13, 2001
- 52,859
- 5,732
- 126
That was straight up like a video game. The scene in the apartment complex was completely badass though. Super intense and the choreography was incredible.
MetalMat
Diamond Member
- Jun 14, 2004
- 9,692
- 36
- 91
Space Force: 4/10
Watched the series with my GF over the weekend and it's nothing special. I love Steve Carell but the only funny times is when he pretty much went into Michael Scott mode. They had one really annoying character (the media dude) that dragged it down. The "cliff hanger" left nothing to make me want to watch another season. There was just so much stuff that was downright unbelievable that would happen and made no sense. John Malkovich was a bright spot, liked his character. Otherwise it's an easy skip if there is a season 2, not terrible but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
Watched the series with my GF over the weekend and it's nothing special. I love Steve Carell but the only funny times is when he pretty much went into Michael Scott mode. They had one really annoying character (the media dude) that dragged it down. The "cliff hanger" left nothing to make me want to watch another season. There was just so much stuff that was downright unbelievable that would happen and made no sense. John Malkovich was a bright spot, liked his character. Otherwise it's an easy skip if there is a season 2, not terrible but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 82,854
- 17,365
- 136
Most critics are giving it poor reviews. General consensus is they just didnt put enough effort into making it funny. More silly than funny.
DigDog
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2011
- 13,500
- 2,122
- 126
shortylickens
No Lifer
- Jul 15, 2003
- 82,854
- 17,365
- 136
It just occurred to me I still havent seen any of The Expendables.
I keep meaning to do it and I never sit down to make it happen.
I keep meaning to do it and I never sit down to make it happen.
MetalMat
Diamond Member
- Jun 14, 2004
- 9,692
- 36
- 91
I was thinking most of the time that I would just rather be watching reruns of The Office. Again, it's not awful, I've seen way worse, but the show just brought little to the table.
I'll also give it a 4/10, for a different reason.
The show is a giant swing and a miss. The parts that are worst are when Carell goes into Michael Scott mode. Is that the only shtick he's got?
I agree that Malkovich is the bright spot, but the material is so flat that it doesn't really matter. It's a workplace comedy that isn't funny. There's so much talent lurking in the background that goes completely unused. Jane Lynch, Patrick Warburton and Diedrich Bader can all be funny and they're not given anything to do. It's just Carell being Carell and he drags everything down so much that you might as well just watch The Office.
MetalMat
Diamond Member
- Jun 14, 2004
- 9,692
- 36
- 91
Yeah in the end I would just rather watch Office reruns than this so good point. It sucks cause I really think Steve has the ability to produce a top notch comedy series but this just felt watered down. His wife and daughter shouldn't even been in the show imo, they did nothing to progress the plot and I could give 2 shits about either.
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 110,602
- 29,234
- 146
Oh man, I hate it when they break out in a dance sequence in the middle of a flick, especially when you aren't expecting it!
DigDog
Lifer
- Jun 3, 2011
- 13,500
- 2,122
- 126
The King Of Staten Island - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9686708/
was ..meh.
I'm a big fan of Pete Davidson's SNL work, and from what i saw i nthe trailers, i figured this was going to be a drama/comedy, with more focus on the comedy. Or so i hoped.
Davidson is Scott, a 24yo stoner whose dad died on the job as a fireman, and he's since not been very well in the head. The film starts with him trying to commit suicide, and throughout we are told how this guy has a very low self esteem and cannot face responsabilities in life .. and is also a bit dumb.
Scott's mom - an unrecognizable Marisa "My Cousin Vinnie" Tomei - falls for Ray (comedian Bill Burr) who is also a fireman.
Ray tries to take Scott under his wing, but Scott fucks it up big time.
Eventually Scott is at his lowest, and like every good film script, has his arc, by making friends with the firemen at the station. And all goes well, in a sort of way.
Honestly, i couldn't point out anything that was bad, in this film; davidson is unfortunately not a hidden talent and always plays the same role, something which i very much hoped would *not* happen, Tomei is good as the mom, Bill Burr is really good as Ray, but the film lacks a certain je'ne se quoi. The script doesn't breathe well .. doesn't seem to have a sense of timing, and i will point the finger at director Jude Apatow.
Because, you got a feel-good family script, and we would need to feel for the protagonist, but we really don't, because the film is portraryed through the eyes of the nearly-delusional Scott, so when Scott is at his lowest, we actually feel that he isn't ... i know it's confusing, but, the whole character arc doesn't work - and that's all this film is about.
I would not recommend The King Of Staten Island; the trailer is much, much better than the film.
6/10 - a whole bunch of good actors that somehow do not make a good film.
was ..meh.
I'm a big fan of Pete Davidson's SNL work, and from what i saw i nthe trailers, i figured this was going to be a drama/comedy, with more focus on the comedy. Or so i hoped.
Davidson is Scott, a 24yo stoner whose dad died on the job as a fireman, and he's since not been very well in the head. The film starts with him trying to commit suicide, and throughout we are told how this guy has a very low self esteem and cannot face responsabilities in life .. and is also a bit dumb.
Scott's mom - an unrecognizable Marisa "My Cousin Vinnie" Tomei - falls for Ray (comedian Bill Burr) who is also a fireman.
Ray tries to take Scott under his wing, but Scott fucks it up big time.
Eventually Scott is at his lowest, and like every good film script, has his arc, by making friends with the firemen at the station. And all goes well, in a sort of way.
Honestly, i couldn't point out anything that was bad, in this film; davidson is unfortunately not a hidden talent and always plays the same role, something which i very much hoped would *not* happen, Tomei is good as the mom, Bill Burr is really good as Ray, but the film lacks a certain je'ne se quoi. The script doesn't breathe well .. doesn't seem to have a sense of timing, and i will point the finger at director Jude Apatow.
Because, you got a feel-good family script, and we would need to feel for the protagonist, but we really don't, because the film is portraryed through the eyes of the nearly-delusional Scott, so when Scott is at his lowest, we actually feel that he isn't ... i know it's confusing, but, the whole character arc doesn't work - and that's all this film is about.
I would not recommend The King Of Staten Island; the trailer is much, much better than the film.
6/10 - a whole bunch of good actors that somehow do not make a good film.
snoopy7548
Diamond Member
- Jan 1, 2005
- 8,061
- 5,057
- 146
Muse
Lifer
- Jul 11, 2001
- 37,523
- 8,108
- 136
Ghost World (2001) 10/10
5th time I've seen it, but first since 2007. One of those movies you should watch once in a while and never stop. Not many of those!
Edit: Here's Roger Ebert's review, which is utterly amazingly great and is ample proof of my contention that Ebert was quite simply (at least at times) a brilliant film reviewer.
Ghost World
BY ROGER EBERT / August 3, 2001 - 4/4 stars
Cast & Credits
Enid: Thora Birch
Rebecca: Scarlett Johansson
Seymour: Steve Buscemi
Josh: Brad Renfro
Roberta: Illeana Douglas
United Artists Films Presents A Film Directed By Terry Zwigoff. Written By Daniel Clowes And Zwigoff. Based On The Comic Book By Clowes. Running Time: 111 Minutes. Rated R (For Strong Language And Some Sexual Content).
There's a small tomb in Southwark Cathedral that I like to visit when I am in London. It contains the bones of a teenage girl who died three centuries ago. I know the inscription by heart: This world to her Was but a tragic play. She came, saw, dislik'd, And passed away. I thought of those words while I was watching "Ghost World," the story of an 18-year-old girl from Los Angeles who drifts forlorn through her loneliness, cheering herself up with an ironic running commentary. The girl is named Enid, she has just graduated from high school, and she has no plans for college, marriage, a career or even next week. She's stuck in a world of stupid, shallow phonies, and she makes her personal style into a rebuke.
Unfortunately, Enid is so smart, so advanced, and so ironically doubled back upon herself, that most of the people she meets don't get the message. She is second-level satire in a one-level world, and so instead of realizing, for example, that she is mocking the 1970s punk look, stupid video store clerks merely think she's 25 years out of style.
Enid is played by Thora Birch, from "American Beauty," and in a sense this character is a continuation of that one--she certainly looks at her father the same way, with disbelief and muted horror. Her running-mate is Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). There's a couple like this in every high school: The smart outsider girls who are best friends for the purpose of standing back to back and fighting off the world. At high school graduation, they listen to a speech from a classmate in a wheelchair, and Enid whispers, "I liked her so much better when she was an alcoholic and drug addict. She gets in one stupid car crash and suddenly she's Little Miss Perfect." But now Rebecca is showing alarming signs of wanting to get on with her life, and Enid is abandoned to her world of thrift shops, strip malls, video stores and 1950s retro diners. One day, in idle mischief, she answers a personal ad in a local paper, and draws into her net a pathetic loner named Seymour (Steve Buscemi). At first she strings him along. Then, unexpectedly, she starts to like him--this collector who lives hermetically sealed in a world of precious 78 rpm records and old advertising art.
By day, Seymour is an insignificant fried chicken executive. By night, he catalogs his records and wonders how to meet a woman. Why does Enid like him? "He's the exact opposite of all the things I hate." Why does he like her? Don't get ahead of the story. "Ghost World" isn't a formula romance where opposites attract and march toward the happy ending.
Seymour and Enid are too similar to fall in love; they both specialize in complex personal lifestyles that send messages no one is receiving. Enid even offers to try to fix up Seymour, but he sees himself as a bad candidate for a woman: "I don't want to meet someone who shares my interests. I hate my interests." Seymour resembles someone I know, and that person is Terry Zwigoff, who directed this movie. It's his first fiction film. Zwigoff earlier made two documentaries, the masterpiece "Crumb" (1995), about the comic artist R. Crumb, and "Louie Bluie," about the old-timey Chicago string band Martin, Bogan and the Armstrongs. He looks a little like Buscemi, and acts like a Buscemi character: worn down, dubious, ironic, resigned. Zwigoff was plagued by agonizing back pain all during the period when he was making "Crumb," and slept with a gun under his pillow, he told me, in case he had to end his misery in the middle of the night. When Crumb didn't want to cooperate with the documentary, Zwigoff threatened to shoot himself. Crumb does not often meet his match, but did with Zwigoff.
Both Zwigoff and his character Seymour collect old records that are far from the mainstream. Both are morose and yet have a bracing black humor that sees them through. Seymour and Enid connect because they are kindred spirits, and it's hard to find someone like that when you've cut yourself off from mankind.
The movie is based on an underground comic book by Daniel Clowes, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zwigoff. It listens carefully to how people talk. Illeana Douglas, for example, has a perfectly observed role as the art teacher of Enid's summer make-up class, who has fallen for political correctness hook, line and sinker, and praises art not for what it looks like but for what it "represents." There are also some nice moments from Teri Garr, who plays the take-charge girlfriend of Enid's father (Bob Balaban).
One scene I especially like involves a party of Seymour's fellow record collectors. They meet to exchange arcane information, and their conversations are like encryptions of the way most people talk. This event must seem strange to Enid, but see how she handles it. It's Seymour's oddness, his tactless honesty, his unapologetic aloneness, that Enid responds to. He works like the homeopathic remedy for angst: His loneliness drives out her own.
I wanted to hug this movie. It takes such a risky journey and never steps wrong. It creates specific, original, believable, lovable characters, and meanders with them through their inconsolable days, never losing its sense of humor. The Buscemi role is one he's been pointing toward during his entire career; it's like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in "Trees Lounge," who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately.
The movie sidesteps the happy ending Hollywood executives think lobotomized audiences need as an all-clear to leave the theater. Clowes and Zwigoff find an ending that is more poetic, more true to the tradition of the classic short story, in which a minor character finds closure that symbolizes the next step for everyone. "Ghost World" is smart enough to know that Enid and Seymour can't solve their lives in a week or two. But their meeting has blasted them out of lethargy, and now movement is possible. Who says that isn't a happy ending?
5th time I've seen it, but first since 2007. One of those movies you should watch once in a while and never stop. Not many of those!
Edit: Here's Roger Ebert's review, which is utterly amazingly great and is ample proof of my contention that Ebert was quite simply (at least at times) a brilliant film reviewer.
Ghost World
BY ROGER EBERT / August 3, 2001 - 4/4 stars
Cast & Credits
Enid: Thora Birch
Rebecca: Scarlett Johansson
Seymour: Steve Buscemi
Josh: Brad Renfro
Roberta: Illeana Douglas
United Artists Films Presents A Film Directed By Terry Zwigoff. Written By Daniel Clowes And Zwigoff. Based On The Comic Book By Clowes. Running Time: 111 Minutes. Rated R (For Strong Language And Some Sexual Content).
There's a small tomb in Southwark Cathedral that I like to visit when I am in London. It contains the bones of a teenage girl who died three centuries ago. I know the inscription by heart: This world to her Was but a tragic play. She came, saw, dislik'd, And passed away. I thought of those words while I was watching "Ghost World," the story of an 18-year-old girl from Los Angeles who drifts forlorn through her loneliness, cheering herself up with an ironic running commentary. The girl is named Enid, she has just graduated from high school, and she has no plans for college, marriage, a career or even next week. She's stuck in a world of stupid, shallow phonies, and she makes her personal style into a rebuke.
Unfortunately, Enid is so smart, so advanced, and so ironically doubled back upon herself, that most of the people she meets don't get the message. She is second-level satire in a one-level world, and so instead of realizing, for example, that she is mocking the 1970s punk look, stupid video store clerks merely think she's 25 years out of style.
Enid is played by Thora Birch, from "American Beauty," and in a sense this character is a continuation of that one--she certainly looks at her father the same way, with disbelief and muted horror. Her running-mate is Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson). There's a couple like this in every high school: The smart outsider girls who are best friends for the purpose of standing back to back and fighting off the world. At high school graduation, they listen to a speech from a classmate in a wheelchair, and Enid whispers, "I liked her so much better when she was an alcoholic and drug addict. She gets in one stupid car crash and suddenly she's Little Miss Perfect." But now Rebecca is showing alarming signs of wanting to get on with her life, and Enid is abandoned to her world of thrift shops, strip malls, video stores and 1950s retro diners. One day, in idle mischief, she answers a personal ad in a local paper, and draws into her net a pathetic loner named Seymour (Steve Buscemi). At first she strings him along. Then, unexpectedly, she starts to like him--this collector who lives hermetically sealed in a world of precious 78 rpm records and old advertising art.
By day, Seymour is an insignificant fried chicken executive. By night, he catalogs his records and wonders how to meet a woman. Why does Enid like him? "He's the exact opposite of all the things I hate." Why does he like her? Don't get ahead of the story. "Ghost World" isn't a formula romance where opposites attract and march toward the happy ending.
Seymour and Enid are too similar to fall in love; they both specialize in complex personal lifestyles that send messages no one is receiving. Enid even offers to try to fix up Seymour, but he sees himself as a bad candidate for a woman: "I don't want to meet someone who shares my interests. I hate my interests." Seymour resembles someone I know, and that person is Terry Zwigoff, who directed this movie. It's his first fiction film. Zwigoff earlier made two documentaries, the masterpiece "Crumb" (1995), about the comic artist R. Crumb, and "Louie Bluie," about the old-timey Chicago string band Martin, Bogan and the Armstrongs. He looks a little like Buscemi, and acts like a Buscemi character: worn down, dubious, ironic, resigned. Zwigoff was plagued by agonizing back pain all during the period when he was making "Crumb," and slept with a gun under his pillow, he told me, in case he had to end his misery in the middle of the night. When Crumb didn't want to cooperate with the documentary, Zwigoff threatened to shoot himself. Crumb does not often meet his match, but did with Zwigoff.
Both Zwigoff and his character Seymour collect old records that are far from the mainstream. Both are morose and yet have a bracing black humor that sees them through. Seymour and Enid connect because they are kindred spirits, and it's hard to find someone like that when you've cut yourself off from mankind.
The movie is based on an underground comic book by Daniel Clowes, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zwigoff. It listens carefully to how people talk. Illeana Douglas, for example, has a perfectly observed role as the art teacher of Enid's summer make-up class, who has fallen for political correctness hook, line and sinker, and praises art not for what it looks like but for what it "represents." There are also some nice moments from Teri Garr, who plays the take-charge girlfriend of Enid's father (Bob Balaban).
One scene I especially like involves a party of Seymour's fellow record collectors. They meet to exchange arcane information, and their conversations are like encryptions of the way most people talk. This event must seem strange to Enid, but see how she handles it. It's Seymour's oddness, his tactless honesty, his unapologetic aloneness, that Enid responds to. He works like the homeopathic remedy for angst: His loneliness drives out her own.
I wanted to hug this movie. It takes such a risky journey and never steps wrong. It creates specific, original, believable, lovable characters, and meanders with them through their inconsolable days, never losing its sense of humor. The Buscemi role is one he's been pointing toward during his entire career; it's like the flip side of his alcoholic barfly in "Trees Lounge," who also becomes entangled with a younger girl, not so fortunately.
The movie sidesteps the happy ending Hollywood executives think lobotomized audiences need as an all-clear to leave the theater. Clowes and Zwigoff find an ending that is more poetic, more true to the tradition of the classic short story, in which a minor character finds closure that symbolizes the next step for everyone. "Ghost World" is smart enough to know that Enid and Seymour can't solve their lives in a week or two. But their meeting has blasted them out of lethargy, and now movement is possible. Who says that isn't a happy ending?
Last edited:
sdifox
No Lifer
- Sep 30, 2005
- 95,055
- 15,147
- 126
JEDI
Lifer
- Sep 25, 2001
- 30,160
- 3,300
- 126
Poolhall Junkies 7/10
Story about a young pool hustler.
the cut shots of pool playing were awful.
and i thought the girlfriend aspect of the story was going to be like the poker movie Rounders where the girlfriend leaves him because she found out he's hustling again.
i liked his hero move which saved his ass with her.
the saving grace to this movie was the plot twist near end of the movie.
Story about a young pool hustler.
the cut shots of pool playing were awful.
and i thought the girlfriend aspect of the story was going to be like the poker movie Rounders where the girlfriend leaves him because she found out he's hustling again.
i liked his hero move which saved his ass with her.
the saving grace to this movie was the plot twist near end of the movie.
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