I’ve been watching some old archival films lately, and enjoyed this one about dirigibles.
I already knew a decent amount about them (like how 62 out of the 97 people onboard the Hindenburg survived, so all things considered airships were still reasonably safe compared to contemporary aircraft) but I didn’t know some of the other statistics, such as the fact that Germany built 138 separate airships over its history, and the US just 3. No wonder ours kept breaking; we had very limited experience building and flying them.
I finally got around to watching this, which is the last of the Detective K movies.
All three are worth watching if you like this genre(*) and either speak Korean or don’t mind subtitles. (The trailer does a decent job of capturing the flavor of the movie without giving too much away.)
(*) Comic mystery buddy period movie with martial arts. This one also has vampires, which apparently actually do appear in the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty along with other sci-fi tropes.
I figured early on who was responsible but when they did the bad guy reveal and hearing his voice cranked up to grief driven psycho levels I got goosebumps. I still rate episode 2 as the best so far but this show continues to impress. #stevestevesteveI<3steve074
Agreed. This is the sort of thing I was expecting. The previous episodes seemed more fanservicey…and there’s certainly a place for that as well. This is more along the lines of the kinds of What If books I used to read. Fantastic stuff all around.
Some have pointed out that the episode is kind of a cheat, though. It’s really more of a “What If Hope joined SHIELD and died?” than the fall of the heroes, as that was an aftereffect. Still, I appreciated the mystery of it.
In the last few weeks I’ve seen three recent movies that I think narrowly missed an opportunity to be much better than they were. Two are mentioned upthread: Gunpowder Milkshake had an interesting setup, phenomenal cast, and a visually stunning set (the library), but why not explore the back story more? I want to learn the whole history of the library and of the women who work there. What a waste of acting talent!
Jolt has a Femme Nikita vibe and pace, but is hugely let down by a cartoon-villain ending. It was never going to be a piece of great cinema, but with a little more effort could have been a contender for quirky cult status.
Nobody has mentioned Pig. I saw this the other day, it is possibly Cage’s best-ever performance, and the film has a terrific atmosphere, but I found the practically nonexistent resolution hugely unsatisfying. Also, for a film which is largely about unveiling someone’s past, there is amazingly little actually revealed.
I’m happy I saw all of these, especially Pig, but I can’t imagine I’ll watch any of them again, at least not intentionally.
Pig has an amazing resolution, it’s just not the the one you were set up to expect - which is why it’s so fucking brilliant. Seriously, watch it again.
This could have been a superior sci-fi neo-noir action mystery romance (yes that’s a genre) EXCEPT:
Gratuitous use of noir voice over trope used only to spoon feed exposition about the world to the audience. - This is crap. Sam Spade didn’t VO to explain the social structure of 1940’s LA to no one. Who is Jackman talking too? Everything explicit in the VO is alluded to in later dialog, so… it’s redundant, insulting to the viewer’s intelligence, and feels like studio executive interference to me.
Thankfully, this disappears after the first act, and we are then treated to an intelligent, twisty sci-fi pulp mystery, with a satisfyingly dark noir ending…
Which is immediately ruined with a tacked on feel good bullshit fake ass final scene out of nowhere. - Which I seriously doubt was in Lisa Joy’s original script. Seriously it is so stupid I feel sorry for all the actors involved.
So if you can ignore the insulting VO in the first act and the, idk, fucking cotton candy shoved in your mouth out of nowhere in the final two minutes, it’s pretty entertaining.
Better yet trust me and just turn it off when the police lights shine in the window and memory Rebecca Ferguson walks back in the door - as that clearly was meant to be the final shot of the movie.
Just watched the penultimate episode and felt the need to vent about all the entitlement on display. First, the three oldest professors act as if they are entitled to jobs, even when nearly all of their classrooms are empty. Of course the one exception who is still productive is a woman, and she’s lumped in with the rest by the dean. Second, are the clueless and oppressive men - the dean who dumps on anything the chair tries to achieve, talks over her, meddles, and makes bad situations worse; Dobson who is the stereotypical egghead egomaniac; and Duchovny who only cares about being admired, not qualified. Finally, there is “The Chair” herself. Every interaction with her daughter is cringeworthy. Her main interactions involve getting other people to watch her, whether they are capable or not. It’s no surprise that the child has issues, and the comments from others about how her mother waited years to get approved isn’t reflected in how she treats her.
I had to turn it off after this brilliantly written dialog, coming after a commercial break:
“We just found our first clue, and we stole it from our neighbor’s apartment!”
“I know, I was there.”
the mum and I are enjoying this, also. I had my doubts RE: Gomez being able to keep up with the old dudes, but imho, she has been solid enough that I look forward to the upcoming eps.
I also like the obvious nod to a certain genre of “mystery” series, like the use of New Yorker Park Avenue Titling typeface and PBS-style opening credits reminiscent of Agatha Christie Miss Marple, or Poirot or Wodehouse Playhouse that set a definite tone for what to expect.
in all, I am not disappoint.
I went into it with no expectations other than seeing Martin Short and Steve Martin working together again, and so it’s engaging for me; some light, snarky escapism.
As an added bonus, the fabulous Nathan Lane as a minor character and the gratuitous Sting cameos don’t hurt.
Though i credit them with following through on Strange’s sheer hubris leading to the end of an entire universe and not bailing out with an easy solution. But the episode had a lot of fridging, unfortunately.
