[generic] What have you viewed recently?

Watched Greyhound (Apple TV+) with the eldest at the weekend. A very well done take on the CS Forestor convoy story with Tom Hanks at the helm. That pun was entirely intended. A strong reminder of the hardships of the Atlantic War faced on all sides.

We also started rewatching Stranger Things. I'm doing it in prep for Furnace, but the better half is watching it for the first time.
 
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I first watched Surrogates a mid budget SciFi flick with Bruce Willis a few years ago and was surprised that it didn’t gain a bit more traction.

I just rewatched it on Disney+ and thought it’s held up surprisingly well.

Completely Michael Crichton territory. In the near future people stay at home and live their lives through robotic surrogates. The central allegory is hammered home with sledgehammer (internet avatars) and it’s nothing particularly new. But it’s got all the right parts in all the right places. And it’s before Willis started phoning everything in. Robot Bruce and Real Bruce are distinct characters beyond the makeup.

If you haven’t seen it and have a couple of hours to fill, I don’t think it’ll offend.
 
Nomi : The world's moved on, Commander Bond.
Bond : You're a Double-O?
Nomi : Two years. So stay in your lane. You get in my way, I will put a bullet in your knee... the one that works.
 
I've started watching The Americans. Still in season 1 and loving it so far with the juggling family whilst living across the street from the enemy and trying to blend in whilst you are a state sanctioned serial killer. Highly recommended.
 
I've started watching The Americans. Still in season 1 and loving it so far with the juggling family whilst living across the street from the enemy and trying to blend in whilst you are a state sanctioned serial killer. Highly recommended.
One of our *all time* favourites
 
Watching season three of Final Space on Netflix, and honestly it's a bit of a slog. With only two episodes left to go I will complete it, but this season has neither the weird humour of season one nor the surprisingly dramatic space opera themes of season two, instead resorting to deus ex machina time after time to keep the train on the railroad. Colour me 'disappointed'.
 
Watching season three of Final Space on Netflix, and honestly it's a bit of a slog. With only two episodes left to go I will complete it, but this season has neither the weird humour of season one nor the surprisingly dramatic space opera themes of season two, instead resorting to deus ex machina time after time to keep the train on the railroad. Colour me 'disappointed'.

Update: I've now finished this, and it was clearly intended to run for at least one more season, as it ends with the bad guys triumphant and the good guys in a bit of a pickle; apparently this was meant to be the halfway point. It has been cancelled; the show creator explains here complete with sad music.

Personally, I think the third season was stretched out too much; remove the repeated deus ex machina and the multiple unnecessary plot reversals, and it could have been done in maybe 3-4 episodes, leaving the rest of the series to complete the story arcs.
 
We went to see the new Bond film today and I'm not going to spoil it except to say that I think it is excellent.

I may even start a spoiler thread for it
 
Yesterday I finally got around to watching The Barkley Marathons: The Race That Eats Its Young (99p rental on Amazon Prime).

Fantastic documentary for those of the long distance/hill running persuasion, covering the 2012 edition of the Barkley Marathons. One of the most (in)famous of ultra marathons, the race was inspired by James Earl Ray's failed jailbreak from a nearby prison in 1978, and is notorious for the difficulty involved in actually finishing the race (10 finishers in the first 25 years).

My wife, who was kind-of watching it with me, could only say "They are all idiots". Ah yes, but magnificent idiots.
 
I have recently watched the second season of lost in Space. I really enjoyed it it's awesome good science fiction fun. It has all the elements which really makes science fiction as opposed to science fantasy really enjoyable it's optimistic and it believes through science and engineering most problems can be overcome. Plus it's got cool robots in it.
 
Space Sweepers on Netflix. The premise is that a group of - well, basically PCs - make a precarious living salvaging space junk, until one day they find a small girl marooned in one piece of garbage. Or is she an android-shaped bomb? They try to sell her to the highest bidder while being pursued by multiple factions who want to gain control of her, and eventually realise who/what she is and what's really going on.

From a movie perspective, the special effects are great, the science is stretchy rubber with only passing nods to reality, the plot is a pastiche of standard tropes. The good guys are all Korean, and the bad guys are all Caucasian, which is different, and while everyone on the crew has a reason to need vast sums of money, the robot's is the most intriguing.

Fun to watch, but I will probably not watch it again.
 
I have recently watched the second season of lost in Space. I really enjoyed it it's awesome good science fiction fun. It has all the elements which really makes science fiction as opposed to science fantasy really enjoyable it's optimistic and it believes through science and engineering most problems can be overcome. Plus it's got cool robots in it.

You remind me I need to finish the second season - got distracted and didn't go back.I was enjoying it.

I've just watched Marvel - What If? which I very much enjoyed. I was mildly surprised and pleased that they draw the various threads together at the end of the series.
 
In my preparation for a potential G.I. JOE game, I've recently re-watched Rise of Cobra and Retaliation. Both films remind me of scenarios that we could expect to see in the original A Real American Hero animated series and that's why I love them. With plenty of enough Joes and Cobra agents to rotate through, we get the opportunity to see a number a fondly loved characters make it into the two big screen adaptations. I've also been watching Renegades for the first time, thanks to them being uploaded for free to YouTube. It is pretty much a reimagining of G.I. JOE, with a small team of Joes on the run from the law after being framed by Cobra. In this iteration, Cobra is a corrupt mega corporation and not of a terrorist organisation. The animated series lends many of its concepts to the live action Retaliation and the 2019 comic book reboot.
 
About halfway through Nightflyers on Netflix. Watchable enough to finish, but I don't think I would watch it again.

SF horror in which the ship Nightflyer carries a scientific team to make contact with an alien spacecraft passing near the solar system, explicitly said to be beyond the heliopause. Said team includes a dangerously powerful telepath (possibly the only way to communicate), the obligatory two ex-lovers, a genetically engineered spacer, and so on. It is established early on that the captain never leaves his quarters, interacting with others via a holographic presence. The ship and crew both start falling to pieces almost immediately, with suspicions of deliberate sabotage.

The Nightflyer is a strange design with both spin habs and continuous thrust strong enough to generate 1G in the crew quarters (which are not in the spin habs). As usual in SF designs, the spin habs stick out sideways from the main struts, apparently for the sole purpose of putting unnecessary stress on the joints. That drives me crackers.

Since the first scene shows one protagonist killing herself before another can chop her to pieces with an axe, I am fairly certain that in the usual GRRM tradition the story will not end well for anyone.
 
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Just watched Dune. It was just wow. It was epic and did not feel like a long film. In fact it felt a little short to me. I left wanting more.

Do not go and expect the book totally. A few parts and story arcs are missing and some scenes added. This did not draw away from the fact these omissions / additions did not spoil the film. Maybe in the Directors Cut (I can hope).


The stand out for me with all the great performances. It has to be Stellen Skarsgard as the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Had the right amount of menace and presence.

It is definitely worth a 2nd or even 3rd Cinema watch.
 
Just watched Dune. It was just wow. It was epic and did not feel like a long film. In fact it felt a little short to me. I left wanting more.

Do not go and expect the book totally. A few parts and story arcs are missing and some scenes added. This did not draw away from the fact these omissions / additions did not spoil the film. Maybe in the Directors Cut (I can hope).


The stand out for me with all the great performances. It has to be Stellen Skarsgard as the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. Had the right amount of menace and presence.

It is definitely worth a 2nd or even 3rd Cinema watch.
I thought Rebecca Ferguson and Timothee Chalamet carried the movie in the roles of mother and son, Lady Jessica and Paul Atreides.
 
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