The Netflix Thread

[elevenism]

Archive 81 cancelled after one season.

I caught that news in the wee hours, as I was finishing up.the show, and I was furious...until I saw the ending.
The ending is fine. I don't see it as some batshit crazy cliffhanger, personally.
To me, I'm pretty sure they filmed this thing not knowing if it was getting a second season.

It's based on a podcast, and hell, listening to.that should be interesting: it will make the whole thing a bit more ARG like.

Also, this isn't a reason NOT to watch the show. There's SO much I love about it: slow burn hard mystery, a heaping helping of the occult including references to ACTUAL occult stuff, analog horror, found footage, 90s nostalgia, unreliable narrators, et al.

I think it stands on its own, and I think it's a must for any horror fan.

[allegate]

that looks pretty great, will definitely check it out.

[allegate]

Watched Red Notice last night. It was fine. I saw it described as a streaming 9 and a theater 6 and that's about right. Nothing in the film was bombastic enough to say "I wish I had seen this on a big screen".

Some notes:

When they enter the vault at 1:27:38 John Hartley shines a light on a crate marked Top Secret Army Intel 9906753 Do Not Open. That's the crate number which holds the Ark of the Covenant at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I didn't get a chance to pause the film there to look it up but the fact they started the scene with Ryan whistling the Raiders theme and then were all "HAY LOOK AT DIS BOXX" for even a split second I was pretty sure that's what the joke was.

The boat that Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) is steering onto the beach in Bali has the wording "We're Gonna Make It, Rose" printed on it, a reference to the Oscar-winning film, Titanic.

it was a pretty good two-second joke, tbh.

The movie's MacGuffin is a set of three ancient bejeweled antiquities known as ''Cleopatra's Eggs''. "MacGuffin" is the Hitchcockian term for the object at stake in a suspense-thriller. Hitchcock actually explained it as one man telling another that it is "a device to hunt lions in Scotland", and when the other man replies that there aren't any lions in Scotland, the first says "Guess there isn't a MacGuffin, then." So, the MacGuffin is the object that sets the plot in motion but has very little real significance in the plot and it is pretty much useless. It is actually mentioned in the movie when Nolan Booth (Ryan Reynolds) quips: "Look for a box that says 'MacGuffin'."

I also laughed at this because it was so on the nose as both a meta joke and in-movie joke. which I guess is meta anyway? eh.

Ed Sheeran showing up at the end was good for a quick laugh. "Do you know who I am? I was in Game of Thrones! I'm Ed Sheeran, bitch!" and trying to hit people with his guitar. Glad he can laugh at himself.

That said, I was thinking about it this morning and realized that one part of the film was the director just flat-out lying to the audience. Spoilers ahead - not that I think you might care, but because it's actually a very twisty spoiler that does matter.



So, with that said, here we go.

Again, actual spoilers.

At the end of the movie we find out that there are two Bishops (sotto voce gasp) and they show a couple scenes from the film and all the parts where the two worked together. Most of them work well and you think 'ah!' but there's one where the scene they show is completely different from what was shown earlier. The first time you see it it's very clear and obvious to you that there are two people in the scene and one is hiding from the other. The second time, in the reveal montage, it's very clear and obvious to you that there are two people in the scene who are working together. I didn't like it at all because as soon as you introduce this scene the director is lying to you and you lose whatever immersion you had going on.

OTOH it's not listed on IMDB as a goof so either I'm going at this from a way too high-horse movie critic who lost his popcorn angle or no one cares. either way I think I've used enough brain cells critiquing the film.

Final note: Again, it was fine. I liked the previous Ryan Reynolds Netflix movie with Michael Bay much better. Fewer brain cells required, yeah?

[MrLobster]

4 episodes into S2 of Russian Doll.

What a fucking trip...

[allegate]

It's based on a one-line joke from "So I Married an Axe Murderer" and is loaded with Mike Meyers's but I found a lot of places to belly laugh at just how absurd it is.

There are several cameos that are just amazing and one that I had to pause the show for. A couple of jokes that were just OK and the ending was just a little trite "preaching to the choir" bull but getting there was still pretty fun.

The swings from serious to lampoon to straight-up WTF are pretty fast. Bad jokes that Mike liked and didn't want to cut. There are two Netflix interruptions, the first of which you can almost see coming based on the previous couple of minutes and the second a Mac - as in Macintosh - joke that was fun for various reasons, a riff on the opening scene in the second Austin Powers movies.

the best joke is a throwaway line in the first episode that doesn't make any sense when you hear it but then it's expanded on in episode two. hah, no pun intended but lol anyway.

Lastly: the opening credits. first of all you can't skip them but then you have no reason to. Jeremy Irons narrates them and he does a bloody good job of it too! second of all it's motherfucking Orbital's "The Box", a song I never would have thought to hear outside of the 90s and my iTunes collection and Hackers.

[allegate]

can't wait to see how creepy they get.

[october_midnight]

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

I'd say, teaser 2 is the better trailer, but that isn't saying much. This is getting tiring...

[marodi]

I swore I'd never subscribe to Netflix (for reasons) but they had to go and adapt The Sandman and for all the little tidbits we've seen, it looks awesome. God. Damn. It.

I'm going to wait until the entire series is available and I'm going to subscribe for one month and binge watch it every day then I'm going to cancel.

Right...

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

Stranger Things finale will be about 2 hours long... Damn!

[burnmotherfucker!]

I swore I'd never subscribe to Netflix (for reasons) but they had to go and adapt The Sandman and for all the little tidbits we've seen, it looks awesome. God. Damn. It.

I'm going to wait until the entire series is available and I'm going to subscribe for one month and binge watch it every day then I'm going to cancel.

I'm in the same boat. Netflix has been on a downward spiral and they just keep jacking up prices as if thats going to make it better. There's a reason their stock decreased significantly.

But The Sandman is the best comic series I've read. And it looks like they've had Neil Gaiman heavily involved the whole way. So yeah there's no way I'm not checking that out when it drops. I know it won't beat the comic, but it could still be really good. Hopefully.

[Self.Destructive.Pattern]

I really wanted to see what Joseph Gordon-Levitt was going to do with his adaptation back in 2013, but it fell apart over creative differences. I finally caught up with some of the source material for this series over the last few months, so I'm really excited to see what happens with this.

[allegate]

Full episode from Volume 3 is up today for...reasons?...so check it out. It's the most tame of the ones in the series for sure.



also this.

[marodi]

Okay. During the one month I will subscribe to watch The Sandman, I may also watch The Umbrella Academy; just because I have a thing for Robert Sheehan.

[allegate]

Does that thing include episodes of The Misfits?

[marodi]

It does. It also includes season 2 of Fortitude and that hilarious Nicolas Cage movie Season of the Witch.

[allegate]

ah yes, the movie that he left Misfits to film, claiming "I don't want to waste the prime of my life on this tv show".

great choice.

[marodi]

But we got the amazing Joe Gilgun out of that so I can't really complain, personally.

[allegate]

that looks pretty great, would love to see all that on a theater screen though. netflix needs a distribution partner.

[allegate]

a...series?

[marodi]

a...series?

Yes.

We all need his silliness right now.

[october_midnight]

Depending on how big this gets, maybe it'll be deserving of its own thread, but for now...

Sandman - Season 1 - August 5

[marodi]

Oh yes.

[otnavuskire]

Never has there been an adaptation that I'm more hopeful that they didn't fuck up than this.

[allegate]

this the same day as his NFT tweets. ugh.

[MrLobster]

I mean, I liked The Troll Hunter and this seems enough along those lines that I'll check it out. Look more serious in tone though.

[hellospaceboy]

Anybody else watched Keep Sweet?
We binged it in one sitting, it was fascinating (and horrifying, of course)...

[allegate]

Is this not literally what the show was 'protesting' against?

[MrLobster]

Just watched "The Bubble" ... that's messed up... but mostly in a good way.

[allegate]

oh hey that's tomorrow.