As an unabashed lover of Spectre and No Time To Die, both of which seem to hold On Her Majesty's Secret Service in the same high regard I do, this is the best piece I've ever read that distills why. Are they perfect movies? Your mileage may vary, like Bond's. But they are *fitting,* like his suits
Film & TV · Takes
176 posts in Film & TV that are opinions and questions, where the model is sure of the intent. Page 1 of 4: the top 20, then 27 the model is less sure belong here.
Ranked Bluesky · Mastodon
About 7 in 10 posts here get an intent label; the model only labels the ones it is sure of.
I just watched “House of Usher” (1960), Roger Corman’s first movie in his Edgar Allan Poe cycle. Vincent Price gives an excellent (non campy) performance as the last male scion of a dying family. This is a solid adaptation (script by Richard Matheson) of the classic story of decay and madness.
I finished Season 1 of "The Ark", and I must admit it does get better. The last few episodes of Season 1 are great, and make up for the absolute nonsense that is the first half of the season. I think I came in to the series expecting something akin to "The Expanse", because the writers had obviously thought about long-term space travel (cryo tubes, ark ships in general) and so I assumed they'd be all-in on getting the science right. The second half of the season, and the first few episodes of season 2 that I've watched, are more like Voyager than The Expanse - a plucky crew of misfits having to work together. Voyager wasn't my favourite Star Trek initially, but over the years it has grown on me - much like The Ark has. #TheArk
slight (mostly thematic) spoilers for digger, one of the best new movies i’ve seen in a good while and a really interesting one to watch the same week as primetime
‘Digger’ was… actually good? Idk, I really liked it. It felt like if ‘Don’t Look Up’ and ‘Birdman’* had a baby, except I liked that baby. It was on the nose but the pulling-back of the curtain about 35 minutes in gave it an extra layer I both appreciated and didn’t expect. *Another Iñárritu film
solid construction of atmosphere though. it's just that whenever you rely on sensory techniques to evoke atmosphere you are relying on a specific model of sensory processing to achieve it. it makes the film more personal for people who can process it but less personal for those who can't. even if it's not for me i do deeply admire this really personalized approach to visuality. the sound design was also fucking excellent for me and is what kept me as engaged as i could be.
Forgotten Island: It only took until the 2020s for DreamWorks Animation to become a genuinely impressive studio. This is, along with The Wild Robot, one of my favorite animated films of the last few years. Unexpected and energetic and thrilling stuff.
Rushmore, 1998 - ★★★★ Delighted to see Wes Anderson films have been like this since the 90s. What a bizarre, quirky and irreverent thrill of a film. I want to strangle Max Fischer. letterboxd.com/mtorpey/film/ru… #film #films #movies #letterboxd
Spider-Noir was a lot of fun. But I’m a sucker for all the noir tropes, so every long shadow, smoke-filled room, and Dutch angle made me smile. And that’s before we even get to Cage’s zany performance. The Outstanding Cinematography Emmy Award is well deserved. Director of photography, Darran Tiernan also worked on Penguin and Perry Mason, which makes total sense. He’s on my radar to look for now in future projects. Fav shot: This split diopter and Dutch angle in one frame! #SpiderNoir #TV
My two favorite movies of the last few months, THE DOG STARS and DIGGER, are both massive flops & both are massively misrepresented on Bluesky. And yet I still love them both. And that's how it should be with art. Both movies are amazing and wish more people liked them but what can ya do?
Is God Is was fantastic. Written and directed by a Black woman (her debut!!), all Black cast, not centered on slavery or 1960s racism and civil rights. Instead centered on Black woman rage. Just excellent, but it might also be a hard watch; it is a violent movie.
I don't think "Happy Science" would hold my attention long if it weren't for the weird euhemerization of Hermes and Aphrodite, who get scaled down into a human couple who have a child, Aeros or Eros. Geddit? Except that in Hellenic sources, Hermes and Aphrodite did have a child named Hermaphroditus (geddit?) who famously got fused with a horny nymph named Salmacis to become a single non-binary being.
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I'm at pains to point that out because surely the Happy Science cult people who came up with their cosmology and adapted it to the big screen (kinda) were making a conscious choice: they must have known the existing lore about Hermaphroditus and deliberately rewritten it, putting Eros in there--Eros, who was Ares's son by Aphrodite (when he isn't depicted as a primordial god.) It's like multiple symbolic snubs at once and the overall effect is a tremendous sense of anticlimax. The euhemerized Happy Science versions of the gods seem quite small indeed, flimsy in the way of characters from inept fiction, and both Aphrodite and Eros have been robbed of the better part of their power. The Hellenic lore suggests the overwhelming power that these deities tap into but that's just the sort of thing that isn't welcome in a right-wing cult that's telling all its victims to smile more. There's another curious detail: Happy Science also has a tale about Earth being populated forcibly by beings taken from another place (Venus, supposedly) and then blown up with volcanoes. I suppose this could simply be copying from Scientology but it's a funny coincidence.
I'm sorry to say it was current events that prompted me to catch up with M.F.A. (2017), a revenge thriller that's very blunt about how colleges (and society) treat victims of sexual assault. I hope there will be a day when movies like this don't seem timely.
Apparently a let down for most watchers but I liked it. The idea of monsters coming from somewhere and grooming further monsters, although more often they groom victims. Let's not forgot Laurie Strode was a high schooler when Myers first attacked her.. Jeremy's story was very worth following. It made Michael's appearances all the more meaningful. I expressed my thoughts about Myer's varying power scaling throughout the movies and contradictory canons being a method of myth retelling and fracturing over time. Another possibility is training/taking on apprentices as well. I found Halloween Kills to be a bit over the top.
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Halloween Ends lower body count, as well as showing the consequences for those Michael did not kill but whose lives he ruined was possibly more terrifying in some aspects than the killings. There's quite a bit of fan service in showing call so many call backs, down to font choices. I hated the opening sequence, though. Too much CGI. #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days
Patlabor 2 is an amazing political thriller and one of my favorites of all time but the line that sticks with me the most is "Reality is often absent at the highest level of decision making."
As relevant as ever, and as terrifying as ever. And even more possible today than it was in 1984. Special Bulletin - 1984 (Emmy-winning) It is worth the full 100 minutes of viewing. It builds slowly to a terrifying climax. (I find it rather ironic that the view from the newsroom includes a clear view of the now gone World Trade Center towers.) youtube.com/watch?v=Wn7WC3zsEZk
Watching Boyhood for the first time in years. My first big year paying attention to film was 2014, so a lot of my first awards season fight between Boyhood and Birdman. I was thoroughly part of camp Birdman, and was throwing around the taunting “IT TOOK 12 YEARS TO MAKE!”
I tend to consume media late—like years after it's come out and everyone's decided if it was trash or not. It keeps me from wasting time and emotional energy on shows that go off the rails. But there's real downsides to that. I'm watching season 3 of Reservation Dogs and I just watched the Maximus episode and everyone was in a mood to process it 3 years ago and they're done.
26 episodes into Gundam Seed Destiny so here's a quick "mid-season" review i guess: This show is trying *so* hard to be good and frequently almost succeeds. There's brief bits of drama or dialogue that hit as good as Seed. The politics and plot are more complex and sometimes actually quite cool.
#Folktober movie 6: The Witch (2015). A banished Puritan family is tormented by something in the woods, and the oldest daughter bears the brunt of it. It’s beautifully shot and well acted, and solid folk horror, but it’s more a study of a collapsing family than anything really scary. It’s fine.
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The model is less sure these belong here, so they sit outside the ranking.
Anyone know who designed the JT-731 Broadhorn? I'm making a solo video on it and always like to mention who made the ships in those, but can't seem to find anything about this one. I would assume Doug Chiang, Benjamin Last, or *maybe* Brian Lee, but I'd rather know than assume.
the wolf of wall street is fascinating because at times it feels autobiographical. from scorsese and dicaprio.
been thinking more about this and especially after reading more insights from others. I’ve been seeing ppl who do believe that Alastor isn’t anti feminist saying “he thinks that women r inherently dainty and pure” and while i understand the sentiment, i don’t think he full+
idk but maybe Morgan Freeman in Oblivion was on to something.
Robert Bolt's script for A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS is a masterpiece of writing. I think about this scene in particular quite a lot; it captures the zeitgeist... #FilmSky
Great season 4 of #tedlasso but admit part of me wanted Alice to become the head coach of AFC Richmond's Men's Team. Think that could've been an interesting season 5 option. But oh well. Hoping for a season 5.
Yeah. I just really really really love this show, and I seriously want a Thundarr RPG. Maybe re-release Gamma World? Or something. Golly, I am tired.
Hah! Adam Savage is getting a Monarch 10EE. A legendary machine.
An American badass. Where is her biopic ffs. Requiescat
Setting aside how good it’s written and performed. It’s just sumptuous to look at.
In order to make good Star Trek the concepts need to come from the mind of a person who is an outsider and a weirdo. Leftists can write good Trek but not liberals.
Ngl I actually am rly charmed by the thing with Alastor losing all his brain cells around women. I actually think that’s probably him at his closest to “normal” that he gets bc his instinctive (yet frequently false) sense of safety with women just sorta. Ceases his impulse to scheme.
It's really entertaining imagining different stories or properties being mutated into a generic Shonen anime. Just think about it. Fruits Basket, but everyone's animal forms are meant for combat. There's a Zodiac Animal Tournament Arc.
I just realized the NYCC Helluva merch had a missed opportunity: why didn't they reference Beetlejuice and Aladdin?? Fizz and Ozzie could have been in their own musical parody posters 😭
William Fichtner is an interesting case for me, because I always enjoy him in every role he is in, but his face just irritates me and I dunno what it is about it or why?
This is only my second ever season of #Survivor, but Providence Rob feels like a generationally bad Survivor player
Is it just me or is this season feeling a bit more Aussie? Mutiny, physically tackling each other, pure immunity idols? It's the upside of old-school and I'm pleased #Survivor51
Random thought. Sadako can exit through TV screens. Hypothetically, could she use the FaceTime function on a phone to go through one phone and out the other? If so, she basically can just teleport around the world, which sounds both terrifying & silly. #Sadako #Horror
People never believe the Sixth Doctor is my favorite but look at this weird alien creature. Of course an alien with inhuman eyes would consider this high fashion. Of course an aristocratic alien would speak with garrulous flair. The Sixth Doctor deserves his flowers, even outside Big Finish!
A fun fact about a surprising number of terminally online right wingers is that they don’t actually watch anime (or at least not as many series as they claim) So they see a basic blonde tsundere type and feel like they just discovered a lost language
Watching alien for the first time. After playing dead space can really see how much alien inspired a lot of the atmospheric space horror. And already the world feels like a cyberpunk dystopia in the ship itself will make you investigate creepy signals on penalty of withdrawing all your pay.
Nighttime thoughts: The fact that SH townfall came out AFTER I've started working at the hospital is a personal attack. Hearing them call the fucking IV in Simon's hand a PICC line literally had me crashing out. And absolutely do NOT get me started on the surgery section...
I miss when animations were smooth like this , stuff like this just swoon me to wanting to make animation like this
To everybody talking about how bad Verity was, did you not know it was based on a Colleen Hoover book?
Egad I thought this season of Ted Lasso was just terrible. I enjoyed the previous seasons, but this was endless treacly monologues. And why don't they care about women's soccer enough to tell us who won the last game? Were they writing for women, but not have any women writers or footballers?
Favorite animated movie songs is trending and all I can think is the entirety of COOL WORLD. Terriv]ble, terrible film. Amazing soundtrack. youtu.be/MH1UiD-yF5s?...
I don’t like when Jeff puts his finger on the scale like that with his comments. There’s narration & commentary and then there’s things like “if you start with a lead, you better win in the puzzle” #Survivor51
