Category: Good Watch

Classic Watch: Clash of the Titans (1981) #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife #Titan @HarryRHamlin @Netflix

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I decided to watch Clash of the Titans again. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and one of the rare ones I convinced my dad to take me to see despite no one else in the family wanting to see it. It still holds up fairly well but with some glaring flaws. First off, Zeus is a dick. He has no mercy for Acrisius because his “1,000 good deeds don’t make up for 1 murder.” How does Zeus punish Acrisius? By murdering his entire city. Zeus added that the murder was especially heinous because Acrisius murdered his own daughter, but even setting aside the sheer number of murders Zeus has committed in doling out his punishment, and their innocence in all of this, aren’t all of humanity Zeus’s children in a sense?

Then there’s the special effects. It seems like the thing to do right now is ignore the context of the time in which things are said and done, so the fact this movie was released in 1981 is no excuse! (Yes it is.) Cerberus had only two heads because that was easier to do. That was supposed to be Cerberus, wasn’t it? (EDIT: No! It’s Dioskilos, who was in turn based on Orthus!) I actually felt bad for it when it died. (For the time, though, the special effects were a groundbreaking and wonderful work of art, and it’s hard not to appreciate them.)

I also want to know how Thetis gets to claim Andromeda’s life despite Zeus’s protection of Perseus, and then once Perseus SPOILER ALERT kills the Kraken, loses that claim. Nothing has changed. Thetis is still slighted, and Andromeda isn’t dead. Joppa should be destroyed, but suddenly a heretofore permissive Zeus says,

Nah! Leave his wife alone. My boy has to get laid.

That’s not a direct quote.

I know; I know. Drama. Moreover, the disjointed logic isn’t unlike the way the gods were imagined by the ancient Greeks.

Bubo the metallic owl was stupid. Even as a 13-year-old kid, I knew better. If Bubo is trying to sneak up on the Stygian Witches and steal the eye, why is it making so much damn noise. Hell, the inferior 2010 remake (that I still liked and will discuss tomorrow) reasonably poked fun at that.

As for things that translate well, Andromeda puts Perseus in his place.

Um, I’m a princess. Do you see the Queen here? No? Then I’m in command, bitch.

Also not a direct quote.

Special effects aside, that scene with Medusa was awesome, and I liked Sir Laurence Olivier’s lethargic and reluctant, “Very well; release the Kraken,” before putting Perseus exactly where he needed to be to face the Kraken.

It’s a fun movie. As always, YMMV.

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Good Watch: The Two Popes #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @AnthonyHopkins @Netflix

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The Two Popes is another movie that’s been sitting in my queue since it came out, but I never got around to seeing it. It’s led by Jonathan Pryce (Pope Francis) and Anthony Hopkins (Pope Benedict, a.k.a., Johnny Ratz), so you know it’s going to be well-acted. There are two things that struck me about it. First, it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes account not only of the drama of a retiring pope (the focus), but also how the mechanism of the Vatican’s selection process. I always find the latter fascinating.

Second, I had my reaction to the movie, of course, but I suspect how people take this movie will be far more varied than most because of the subject matter. My interpretation is that, despite the mission of the Vatican, the mechanism and politics are no different than any large business. Some may say it’s run more like a government, and that may be true (technically, it is one), but that’s not how I saw this movie. Still others may see it from the religious point of view, seeing it as either an exaltation or a fall from grace of the church (depending on the viewer’s perspective).

However you view this movie, it seems to be doing something right. As always, YMMV.

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Favorite Watch: The Seventh Seal (1957) by Ingmar Bergman #movie #death #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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Sundays are now lazy days for me. Going forward, I’m just going to re-post other people’s work or just do something silly. Today, it’s my favorite movie of all time offered without any sort of analysis. It’s about a group of people that are dying of the plague, and in order to fend him off, a knight plays chess with death. If he wins, they all survive. You may be familiar with its influence elsewhere. The entire movie is available free on YouTube, though YouTube also offers it as a paid rental. :-/ I re-watched it last week. This is a movie I studied in school, and it’s one of those that has lots to unpack. I’ll leave it to you to peel them away if you so choose, though there’s always some help available.

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Good Watch: Doctor Sleep #movie #horror#GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @DoctorSleepFilm @HBOMax

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I do not like most horror movies. Doctor Sleep was the kind of horror movie I like. There were no obviously stupid moves made by the characters, which means two things: 1) the writing was uncharacteristically tight; and 2) I wound up rooting for the good guys. When people do stupid things in movies, I always think to myself, “Well, I’m glad you’re going to die, dumb ass.” The movie serves as a sequel to 1980’s the Shining. In that story, a father, mother, and son were staying in a remote Colorado hotel during the off-season. Spirits were awakened and possessed the father, who tried to kill them both. Snowed in from the customary weather, the mother and son were left with few options, so they had to fight back. Doctor Sleep is the story of SPOILER ALERT the son, who survived along with his mother, and now faces a completely different threat. While he could continue to keep himself hidden, he connects with another like him — a young girl — and feels compelled to help her as someone once helped him (and still does).

As a sequel to the Shining, it also tugged on the nostalgia heartstrings quite a bit, which may mean nothing to you. I saw the Shining in the theater when I was 12 years old. That was a fantastic movie, and Doctor Sleep did a great job of lining up with the Shining while still carving out its own path. For what it’s worth, its scores on Rotton Tomatoes are 77% from the critics (who don’t matter to me; well, usually), and 89% from the audience. These aren’t as good as the 85%/93% the Shining received, but close enough for you to consider it.

Doctor Sleep is currently streaming on HBO. As always, YMMV.

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Good Watch: Horns #movie #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife @SabrinaAnnLynn @imheathergraham @Netflix

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Horns is a movie from 2013, and I’m shocked that I had never even heard of it before Netflix notified me that it was on their service. I was missing out.

Daniel Radcliffe plays a boy wizard … no, that’s not right. He plays a boyfriends suspected of having murdered his religious girlfriend. The entire town and the news media (always blame the media!) assume he’s guilty. As the emotional walls come closing in, he wakes up in the morning with a pair of horns sticking out of his head. (Side note: It’s clear that we’re supposed to assume they’re devil’s horns, but as a sporadic D&D player, I saw them as satyr horns.) Once he has horns, most (not all) people in close proximity begin to confess their inner immorality and negative feelings, often acting them out. On the other hand, some people can’t even see the horns. In some ways, this made it easier to unravel the mystery, but in some ways it made it harder.

The ending is a bit heavy-handed, but a scene leading up to that ending is heart-wrenching. I don’t handle death in movies particularly well, but that actually draws me to those movies because, as strange as this sounds, I’m not afraid of my fears. The reason why is something I’d never share publicly and have only once shared privately (I’ll be damned if that wasn’t a huge mistake), though I suspect someone who grew up with me understands it. The point is that there’s really no reason to believe anyone would enjoy the movie as much as I, and that appears to be the case.

This is one of those movies where I get hooked from the beginning, wanting to know how it’s going to unfold. As always, YMMV.

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Favorite Watch: The Finale of Aqua Teen Hunger Force @DanaSnyder @DaveWillis2 @hbomax #ATHF #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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I finished re-watching the entire series, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, on Monday. This is one of my favorite shows, but I saw only a couple of episodes of the last three seasons. In 2015, Adult Swim president Mike Lazzo made the decision to end ATHF, stating he “was ready to move on from it.” I completely understand why. They were weak seasons. I didn’t like the final final ending, but that’s no surprise. It’s hard for me not to laugh at the characters; with 11- to 12-minute episodes, story could never be the focus of the show. Nevertheless, I found myself watching it for the sake of watching it.

There’s no way those last couple of seasons could spoil one of my favorite shows, but the show had clearly run its course.

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Okay Watch: He Never Died @henryrollins @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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This movie has been sitting in my Netflix queue for years, but until the pandemic, I never bothered to watch it. This movie is weird. Henry Rollins plays an cannibalistic immortal (I’ll leave it at that) with the personality of a lump of clay. (This isn’t a slam on Mr. Rollins; it’s by design.) He gets involved with a waitress, his estranged daughter, and the mob. All three of those come together in a finale that doesn’t give us closure, instead relying on a reveal of his identity as the major source of dramatic release. This is a weird one, probably worth my two hours, but just barely.

As always, YMMV.

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Good Watch: White Lines @laurajhaddock @martamilans @TomRhysHarries @DanielMays9 @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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White Lines is the story of a search for answers. As the characters find their answers, it opens old wounds and creates new ones.

Twenty years prior, the older brother of Zoe Collins (Laura J. Haddock) was murdered and dumped in deserted land, and now she’s ensnared in a web of drugs, assaults, and other assorted crimes. The first episode was uneven, but once you’ve got the basic premise explained, it picks up. At times, I was squirming in my seat. Episode 8 is a killer in that regard.

White Lines also stars Marta Milans of whom I’ve become a fan of late, Nuno Lopes, a perfectly-cast Daniel Mays (Tivik!), and Tom Rhys Harries as the long-deceased Axel Collins. The only thing I don’t like about the show is that characters often speak in Spanish (it takes place in Spain), so I can’t take my eyes off the screen for a second (at those times). However, I blame myself for having never learned Spanish. I’d say I deserve that pain in the ass.

Season 1 is on Netflix. As always, YMMV.

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Favorite Watch: Aqua Teen Hunger Force @DanaSnyder @DaveWillis2 @hbomax #ATHF #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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With HBO Max going live, you must have known it was only a matter of time before I started re-watching this series. My license plate tag is Frylock. After a 24-year absence from Dungeons and Dragons, the first character I created was Frylock, the half-elf warmage/rogue. I’ve recreated Frylock in 4th and 5th Edition. My blog is … well, you knew that. Too bad Carey Means isn’t on Twitter.

And as much as I like series with 30-minute episodes, one with 12- to 13-minute episodes is even easier to watch. I can watch one or two before I leave for work in the morning.

As always, YMMV, but if you don’t like this show, you’re objectively wrong. You might as well say you hate Star Trek, you dipshit.

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Good Watch: #Hush @netflix #GoodWatch #QuarantineLife

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The premise: A deaf and mute writer (played by Kate Siegel) lives in a home in the woods. She enjoys the isolation over her former life in the city. A man in a mask arrives threatening to kill her. Hush is less than 90 minutes long, so it’s no surprise that on 25 minutes in, you see the killer’s face. There’s no time to spare. 93/73

Her disability didn’t seem to play an important role in the movie other than to add a bit of color to the story. This had me thinking: What it would be like if the movie had absolutely no audio? The protagonist is deaf, and we’re supposed to step inside her shoes and feel her fear. What better way to relate to her than to experience the events from her true perspective?

Overall, the cast is good, but the writing fell flat, and I felt like they ran out of things to say, which would explain its 82-minute runtime (includes credits). We’re never given the killer’s motivation, but he’s so incompetent it appears he doesn’t want to win. Fortunately for him, everyone was incompetent, making all the wrong moves at almost every step. Perhaps that was necessary, as the slightest bit of competence would have cut the movie length to 15 minutes. The killer is played by John Gallagher, Jr., who I’ve always liked, but he’s never played an intimidating character as far as I know. There’s good reason for that. I wasn’t at all intimidated despite the neck tattoo, which was obviously a cheap attempt to buff him. At least the character he played was self-aware in this regard.

I don’t understand why it received such good scores on Rotten Tomatoes (93 from the critics and 73 from the audience), but I seem to be alone on this one. What do I know?

It wasn’t clever, original, or scary, which is all it tried to be, but in the time it took you to read this post, you could have watched the movie. As always, YMMV, and cats don’t give a shit.

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