Post by Ian J. BallPost by UbiquitousWhat did you watch?
soaps: DOOL - This focused on all of the characters (e.g. John &
Marlena, Stefano, et al.) that I despise, so I paid it little attention.
GH - This I paid even less attention to!! All I got out of it is that
Laura's been shot (again?!!); Taggart and Jordan share some secret (that
Curtis doesn't know about); and they brought on Jeff Kober to play a new
(but imprisoned!) "Big Bad" mob boss rival of Sonny's.
The Island (HBO) - I got sucked into watching this all the way through.
I've been thinking about revisiting this myself.
Post by Ian J. BallI still say that Scarlett Johansson has never looked better than she
looked in this flick. In watching it again, it strikes me that it may be
one of the best Michael Bay movies (along with "The Rock")
I have the blu-ray but never got around to watching it. I must not have
watched this movie since the original release!
- it's far
Post by Ian J. Balltoo "action-y", and would have been advantaged by less non-stop action,
but it has a decent (if now overworn - heck, even flicks like "Level 16"
are copying it!) Skiffy premise that would have benefited from further
fleshing out.
But, but, the Island ripped off another movie first. And got sued for
it! :-/ OK, so maybe no one actually saw the other movie and everyone
saw this one. I'll give you that.
Post by Ian J. Ball The one thing I couldn't figure out is when it was set - they
(amusingly!!) tell the clones it's "2019". But the futuristic L.A. we
see when McGregor and Johansson escape cannot possibly have developed in
the 15 years from 2005 (when the movie was produced) to 2019! So it must
be more like 2100, or even later! Still, the film never tells us...
The Magicians (recorded) -
Saved for later.
I watched:
Star Trek: Picard (CBS streaming) "Absolute Candor" - 4 Episodes in and
they are still introducing new characters. Picard continues to put his
team together and now he's found himself a ship and captain. I'm still
enjoying the series.
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
(theatrical) Margot Robbie reprises her Harley Quinn role in this new
adventure that's both a Harley Quinn movie and a "Birds of Prey" movie.
As I recall these were originally two separate movies that had their
scripts combined. But this is very much Harley Quinn's movie and
"Deadpool" style she narrates it and constantly breaks the 4th wall to
do so. Also like "Deadpool" this movie spins off a character from a
PG13 franchise and gives them their own "R" rated adventure. Joining
Harley are Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress, Jurnee Smollett-Bell as
Black Canary and Rosie Perez as Renee Montoya. They are forced to team
up to fight off and protect a young thief from Black Mask (Ewan
McGregor) and his henchman Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina). Everyone in
the movie is clearly cutting lose and having fun, especially Ewan
McGregor who just chews every scene he's in.
While the trailers did *nothing* for me, the movie has been getting
really good reviews so I went in optimistic that it would be better than
the trailers were indicating. While I don't think it's as great as the
reviews have indicated, it was definitely a lot better than the trailers
let on. I'm still not sure what to make of all of it. I guess the
movie works, but I can't explain why. Imagine if Joel Schumacher's
"Batman & Robin" was R rated and actually kind of good. Hard to
imagine. That's sort of this movie. Or let me put it this way, there's
a scene in the movie where they are fighting and suddenly Harley is
wearing roller skates. Someone notices and even asks her *when* did you
have time during this fight to put on roller skate? There's a sequence
in Schuacher's "Batman & Robin" where they fight wearing roller skaets.
It's a dumb scene and makes it a lesser movie. Yet in this one, it just
works. So while I can't really explain what I liked about it or why, it
does just sort of work.