What are you watching?

[Vorondil]

New series Star Wars Skeleton Crew. Sort of like The Goonies in space, not too bad so far

Thanks for reminding me about this!

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

The Phantom movie vocals are an atrocity and make my ears bleed.

Hm, I actually watched some clips of that movie a couple of days ago. I'm not really that knowledgeable about singing: while I know really good singing when I hear it, most 'average' singing still sounds good to me (like in the Les Misérables movie).
And... yeah the singing in those clips was not good. I wouldn't find it enjoyable to listen to. In particular, the Phantom sounded like he was out of his range much of the time.

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

I'm not really that knowledgeable about singing: while I know really good singing when I hear it, most 'average' singing still sounds good to me (like in the Les Misérables movie).

That used to be me before I started voice lessons. I used to love the Les Mis movie soundtrack. But now I'm cursed with knowledge, and I hear all sorts of issues, like the actors not holding their notes for very long. Also, Hugh Jackman doesn't really have the right voice type for Jean Valjean. He's more of a baritone when JVJ really ought to be a solid tenor. Bring Him Home sung by Hugh Jackman is, unfortunately, really less than what it ought to be. Which makes me sad to say, because I otherwise love Hugh Jackman as JVJ, and I think his acting has a lot of heart and soul in it.

Buuuut... even before I took voice lessons, I did notice a major difference when I first saw the US Tour of Les Mis, and saw Nick Cartell as JVJ. He is really the gold standard.

Maybe in PM I'll explain to you some of the technical things I notice when I listen to Nick Cartell sing this song.

Also, I guess I should clarify, I think pretty much all the Les Mis movie actors have a nice instrument, or in other words, a nice sound in their untrained God-given voices. But most of them don't have very good singing technique.

And... yeah the singing in those clips was not good. I wouldn't find it enjoyable to listen to. In particular, the Phantom sounded like he was out of his range much of the time.

Yep, that's where the ear bleeding comes in for me!

 

[herlig9]

I am not gonna lie. But i wouldnt mind a reboot of this movie to see if it could work, if it was more based on the book. Since its meant to be a sequal to the movie "The Detective 1968" movie.
But Die Hard is also a perfect action movie aswell. What do you think?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Tonight's episode:

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I could have sworn this was in color, last time I saw it. 🤔

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

War of the Rohirrim movie, animation is pretty but story is dumb, didn’t pay for it thankfully 🤐

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

More shorts by Robot Dance Doll:

And friend:

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Squid Game season 2. Not awful so far but a bit slow

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

I recently watched One Eyed Jacks having watched it once many years ago, And I think it's even better now. It was directed by and starred Marlon Brando.

It's a moody revenge western with Karl Malden as the baddie you love to hate and Brando as a Billy the Kid type character. It also features Katy Jurado reprising her strong Mexican woman from High Noon to even better effect here. It's shot in Vistavision and with the unusual Pacific coast locations looks just beautiful. There's a strong supporting cast. Brando got the actors to improvise their dialogue in a few scenes which mostly works well.

There's a homage to The Searchers in the opening titles and one particular scene. And it is freely available in the public domain! And I think it's a 5 star film.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

There's a new Russian adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. A couple of trailers are on YouTube:

It's the first of two parts.Looks interesting, but no telling when or if it will be available in the West.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I just came across a full version of an IU music video I originally posted 4 or 5 years ago. A definite Tim Burton/ Danny Elfman vibe to it:

For anyone who watched her "Love Wins All" mv I posted a few pages back, yes, she looks very different here! That's because she was about 17 at the time, and still "Korea's Little Sister".

 

[Halasían]

Binged through nine episodes of Landman this week. Pretty good!

 

[Idril Celebrindal]

Me and my dad are watching the original Star Trek. I thought that the special effects would be terrible after what I heard about it, but they actually weren't that bad, I'm enjoying it.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

I just saw Wicked and I was shocked by how good it was! At first, I didn't want to watch it because I saw Ariana Grande was casted as Galinda. I thought it was just a dumb celebrity casting and she would just sing in pop style. But I kept hearing good things about the movie, so I decided to go see it. VERY glad I did!! The costumes were absolutely phenomenal, and the singing was quite good. I particularly liked the Elphaba actress. Her belting sounded very effortless and healthy. And I actually really liked Ariana as Galinda. I forgot it was her, and I just saw the character. She adapted to the musical theater style quite well, and even sounded operatic on those high notes.

The costuming was honestly better than what I've seen in many a period drama. I think Galinda and Elphaba wore corsets, given that their silhouettes looked nice and snatched, and their fitted jackets and dresses fit very smoothly on them, not wrinkling or moving around. They looked like they were clinging to something solid. There were also many sources of historical inspiration in the costuming. For example, Elphaba's gorgeous overcoat in the beginning, with the corded embroidery and amazing puffed sleeves, looked very 1890s to me. I also saw characters with authentic 1920s fingerwave hairstyles. I've seen some 1920s period dramas where they don't do proper fingerwave hairstyles. And in general, I just wanted everything in Galinda's wardrobe.

Now, I had never seen Wicked on Broadway or anything, so I wasn't that familiar with the show. But I watched it with a musical theater friend, and I asked her afterwards how accurate it was to the show. She told me it was very accurate and they only made a few minor changes here and there. But otherwise the dialogue, song order and everything was exactly right.

I'm very glad I didn't allow my preconceived judgment about the actress to get in the way of my enjoyment of the movie. I finally feel like we have an actual good movie version of a Broadway musical. It seems like the Wicked movie actually understands what Broadway fans want in a movie: we want to see the show as it's written, with good quality vocals, though maybe with some slight creative changes in the scenes since a movie format is more flexible than a live stage performance. Neither the 2004 Phantom movie nor the 2012 Les Mis movie deliver on this, unfortunately. The Phantom movie vocals are an atrocity and make my ears bleed. The Les Mis movie had beautiful and heartfelt acting, but the vocals were poor (with the exception of Samantha Barks as Eponine, and Aaron Tveit as Enjolras, and they're both Broadway people). And yes, all that is my opinion. But my opinion is backed up with knowledge I've learned from taking classical voice lessons.

But anyway, in my opinion as a seamstress and soprano, Wicked was amazing and you should go see it!

I've seen it on tour in Pittsburgh twice and loved it both times. I thought the movie was awesome, both lead actress's voices were mind blowingly good. To me it was very accurate, just more detailed since it wasn't just on a stage but a full movie set, as you'd expect. Looking forward to seeing the second half.

 

[Starbrow]

Binged through nine episodes of Landman this week. Pretty good!

I've started watching it, too. It really sucks you in.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

 

[Rivendell_librarian]

For some light relief I've just read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then watched the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton 2005 film which is remarkably true to the book except for the addition of Christopher Lee as Willy Wonka's tyrannical dentist father which provides some back story and one other key plot change near the end. It has all Dahl's wickedly dark humour which children of all ages love though it doesn't have the strong story line of Matilda. Tim Burton didn't include Dahl's stern injunction to read books rather than watch TV (or films?)

I liked the scene with the squirrels in the Nut Room and James Fox as Veruca Salt's father.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

"I ate you!"
"Aagh! You ate me!"

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Severance season 2 came out today (9pm ET last night actually) and excellent so far.