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О фильмах и сериалах

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Monkey Man

John Wick has changed action movies for good.

 

This is “John Wick” Indian style. The rolls, use of environment as weapons, like hitting with a tray, and all the other tricks.

 

It’s magical, the amout of abuse hero can withstain, but also realistic, exemplified with the attempt to jump through a window “movie style”. Trying to tie it all together into a Hanuman myth was a good option.

 

I’m not sure how the second half of the movie works, though, as I don’t believe repicursiosn for the transgender community in India is on everyone’s mind. And using fireworks as weapons perhaps not the most efficient, when you have guns? But it’s good visuals for sure.

 

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North Water

“Maybe cleverness will get you nowhere. Maybe it’s only the stupid, the brilliantly stupid, who will inherit the Earth”

 

1859, England. A whaler “Volunteer” sails to Greenland. Only the captain and a couple of the crew members know, that the goal of this voyage is to sink the whaler and get the insurance money. Sails are obsolete, steam is the future. And there are no more whales anyway.
Writing is technically very impressive. We have the complete opposites: Sumner and Drax. Sumner is a surgeon. Drax is a harpooner. Sumner is addicted to laundaum. Drax likes to drink. Sumner reads Homer. Drax can’t even read.

 

Drax is also extremely violent. He kills a man with a brick for not buying him a drink. He enjoys hunting seals. But maybe it is the man you want on your boat when your purpose is to hunt and kill whales, a cold blooded killer?

The movie is brutal for sure. The skinning of seals, whale hunt and 19th Century medicine such as draining puss all shown in great detail. Not for the faint-hearted for sure.

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Migration

I’m surprised we are still able to produce good animation, and not just trash. But Migration is very impressive. The herons, the pigeons, the Jamaican parrot. I mean, I didn’t even know we are allowed to do accents anymore, when everything is offensive.

The tricks are mostly classic, villain looking over one side of the column, heroes hiding over the other. But then, there are surprising animation twists borrowing from Nickelodeon (the pleeeeeeease, for example).

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Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

It’s Inglorious Bastards all over again, but it isn’t a bad thing. We have characters switching between English and German on the go, and an educated villain played by Til Sweiger instead of Christoph Waltz.
You can also view it as a James Bond movie, with cool characters shooting from the hip while cracking jokes.
The most interesting bit is that the craziest parts are actually true. An SOE agent did set up a party on Fernando Po to lure Italian and German officers away. And the crew did employ locals to steal the boats, and did blow the anchor chain with explosives. Only all the killing didn’t happen.
The saddest part is that in real life, no participant of that operation survived until the end of the war. Henry Cavils character, Gus, died on the very next mission, while his team got lost in France and bumped into a patrol. And Anders was killed in ’45, storming an Italian bunker line.

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Persona 4 Animation

Another interesting improvement over the game is that the game is always from the protagonist POV. Here, we get more glimpses into Risette/Rise, and how she quit being a popstart.

 

One character they added that I think wasn’t in the game is Aya. She was mentioned as the daughter of the owner of the ramen place, and that she goes to the same school.

 

Until 12th episode, it’s pretty standard stuff. I don’t know what changes (the opening does for sure), but it’s after the 12th episode they’re start messing with the audience, and it becomes spectacular.
The game has a few “bad endings”, where you don’t conclude your investigation fully, the friendships fall apart. And here, they included one of those, but in a way you don’t even understand what’s going on until 10 minutes in it.

 

Then, the game has a bunch of random characters you need to befriend. And here, they show you all of them, but after you already did, doing a timeskip.

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Persona 4 Animation

 

The best part of Persona 4 was the characters and anime cutscens, and it’s true about many Atlus games. So it’s no wonder anime based on Persona 4 is actually very good. I think they also used same voice actors as the English translation of the game.

 

I’m not sure it’s watchable if you haven’t played the game. But if you did, the way it treats the original art, music and characters is brillaint.

 

First, as I read somewhere already, the protagonist now has a name, Yu Narukami, and a character, while it the game, he had none. And the way they fleshed out some character arcs is fantastic as well: mainly Yukiko and her story about a caged bird.

 

Also, let’s admit, the fights in Persona are nothing special, personas are basically a bag of spells with a shaby animation. Here, Izanagi, Yu’s persona, has some cool fight scenes.

 

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Ripley

Finished Ripley.
You can appreciate art without enjoying it. I appreciate the irony that Ripley is not some kind of genius, it’s just that the world around him is very incompetent. And the last episode reenacting Caravaggio’s crime is brilliant.

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Deadpool 2

It’s amazing deconstruction of superheroes genre. With mismatching music, and dialogues that punch every. Fucking. Line.
I mean, the movie made me laugh out loud on an airplane on 20th minute. That’s something.

It is still a superheroes movie, though. So despite Ryan Reynolds making a cheeky comment about “here comes a CGI fight”, the fight between Colossus and Juggernaut is indeed… a CGI fight.

What else? Zazie Beetz is great. I liked her in Bullet Train, and I like here as Domino even more.

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Atomic Blonde

John Wick has reinvigorated cinema. This is just one example.
Charlize Theron has this amazing confidence of not being afraid of being shown “ugly”.

 

 

The music, set pieces, the motives of ice and mirrors, it all fits really well. Enjoyed every moment, except the French actress, which was kind of meh.

 

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Ripley

The movie is very surreal in its hyperrealistic visuals. It is impressive work for sure: all black-and-white, with unexpected camera angles, ultra-wide shots and changing tempo.

 

And the soundtrack creates tension out of the most mundane things.

 

What is interesting to me is that Ripley isn’t portrayed as extremely cunning. He is very greedy, often does stupid things, and killing for him, at least from my view, is more of an impulse than something planned. The only reason he can get away with what he does is that the other characters all have their own vices: the vacuous “artists,” the greedy mafioso, the lazy receptionists.

 

 

 

There are some interesting motifs: everyone’s obsession with the expensive pen, stairs, and of course, Caravaggio.

 

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John Wick 3

The movie picks were the previous left. John Wick is hunter my all the world.


Fight in the library is a clear reference to Bruce Lee Vs Kareem Abdul Jabar.


Then we have the famous fight in the antique shop, where John and a bunch of Japanese assassins throw ecsotic knives at each other.
With the stable episode, they really jumped the horse, sorry, the shark. But then at this point I’m not surprised by anything. Only disappointed.
Then there’s the long shootout in Marrakech. I think the only point of it is to show some dogs biting assassins in the crotch. Other than that, it’s not very inventive or entertaining. Look, John Wick looks great because Keanu Reeves takes everything seriously. When we have this “Beyonce”, sorry, Halle Berry, trying to do the same tricks, it is just mockery.


The Guild of Assassins decides to punish everyone who helped Wick in the previous chapter. He in turn travels to speak with the head of the Guild, who’s some kind of beduin. To show his loyalty, Wick has to cut off one of his fingers. The beduin tasks him to execute the Continental manager in turn.


The highlight is two Indonesian fighters from The Raid. It’s a fun fight, which I think everyone enjoyed. That’s why nobody gets killed.

Which cannot be said about Mark Dacascos. I honestly didn’t recognize him. He’s good. As a kid I didn’t understand he’s actually quite a serious martial artist.

And we end up with angry black hobo and Wick planning revenge on the Beduin, I guess?

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How Dark Reign nearly beat Command and Conquer, Zade

I have played Dark Reign and even completed it around 2002 (the game came out in ’97). But I didn’t know it was actually quite the financial success, selling over 300K copied, when the authors expected 30K to break even.
Also, turns out it was initially developed by just two guys. And that their approach was to build the game engine, and then use it to build the game, which was groundbreaking in 1997. One of the lead developers later went to work at Blizzard, and I wonder if that had any influence on a very similar approach of StarCraft.

Also, turns out Dark Reign 2 was developed by a different team, because most of the developers of the original relocated from Australia to USA, to work for Activision, which paid x4.

 

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Last of Us S01

TV version of Last of Us reminds me of those videos where people cook mashed potatoes out of a box of pringles. Let me explain.
The game took the popular concept of zombie apocalypse, sprinkled it with colour, and let the player feel that they are in a movie. “Cinematic experience”, so to speak. TV version is… Just a zombie movie. Yes, with good actors, but I can’t even say that the writing is that good. It’s one thing when TV tropes are successfully re-enacted in a video game. It’s another when it’s just a TV trope in a TV show. And on top of that, they kept some video game tropes as well. Like the collapsing ceiling in the museum that blocks the path back.
I remember some complaints about the gay couple episode, but it’s actually good. Reverse gender of one of them, and it would still work. Just two lonely people in a post apocalyptic world caring for each other. The manly beards just make it a bit ironic. But also tragic. The good part of that episode is also the bad part. It’s a standalone story, that doesn’t have much to do with the Last of Us as a whole. But it’s a great story.
One bit that series does better than the game is explaining the origins of the virus, and why everything started falling in a day or two. Or maybe the game did that, and I forgot. The spores were in the flour, that was shipped around the world. The day Joel first doesn’t get pancakes, because they ran out of flour, then also forgets to get the cake, that’s why his family doesn’t get infected.
As a side note, I’m amazed how they found actress that plays Ellie’s mother, Anne, to resemble Bella Ramsey. Usually they don’t bother.
Speaking of tropes again, when you’re in a game, it’s only expected that you’d be able to kill 20 people. Otherwise, that wouldn’t be very challenging. But in a movie, Joel being able to mow down groups of raiders and what not kind of shows. But then, it’s honest to the game, at least.

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Fallout S01

Finished first season of Fallout. It was phenomenal. Amazing how good the writing is, considering how bad it became in some other franchises (Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time).

 

The visuals are stunning, and the songs, some of them used in the games as well, undertone the dark humor of this universe.

 

Despite the series doing the usual dance: a naive character leaves his/her sheltered village/vault, and is on the hunt to find/deliver some MacGuffin. Characters have clear motivations, clear flaws, and in general, the acting is very, very good.

 

I was impressed by Stephanie, that manages to turn her character from that victim into something sinister in just one scene.

 

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Babylon Berlin S01

It’s interesting to unpack how TV series are different from the book.
Charlotte in the book is referred to as “Charlie”, while in the TV series she’s called “Lotte”. In the book, she’s quite successful, and doing a work of an investigator, despite being a stenographer. In the series, she’s struggling to pay her rent with an one-off job at the police station.

 

Rath is immediately introduced as a “shaker”, having to rely on laundaum to stay in the police. In the book, he’s an occasional drinker, but not much else.

 

There’s a comic episode in the series which wasn’t present in the books: Rath and Lotte get the photos of their investigations mixed together. Rath works in Vice, and Lotte works in Homicide, so they have to sort together through pornography and murdered victims photos.

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Fallout S01

 

I wouldn’t have never believed it if anybody told me that someone will manage to pull out a Fallout TV Series. But Amazon did.
For those that played the games, there are tons of references: PipBoy, Stimpacks, power armor, lots of accurately portrayed weaponry, the list goes on.

 

And for those who’ve never played them: the characters are surprisingly solid. The do-gooder is in line with the vaulters, and the Black Stormtrooper guy, Maximus who plays Black Stormtrooper again is nuanced.

 

The music is mostly from the games, so of course it fits and hits like a hammer. But the only way they could ruin it was by remixing. Thanks for not doing that.

 

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Baby Reindeer

The Bear changed TV series. Uneven length of episodes, uneven number of episodes, the intensity, the closeups when you can see the pores on someone’s nose – Baby Reindeer has it all.
Main character is made to be quite unlikable: ruffled haircut, unshaven. It’s hard to see what anyone could find in him.
It is a story of confusion. Most stories are of linear growth: a character starts low, then with ups and downs reaches the top. I’m not sure this could be said about that story. At one point he mentions that he never convicted his real abuser, and in the last episode, he even goes back to see him and get another offer, because his abuser never learned any lesson. And with how the character behaves, going back on all his choices, it wouldn’t be surprised if he accepts the offer for the second time.
I think Baby Reindeer gets a lot of difficult things right: sexual abuse, sexuality changes, and the fact that humans are, unreasonable, in the end.

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Clarkson’s Farm S02

Finished second season of Clarkson’s Farm.
Second season is mostly dedicated to cows. Some cows appear to be notoriously hard to get pregnant. And that means they have to be converted into burgers instead. And a single cow can feed 1000 people, apparently. Sounds like a lot. But 1000 people is not even a month of a restaurant opperation.

 

Also, there are badgers, that can transfer their tuberculosis to the cows, and are protected animals, so you can’t shoot them.

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“History of Cut Street Fighter Characters and Designs”, Thorgi’s Arcade

Another interesting fighting video game history video.

There’s a lot of speculation, as usual, but the design of one character blew my mind 😆

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Clarkson’s Farm S01

Finished first season of Clarkson’s Farm. I’m not sure how relatable it is for people outside of the UK, but for someone who’s been living there for quite a while, it’s spot-on. And has a lot of interesting details about what it involves to be a farmer.

For me, the most interesting part were the sheep. The relatioship of Jeremy genuinely caring for them, but then also liking the fact that boxes of mutton sell well and shepherds pie is tasty.

And as a bonus, there are those glimpses of British wildlife, like foxes, stupid deer and ridiculous owls.