Movies and TV

  • Start date
  • Replies 13,722 Comments
  • Views 927,615 Views
The first one (with the pig) was weaksauce.
 
I have been watching the HBO series My Brilliant Friend. I guess it would be classified as a Prestige Project. I doubt anyone at HBO ever expected it to be a huge mega-thing that everyone would be gabbing about at water coolers on Monday morning.

It's Italian with sub-titles. Set in 1950's somewhat-impoverished Naples.

It's interesting though. It reminds me of Mad Men. I mean, it's not as sexy or generally accessible as Mad Men, but it's very literary in its presentation. Lots of sub-text 'n shit. Moments of jaw-dropping brilliance.

It also reminds me of Mad Men in the acting. The two main characters - who are little girls - who grow older as it goes along - remind me of January Jones. Just blocks of zombified wood. It's kind of hilarious at times. But then, as with Ms Jones, it leaves you wondering if she's just that bad an actress or is she accurately portraying how females of that time and place were trained to be?

Certainly the older Italian women in MBF are not blocks of wood. They are stereotypical Italian drama-queens, prone to hysteria and threatening to throw themselves from windows if they don't get their way yada yada.


Anyway, I'm not even recommending it. It's definitely not for everyone. But I'm hooked.

And it's got me seriously considering a Mad Men rewatch.

iu
 
Season finale for True Detective tonight. It's been an excellent season - lead actor guy (Mahershala Ali) is gon' get himself some trophies for this.
 
I feel like the make-up people should get some trophies.

Gotta say though, from the start, the whole thing has had a recycled feeling to me. Meaning a re-telling of season 1. Not word-for-word but broad outline.

I was wondering if I was crazy or just mis-remembering, but then in the last episode they actually made direct reference to it, saying this had all happened before and - Boom! - suddenly we were looking at pics of Matt and Woody.

That all seems a little weak to me. Unless those guys are going to make surprise appearances tonight and help solve the case once and for all? I can't even remember, did the spaghetti monster die or wut? :dunno:
 
Pretty boffo opening to the Oscars. No-brainer I suppose, Queen doing their anthems but still - boffo.
 
I was wondering why Sam Rockwell didn't present Supporting Actress and I have since learned that none of last year's acting winners are presenting to this year's counterparts - as would be the tradition. Apart from Rockwell, that means Frances McDormand, Alison Janney and Gary Oldman are also excluded from the main shit.

How fucking stupid. This year's Oscars have been one stupid decision after another. At least most of them got reversed before the actual show but I guess not in this case.

I hope they are going to get those people on stage in some capacity. I don't know why you would want to give a fuck you to them.
 
I’m gonna have to watch The Favourite now after that adorable Best Female Supporting Actor acceptance speech.

And, man, I know it’s just showbiz and all that but Lady Gaga lookin at Bradley Cooper like “I can’t wait to slob that knob later, baby”. Lady Gaga is a riot.
 
So where did Mahershala Ali come from? I've only ever seen him in the current season of True Detective. Hell of an actor.
 
Ali was known professionally by his full name, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, from 2001 until 2010, when he began to be credited as Mahershala Ali.[3][9] Ali had considered shortening his name for a while, saying that using his full first name was "a crazy thing to do considering that we're in Hollywood", although he had never been pressured by managers or agents to change it.[9] He decided to use a shorter version of his first name after being told that his full name was too long to fit on the poster for the film The Place Beyond the Pines. He did not want the alternative of "M. Ali" to represent himself on the poster, so he chose to adopt the shorter version of his name.[9]

He elaborated in an interview to Vanity Fair in October 2016:

"I think if you have any desire to be a leading man or to really carry some of these stories, there's this relationship that has to be cultivated with an audience. People have to be able to say your name. I didn't want a couple of syllables to get in the way of me having the fullest experience as an actor."[9]
He is known for his portrayal of Remy Danton in the Netflix series House of Cards, Cornell Stokes in Marvel's Luke Cage, Colonel Boggs in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 and The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, and Tizzy in the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

His first major film role was that of Tizzy Weathers in the 2008 David Fincher-directed romantic fantasy drama film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Other notable films include Predators, The Place Beyond the Pines, Free State of Jones, Hidden Figures, and as Boggs in The Hunger Games series.

For his performance as mentor and drug dealer Juan in the drama film Moonlight (2016), Ali received universal acclaim from critics and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the SAG Award and the Critics' Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, and received a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award nomination. His win at the 89th Academy Awards made him the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar.[1]

In 2017 Ali joined the video game Madden NFL 18's story mode Longshot, in which he played Cutter Wade, the father of protagonist Devin.[10][11] He played Don Shirley in the 2018 film Green Book, receiving his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He won a 2019 Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role,[12] as well as a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[13]

Ali starred as Arkansas State Police detective Wayne Hays in the third season of the HBO series True Detective, which premiered on January 13, 2019, in the United States.[14] On Rotten Tomatoes, the site's critical consensus reads, "Driven by Mahershala Ali's mesmerizing performance, True Detective's third season finds fresh perspective by exploring real world events – though it loses some of the series' intriguing strangeness along the way."[15]
 
I'll tell you what made me want to puke at this year's Oscars. So many of the winners speeches went to the thing about, "Lookit me! This is proof that dreams can come true - so if there's anyone out there with a dream, never give up because lookit me blah blah blah."

Fuck off. The HUGE majority of the people you are condescending to with your advice will never get anywhere with their dreams and they will experience mainly frustration and failure as long as they pursue them. Either they suck and don't realize it, or they will simply lose the numbers game. Maybe they would be better off just accepting life and focusing on attainable things.

Whatever, your dream came true so way to go. Speak for yourself and fuck off.