Octopus Overlords

Yeah, it's kind of cool to recognize places, but at the same time it can be very distracting when you know they're using camera tricks. Being that my area's been getting a reputation for filmmaking, with more and more productions and major ones too, we're seeing more of that type of thing.

Off the top of my head, we've got Letterkenny (with an upcoming spinoff series in the works) , a series called Carter, James Vs His Future Self (recent movie in which they filmed all over town, including our science centre used in the climax), and a major hollywood production of Resident Evil, and there's been talk of building a major film studio in town.

And I can understand being distracted with the small pool of actors too, as Canada kind of runs into that itself. You end up feeling like they're using the same actors all the time.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 11:24 pm Yeah, it's kind of cool to recognize places, but at the same time it can be very distracting when you know they're using camera tricks.

A house in my neighborhood featured prominently in "I Care a Lot." There's a shot through the front door looking out to a sheriff's cruiser parked curbside. It looks like an expansive lawn leads to a street 50 yards away. In reality, it's maybe 10 yards. But if they hadn't distanced it, it would've been obvious that the cop car was fake.

Hah, that's kind of clever. I assume they used a wide-angle lens in combination with a scene extension.

In some ways, being aware of some of the tricks gives you more appreciation for what is done, but it can still be a bummer when you don't fully recognize something.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:37 am Hah, that's kind of clever. I assume they used a wide-angle lens in combination with a scene extension.

In some ways, being aware of some of the tricks gives you more appreciation for what is done, but it can still be a bummer when you don't fully recognize something.

That house is on my daily walking route, and one day I sauntered through while they were filming the movie. I saw the fake sheriff's car, a bunch of solar reflectors, a van full of production equipment around the corner, and a lot of people milling about. Rosamund Pike or Dianne West might have been somewhere in the vicinity, or maybe not -- they each had scenes there. I wonder if the interior scenes were even shot in the same house.

I read later that that house was used because the owner was friends with the movie producer. It's a nice upper middle class house, probably around 100 years old and typical of the neighborhood. I'll bet you could get if for under a million.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Jul 14, 2021 1:18 am I wonder if the interior scenes were even shot in the same house.

Most likely they just used the exterior. It happens a lot, though rarely they'll actually use the interior.

But yeah, it happened to some friends of mine for a Hallmark movie, which has been happening increasingly more often in this region over the years (Both Hallmark and Netflix movies). They asked to use the house for the production, and they paid them and our friends stayed in a hotel while it was used for filming, and I think in this case they also used the interior.

As for the other thing, I've experienced something similar as well. There's a favourite hiking spot in town that's part of a nature conservancy. It's where we both like to hike and go snowshoeing, but along the road is full of expensive houses along the lake, and there was one production with Forrest Whittaker and Eva Longoria (A Dark Truth) where our town hilariously stood in for a town in the Dominican Republic, and they had used one of the more intriguing houses along the road that I see almost every time we're there. It's a big modern glass house that's kind of hard to miss.

They did a lot of outdoor/driving shots for Driving Miss Daisy in my friend's quaint old neighborhood in Atlanta. They repainted the roads to make them more 1950s and paid a couple of blocks worth of residents to remove modern mailboxes and furniture from their yards and porches.

My weirdest brain adjustment was when I was watching this apocalyptic movie filmed here and they had CGI-ed the heck out of downtown. Buildings on fire, planes crashed into roofs, etc. for buildings I knew were perfectly unscathed. The CGI was pretty bad, but at the same time it was kind of fun to see what the city might look like during the end times.

World War Z had some great Philadelphia-overrun-by-zombies scenes, both on the ground and from the air. I could recognize all the important intersections.

And the rogue Philadelphia Water Department truck clearing the street of stopped cars was a nice (if physically impossible) touch.

Batman. There was a sequence on the street where I worked and they used CGI to make many buildings barely recognizable.

Driving on lower LSD is also very different now.

Zaxxon wrote: ↑Tue May 25, 2021 10:48 am I do believe I am in...


Netflix’s Gunpowder Milkshake is about female assassins, guns ... and Paul Giamatti.





I love everything about this trailer.

This is out now, and is amazing so far (halfway in).

Second season of Never Have I Ever dropped today. Season 1 was great - hoping they are able to keep it going.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:02 pm

Hyena wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:30 pm
It's this Icelandic Nordic Noir-y thingy with supernatural happenings going on. Set in a very small town near a volcano that has been erupting for a year. The setting is great--honestly, it looks like it's set on another planet (it's gritty ash-filled Iceland, not pretty waterfall Iceland). Two episodes in and I have no clue what is going on, but I'm intrigued and it's fun to hear people speak Viking.

Started watching this today and it's really good! My enthusiasm for it went up when I realized it was created by the same writer-director that made Trapped, another great Icelandic series.

And I've finished it.

Watched Gunpowder Milkshake. Enjoyed it. Some suspension of disbelief necessary, but not enough to offend my sensitivities.

Watching it now. It's obvious they're trying to world build as they're cribbing stuff from John Wick left and right. But so far I'm enjoying myself.

hepcat wrote: ↑Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:25 pm Watching it now. It's obvious they're trying to world build as they're cribbing stuff from John Wick left and right. But so far I'm enjoying myself.

It's very derivative of that and Kill Bill, but I had fun.

I like Karen Gillan. Really I do. But when you stick her in an action movie with Lena Headey, Angela Bassett and Michelle freaking Yeoh...well, it isn't fair to Gillan.

Concur.

I'll put in another thumbs up for Gunpowder Milkshake. Not quite up to John Wick standards, but I still quite enjoyed it.

Soon...

I'm hoping for lots of impressions.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 3:23 pm I'm hoping for lots of impressions.

#whups

Kraken wrote:It's a masterpiece, and the man is just 30 years old. Who knows what he still has left to create? I had never heard of him before, but "Inside" made an instant fan out of me.

I just watched it on a whim and loved it. And I agree it's a masterpiece. The lighting, the songs, the editing it's just amazing.

As a photographer I was just stunned by the different lighting effects he did. That alone is super difficult.

Octavious wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:24 pm

Kraken wrote:It's a masterpiece, and the man is just 30 years old. Who knows what he still has left to create? I had never heard of him before, but "Inside" made an instant fan out of me.

I just watched it on a whim and loved it. And I agree it's a masterpiece. The lighting, the songs, the editing it's just amazing.

As a photographer I was just stunned by the different lighting effects he did. That alone is super difficult.

I watched one of his two earlier specials. It was good for a few laughs, still creative and original, but not brilliant. Looking forward to seeing the earlier one eventually. Sort of like watching him grow as an artist, but in reverse.

I watched Cosmic Sin. Don't. It was terrible. Really bad. Bad story, bad CGI, bad acting (was there acting?). I strongly discourage anyone from throwing it on, even for background. It was not good. At all.

I should have just read the reviews at Rotten Tomatoes (3%). It would have been far more entertaining.

I honestly urge you to light six dollars on fire rather than spend it on streaming this movie.

We started the Bo Burnham special. It wasn't grabbing me. Though I do plan on trying again. I'm not sure why I bounced off it.

Instead I re-watched the James Acaster 4 part special.

TheMix wrote: ↑Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:48 am I watched Cosmic Sin.

One review I saw simply consisted of "cosmic shit" and then nothing else about it.

Bruce Willis is rapidly becoming the Robert De Niro of his generation...but not in terms of acting ability.

I'm pretty sure that his contract amount was per the word. He spent 90% of the movie just glaring. I think he had less than a dozen lines.

Can a Moonlighting reunion be far off?

hepcat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 15, 2021 11:32 am

Rumpy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 13, 2021 2:02 pm

Hyena wrote: ↑Mon Jun 21, 2021 12:30 pm
It's this Icelandic Nordic Noir-y thingy with supernatural happenings going on. Set in a very small town near a volcano that has been erupting for a year. The setting is great--honestly, it looks like it's set on another planet (it's gritty ash-filled Iceland, not pretty waterfall Iceland). Two episodes in and I have no clue what is going on, but I'm intrigued and it's fun to hear people speak Viking.

Started watching this today and it's really good! My enthusiasm for it went up when I realized it was created by the same writer-director that made Trapped, another great Icelandic series.

And I've finished it.

Spoiler:

Honestly, I don't really want another season. It ended on a bittersweet high that really didn't need that final scene teaser for another season. They told the story they wanted to tell, gave a somewhat grounded reason for the mystery (as opposed to "It's magic!") and then revealed how all the characters were affected by the arrivals. That last part I wasn't expecting and it made the whole thing worth it, in my opinion. Without that, the story would have lacked any sense of closure and turned into a Lost clone or something.

Finished it as well now, and I agree. There was a good sense of closure, and I've noticed that most european series more or less have self-contained seasons in contrast to North American shows that blur the lines between seasons with their stories. Like Trapped, if it were to continue with another season, the mystery would have to be completely different and I'm not sure how sustainable it would be. Still, I quite liked what the creator had done by leaning into his culture to present something quite different. It was quite refreshing.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 10:08 pm

Octavious wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:24 pm

Kraken wrote:It's a masterpiece, and the man is just 30 years old. Who knows what he still has left to create? I had never heard of him before, but "Inside" made an instant fan out of me.

I just watched it on a whim and loved it. And I agree it's a masterpiece. The lighting, the songs, the editing it's just amazing.

As a photographer I was just stunned by the different lighting effects he did. That alone is super difficult.

I watched one of his two earlier specials. It was good for a few laughs, still creative and original, but not brilliant. Looking forward to seeing the earlier one eventually. Sort of like watching him grow as an artist, but in reverse.

The breakup song from the previous special had me dying. It's funny that I had never heard of him at all. My daughter had said he's a youtube star and I rolled my eyes as most of those people succcckkkk.

German creature feature Blood Red Sky is a fun, 30 Days of Night influenced film for the first hour…but at over two hours it REALLY overstays its welcome.

Speaking of horror films, I just noticed there’s a film spin off of the fantastic Korean period thriller with zombies series Kingdom available now. Kingdom: Ashin of the North. Really looking forward to seeing that now as the series is a blast.

I've binge watched most of the Umbrella Academy over 3 days. I don't watch tv so that's like god tier praise for a show for me to do that. I just love all the characters so much. The music is fantastic and it looks amazing in 4k with Dolby vision. I will be a sad panda when I finish season 2 this week.

The kid should be buried under trophies for his performance in the show. He's sooooo good.

Octavious wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:40 am The music is fantastic

This show good me hooked on Woodkid.

We watched 'The Michaels vs the Machines' as recommended some pages back.
it was good, we really enjoyed it. its filmed in a style designed to attract the current generation kids, with emoticons and such popping up on the screen. For those without the trailer, A dysfunctional family on a road trip discovers they are the last humans, and need to save humanity from the robot apocalypse. Also they have a pug. Its a good job of family dynamic, I thought it was a really believable family. Obviously there are cartoonish over the top action, but thats OK, they have a pug.

Our 11 watched the whole thing and enjoyed, that is high praise. This is a brand new IP, and not one related to any of his focals, so thats an outstanding accomplishment.

I am about 7 episodes into 'Jupiters Legacy' and enjoying the crap out of it. I Like it better than The Boys, but not as much as Jessica Jones.
I do have a technical problem with the volume. The speaking scenes are very quiet, but the action and music scenes blast the volume really loud, so I am constantly fiddling with the volume to try and keep it at a reasonable level.

For you family folks, this is not a family show, there are graphic scenes of death and violence, explicit sex and drug use

Finished Sweet Tooth today. One of the best things on Netflix at the moment.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 1:52 pm Finished Sweet Tooth today. One of the best things on Netflix at the moment.

Not sure whether it was posted here, but ST got officially renewed a week or two ago.

Good news. I really enjoyed Sweet Tooth.

What did you guys like? The trailers are not pushing buttons for me.

Freyland wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:53 pm What did you guys like? The trailers are not pushing buttons for me.

I would try just going in with as open a mind as possible. It's definitely a weird one, and the trailers especially give off kiddie vibes. But I just thought the world it builds worked really well.