Friday, November 12, 2021

Some Movies, Some TV

I wrote 2 drafts for this post and both of them are negative in tone. They talk about something that I can't really talk about right now other than I am shit scared about it. It doesn't seem fair and of course far from enjoyable to read me unloading my fear without context, so I will try to step away from all that for the time being and write about things that I recently watched.

I haven't talked about movies I watched in a long time, but there were some times in the past few months were I had some free time and I ended up filling them watching movies. Here are some of them. I think aside for Dune which I was really interested to watch, the rest I watched because I had some free time and wanted to just go out.

• Dune - It seems it was released in Singapore way earlier than in America. I watched it in a big hall with like less than 10 people in it and so I ended up feeling dead cold and couldn't concentrate and wished it would end faster. It was cinematographically interesting and I'm sure there will be sequels, but for this part 1 I guess I'm kinda frustrated because what this Timothée Chalamet's Paul supposes to do, that part is not clear to me and so I need more and yet at the same time the movie is already pretty long.
• The Green Knight - It has many beautiful interesting scenes. I'm not familiar with the poem it's based on and in the end, I don't know if I like the story much, like what is the point of all this. That being said, it is beautifully shot and that makes for an interesting watch.
• Werewolves Within - I would normally give this kind of movie a miss but I had a free time to fill and there's Sam Richardson whose character in Veep is loveable and he's playing another lovable guy here. Side note: his stint in Ted Lasso was interesting funny :D For this movie, I would just say it's okay.
• The Last Duel - I think I start to like Adam Driver a lot because he's kinda an actor actor and not an actor celebrity and he chose interesting movies to be in. This movie tells the story of an alleged rape from the point of view of 3 people; the 2 person in the act and the husband of the woman being raped. Watching it, I would say it's clear it's a rape though I read it's based on a real event and people are still unsure if it was rape. So basically then the husband (Matt Damon) and the alleged rapist (Adam Driver) need to fight it out in a duel. I would just say I think it's an okay movie.

As for TV. I finished watching all the 5 seasons of The Wire and I like them a lot. Season 1 gave me like a Law & Order feel but as it progressed, I was pretty invested in the story. I couldn't relate with the very violent drug world. On the other hand, seeing the bureaucracy and staff in the police department, school system, mayor office, newspaper, well all of those are just so relatable because I guess the same things happen everywhere all over the world - the fight to chase numbers in stats, how achieving certain numbers is seen as improvement, how one would change or create the metrics they need to get the numbers they want, and how the effort to do all this reporting eclipses the actual work or how the work that actually is good work is not being appreciated or even axed because it doesn't serve the numbers or the upper people. I think there's people in every country in this world who gets this. Thinking about it more, I wonder if the criminal world is actually the real meritocracy. You can't bullshit your way into power there, you have to show true result. Anyways, if ever they will do another round of The Wire, I'll be down to watch that.

Some of the things I currently watch include The Morning Show. I don't particularly like what they did to Steve Carell's character this season, sigh. I guess it's because we saw him trying to do good. I have to remind myself that hold on, his character did many bad things. It's interesting that I think they are trying to explore what being cancelled is like and if there's any way one can get back to the good graces of people. Are there mistakes too big that you cannot get back? Is it fair to expect forgiveness and acceptance? I wonder where the story is going to go. Another thing I'm watching is Impeachment: American Crime Story which tells the story of the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal centering more on Monica Lewinsky's side of thing. It does make me feel a little bit sympathetic towards her but then she did wrong and through it all, I think the person who is so unfairly damaged is Hillary Clinton. This is a lady who is truly capable and yet this event, which is not her fault at all, has stained her forever. Seriously I don't know why there are people who can't be sympathetic towards Hillary, this is a lady who had to go through something so embarrassing but onwards she rises up and marches on. She is actually very impressive and that is admirable.

:) eKa @ 10:06:00 PM •