What was the last film you watched?

[fd3]

I was disappointed by "The Shape Of Water" - I thought they over hollywoodized it.  They needed to make it 15% edgier and at least 10% Kookier.

[rafletcher]

“Shoplifters” a slice of Japanese cinema verite.

[StuAff]

Currently, Some Like It Hot. Before that, Singing in the Rain. Double bill of champions…

[rafletcher]

Being really up to date, we watched The Hurt Locker the other evening. I quite liked it.

[cygnet]

The Italian Job (Michael Caine version)
On re-watching it appears quite brexit-tastic, but with some lines/shots I've maybe missed previously or over-analysed this time E.g. ( I paraphrase) "We need a man who can fix the Turing Turin computer"
And was the rather prominent cul-de-sac sign outside the cemetery just a 'dead end" pun?

[Legs]

While we’ve got the 30 day Amazon Prime trial, Knives Out.  Most enjoyable!

[Jakob]

Pappilon, the remake. I mean, it's not that bad, but it doesn't try anything new at all and seems entirely pointless, considering how good the McQueen version is.

[T42]

Under the Skin. A small story, might have been by David Lynch but isn't. Netflix gives most of the plot away in their blurb, otherwise it would have been mystifying rather than boring (despite the eye candy).

[rafletcher]

HER. Complete and utter drivel, so much do we only managed 2/3rds of it.

[T42]

The Midnight Sky. Predictable touchy-feely crap larded with more errors than my dogs' spelling homework, made all the worse by the fact that they got some bits that are usually ignored in other SF films right* and so obviously knew what they were doing wrong but reckoned that the punters wouldn't notice. Thus insulting predictable touchy-feely crap.  So why did I watch it? MrsT - she who got a masters in medicinal chemistry at the age of 68 - liked it.  And to be honest, I enjoyed hooting at the mistakes.

*

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E.g. when you have an arm rotating about the axis of a spacecraft to provide simulated gravity at the ends where the living quarters etc are mounted, you need a counter-rotating device to avoid spinning the entire craft in the opposite direction.  The one they had looked inadequate, but still...

[Kim]

The Midnight Sky.

It was daft and very pretty.  And while they'd made a similar level of effort on trying to make the space hardware look right, it didn't fall into the same setting-itself-up-to-be-hard-SF-and-failing trap as Away (which, for all its space ridiculousness, did a much better job of the touchy-feely crap, at least among the sensible characters, who were for some reason all on earth).

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E.g. when you have an arm rotating about the axis of a spacecraft to provide simulated gravity at the ends where the living quarters etc are mounted, you need a counter-rotating device to avoid spinning the entire craft in the opposite direction.  The one they had looked inadequate, but still...

Do you?  Surely the spin of the craft can be arbitrarily set using thrusters?  (You'd likely want the whole craft to rotate somewhat for thermal reasons.)  Not that you wouldn't want to have a counter-rotating device to allow for adjustments without using propellant, but couldn't that be something relatively small like the gyroscopes on the ISS?

[T42]

The Midnight Sky.

It was daft and very pretty.  And while they'd made a similar level of effort on trying to make the space hardware look right, it didn't fall into the same setting-itself-up-to-be-hard-SF-and-failing trap as Away (which, for all its space ridiculousness, did a much better job of the touchy-feely crap, at least among the sensible characters, who were for some reason all on earth).

(click to show/hide)

E.g. when you have an arm rotating about the axis of a spacecraft to provide simulated gravity at the ends where the living quarters etc are mounted, you need a counter-rotating device to avoid spinning the entire craft in the opposite direction.  The one they had looked inadequate, but still...

Do you?  Surely the spin of the craft can be arbitrarily set using thrusters?  (You'd likely want the whole craft to rotate somewhat for thermal reasons.)  Not that you wouldn't want to have a counter-rotating device to allow for adjustments without using propellant, but couldn't that be something relatively small like the gyroscopes on the ISS?

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You'd need a similar moment of inertia. Easiest would probably be to use a gear train to drive the secondary rotor, like the gearing in counter-rotating airscrews.  OTOH having it grinding away for months would raise lube, losses and wear issues... I suppose they could have had two primary rotors and divided everything between them... 

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Ever read 2010, where they go back to Discovery after 10 years to find that the carousel bearings have slowly seized, so that the entire craft is spinning end over end?

BTW, did you notice the lack of Coriolis force when they were merrily zooming back and forth in the tunnel?  Tut.  I liked that they showed it in The Expanse.

Oh, and a previously-unnoticed moon of Jupiter with mass similar to that of Earth?  Even Galileo would have spotted that.  Have to wonder, too, what radiation levels would have been that close to Jupiter.

Ah, to hell with it.

[Ashaman42]

The Midnight Sky.

It was daft and very pretty.  And while they'd made a similar level of effort on trying to make the space hardware look right, it didn't fall into the same setting-itself-up-to-be-hard-SF-and-failing trap as Away (which, for all its space ridiculousness, did a much better job of the touchy-feely crap, at least among the sensible characters, who were for some reason all on earth).

(click to show/hide)

E.g. when you have an arm rotating about the axis of a spacecraft to provide simulated gravity at the ends where the living quarters etc are mounted, you need a counter-rotating device to avoid spinning the entire craft in the opposite direction.  The one they had looked inadequate, but still...

Do you?  Surely the spin of the craft can be arbitrarily set using thrusters?  (You'd likely want the whole craft to rotate somewhat for thermal reasons.)  Not that you wouldn't want to have a counter-rotating device to allow for adjustments without using propellant, but couldn't that be something relatively small like the gyroscopes on the ISS?

(click to show/hide)

You'd need a similar moment of inertia. Easiest would probably be to use a gear train to drive the secondary rotor, like the gearing in counter-rotating airscrews.  OTOH having it grinding away for months would raise lube, losses and wear issues... I suppose they could have had two primary rotors and divided everything between them... 

(click to show/hide)

Ever read 2010, where they go back to Discovery after 10 years to find that the carousel bearings have slowly seized, so that the entire craft is spinning end over end?

BTW, did you notice the lack of Coriolis force when they were merrily zooming back and forth in the tunnel?  Tut.  I liked that they showed it in The Expanse.

Oh, and a previously-unnoticed moon of Jupiter with mass similar to that of Earth?  Even Galileo would have spotted that.  Have to wonder, too, what radiation levels would have been that close to Jupiter.

Ah, to hell with it.

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What bugged me was that it looked an awful lot like they did their EVA whilst under thrust.
But overall I enjoyed it.

[Kim]

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I think since the plot hinges on a newly-discovered habitable planet orbiting Jupiter, it was never going to be hard science fiction, so anything they *did* get right was a bonus.

[T42]

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I think since the plot hinges on a newly-discovered habitable planet orbiting Jupiter, it was never going to be hard science fiction, so anything they *did* get right was a bonus.

Soft science fiction? Might as well bring in Harry Potter.  The interiors were nice, though - only one octagonal corridor on the spaceship is worthy of an Oscar.

[Legs]

Making the most of having Amazon Prime, we knocked out A Star Is Born ("mumble f*ckin' mumble") over the course of a few nights.  Not the jolliest of stories...

Now enjoying the Oscar-tastic Parasite.

[rogerzilla]

"This Is Spinal Tap".  I know every line but I still cried with laughter at "Shit Sandwich", "I think mine would look better in Dubly", etc.

[nicknack]

Another one here trying to find escapist nonsense on Prime and Netflix.
Last night it was Ghost in the Shell with Scarlett Johansson frequently appearing in a pink catsuit - the appearance of which was somewhat disconcerting.
Pans out pretty much how you'd expect in a videogamey sort of way.

[Jakob]

It was daft and very pretty.  And while they'd made a similar level of effort on trying to make the space hardware look right, it didn't fall into the same setting-itself-up-to-be-hard-SF-and-failing trap as Away (which, for all its space ridiculousness, did a much better job of the touchy-feely crap, at least among the sensible characters, who were for some reason all on earth).

It was really weird. I partly watched as a part of a "For Your Consideration" awards thing, where they're pushing it to get a nomination for best VFX and a lot of it, is really bad.
 And the space hardware: Interiors were minimal design of  voronoi-lattices on top of corrugated sheets, while the exteriors were really detailed and current tech like. I was also initially thrown off by the spacewalk. "They look really CG" I thought, but why would someone do that?...but they were!.  Especially since they used ILM's LED stage thing, which should have made it easy(ish) to just shoot the actors for real.

Anyway, the whole thing just struck me as an awards vehicle. "Here's George Clooney looking solemn after attempting to save the world. Isn't he great!!"
Took me 3 tries to get through and I probably didn't give it the attention the story deserved, but meh.

[tiermat]

We discovered, last week, that the way to keep me awake after 9pm is to watch a film.

As Mrs T wanted me to be awake for midnight last night we watched "Charlie's Angels" (2019 version) followed by "Knives Out" which was enjoyable but predictable in an Agatha Christie style. James Bond can't do accents!

[Kim]

Our New Years Eve cheesy disaster movie was Oceans Rising (2017)

As the name fails to suggest, it's mostly a rip-off of The Core, with a boat trip (Texas to Geneva, via New York, in order to collide hardons and create *two* black holes) instead of the unobtanium-plated drill craft adventures.  Notable for some gratuitous framing to avoid costly sets and locations, horrendous acting, and technobabble that puts Star Trek to shame.

Good to know that the NOAA space weather task force control centre (or whatever it was) has working ISDN in 2017, anyway.  And that a PhD in SCIENCE means you can decode road signs in un-American units.  And bonus points for avoiding the cliche of saving the day with unclear weapons.

It was shite.

[Mrs Pingu]

We watched Parasite yesterday too. Strange segue from farce to dark and not funny anymore...

[T42]

We're re-watching the Smileys - the real ones, not the back-of-the-cornflakes-box cardboard model with Gary Oldman.

[fuzzy]

Austin Powers- International man of wossname.

 

[Ruthie]

We watched Kursk last night. Bubble person was under the impression it had a happy ending. Jeez Louise. What an end to the year.