What did you watch last night?

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simonirons
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by simonirons »

For me, Bulletproof is a very poor take off of Badboys
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

The Old Man of Storr wrote:

Saw ' Dunkirk ' at the cinema when it came out...................... can be compared to ' Lawrence Of Arabia ' in my opinion , it's that good .
What !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Heretic.....

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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by WHU Independent »

Breaking Bad Series 2 episodes 1-4

I watched series one a while agoand thought it was really meh! I got all the rest of the series cheap at a second hand shop and have just watched the above episodes as I have some time on my hands. Am I missing something here or is it a soap with a bit of drugs dealing thrown in? It's more about cancer, inter espousal relationships, pregnancy, a son with cerebral palsy and a kleptomaniac sister in law (plus her cop hubby) - than crime, drug dealing and gangsterism - in a really soap like plot. It's a bit like East Enders with a bit of crime.

That said, it really reminds me of the Bill when it changed from a gritty police drama with a few elements of a soap thrown in, to a full blow soap with a bit of crime.

Does it get any better? I've just watched 4 episodes which basically dealt with a husband and wife's fraught relationship, the main man going walkabout, his drug partner falls out with his parents and becomes homeless and, err, not much else. OK they deal with a drug dealer - sort of - and the brother in law becomes a hero in the process - but that's about it.

I can't engage with any of the main characters as they are all unlike able, the cancer is treated very tenuously and at the moment the plot seems to be going nowhere.

Everyone I speak to loves this series, but, so far, IMHO it is well below par compared to the likes of The Soprano's, True Detective, The Shield etc.

What's the attraction and should I keep going - - I've got 5 series to go :)
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by last.caress »

WHU Independent wrote:Am I missing something here or is it a soap with a bit of drugs dealing thrown in? It's more about cancer, inter espousal relationships, pregnancy, a son with cerebral palsy and a kleptomaniac sister in law (plus her cop hubby) - than crime, drug dealing and gangsterism - in a really soap like plot. It's a bit like East Enders with a bit of crime.
It's about all of those things to greater or lesser extents but... I mean, shirley you didn't expect a five-season show to have no dressing whatsoever? Just a cancerous, middle-aged man making meth, selling meth, making more meth? If that's the part that interests you most specifically then it's no spoiler to promise you categorically that, eventually, that side of Walter's ongoing adventures will overshadow everything else and engulf them all, utterly. Now I'm going to blue out my next sentence because it might constitute a spoiler, technically, but it doesn't really and it might set your mind at ease on at least a couple of the points you mentioned above if you go ahead and read it anyway:

The kleptomaniac sister-in-law angle only rears its head on a couple of occasions and it's never a particularly significant story other than maybe to add a bit of humanism and colour to Marie, a character who never comes into her own really until the back half of the final season. It's so small, I'd forgotten all about it until you mentioned it, and I've seen Breaking Bad several times, most recently only a few months ago. And I'm surprised you mentioned the cerebral palsy thing because, aside from one scene in the first season which you've already gone past whereupon Walt Jr. is mocked in a clothes store, his cerebral palsy literally never comes up again

You mentioned The Sopranos and wondered whether Breaking Bad ever hits those heights. Well, I guess that would be a matter of individual taste since both of those shows are very much at a similarly high level but I would ask you: Do you think The Sopranos is merely about its initial premise (meet Tony Soprano. He's a mob boss) and nothing else, or is there more than that going on? I would suggest that there's far more than that going on, with Tony specifically and with the show and with the other characters in a wider sense. And I'd suggest that it's this depth which made the show as good as it was and what made Tony Soprano - a ****ing horrible man, on the face of it - as fascinating a character as he was. So why wouldn't Breaking Bad provide a more detailed look at the inhabitants of its universe as well?

Mate, it's of course not inconceivable that Breaking Bad, as good as it is, is simply not for you. No one thing can be for everybody, after all. But tbh I'd be staggered if you didn't come around to it to at least some degree if you stuck with it. FWIW I find season two of Breaking Bad arguably the most laborious of the show (that's a relative term, of course; I bloody love that season even though I love it least of the lot), probably because it lays a lot of groundwork (introduces Saul and Gus; introduces Jane, a character whose arc has huge implications for the show in the short term and for Jesse Pinkman's character for the remainder of the series; begins to make significant early alterations to the characters of the meek Walter and the blowhard Hank). But in my humble, the seasons which follow are not only as good as television gets, but possibly as good as television will ever get in my lifetime.

By season five, you're so far away from season one it's unreal. In fact one of the episodes near to the end purposely flashes back to the timeline of the first season purely to draw that very comparison. To how ****ing dark it's all become so very quickly (the show was broadcast across almost six years but the timeline of events on the show occurs mostly over a single year).

Go on WHUI. Stick at it! :thup:
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Mega Ron »

Patrick Melrose, the new show starring Benedicth Cumberbatch.

A harrowing watch at time.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Cuenca 'ammer »

WHUI

HERETIC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:hush:
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by wilf »

The Jeremy Thorpe and Paddington thingy
Really v good Hugh Grant is rather class as Jeremy
Having watched it unfold in real life
Jezzer does come across as a potential
West ham director
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by WHU_Del »

Innocent, the ITV drama that was on last week.
Enjoyed it, but was a little disappointed with the conclusion.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Korea Hammer »

WHU Independent wrote: I can't engage with any of the main characters as they are all unlikeable
LC has already posted a great reply, and I bow to everything he's said there, but this was also my fundamental problem with Breaking Bad, and why for me personally it was never as enjoyable as The Wire, The Sopranos or even Deadwood. There's a meanness at the heart of this show that made me uncomfortable, and Walter himself is a horrendous character. But for all that, I thought it was a very well-paced, exciting programme that kept me hooked all the way.

As a sidenote, we've just finished Boardwalk Empire, which in my opinion (and particularly in the final season) has more nuance and elegance in the writing along with some stupendously good performances (Looking at you, Stephen Graham and Jack Huston).
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by CMNinja »

Korea Hammer wrote: As a sidenote, we've just finished Boardwalk Empire, which in my opinion (and particularly in the final season) has more nuance and elegance in the writing along with some stupendously good performances (Looking at you, Stephen Graham and Jack Huston).
Doesn't get enough love, especially the final season which was incredibly well done.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Clacton-ammer »

Agree on Boardwalk, up there with the best. Not quite Sopranos/The Wire, but very close to it.

Shites all over Breaking Bad... :o
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by S-H »

I really enjoyed Boardwalk, but lost interest during the final season.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by last.caress »

Gave up on Boardwalk Empire halfway through the third season I think. It just didn't spark any interest in me whatsoever. I mean I quite enjoyed watching Steve Buscemi tramp defiantly up the beach to the strains of The Brian Jonestown Massacre every week during the opening credits but it was always downhill from there. I wanted to like it. I thought it was well acted throughout and it certainly looked the part, but it never got the pulse racing. Rather, I had to keep checking I hadn't died of boredom. It wasn't as though nothing was happening, it just bloody felt that way to me. I guess that in failing to engage with any of the characters there were no stakes whatsoever when anything happened, so it never felt to me as though anything did.

Same goes for Vikings (quit after the first season) and Hannibal (quit a couple of episodes into the second season). Wanted to like them. Didn't.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Clacton-ammer »

Mega Ron wrote:Patrick Melrose, the new show starring Benedicth Cumberbatch.

A harrowing watch at time.
Recorded this, why harrowing Ronald?
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by CMNinja »

last.caress wrote:Gave up on Boardwalk Empire halfway through the third season I think.
I know I don't know you but I'd have thought Gyp Rosetti in the third season would've been a character you really would have enjoyed.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by S-H »

CMNinja wrote:
I know I don't know you but I'd have thought Gyp Rosetti in the third season would've been a character you really would have enjoyed.
Was he the one, that liked to be choked?
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Clacton-ammer »

^^ yep
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Mega Ron »

Mega Ron wrote:Patrick Melrose, the new show starring Benedicth Cumberbatch.

A harrowing watch at times.
Clacton-ammer wrote: Recorded this, why harrowing Ronald?
It's very well made and brilliantly acted. Spoiler alert

It's down to the abuse he received as a child and coupled with that how it has affected his adult life.
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by Clacton-ammer »

Mega :thup:
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Re: What did you watch last night?

Post by chigwells finest »

Clacton-ammer wrote:Agree on Boardwalk, up there with the best. Not quite Sopranos/The Wire, but very close to it.

Shites all over Breaking Bad... :o
enjoyed broadwalk empire , although i was slightly disappointed with the final series , also enjoyed the 1st 2 series of penny dreadful , however the 3rd series was utter cobblers
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