My father used to have a joke about an army’s spear catcher. I think the modern gaming concept is called “tanking”. It is good to see Elliot Page so perfectly portray the role my father described. Otherwise, I have better things to do for 3 hours.
It’s been so long since I was at the movies last. I think it was Oppenheimer. But there are two movies in the theaters right now I want to see: Young Washington and The Odyssey.
I probably would have went to see Greyhound in the theaters, but the Covid shutdown hit. I ended up watching it a few times on Apple TV. I enjoyed that one too…
Oh and I recently rented Hail Mary. I had thought about seeing that one in the theater, but never got around to it. I couldn’t buy the MacGuffin in that one, nor the Interstellar Spaceship that came to be because, well, the MacGuffin! I really had no problem with the casting of Ryan Gosling. He was as convincing in his role as the weak plot would allow.
I think a better movie could have been made from Artemis. In fact some of the tech deployed in Artemis was featured in Hail Mary. (Bubble spacesuits) Weir still has yet to top The Martian IMHO.
Hail Mary was enjoyable. Watched it at home, then the theater, then again at home. Got my niece and nephews to watch it. It didn’t hold their attention in the first part because it was so slow but the third act did.
Sometimes you gotta give it a test run before rewarding it with a trip to the theater.
Young Washington looks good but Angle Studios butchered Animal Farm, so will wait for Young Washington to hit the small screen.
I wanted to see Greyhound, but I went a couple of years not wanting another subscription. We recently finished our home theater room. 7.2.2 surround system with 150” projection. I quickly discovered the cheapest streaming source that could feed my system was an AppleTV unit. I finally watched Greyhound. It was good on a big screen, but I was disappointed in the story.
I use a Firestick 4k ultra, or whatever, for my projector. The projector is only 1080p but provides great picture quality for the money spent and it can do dolby atmos with the right speakers. I use the free streaming apps (mostly tubi), xfinity stream, and jellyfin for movies and shows.
I don’t go to see anything in theaters anymore. Apart from wishing to avoid random contagions, a movie the length of The Odyssey is now completely beyond my ability to sit entirely through without at least one piss break. Theaters, alas, cannot be paused. So I will see The Odyssey when it reaches the streamers for free or at least at an affordable price.
That said, the hoo-raw about casting a black Helen of Troy and of casting Elliot (nee Ellen) Page at all conjured up visions of a woke-fest on the order of Starfleet Academy. That doesn’t seem to be the case based on the cast list.
Which is not to say that the casting is perfect. The choice of Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen is deficient not because she is black but because, capable actress though she be, hers is not a face that could launch a thousand ships.
If the idea was merely to cast a non-white Helen, a perfectly suitable actress was already on the cast list, just in another role. I refer to the so-very lovely Zendaya, who, though not playing Helen, is at least playing a character for which she is physically well-suited, the goddess Athena.
If the idea was to, specifically, cast a black Helen, I would have given the nod to Cynthia Erivo from the Wicked franchise. She has an eminently armada-worthy face and the rest of her is, pun intended, wicked good as well. And if being black wasn’t worth sufficient woke points, Erivo is also bi-sexual.
As nearly as I can determine, the character played by Page is a sort of undercover Greek operative who cajols the Trojans into bringing The Horse inside the city gates. One has to wonder at least a tiny bit whether this bit of casting wasn’t Nolan being subtly arch in filling the role of a person who seems to be one thing and is actually something else with an actor of whom the same can be said.
I don’t care how awesome this movie is in every other respect, I’ll never see it anymore than I would watch a Battle of Britain movie that was 100% accurate in every respect except for portraying Douglas Bader as a black man.
I generally like Nolan’s films but will wait. Maybe if its enjoyable on the small screen, I will reward it with a trip to the theater.
My father used to have a joke about an army’s spear catcher. I think the modern gaming concept is called “tanking”. It is good to see Elliot Page so perfectly portray the role my father described. Otherwise, I have better things to do for 3 hours.
It’s been so long since I was at the movies last. I think it was Oppenheimer. But there are two movies in the theaters right now I want to see: Young Washington and The Odyssey.
I probably would have went to see Greyhound in the theaters, but the Covid shutdown hit. I ended up watching it a few times on Apple TV. I enjoyed that one too…
Oh and I recently rented Hail Mary. I had thought about seeing that one in the theater, but never got around to it. I couldn’t buy the MacGuffin in that one, nor the Interstellar Spaceship that came to be because, well, the MacGuffin! I really had no problem with the casting of Ryan Gosling. He was as convincing in his role as the weak plot would allow.
I think a better movie could have been made from Artemis. In fact some of the tech deployed in Artemis was featured in Hail Mary. (Bubble spacesuits) Weir still has yet to top The Martian IMHO.
Hail Mary was enjoyable. Watched it at home, then the theater, then again at home. Got my niece and nephews to watch it. It didn’t hold their attention in the first part because it was so slow but the third act did.
Sometimes you gotta give it a test run before rewarding it with a trip to the theater.
Young Washington looks good but Angle Studios butchered Animal Farm, so will wait for Young Washington to hit the small screen.
I wanted to see Greyhound, but I went a couple of years not wanting another subscription. We recently finished our home theater room. 7.2.2 surround system with 150” projection. I quickly discovered the cheapest streaming source that could feed my system was an AppleTV unit. I finally watched Greyhound. It was good on a big screen, but I was disappointed in the story.
The book it was based on is much better
I use a Firestick 4k ultra, or whatever, for my projector. The projector is only 1080p but provides great picture quality for the money spent and it can do dolby atmos with the right speakers. I use the free streaming apps (mostly tubi), xfinity stream, and jellyfin for movies and shows.
I don’t go to see anything in theaters anymore. Apart from wishing to avoid random contagions, a movie the length of The Odyssey is now completely beyond my ability to sit entirely through without at least one piss break. Theaters, alas, cannot be paused. So I will see The Odyssey when it reaches the streamers for free or at least at an affordable price.
That said, the hoo-raw about casting a black Helen of Troy and of casting Elliot (nee Ellen) Page at all conjured up visions of a woke-fest on the order of Starfleet Academy. That doesn’t seem to be the case based on the cast list.
Which is not to say that the casting is perfect. The choice of Lupita Nyong’o to play Helen is deficient not because she is black but because, capable actress though she be, hers is not a face that could launch a thousand ships.
If the idea was merely to cast a non-white Helen, a perfectly suitable actress was already on the cast list, just in another role. I refer to the so-very lovely Zendaya, who, though not playing Helen, is at least playing a character for which she is physically well-suited, the goddess Athena.
If the idea was to, specifically, cast a black Helen, I would have given the nod to Cynthia Erivo from the Wicked franchise. She has an eminently armada-worthy face and the rest of her is, pun intended, wicked good as well. And if being black wasn’t worth sufficient woke points, Erivo is also bi-sexual.
As nearly as I can determine, the character played by Page is a sort of undercover Greek operative who cajols the Trojans into bringing The Horse inside the city gates. One has to wonder at least a tiny bit whether this bit of casting wasn’t Nolan being subtly arch in filling the role of a person who seems to be one thing and is actually something else with an actor of whom the same can be said.
I don’t care how awesome this movie is in every other respect, I’ll never see it anymore than I would watch a Battle of Britain movie that was 100% accurate in every respect except for portraying Douglas Bader as a black man.
It’s a matter of principle.