At The Movies

At The Movies: Pitter Patter!

63 Comments

Hey, guess what I started watching? To be faaaahh-yyyaarr, it's a pretty great show.

What show/movie that's been out for awhile are you just catching up to?

And of course, what else have you been watching?

63 thoughts on “At The Movies: Pitter Patter!”

    1. Oh do. Do. Do. Do.

      I just came here to rave about it. Just 10 episodes, and if I hadn't been so busy, we would have finished in about 2 days. So damn good.

  3. As I'd mentioned a while back, Runner daughter and I watched Tenet (as well as Raya and the Last Dragon), and I watched the incredibly stupid Wonder Woman 1984. In addition, we're now on the Loki ride. which I think should be fun.

    A couple YouTube-related videos I watched were both CGI items: first, Clint (formerly of Corridor Crew) issued a 3D render challenge -- animate a motion capture figure and include a specified round shape in the top right side -- and it had over 2400 submissions; here are the top 100:

    The other CGI item is the work of Ian Hubert, specifically the loosely related Dynamo Dream vignettes, which are chock-full of interesting takes on stuff. Episode 1: Salad Mug is a beautifully rendered Blade Runner-esque landscape, but with an optimistic heart.

  4. I watched the first episodes of Loki and Sweet Tooth. Loki looks fun. Not sure about Sweet Tooth.

    2. We watched the first Sweet Tooth last night. I think I like it so far, but it’s darker than I was expecting. I kept being concerned at how my kids would handle parts, but they seemed fine with it.

  5. Watched Raya and the Last Dragon. It was a very pretty movie, with some very visually stunning set pieces (the sword fight near the end was particularly impressive). The story and characters and all were very Disney, for better or worse. It was fun to see Newbish connecting more with the plot of the movie, actually thinking about plot and character motivation and why certain characters might do or say certain things.

    The wife and I finally started Handmaid's Tale. It's a lot, and certain plot points end up feeling a little contrived, but the heavy mood definitely lingers, and it's well acted for the most part.

    1. We are pretty deep into Handmaid's Tale. I do struggle with this show in terms of how my wife is receiving it. The show's main premise is obviously a depiction of how horribly women have been and are treated in this world. My wife is very progressive when it comes to women's rights and I agree with her on pretty much all of her beliefs. The rub is, every 5 minutes when we see something deplorable on this show, my wife gets very upset and is angry at me if I don't verbally denounce it right away. I am the type that doesn't like to talk during shows and I would rather talk about it after it is done. The show is beautifully filmed which contrasts with the deplorable things that are happening on screen. I agree with your comments on the acting. I think it is a very important story that puts the struggles of women right in your face and forces you to think about when women face in our society. There is obviously some political and religion commentary to be gleamed from it, but I don't want to open that can of worms on this site. I am glad we are watching it, but man, it is depressing.

      1. I am glad we are watching it, but man, it is depressing

        a little too much like watching future history, eh?

  6. I watched most of the first two seasons of Letterkenny, but I can only take so much adolescent humor at a time, I guess. I'll get back to it eventually because I like most of the characters and the glib rapport and snappy banter are a lot of fun, but they lost me when they started putting so much focus on the Tweakers. Over the weekend we finished watching Mare of Easttown (HBO Max) and that gets a hearty recommendation. Kate Winslet turns in an award-worthy performance as you might expect, and Jean Smart is a surprising breath of fresh air as her mother. The story is totally engaging and engrossing, the characters feel like real people you might know, and there are enough plot twists to make a whole bag of pretzels. Even though it's a detective story, deeper down it's about family bonds and community. I am also highly recommending Startup, which was a Crackle original that is now finding an audience on Netflix. Executive produced by Ron Perlman, who shows up as a character in the second season, it's a roller coaster ride that you'll never want to end. There are only three seasons so far, but apparently production never officially ended and there's talk on the tubes about another season which would be great, but I'm not holding my breath. We also wrapped up The Kominsky Method, which has a short, six-episode final season without Alan Arkin, but which is very much about the impact of his character on those around him. And one of these days I'm going to give Jack Daniels and Diet Dr. Pepper a try, because I like both by themselves so why not.

    1. One of my few complaints on Letterkenny is the repetitive structure of the jokes. For example, the continual runthrough of lines from the hockey team roster got old real fast.

      1. Yes on the repetitive structure of the jokes. I think as a whole, the series is smartly written. There is the sophomoric humor on the surface, but there are some deeper themes laced in the story.

        1. There is also, especially in later seasons, a deep respect for each character.

  7. Only two episode of Wandavision left. I'm not super up on all the Marvel Characters and back history so I'm missing some things I think.

    If you have Apple TV+ For All Mankind is pretty good. Highly recommend.

    I fell asleep during Tenet. I may try again, but not actively so.

    1. I'm going to start Ted Lasso Wandavision any day now, I swear

      I'm going to start Ted Lasso Wandavision Falcon and the Winter Soldier any day now, I swear

  8. In the Heights If you are into Lin Manuel's diction and musicals or slight commentary on gentrification you'll probably like this. We'll probably see it in theaters soon too w/ friends that are trying to herd cats.

    My SO had surgery recently so we're burning through some DVR stuff that I don't have any interest in, but I've enjoyed the celebrity game show versions playing for charity. Wheel, Feud, Millionaire.

    Started the most recent season of Top Chef and through 2.5 episodes its still good.

    Haven't finished WandaVision or started Loki, but was charged for Disney+ yesterday which I thought I had cancelled so There Will Be Binging

    1. Looking for an evening I can take Philosofette out to In The Heights. But with as busy as summer is, I'm just hoping it'll still be in theaters in late July/August.

    2. We have In the Heights scheduled for this weekend because we love musicals. We're really, really looking forward to Spielberg's West Side Story , but that's not out until December so it will probably be our Christmas day movie.

  9. I've been slowly (very slowly) going through ST:TNG with Aquinas. We're still in the 1st season, but it's been fun revisiting after so long away. He's enjoying it.

    I've also been picking select Simpsons episodes to watch with Aquinas and Aristotle, and listening to them laugh gives me all sorts of joy.

    As mentioned above, Ted Lasso is simply excellent. I don't know what else to add beyond "go watch it."

  10. I watched a movie! (This is rare. I haven’t been to a cinema in over five years, and my small-screen watching is overwhelmingly of the “television” variety.)

    The Death of Stalin was a hoot. Steve Buscemi’s Khrushchev & Jason Isaacs’ Zhukov portrayals were inspired, and the rest of the cast didn’t disappoint. Yeah, yeah, it’s not entirely historically accurate, but it presents the personality dynamics of Stalin’s underlings in a way that entertains and still gets to some core truths about the ambition & corruption of the Soviet Union’s leadership class.

    I also bought a new Apple TV 4K this month, finally upgrading the third-generation model we’ve had for the better part of a decade. Milkman would cringe, but the new unit is still plugged into a 2011-vintage 1080p Visio television, and I had to rig up a HDMI-to-TOSLINK-to-RCA audio feed to connect it to my late-90s home audio receiver. Eventually I’d like to replace both that receiver and my mid-level vintage Sansui with a new unit that has modern A/V inputs and a quality DAC, but retains a robust phono pre-amp. But if something like the Outlaw RR2160 MkII is any indication, that feels like a $$$ proposition.

    1. I also rarely watch movies, and this movie was also an exception to that. Agreed on all you said. I was trying to figure out why Zhukov seemed so familiar, and then I was like, oh yeah, he's a Malfoy.

      1. Did someone say Malfoy?!

        I haven't watched anything but I'm deep into the Binge Mode Harry Potter podcasts, which are great fun.

    3. We saw it at the Uptown when it first came out. We took Younger Daughter. During the movie she got a text from some friends asking her if she wanted to go see the later showing, so she stayed and watched it a second time with them. I watched it again at home a couple of months ago. It's an instant classic in my book.

  11. Does anyone have Paramount+? Im going to start diving into the Star Trek originals on there but anything else I should look out for?

  12. I watched Glass a couple nights ago, recorded during an HBO free weekend a while back.

    James McAvoy was pretty great. The twist at the end...I didn't see coming. I'd not seen Split or Unbreakable.

  13. So apparently the way they make movies now is to throw 3 darts at a wall of movie posters and then combine whatever they land on.

    I present the trailer for Chef-Taken-Babe:

  14. so, I recorded Wonder Woman 1984 off of a free HBO weekend and watched it this weekend. It was not exactly good, but not nearly as bad as you all had led me to expect. I mean, I was expecting Fantastic Four- or Green Lantern-level stupid/corny/brain-dead/poorly acted. It wasn't thaaaaat bad.

    The bad guy was a pretty terrible cartoon villain, better suited for a monster-of-the-week Buffy episode than the Big Screen. Although a Buffy episode would have had much better dialogue. The suit of armor was pretty much superfluous, and there was way too much filler from long, useless shots. But Gadot was mostly fine despite being written to swing wildly from a Mary Sue to a Bechdel Test failure. Kristen Wiig was mostly fine (although the role was horribly clichéd). Chris Pine was fine, and the Handsome Man had a more than passing resemblance to a young Lyle Waggoner.

    Wonder Woman definitely deserved a better sequel than this, but, hey, I've wasted my time watching much more laughable films. (I also watched a substantial portion of Bloodshot this weekend; oof)

  15. also, I've been plowing through a bunch of Dr. Who episodes I recorded in the runup to the New Year's episode, including several Christmas specials, one of which was Karen Gillan's debut. I hadn't seen many Karen Gillan-era episodes before. Man, they tarted her up at the beginning.

    1. Not to nitpick, but Karen Gillan's debut on Doctor Who was not in a Christmas episode. She started with the eleventh doctor in April of 2010.

  16. Ok, right. Not a Christmas special, but rather the season premier. She meets the Doctor as a young girl, then again 12 years later. The Eleventh Hour.

  17. I finally got Mrs. Runner to sit down with me and watch The Good Place. We're a few episodes into the second season now, and we're both enjoying it.

      1. I've been rewatching it at lunch lately. First season was dropping all sorts of hints. Really quality writing.

        1. If you're still in season two, seasons three and four are completely different. S3 has a number of my favorite episodes of the show.

            1. You mean that seasons three and four are a completely different show? or that some of your favorite episodes happen in season 3? because I agree with one of those statements a lot more than the other.

          2. No, we just watched the final 2 eps of season 4 tonight. I'm not saying season 3 or 4 weren't good, just that the plotline was less cohesive than the season 1 and 2 juggernauts.

            1. I tend to think that the peak of the show was the last half of season one on into most of season two. It was downhill from there, especially into season four, which spun its wheels quite a bit, even if I mostly enjoyed how it ended.

              That being said, when the last couple of seasons had a good episode ("Janets", "Jeremy Bearimy", etc) it REALLY hit. Some of the best episodes were in season three, it was just....a lot less cohesive, like you said.

              1. I definitely disagree. Season 3 was probably my favorite, and definitely has some of the best episodes. End of Season 2 is close.

                Rewatching Season 1 now, it is amazing how much the characters actually grew. The show was best after they'd grown.

                I think there's plenty of cohesiveness in those last seasons too. Even compared to the first seasons. The show moved too fast, and left some great opportunities on the table, but I don't think it really lacked cohesion at any point.

                1. My favorite (which isn't necessarily to say "best") episode is most definitely "The Ballad of Donkey Doug"

  18. The other day I recorded The Fifth Element and got around to watching it last night. Hadn't seen it in 20 years or so, but it's still a better comic book movie than most of the actual comic book movies I've ever watched. I guess I have a taste for cheese. Because we liked Poldark an algorithm suggested we might like Harlots, and it was right. The first two seasons were good, they draw you in by your prurient interests then hook you with the drama and character development. We just started the third season and it's okay so far but definitely going in a different direction. We're also watching Kevin Can F... Himself, which is really growing on me now that I'm used to the switching perspectives, although the Bastan accents ah kinda hod to folla sometoimes.

    1. I enjoyed The Fifth Element; the stuff that bothered me didn't bother me that much. By the same token, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets is of a similar ilk, although not as well done, but the CGI was definitely well done.

      btw, the actress playing young Natasha in The Black Widow is the daughter of Milla Jovovich, and it's obvious if you look for it.

      btw, closed captioning FTW

      1. the actress playing young Natasha in The Black Widow is the daughter of Milla Jovovich.

        Huh. Now I will need to see it again.

        Definitely a better movie than I was expecting. Funny, good action, not too much (overly obvious) CGI in the fight scenes. David Harbour was a delight, Florence Pugh was excellent and seems to be edging the MCU closer to Deadpool-like sensibilities, and Rachel Weisz carried her weight well in her role.

        Also,

        Spoiler SelectShow

  19. After we finished the BBC Top 100 comedies of all time, we started watching a few of the movies that got votes from some judges but didn't make the cut. One we stumbled upon was Three Idiots. While I expected a Judd Apatowesque movie based upon the title, it was actually an incredibly great Bollywood movie. It was incredibly enjoyable.

    This recent article is inspiring our next movie dive. We're starting with The French Connection very soon.

    On the TV front, we watched Mare of Easttown and it was alright, Kate Winslet and Jean Smart were great, but it just felt like an extra season of Broadchurch. We're finishing up the final season of Bosch, too.

    1. We're starting with The French Connection very soon.

      my mind's eye recalls both the film and the book as outstanding. I hope it stands the test of time.

  20. I watched all of season 2 of I Think You Should Leave last week. It's excellent, of course!

    And that same day we finally got some footage from season 3 of Succession, which is for my money the best show on TV by a large degree. I'm so very excited.

    1. I think I liked season 1 of I Think You Should Leave better than the second, but it is close. It's still one of the funniest shows around, and just so bizarre.

      Succession is on my list to watch, but I haven't gotten to it yet. An upcoming new season may be the push I need to prioritize it.

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