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Kevin Bacon

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Posts posted by Kevin Bacon

  1. Just now, CoolioD1 said:

    fargo season 2 was a bit of a disappointment for me. season 1 is some of the best tv ever.

    Seriously? I thought it knocked season one out of the water. In fact, when I rewatched season one a few months ago I was blown away with how much less I liked some of the early episodes after having seen season two (that stretch of episodes 5-9 is still pretty incredible though).

    • Like 1
  2. And really hope Fargo's incredible second season isn't shut out by Ryan Murphy. If you told me in December that ACS would be a dominant favorite over Fargo come Emmy season I'd have had no idea what to think. It's a minor tragedy that Dunst probably won't win any major awards. 

     

    Also the snubs for Rhea Seehorn, the whole Leftovers cast, and Aya Cash are the bullshittiest shit. Almost undoes the goodwill they get for finally noticing that The Americans exists. 

    • Like 3
  3. Pretty shocked there wasn't a thread for this, please delete/merge if I missed it.


    So the season dos finale is coming up on Wednesday, and despite the corny-ass marketing and being on USA (the king of corny-ass cable dramas) I watched this due to the glowing critical praise and it was all earned. Slowly established itself as a great show over the course of the first season, and this second season... as with the first season, the writing isn't on the level of shows like The Americans and Better Call Saul, but in every other way, bar none the coolest fucking show on TV. The direction, the sound design and editing, the best soundtrack on TV (no small feat with Fargo around), the cinematography; the show has such a distinct, engrossing, cinematic style the likes of which I haven't seen on TV since Breaking Bad. Not to mention Rami Malek is flat-out terrific in the lead role.

     

    Many have taken issue with the foray into all-out psychological thriller and prefer the hacking caper of the first season, but count me not among them. I actually think the bulk of any issues the season has were found in the mid-late season episodes transitioning back into the cyberthriller tone, as opposed to the Elliot-centric early episodes.

    • Like 1
  4. Holy yikes. Wingard and Barrett can't catch a break at the box-office. You're Next tragically clunked for reasons completely lost on me, The Guest didn't even receive a wide release, and now this, seemingly their mainstream breakout, is a huge disappointment at the box-office and this time there aren't even rave reviews to ease the burn.

     

    If Death Note bombs (and let's face it, it's a live-action anime adaptation, the odds are high) Wingard might start having a hard time getting work. This sucks.

  5. 3 hours ago, DAR said:
      Reveal hidden contents

     

    From what I know of the original, if you hated it I think it's likely you'd enjoy this one more. It's a very conventional found footage horror movie.

     

    On the other hand, if you loved the original, this one won't live up to it at all.

    • Like 1
  6. Having not seen the first movie to compare it to, it was good. Wingard clearly had a blast adding his touch to the found footage genre, the intensity was sufficiently ramped up in last third, and the lead female was delightful in the part once the terror got cranked up. There's a real hint of self-awareness that goes a long way, especially in the set-up: by my count, we've got six earpiece cams, one or maybe two professional grade digital cameras, a drone, an old high-end camcorder that uses tape, and a set-up low-quality camera to monitor the campsite. It's the kind of thing that you can't really play straight, because this is all too obviously to give Wingard a bit of a playground to direct in, but it does pay off. There was quite a manner of creative sequences reliant on this--from a tense tree-climbing sequence to having multiple creative angles in the climactic "corner" scene to my personal favorite moment of the film, a pair of ultra-close-ups of the two main characters as they try to calm one another that I found entrancing.

     

    But clever direction can only take you so far. Barrett's script is tragically mundane and ultimately keeps the film from rising above being a cleverly-directed take on the found footage gimmick. The same guy who wrote instantly memorable protagonists like Anna and Luke Peterson from The Guest or Erin from You're Next failed to do as much here. None of the characters are bad, but the only one who's remotely interesting is Valorie Curry's character, and she's barely present once the action starts. Everyone else is your standard bland character that you've seen several times in horror movies before. Again, this never ventures to being outright bad--slasher movie decision making is kept to a minimum and the dialogue rarely feels at all stilted or fake--but the only thing to get you invested in any of the characters is seeing them put through hell.

     

    My main takeaway from this is that Simon Barrett needs to stick to writing fun movies. I don't know that somebody else writing this would've offered anything better and they in fact probably delivered much worse, but Barrett's a clever and funny guy and that's where his strength as a writer is. The Guest and You're Next are both movies with numerous laugh-out-loud moments and this is (appropriately) humorless. His best characters would've been woefully out of place in this movie.

     

    Ultimately, I'd recommend it, if only for what Wingard brings to the table. Don't expect greatness nor anything too smart, nor a worthy follow-up effort to The Guest. Just a solid gimmicky horror movie.

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