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NewHendoLib

(60,436 posts)
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 09:53 PM Jan 2024

Well, my wife and I feel old! Movies we did not like - May December, Maestro and Oppenheimer

For various reasons. We thought May December was simply dreadful - plot, acting - ugh.

Maestro - non stop chatter, non stop smoking - made it through 20 min (and we LOVE Leonard Bernstein)

Oppenheimer - interesting story that we couldn't hear because of the Christopher Nolan method of burying dialog in music and having the actors whisper and mumble.

Even Slow Horses, which we pretty much binged, seemed a noisy, chaotic mess much of the time.

Once again we are reminded we (in our late 60s) are no longer a target audience. Give me Howard's End, Remains of the Day, Babette's Feast, Amelie - stories told slowly, with an arc, character development and clear dialog - any day! Or Morse, Endeavour, or Inspector Lewis.

Rant over!

We are off to see if some smaller independent films are still being made that we can enjoy. we liked the Julia Roberts Dystopian one (Leave the World Behind).

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NewHendoLib

(60,436 posts)
2. we will give it a try - we are very much unhappy with overly "hollywood"ized movies, which
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 10:00 PM
Jan 2024

the three we noted we didn't like were far too much of.

I hope the movie is better than the book - we listened to it as an audiobook and were just not at all enthralled (we listen to and read a LOT of books - it just didn't capture our fancy)

Ocelot II

(120,110 posts)
3. I'm older than you and I liked both May-December and Maestro.
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 10:05 PM
Jan 2024

I didn't think they were great, Oscar-candidate films but both were entertaining. Maestro was a bit choppy but it presented some aspects of Bernstein's that were pretty interesting vs. his music and conducting career. I haven't seen Oppenheimer but I intend to. May-December might have been intended for a younger audience but Maestro clearly wasn't, and I doubt Oppenheimer is. It's just a matter of what appeals to you, not how old you are.

NewHendoLib

(60,436 posts)
4. It's pacing. It's chaos, it's noise level
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 10:09 PM
Jan 2024

Can't remember last big movie release we truly loved. Example - we hated the latest redo of Little Women (Gerwig), loved the Gillian Anderson. Our tastes just haven't moved with the times, and that's fine.

NewHendoLib

(60,436 posts)
6. Apparently it is a "special style" of Nolan movies
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 10:46 PM
Jan 2024

It divides the critics, it seems. Some love it, some hate it (hand raised)

The whole mumbles dialog thing is fairly recent too, in lots of movies.

3Hotdogs

(13,314 posts)
7. Morse, Lewis, ----- We went to England. I was scared shitless to go to Oxford,
Fri Jan 5, 2024, 11:47 PM
Jan 2024

Seemed like they have a murder a week in Oxford.

We actually did make it to Oxford. Our friend was in a masters program and we spent an afternoon in the U.

Toured the library, lunch in the hall. Students have "scouts" whose job is to fulfill requests of the students, maintain the room and so forth. Saw the punters on the river.

My favorite part of the visit, meeting Carry's tutor. Two months later, there was a feature about her in National Geographic. The photographer was at a session with her and one of her students. She posed a problem to the student and there is a look of "Holy shit, I never thought of that." on the student's face.

Two years later, she was in N.J., in residence. I believe it was Princeton.

And no. We didn't get murdered.

yellowdogintexas

(22,648 posts)
11. or Midsomer;; or Father Brown's village. Murders all over the place and Midsomer has 24 seasons
Mon Jan 8, 2024, 06:21 PM
Jan 2024

We just finished Foyle's War and it was so good!!

hlthe2b

(105,915 posts)
9. My issues are with the dark cinematography that renders so many tv shows (and movies played on tv)
Sat Jan 6, 2024, 05:59 AM
Jan 2024

totally unwatchable. I suppose if I had a theater-sized tv it MIGHT be better, but after all the blowback to shows like Game of Thrones for this, it has only gotten worse. I had a friend over who wanted to watch some of the Walking Dead spinoff shows (I got bored with it years ago) and when I popped in, whichever one she was watching was unwatchable. Granted I don't have mega-sized TVs, but how in the hell do people stream these shows on Ipads and laptops?

More and more shows shoot 75% or more of episodes in the pitch dark and do little to make it viewable. They once were able to shoot nighttime action in a way to render it watchable. What the hell happened?

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