What's the latest movie you've seen?

[dubiousbystander]

I'd be surprised that no one's mentioned "The Old Guard" yet, but I suppose not really! I mean, here.

That was great fun. But people, well people are people. There are the positive ones going "It's so neat how it's so much like Highlander!" and the negative ones, "It's a rip-off of Highlander!"

I found it to have very little resemblance to Highlander. Oh yes, the general results of being one of few immortals in a world of mortals are the same. The things that we often imagine would be problems for the Immortals of Highlander in the modern world are the same. After that, it becomes quite different.

Random people become immortal. When another becomes immortal, everyone receives visions until the lone ones connects with another. Eventually, for no particular reason (at least covered yet), that immortality shuts off. The next mortal injury will kill them. I did try to go through the plot-points of the comics. I'll go through the movie eventually!


The Old Guard

#1 2017
Any, Nicky, Joe, Booker.
Enthusiastic lovemaking, enthusiastic wild battles, female lovers, male lovers.
"I've been here before. Too many times to count. Over and over again, and each time, the same question: Is this IT? Will THIS time be the ONE?" And EACH time the same ANSWER. Not YET. So... goddamn... tired... of... life. Of going through the MOTIONS. Of KILLING time.

Barcelona. To meet Copley, former CIA. Did that thing for him in Surabaya. (eight years ago, Copley will say)

"Joe [...] if you say another word before I've had coffee, I will cut your throat. Then I'll do it again."
"Well, it wouldn't be the first time, Boss."
"Or the fifth."

Booker sells it on kids.

Meet at Le Tambour at midnight, Nicky and Andy. They give him five minutes. "You guys look _good_. Hell, it's like you haven't aged a _day_."

School in North Africa, armed men attacked one hundred clicks sw of Juba. Killed teachers, abducted 17 girl students. Emphasizes they know where girls are, but no signs of food or water brought in, ramping up that they might split up girls.

Cache in Malta. Call Wei to be at Luqa by 1300 local, fueled and ready.

Afgahnistan
Nile Freemen the American Marine speaks to hostages. Shows the villain's photo, old lady pretends to tell her no while telling her exactly where the man using them as shields is hiding. They shoot him. Nile tries to save him but he wants to die.
Asks Dizzy to help but baddie manages to slice open Nile's throat.

South Sudan.
Andy thinking about girls, ages 8 to 13. Wei puts them down 2 clicks from bunker, will circle back to Marial Bai, switch to exFill transport.

Snipering way in. Empty room. Sudden arrival of soldiers. Guns blaze. They restore immediately.

Afghanistan.
Stacy Ann is brought by Dizzy to see Nile, who is perfectly fine. "She died in my arms." But Nile doesn't even have a scratch. Is happy and fine.

#2 2017
"I met Noriko when I was riding with Amir bin al-As against the Byzantine Empire. I'd been dreaming her for years, just didn't know where to find her until we rolled into Alexandria and the treaty was signed and there she was."
"She went overboard off the Horn, just never came up again. All of us knew that was it for her."

"Lykon and I hooked up when Alexander conquered Judea. We'd only been dreaming each other a couple of weeks, just got lucky we were both in pretty much the same place, same time. We worked together for almost two thousand years."

Went down in what is now Italy, during what is now the Renaissance. This time he went down and just didn't get up again.

Only four of us left.

Booker's just over two hundred some-odd years.

Nicky and Joe just over a thousand, met during First Crusade. Nicolo. Yusuf.

"At the beginning, I didn't even know what the dreams meant. [...] Same images running through my head, bits, night after night, year after year. you had to find the fucking person. Took better part of a century just to get to Noriko."

Nicky and Joe, lucky.

"I've never met anyone older than I am." So she's the leader.

Wei they've known five years. Rigged Huey to blow on her word. "This'll be the last time we use him." In that sleep, they pick up from Nile Freeman. Old woman, helicopter, "FREEM" knife cutting her throat. Andy wakes clutching her throat. They all wake, know what it means. Booker relays what he picked up and Joe draws on his pad. Medevac. Huey. Coalition medical team. Joe saw "Free" Nicky saw old woman in a hijab, thinks Afghanistan. Andy refuses to go after newbie with the Copley situation. Andy knows it's a woman. Nick and Joe protest leaving her out there if they get exposed. Copley or who knows might get to her first.

Andy knows. Female, black, knife to throat was peshkabz, so Pashtun, so Afghanistan. American Marine.

Clear out of Barça (Barcelona, Spain) meet at the Charlie safe house in Paris.

====
Copley has shown video to scumbucket tattooed exercise nut. No clean blood sample. Wants body or blood, not a video that could be faked. Copley protests his research, images to 1850s, physical descriptions. Yes, yes, he believes. Wants the hot woman. Mister Merrick keeps flipping from threat to jovial. Says Mister Kiley will supply Copley.
====
Afghanistan.
Sergeant Freeman in the shower. Not even a scar. Strange woman outside of room is Andy. "Who the fuck are you?" "Andronika the Scythian." Takes Freeman to desert, explains. Asks if she's seen these three guys and her in dreams. Nile is pissed, says no dreams, so Andy shoots her dead.

When she revives, Andy grumbles "It's so fucking SLOW the first couple of times." When Freeman goes into a panic, though the irony of having a short time exasperates Andy, she shoots herself. "Oh FUCK that hurts so much every damn time."

Fleeing the area. "How did this happen? Why did this happen?" "No idea." "I have no idea. NONE of us do." "How many of us are there?" "Five, counting the two of us." "We're effectively immortal. But we CAN die." No how, but when. "You get stabbed, shot, burnt alive, doesn't slow you down. Then one day you wake up and get thrown from a horse and snap your neck, or get washed overboard and you drown, and that's it."

They fly out in a cargo plane. Andy destroys Nile's phone. Tells her to let her family go.

Paris. Andy says to ask Booker what happened to his family.

Safe house. Looks like a nightmare of abandoned homeless drug addicts' place. About a dozen of them throughout Europe like this.

Door to place is open. Booker with only half his head.

#3 2017
Andy, Nicky, Joe, Booker, and Nile
Andy is the eldest. Nile is the youngest.
One of them believes that time heals all wounds.
The other knows that's totally bullshit.

"Big wounds, sometimes it takes a while to recover."

Napoleon's Grand Armée into Russia, 700,000 men. Sebastien Lelivre, Booker. Counterfeiter. Napoleon's mistake, Russian hate. They are in part descended from Andy's people, after all. Russians retreating burned their fields and cities. Left the winter to do the rest. Booker deserted. Was hung. Played dead. Hung for three days before they left. Ate the hungry crows.

Booker is the one able to keep up with now. Wakes with pain in what's left of head. They help him up as it grows back. Was watching PSG (soccer) with Joe, Nicky was making food. Flashbang maybe lands in his lap as door is blasted open. Andy blames Copley, Nicky and Joe got snatched. As bait. "Wait for my signal." Booker introduces himself to Nile.

When the world was bigger, it was easier to avoid suspicion. When "You haven't aged a day!" changed from compliment to observation to fear.

Andy threatens a little old lady. Soldiers are coming up the stair. She shoots one. Then the other, old lady pinned, mouth covered. Tells lady she'll kill her if noise. Old lady decides to scream anyway, knows she's lying. Nile is starting to get frantic, when an explosion outside is the signal. Booker gives her one of the soldiers' guns. Car on fire. Andy in another car picks them up. "It's the French army, Nile. We can take 'em." Booker protests as he was French Army two centuries ago.

===
Joe worried over Nicolo. Captors try to bully him. Mocked by a fool, Joe tells him about the true, true bond between the two of them, and Nicolo is happily enchanted. They kiss.
===
The armored car arrives in a hangar, Mister Kiley has it opened to find everyone dead but Nicky and Joe. Kiley is furious and freaked but orders them put on the plane. None of the men in the car had the keys to their cuffs.

Nicky sees Copley and makes pointed remarks. Copley tries "If you guys had been honest with me from the start, we wouldn't be here." Nicky counters, "I suspect we'd have been here sooner." Points out that they have no illusions about what will happen to them. "What happens when your employer's frustration inevitably outmatches his greed?" he asks a disturbed Copley.

Le Baux-de-Provence
They are driving and Andy won't tell Nile. In frustration, she tries asking Booker about his family. Andy says to tell Nile why she doesn't want her writing letters home. "The real reason is to protect your heart. You will watch all of them die, Nile. You will watch everyone you loved pass away. And if you try to touch their lives they will ask questions, and through your answers they will learn your secret. And they will ask you to share it with them. And you will not be able to. And they will curse your name. They will beg, they will implore. They will not believe you when you say you cannot help them. As so they will grow desperate. And in desperation, they will do things to forever taint your memory of them. And they will still die. And you will never forget what they became before they did."

The place, found during the Baussenque Wars. 1150s, maybe. Push in the door, might've left booby traps. So many things inside. Been a while since she stayed there.

[dubiousbystander]

It is grand!

[Ceridwen]

Shades of Ray


Premiered at the Austin Film Festival, 2008. Won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature Film at the South Asian International Film Festival in NYC.

American-born Ray Rehman has a Caucasian mom and Pakistani dad, he is a self described 'mutt' searching for his own identity. The film stands out as being a soft pitch look at the stupidity of perception and prejudice both inside and outside Ray's circumstance, and his continuing journey to find his place between two cultures and determine who he really is and what he really wants. It is fresh and handled with a light touch, however, though obviously drawn from the writer's own experience, the sections where Ray is facing preconceptions and idiocy during casting calls are the weakest scenes by far, and the ending seemed a bit rushed. But that aside, it's worth watching, especially Zachary Levi and Brian George who were so engaging in this.

[Ceridwen]

I love that, made my library buy it

[dubiousbystander]

Ran across War of the Worlds: Goliath on Netflix Japan today! That's always good to watch.

[Ceridwen]

Bag of Marbles
French Language, subtitled.
Well done, moving, based on a true story. Parisian Jewish family during WW2.

[Ceridwen]

I know! Surprisingly fun wasn't it?

[dubiousbystander]

Decided to watch Bad Boys For Life! Very exciting. Sometimes very sad, lots of deaths. I'm more than halfway through now. Oooh.

[dubiousbystander]

That was great!

[LamBear*]

Killer Elite. Jason Statham and Clive Owen. That's all I needed to know in order to watch. Usual violence and twisty plot.

[dubiousbystander]

Oh, now i really want to see that! Thank you for the page!

[Ceridwen]

Office Uprising. *Snort* You wouldn't believe this one even if I told you about it. Utterly brainless and surprisingly fun with a unexpectedly good cast. You can find the whole thing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zXsX4jiRLI

[~mj~]

The new Jumanji thingy with the rock in it...

[~mj~]

French Kiss with Kevin Kline playing a Frenchman and Meg Ryan at the peak of her rom-com perk. What we call an idiot plot, if the protagonist wasn't an idiot, there would be no plot. It was by turns amusing and trite.

Love that movie...it is literally a no-brainer

[Cyrus The Great]

I was a big fan of Mr. Rogers growing up. I'm glad the movie was well done. I will try to see it soon.

[dubiousbystander]

This is the movie I watched most recently. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Well DONE. Excellent performance, and they didn't play fast and loose with Mr. Rogers' personality. Thank goodness.

Oh my, and here they did well, too.

[Cyrus The Great]

I watched the movie "Temple Grandin" starring Claire Danes. It is the true story of a woman who was born with a severe case of autism at a time (1950's) when such children were generally locked away in institutions with mentally retarded people. However, Temple's mother refused to give up on her and taught her to speak and read. She was eventually able to attend schools with normal children, but with various difficulties, up through college and graduate school, eventually earning a Ph.D., in association with her research into the handling of cattle in the beef industry, which has been greatly changed by incorporating her methods and practices. An amazing and uplifting story!

[Takk]

In memory of the late great Kirk Douglas. After 103 years, may he rest in peace.

[Ceridwen]

Tangled

Damn, I was surprised at how good this was. Delightful may be the word to use here.

[Takk]

"There is no normal life, Wyatt, it's just life. Get on with it."

[Takk]

Obviously made just for the fans, and it serves us well.

[Andrew NDB]

I am watching Terminator: Dark Fate.
Sigh. Sigh. Okay, let's see... the immediate death of a certain character. They are really failing to sell me on anyone surviving attacks by the enemy. Way too overpowered.

It's depressingly bad.

[dubiousbystander]

I am watching Terminator: Dark Fate.
Sigh. Sigh. Okay, let's see... the immediate death of a certain character. They are really failing to sell me on anyone surviving attacks by the enemy. Way too overpowered.

[dubiousbystander]

A great and wondrous movie!

[Takk]