I didn’t really feel like watching any series and focused more on old movies in the past months, but I still want to present you the seventh instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.
What is this about?
Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.
Let’s start
Supernatural – Season 2, Episode 15: Tall Tales (Watch Date: 11.06.) and others
While writing my Season summary for Season Three, I came across the Trickster again and decided to re-watch his episodes(, but I didn’t feel like changing the title much more than adding „and others“ as I had included a date on the other episode). I really enjoyed this character and his episodes were quite fun in a weird way. He really had had potential, but then again, so did many characters on the show…
I just really like the struggle the Trickster/Gabriel portrays, he claims to not want anything to do with Lucifers and Michaels fight, yet he does everything in his powers that Sam and Dean accept their roles in it and shows them time and again that some things just need to happen. He’s great and as I’ve discovered recently a lot of fun to write, which might explain that my simple One Shot idea kind of turned into two Multi-Chapter stories…
Incidentally I couldn’t get myself to watch The Hammer of the Gods, I just couldn’t…apart from the fact that there is so much wrong with that episode, did I just not want to see the outcome of it again…
I also watched several other episodes, though I can’t remember which ones, Season Four/Five stuff with Lucifer, Chuck and the Horsemen I believe. I also took some suggestions from wrencollins in this matter and just watched whatever I felt like.
Outlander – Season 1, Episodes 1-7 (Watch Date 6./7.6.)
As it was about to air in German television I felt like checking this one out. We’ll it is an interesting concept, the characters aren’t bad and somewhat interesting, but as you can see from the watch date, have I not gotten myself to continue since June…
My dad has probably seen more episodes in German than I have in English…
Sense8 – Season 1
I let myself be goaded into watching another series again. And I do not feel bad about it.
This show is incredible.
Actors from the actual countries the story plays in, with the actual accents, filmed in the actual locations. Really great.
And the switch between the Sensates, when they changed the perspective in a conversation or one took over and handled the situation of the other, was quite interesting, especially in the finale. I really liked the finale, though I’m afraid it’s hard to top.
I can’t even say who my favourite character is, I kind of liked all of them…Riley and Capheus are just incredibly adorable and cute, Lito and Will have quite hilarious moments, whereas Sun and Wolfgang show their badassery and Nomi and Kala, just show off their smarts, not to mention Freema Agyeman and Naveen Andrews, who made for interesting side characters.
I like the whole pretext of the show, its realization, the characters, pretty much everything…I can’t wait for Season 2 to be completed.
I am fairly certain that I might have a separate post for my Lost in Translation-series about Wolfgang – even though I have to say that they picked one of the most horrible sounding names here…
In German Wolfgang is fine, but in English? Just no. This is one of those names that, as a German, you don’t want to hear pronounced in an English way…
Speaking of translations…well…let’s say: I didn’t watch it directly on Netflix, therefore a lot of stuff is lost to me, as it did not have the translations with it, especially the Sun-focused episode, which was a pity.
Orange is the New Black – Season 3
Same problem as above, a lot of it was lost, as I didn’t have any subtitles. This was quite frustrating in the background episodes for Gloria, Chang and Leanne.
The overall storyline of this Season was a bit disappointing and boring – especially everything that concerned Piper. I just can’t stand her.
I really enjoyed the looks at the different inmates pasts again, I feel like this is always the most interesting part of the show. It was also fun to find out that another character spoke German, even if it was an Amish variation of it, that I didn’t really understand – though I believe it was the bad quality of the stream and my head still being stuck in English-mode…
The thing that bugged me most was probably Red. She was one of my favourites in the previous Seasons, but now, I’m not so sure any more. I also didn’t really understand the whole thing with Norma…
So in conclusion: This Season wasn’t as good as the others, but it was still fun.
Merlin – different episodes
I felt like watching a bit Merlin again and I think Gwayne and Servant of two Masters are my most watched episodes of the series by now. Another one is The Once and Future Queen that I this time even watched in German with Fairy during my recent stay at her place. I just love Merlin’s rant in that episode and wanted to see how it was done in German. This show is just always fun to watch.
Lasko – different episodes
For every non-German: Lasko – Die Faust Gottes (The Fist of God) is a German show from 2009/10 about a secret organisation of fighting monks (Pugnus Dei – hence the title) that fight another secret organisation Ares and other people who want to do nasty things to those who can’t defend themselves. As this show was produced by a station known for its love of scripted reality and casting shows, you might imagine the seriousness of the production. Lasko is a totally ridiculous show, with the titular character constantly loosing his Habit to fight the foes showing off his muscular chest. He has a chubby side-kick that is good for quips and wordplays and there are so many tropes and what not, that it gets fun to watch because of its terribleness.
The show started shortly after we started writing Warlords and Fairy and I made it a tradition to watch each new episode together and discuss it directly via ICQ. We had a lot of fun doing that and we still have fun watching the show now and giving off the same comments we used to make. We just love Gladius. 😀
Buffy – different episodes
Just as the ones above: I just felt like watching some episodes of Buffy and I do believe I even caught some I haven’t seen back when it was still on television. Well, it’s also interesting to re-watch it in its original language and not in the translated version I grew up with. Does anyone else consider Tabula Rasa one of the shows most hilarious episodes? 😀
Different movies
As I said in the beginning did I feel more like watching movies than series in the past few months and I came across several quite interesting pieces and some really weird choices…
As I don’t want to go into that much detail I’ll simply make a name-dropping description here and say a few things about them.
One last comment before I start: When I consider actors to be interesting, I like to check out their other work, so some of the choices came from that perspective and I probably forgot to add some of them.
Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and Castiel (Misha Collins) in the same movie? Of course I had to check out Moving Alan, though I’m not entirely sure, what exactly I watched there… It is a weird mixture of Weekend at Bernies and other things I cannot name, just with two girls, a dead-turned-paralysed husband and an insane actor in the middle of the desert… it’s just weird…
Not much better is Par 6, another of Collins‘ older movies about a family obsessed with golf, though it has some more fun scenes than the other one. Downside for me: Their accents were hard to understand sometimes.
As it was in his imdb list as well I took a look at Girl, Interrupted, his role here was only a minor five seconds part and the focus was on the main characters played by Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie. I don’t really like Jolie as an actress, but in this role she was quite creepy, well, the whole film is strange and creepy, but still interesting.
What I, however, noticed is that Collins‘ minor or side character roles seemingly often include being the love interest or some kind of random hook-up for one of the main character. Which is kind of best shown in Over Her Dead Body, were he really is just that – same in Girl, Interrupted. Makes you wonder about his role in Supernatural… 😀
Anyway, that movie was quite fun, the idea wasn’t new – ghost fiancé stalks her ex and tries to convince him to not fall in love with another girl -, but doing the whole thing through a medium made for some quite funny scenes. And Paul Rudd did a good job at playing the confused and torn ex, but I think I have yet to see him in a role that I didn’t enjoy watching, which is in stark contrast to Jason Biggs, whose role choices I do often question, guess someone just has to do those things as well…
One of my, if not the, highlight/s of this watching streak was 3 Blind Saints, with Richard Speight Jr. as main character. This movie is hilarious and if you haven’t seen it, you should totally check it out – if you did, you should watch it again. It has a lot of slapstick and situation humor, but here are some of my favourites:
- Several people try to get an out of jail free card, by claiming that they were saved by God – one of them is an atheist
- The main characters end up having to pretend to be ministers in the local community with the atheist having to fill the role of the pastor.
- Some very strange argumentations and utterly ridiculous prayers and sermons.
- A very strange meeting with God
- A couple of guys in drag – one of them unwilling to shave off his beard – trying to get a confession out of a bad guy, with a kink for girls in short skirts, who knows its them in drag and plays along.
I watched it for a second time on Sunday and I could watch it again, it’s just so much fun. It’s far from being perfect and has a lot of flaws (e.g. a missing and re-appearing beard/stubble), but it’s just one of those funny feel-good movies.
I grew up with the Harry Potter movies, so when I got the chance to pick up Driving Lessons
with Rupert Grint, I didn’t hesitate long. This movie has an interesting take on different things: The protected life of an only child, the downsides of growing old alone, growing up and being an artist. It’s a nice watch. Emma Watson’s The Secret Life of a Wallflower on the other hand took a more depressing turn. It shown some light on different usually left out problems (depression, suicide, homophobia, …), but it felt like they still left out things that would have made it more clear and more rounded. That’s a bit disappointing for an otherwise good movie. Though I somehow can’t remember the ending or I am at least not sure that what I remember is the ending…
On a similar depressing note was Coming Down the Mountain with Nicholas Hoult, but here I really liked the conclusion, even though some of the things that happened throughout the movie were quite creepy. It’s an interesting take on the struggles to live with someone who suffers from the Down Syndrome.
For some reason I decided to watch with Chris Evans and I’m still not entirely sure why I did. The movie isn’t totally bad, but it has some quite strange moments. Though not as bad as Totally Blonde, where my memory kind of betrayed me… I remembered it as a fun movie with singer Michael Bublé, but it turned out to be something entirely different and I’m not sure how I made it through the movie, as some decisions by the main character were utterly frustrating to say the least. Speaking of frustrating main characters: The Devil Wears Prada. I really don’t get the appeal of these kinds of movies where a woman with a totally okay style and personality changes everything in order to become the „better“ person for someone else (here: her boss) and loses herself in the process. Not my type of movie, but I like Anne Hathaway and Glen Close and felt like watching this again…
Tumblr is a great what-to-watch source when it comes to their favourite actors. So I checked out The Losers, with Chris Evans, Zoe Saldana, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Idris Elba in main roles. It turned out to be one of the DC-adaptations that I actually enjoyed. It was fun, had some good action and a lot of logical flaws, but still a nice watch.
Well, I didn’t only watch old stuff, I was also in the cinema a couple of times.
At first I thought I wouldn’t manage to see Mara und der Feuerbringer (Mara and the Firebringer), due to some scheduling issues in the marketing, but then I found out that it was screened in Greifswald and I took Schmusi and Anna from the HGWAnime with me to see it and we had a lot of fun. Finally a German Fantasy movie that isn’t as stoic and flat as German movies tend to be, has interesting characters, an interesting plot and funny dialogues. With songs like Echter wahrer Held/True Genuine Hero by Schandmaul it also has a nice soundtrack. Schmusi first thought it was Jan Josef Liefers doing the singing until I told her it was the singer of one of the bands that first got me hooked on Metal. 😀
Anyway, if you get the chance: Definitely check this one out!
I also saw Melissa McCarthy’s latest flick Spy and laughed a lot, though we were wondering if the age level was appropriate for that movie, as it did have some nasty sequences. I went to check out Mad Max: Fury Road after all the praise it got on Tumblr and I wasn’t disappointed. The strange and staccato like cut of the movie was a bit confusing, but it was still fun to watch. More fun, however, was Ant-Man that I originally didn’t even want to see, but went along when Fairy and her boyfriend asked if we’d go and see it. After the changed tone in Age of Ultron this one was more focused on the humour than the seriousness of it all. I don’t regret seeing this one after all.
What were you watching?
What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!
Final Words
We’ll see when I’ll write another one of these…
PoiSonPaiNter
