Logging

Films: Ong-Bak, Stray Dog, The Raid (re-watch)

Had to return both of these before getting a chance to finish. Was really enjoying Ong-Bak in a campy JCVD sort of way. Good filmmaking, too. Lots of wide shots where you could see the actual stunts.

Stray Dog didn't capture my interest at all. Kurosawa movies in general rarely grab me. I think his work was more of the time vs. stand the test of it. I prefer Ozu for the big Japanese directors.

The Raid is quite good, except for the attempts at emotion.

TV: True Detective S.2 E.1, Hannibal S.3 E.1/2, Wayward Pines random episodes

TD was a bit of a rough start plot-wise and new cast-wise. Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams can do no wrong, but poor old Tim Riggins is tough to watch with a straight face. Every word out of his mouth is Riggins. And VV is questionable... Got a little bit of the Luck (after the amazing pilot) feeling watching this one. The back room business nonsense is gonna drag. HBO mercy killed Luck under the guise of animal murder. It'll be interesting to see what cover story they come up with for TD if it continues on this path.

(Also note: last time, I checked, you can't just arrive at someone's house and beat their face with brass knuckles in front of their son without consequence. It would take exactly three minutes for that father to put together who Colin Ferrell was and about six minutes before he was fired and put up on criminal charges. I felt similarly about some scenes from TD 1 when Woody goes around poking his gun in people's faces and stupidly executes the pedophiles in the 4th episode... You gotta earn the ability to put the fear of God in people. For good reference, check out Nick Nolte in Q&A. There, you believe a cop can run around doing this stuff because he has angles on people and a willingness to murder. Here, these cops are doing it to near strangers and out of impulse. It just doesn't stand to reason.

Hannibal. The show the continues to be bonkers and I cannot believe it exists. On NBC!!!

Wayward Pines is not for me, although there is some interesting stuff. The mystery mini-series form has really worn me out. Top of the Lake, Broadchurch, and TD 1 were all terrific, albeit, the ends were almost always less satisfying than the journey. But there's so much of this stuff these days - The Fall, The Whispers, Under the Dome, Wayward Pines, The Killing, they all go on and on, and it gets pretty tiresome to watch hours and hours of TV that is withholding the "BIG REVEAL," which always turns out to be not all that interesting. (After all, if it were, it'd be revealed right away).