The Movie (and TV show) Watching Thread

[President Johnson]

One I can strongly recommend is The Shawshank Redemption. We watched it last week and was absolutely great. It's available on Netflix. Users of the Internet Movie Database voted it as #1 best film.


Others we recently watched (I liked the first three the most):

- The Equalizer
- Escape from Alcatraz
- Olympus has fallen
- Red Dragon
- Roman J. Israel, Esq.
- Das Leben der Anderen ("The lives of the others", German film)
- F*ing Berlin (German film)
- Pearl Harbor
- The Irishman
- Basic Instinct

[President Johnson]

The Social Network is just as good as I remember it. Sorkin's dialogue is extremely fast, and I think with a lesser director the movie might not have worked-- but David Fincher truly is a master of his craft.

- Das Leben der Anderen ("The lives of the others", German film)

One of my favorite films. F**k commies.

Yeah, it's a great film. Surprised it's much known outside Europe. I remember watching it the first time in school, shortly after release in 2006.

[President Johnson]

Updated list of films we watched since my last post (how I grade the film):

- Escape Plan (A, Ahnuld was great)
- The Highwaymen (A-)
- Indecent Proposal (A-)
- On the basis of Sex (A, great film about Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
- Traning Day (B+, Denzel Washington was great, the story medicore)
- The Bone Collector (A-)
- 12 Monkeys (C+, the end was very unsatisfactory)
- Seven (A, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Brad Pitt is a huge combo)
- Bridge of Spies (A)
- Primal Fear (A-)
- Rush Hour, Rush Hour II & III (A, Jackie Chan is great)
- Gangster Squad (A)
- USS Indianapolis (A-)
- Poseidon (A-, great story and effects, but too many died for my taste)

- Mr. Brooks (A+, honestly one of the very best films I've ever seen. Kevin Costner playing a successful businessman who is (secretly) a cumpulsive murderer. As such, he outsmarts everybody, including a Detective plyed by Demi Moore).


Looking forward to The Equalizer 2, to be released on Netflix next week. The first part was one of the best films I've ever seen).

[President Johnson]

Some updates of recently watched on Netflix:

- Flight: 2012 movie with Denzel Washington. As usual, he was awesome on playing a pilot suffering from alcoholism

- Both Jack Reacher films: Don't like Tom Cruise for his Scientology, but very well played and strong plots.

- All Die Hard films: Classics I never watched before. Bruce Willis at his best.

- True Lies: Great 1980s film with Arnold Schwarzenegger

- Captain Phillips: Based on a real story in 2009, Tom Hanks playing a captain of a ship kidnapped by Somali pirates. Also gives insight to the poor life conditions and motivation of the pirates.

- Wind River: Moving story about an Indigenous girl murdered as the FBI tries to solve the case.

- News of the World: Brand new adventure movie with Tom Hanks playing a newspaper reader in America of 1870.

- I care a lot: A court-appointed guardian who seizes the assets of elderly people for her own, only for her to get mixed up with a dangerous gangster.

- Prisoners: The plot focuses on the abduction of two young girls in Pennsylvania and the subsequent search for the suspected abductor by the police.


Not a movie, but we started watching the series The Blacklist, just finished with Season 2. Honestly one of the best series I ever watched so far. Ironically, I neither knew James Spader nor Megan Boone before, who are in the main roles. Spader is playing the genius criminal Raymond Reddington, a former naval officer, who voluntarily surrenders himself to the FBI after two decades  of building a worldwide criminal network. Subsequently he delivers a ton of criminals from his "blacklist" and saves many lives; but not without self interest of course. However, he only talks to the 30 year old FBI agent played by Boone as they share some mysterious past she's not even aware of. Especially love the character of Raymond Reddington, who's a well articulated genius between vanity and ruthlessness and still likeable.

[President Johnson]

Der Dritte Weltkrieg ("The Third World War") is a fictional alternate-history documentary film released in Germany in 1998 that theorizes about how the transition to democracy in the USSR goes horribly wrong in 1989 and leads to a full-scale nuclear war in April 1990 that wipes out humanity.

Audio is in German but there are official English subtitles.

There is an English dub available here:

A master documentary and a must watch not only for every history nerd. I watched this some years ago and was really impressed. I didn't know there was also an English version.

[President Johnson]

Anyone watched the new black comedy film Don't look up with Leonardo DiCaprio?

I had high expectations, but was disappointed. While the premise of the movie is valid and fits well in our time, I found everything way too extragged and quite a bit silly. And is it just me who was reminded of Sarah Palin by the president Meryl Streep played? That figure was really dumb. If she at least had Trump's entertainment factor.

[President Johnson]

Finished watching The Lincoln Lawyer yesterday. The first season from 2022 contains ten episodes. Another season is in the making.

I enjoyed watching; the story line was overall solid and can recommend to anyone who's a fan of series about crime and lawyers. Interestingly I never heard of any participating actors except for Neve Campbell (she played political operative LeAnn Harvey in House of Cards; in the series she works as a prosecuter and is the main character's ex-wife). Mexican actor Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is in the main cast as "the Lincoln Lawyer", a brillant legal mind, and does well in that role.

Since this is a political forum, the title has nothing to do with the 16th president. The main character is referred to as "Lincoln Lawyer" because he has a weird habit of getting his best work done on the road. He prefers working in his car (a Lincoln) while driving through the Los Angeles area.

[President Johnson]

After three seasons, I'm looking forward for the fourth season of Snowpiercer. I enjoyed watching the series.

[President Johnson]

It's from the 2014-2020 period, but we finished Season 2 of How to get away with murder. Viola Davis playing an excellent role as tough criminal lawyer in Philiadelphia and university professor that surrounded a cool team of students to work for her on various cases, including covering up their own crimes. I kind of like all the main characters, though Aja Naomi King is just beyond gorgeous.

[President Johnson]

Just finished the first season of the brandnew series The Night Agent.

Loved the plot and characters. Although the former may have been a little unrealistic, with the vice president, a shady businessguy and some White House senior officials attempting to assasinate some Middle East terrorist-turned-politican as he disagrees with the (female) president to get him back in power over a military dictator. The main cast is about an FBI Agent (the night agent) that picks up the phone of a secret and rarely used line in the White House basement in case a secret agent is in trouble. One night the phone rings and a young woman that just witnessed her aunt and uncle - who secretly worked for the government - being killed. The two then meet as he's assigned to protect her. They quickly become the target of killers and are constantly on the run while trying to figure out who in the White House is a traitor. Meanwhile, after they discover too much, the corrupt chief of staff falsely accuses him of kidnapping the vice president's daughter. However, he's able to convince two Secret Service Agents who already wanted to arrest him, that he didn't kidnap said daughter (who actually hates her dad) to find her and help with the investigation.

The story actually began a year earlier when the agent accidently prevented a metro bombing in DC that was designed to kill the Middle Eastern leader currently staying in a coffeeshop above the metro line. Later on, the plan changes to kill both him and the president at a Camp David summit which the main characters are able to prevent.

Looking forward to Season two.

[President Johnson]

Yesterday watched the brandnew movie Society of the snow, a Spanish, Uruguayan and Chilean production that features the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in 1972, in which a rugby team survived in the Andes for 72 days. I would give the film a positive rating, especially for the insane real story behind it, though I personally prefer the 1993 US version Alive!

[President Johnson]

Was anyone aware that former Los Angeles Mayor and now US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti played some smaller roles on TV? I recently started to watch the TV series SWAT (that plays in LA) and he appeared in a minor role there (Season 6 in Episode 1 from 2017). I was first confused because I knew this guy as a politician and then thought maybe the actor is just someone that looked similar. But it was indeed him, even while serving as mayor. Really kind of odd, especially that he didn't play himself.