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Other Discussion Boards => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: Crudblud on December 02, 2013, 07:12:47 PM

Title: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 02, 2013, 07:12:47 PM
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DuckDodgers on December 02, 2013, 07:19:41 PM
I watched Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection over the weekend.  I'm pretty sure I caught the bad end of an Aliens marathon. 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Alchemist21 on December 02, 2013, 07:23:16 PM
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.

One of the few good movies I've actually seen.  It's a great example that a solid script and dialogue can make a great movie without the need for action-packed scenes of kissy-kissy romantic side stories.

There was a '97 remake that I haven't seen.  I wonder if it's as good as the '57 version.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 02, 2013, 07:59:01 PM
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.

One of the few good movies I've actually seen.  It's a great example that a solid script and dialogue can make a great movie without the need for action-packed scenes of kissy-kissy romantic side stories.

There was a '97 remake that I haven't seen.  I wonder if it's as good as the '57 version.

I haven't seen it either. It's directed by William Friedkin and it has quite a cast, but it just seems kind of pointless given that the original isn't dated at all.

I watched Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection over the weekend.  I'm pretty sure I caught the bad end of an Aliens marathon. 

Yeah, it's a shame the way that series went. I actually haven't seen Alien 3, but Resurrection ranges between boring, idiotic and just-plain-bad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Alchemist21 on December 02, 2013, 08:00:26 PM
boring, idiotic and just-plain-bad.

This sounds like the Carrie remake.  Every character in that movie was an idiot imo.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 02, 2013, 08:01:56 PM
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.

One of the few good movies I've actually seen.  It's a great example that a solid script and dialogue can make a great movie without the need for action-packed scenes of kissy-kissy romantic side stories.

There was a '97 remake that I haven't seen.  I wonder if it's as good as the '57 version.

I haven't seen it either. It's directed by William Friedkin and it has quite a cast, but it just seems kind of pointless given that the original isn't dated at all.

I watched Aliens 3 and Alien Resurrection over the weekend.  I'm pretty sure I caught the bad end of an Aliens marathon. 

Yeah, it's a shame the way that series went. I actually haven't seen Alien 3, but Resurrection ranges between boring, idiotic and just-plain-bad.

I'm in the minority, but I actually quite liked the assembly cut of Alien 3. Though none of them come close to how I feel about Alien, which is simply an amazing cinematic experience.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 02, 2013, 08:29:54 PM
12 Angry Men is one of my favourite movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 05, 2013, 08:01:45 AM
I allowed myself to watch human centerpiede 1and 2. I won't do that again. I never thought I would see a better shock film then 'a Serbian film'. Watch a Serbian film if you havnt seen it. But it's pretty heavy.

No, don't watch that movie. Absolute piece of shit. It wasn't even shocking, just terribly fucking boring and uninteresting.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 05, 2013, 08:07:47 AM
Movies don't shock me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on December 05, 2013, 09:24:45 AM
You know the deal: post about a film or series you have seen recently.

12 Angry Men (Sidney Lumet)

This film is widely regarded as an American classic anyway, so there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. It has a great script, tight direction and excellent performances, and is surely one of the best directorial debut features of all-time.

Loved 12 Angry Men and saw a performance of it at the theatre a few weeks ago. It was a pretty intense performance, with all of the cast on stage all of the time, with no breaks apart from the interlude. The only bit of stage wizardry was the table in the middle which very, very slowly rotates, which helps create that sense of clausterphobia and frustration which does get lost in a big wide theatre instead of the uncomfortably close shots used in the film.

Just watched the 'Peadogeddon' episode of Brass Eye again this morning. Still as funny and relevant as it was in '97.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 05, 2013, 04:58:27 PM
I allowed myself to watch human centerpiede 1and 2. I won't do that again. I never thought I would see a better shock film then 'a Serbian film'. Watch a Serbian film if you havnt seen it. But it's pretty heavy.

Honestly A Serbian Film was just kind of silly. One of those horror films in which bad things happen because the lead is dumb. I get that it's supposed to be an allegory for the treatment of the Serbian people by the government, but it's just so over the top that like The Human Centipede it is essentially a comedy. In fact, the whole thing could be a set-up for the "the aristocrats" joke. As far as allegorical horror/exploitation films go, I think Salo and Cannibal Holocaust are far better.

Loved 12 Angry Men and saw a performance of it at the theatre a few weeks ago. It was a pretty intense performance, with all of the cast on stage all of the time, with no breaks apart from the interlude. The only bit of stage wizardry was the table in the middle which very, very slowly rotates, which helps create that sense of clausterphobia and frustration which does get lost in a big wide theatre instead of the uncomfortably close shots used in the film.

Just watched the 'Peadogeddon' episode of Brass Eye again this morning. Still as funny and relevant as it was in '97.
That sounds really good, I can't imagine how it would look on stage, but I'm definitely interested based on what you say here.

Also Brass Eye is one of my favourite things.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on December 05, 2013, 05:14:19 PM
Martin Shaw played the juror who voted 'not guilty' and it was fairly awesome. The only things which let it down were limitations of the medium itself, you just can't create the same clausterphobia in a room big enough to seat hundreds. I was just hugely impressed that they were able to perform what is essentially one long dialogue for an hour and a bit before the interlude, then repeat that and keep it edge-of-your-seat gripping.

The only one who struggled was the actor from M.A.S.H (I think) who played the old juror, he visibly struggled with a couple of lines and needed a little prompting from his colleagues. It actually helped reinforce the image of the doddering old man he was playing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on December 05, 2013, 06:28:22 PM
Cannibal Holocaust is great. I recommend.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Adolf Hipster on December 06, 2013, 06:29:07 PM
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

I was sort of disappointed. They dumped a lot of the nice minor details and tended to rush things, often poorly emphasizing aspects of the story that were elaborated on much better in the book. It was still good, though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on December 06, 2013, 07:39:50 PM
House of Cards...

Started of slow but I loved the last few episodes, Kevin Spacey is great as well. Eager to watch season 2 in like two days when it comes out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: bj1234 on December 06, 2013, 09:12:47 PM
Mary Poppins
My 3 year old loves the dancing penguins.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 08, 2013, 02:48:05 AM
David Lynch's Hotel Room
Finally watched all 3 episodes. It doesn't come close to Twin Peaks for me, but it's still one of the better shows I have seen. Amazing atmosphere and some really great dialogue. I liked the 1st and 3rd episodes the best. I still feel like I missed some details, so I will be going back and watching it again soon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 08, 2013, 02:50:01 AM
David Lynch's Hotel Room
Finally watched all 3 episodes. It doesn't come close to Twin Peaks for me, but it's still one of the better shows I have seen. Amazing atmosphere and some really great dialogue. I liked the 1st and 3rd episodes the best. I still feel like I missed some details, so I will be going back and watching it again soon.
This about sums up my feelings regarding the series, too.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 08, 2013, 09:34:02 AM
Waiting for Godot
Watched a film version of the play about 2 men waiting endlessly for a man named Godot. It all takes place in one bleak location containing one leafless tree, but it could not be more enthralling. The performances were particularly astounding and I really fell in love with the characters. I found it to be not only hilarious, but also a very moving existential piece. I'm not really sure how to fully describe my feelings for it, it's definitely something you would have to experience for yourself. This is certainly one of the best things I have experienced and I highly recommend it.
I also really hope to see a live performance of it one day.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on December 09, 2013, 06:00:46 PM
Anyone watch Homeland? The second season was pretty shit but it got a lot better in season three, i think. Last nights episode was good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on December 10, 2013, 10:03:12 PM
Kick Ass 2 and it was no where near as good as the first.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 11, 2013, 08:59:26 PM
I agreed to go and see Disney's new movie Frozen not knowing it was a two hour-long musical. Someone else paid for me so whatever. It's a typical Disney fantasy with princes and princesses and talking snowmen and trolls and castles and songs about true love and following your heart and all that crap, it delivers on the comedy front with the usual tight slapstick and one-liners, and the visuals and animation are top notch. If you like Disney's Aladdin type stuff this is going to be right up your alley, and it comes with a cool short called Get A Horse which combines Steamboat Willie era animation and modern CG in some pretty inventive ways, it does get a little redundant before too long, but while it's good it's good. Overall, Frozen is a highly competent and tight piece of work that doesn't feel half as long as it actually is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on December 12, 2013, 08:55:09 AM
Apparently the fairytale Frozen is based on actually featured a female hero trying to rescue a platonic male friend. it's a shame they went down the traditional Disney route.

I've been watching Prison break lately, while I loved the complex plan and trying to wok out what the symbols meant as they were introduced, I really wish they didn't have the ridiculous presidential conspiracy in the background - I don't care about the misadventures of the lawyers, I want to see Scofield try to avoid being shanked as he creeps into an intricately designed area of the prison.

The second series started well but the damn conspiracy is starting to take up too much screen time again. Agent mahone was a great character in his own right - and watching the cat-and-mouse between Scofield and him would have been really interesting to follow. Why did they have to over-complicate his character?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 12, 2013, 10:14:51 AM
Apparently the fairytale Frozen is based on actually featured a female hero trying to rescue a platonic male friend. it's a shame they went down the traditional Disney route.
Actually, the old Disney formula has been spiced up with a few subversions and twists. It's not groundbreaking or anything, but it's certainly different enough to make it stand out among the Disney princess back catalogue.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 12, 2013, 05:05:35 PM
Apparently the fairytale Frozen is based on actually featured a female hero trying to rescue a platonic male friend. it's a shame they went down the traditional Disney route.

I've been watching Prison break lately, while I loved the complex plan and trying to wok out what the symbols meant as they were introduced, I really wish they didn't have the ridiculous presidential conspiracy in the background - I don't care about the misadventures of the lawyers, I want to see Scofield try to avoid being shanked as he creeps into an intricately designed area of the prison.

The second series started well but the damn conspiracy is starting to take up too much screen time again. Agent mahone was a great character in his own right - and watching the cat-and-mouse between Scofield and him would have been really interesting to follow. Why did they have to over-complicate his character?

I loved that show, but alas, it succumbed to sequelitis very quickly.  They should have just kept it to two seasons and toned down the conspiracy subplot a good deal - it had to be there to a degree, of course, because you can't beat the classic story of the innocent man in jail - but it's way too complicated, and the writers just kept pulling more new dimensions and motivations for them out of their asses as the show went on.  As a result of all this stretching the plot out, the latter two seasons aren't nearly as good as the first two.  They're not all bad, admittedly - the characters are still great, the cast is still great, the directing is still great, etc. - but it's just unrecognizable as the show it was when it began.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 16, 2013, 01:02:27 PM
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
Cameras mounted upon a fishing trawler are submerged in gull-blanketed waters, splattered with fish guts, buried under piles of catch, and other fun things in this intense, wordless, non-narrative filmic essay on the harshness of life at sea.

The Third Man (Carol Reed)
Like when I watched 12 Angry Men, I'm left writing a review of a film about which no more can really be said. A well beloved classic of film noir and deservedly so.

Frozen (Chris Buck)
Surprisingly good Disney musical, offering enough twists to their usual formula to make the usual tight visuals, gags and songwriting more than just a case of going through the motions.

Westworld (Michael Crichton)
Proto-Terminator in which mustachio'd vacationer does battle with bald android gunslinger. Great fun from Crichton, who apparently has a thing for deadly theme parks.

Caligula (Tinto Brass)
Disowned by writer Gore Vidal and lead actor Malcolm McDowell, among others, Caligula is an ever escalating orgy of madness that transcends its obvious and manifold flaws to become a grand and absurd comedy. Features a notable performance from the late Peter O'Toole as the wretched Tiberius.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on December 16, 2013, 02:15:16 PM
Quote
but it's way too complicated, and the writers just kept pulling more new dimensions and motivations for them out of their asses as the show went on.

This. A thousand times this.

A perfect example was an episode last night.

[spoiler alert]

Link's Dad reveals that there's a super-secret file which will clear his son's name and the doctor, Sarah, must possess it. Cue The Company kidnapping Sarah and torturing her to get the file.

All this would be fine if, two episodes ago, Agent Kim wasn't berating Kellerman for wasting time using Sarah to get to the escapees. He was told to leave her alone and focus on Link's son. I don't mind writers adding ridiculous plot-twists (especially in this show) but at least make them coherent with the rest of the series.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 17, 2013, 10:30:49 AM
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
I first saw this some years ago and was totally perplexed by it. Seeing it now with fresh eyes I feel like it makes a lot more sense and actually contains, as Lynch insists, a linear narrative. With this clearer perspective on the narrative I was able to sit back and enjoy Lynch's mastery of atmosphere, suspense, abstraction, character development and overall direction which have come together to form one of his finest works, and a definite masterpiece of modern American cinema.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 17, 2013, 04:56:32 PM
Are you a Lynch fan in general, Crapblood?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 18, 2013, 05:04:14 AM
Are you a Lynch fan in general, Crapblood?
I count several of his films among my favourites, including Wild at Heart which is my absolute favourite film. So yeah, I guess I am.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 18, 2013, 08:15:16 AM
Mulholland Dr. (David Lynch)
I first saw this some years ago and was totally perplexed by it. Seeing it now with fresh eyes I feel like it makes a lot more sense and actually contains, as Lynch insists, a linear narrative. With this clearer perspective on the narrative I was able to sit back and enjoy Lynch's mastery of atmosphere, suspense, abstraction, character development and overall direction which have come together to form one of his finest works, and a definite masterpiece of modern American cinema.

So glad to hear this, I completely agree. It was my second and third viewings that solidified Mulholland Dr. as my favorite film (now tied with The Master, of course). It is such a beautiful, and heartbreaking film. At this point I am usually in tears by the ending, even though it's still hard for me to describe what the film is in words.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 19, 2013, 09:14:47 AM
Rashomon (Akira Kurosawa)
Woah. This was a wonderful film. An incredibly captivating film about 4 completely different recollections of the same set of events. At first the films feel so simple, but the nature of truth becomes more complicated and intruiging as it moves from one story to the next. The cinematrography was also great, helping create the perfect mood, especially during the sequences in the woods. What really stuck out to me though, was the editing, and the way it was used to explore each story.
I was greatly impressed by this film, and I am definitely looking forward to seeing Kurosawa's other work.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 19, 2013, 08:04:38 PM
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
A really good recent Woody Allen film starring Owen Wilson... who'd-a thunk it? The typical Allen formula is given a strange new twist that offers up some of his smartest writing in a good while, well performed by a solid cast taking on some very big characters.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 20, 2013, 07:15:54 PM
Lost Highway (David Lynch)
Following on from my success with Mulholland Dr., I decided to rewatch another particularly enigmatic Lynch feature in the hope that it too would make much more sense. This time around I was able to let the analytical part of my mind relax and just roll with it, and the narrative seemed to flow a lot better even if I didn't necessarily understand what was going on much of the time. As with Mulholland, the power of the atmosphere is constant, but as dark as that film gets, this one is almost pitch black all the way through to me. I thought it was a masterpiece the first time I saw it, but now I am sure of it.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman)
I wonder why I didn't see this a long time ago, but I'm glad I waited, as I don't think I would have been sensitive or patient enough to really get into this as a teenager. I would have missed the warmth and humour of the characters, the more subtle elements of their interactions and relationships, and the wonderfully balanced ending, which is both sad and joyful, but without falling prey to the bogus sentimentality it so easily could have. Like so many films I love, it walks a tonal tightrope with, perhaps not exactly surety, but determination.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 20, 2013, 10:59:42 PM
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman)
I wonder why I didn't see this a long time ago, but I'm glad I waited, as I don't think I would have been sensitive or patient enough to really get into this as a teenager. I would have missed the warmth and humour of the characters, the more subtle elements of their interactions and relationships, and the wonderfully balanced ending, which is both sad and joyful, but without falling prey to the bogus sentimentality it so easily could have. Like so many films I love, it walks a tonal tightrope with, perhaps not exactly surety, but determination.
This one I did see as a teenager in a film class. I remember becoming pretty emotional at the end. I've been wanting to go back and watch it but it affected me so much the first time that I'm kinda scared.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 26, 2013, 12:48:23 AM
Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg)
Cronenberg is well known for his special effects creations like the living typewriters from Naked Lunch and Seth Brundle's gradual transformation into The Fly, but here the effects you don't see are at the centre of the drama as Jeremy Irons acts opposite himself in dual lead roles. A lot of people paint Cronenberg as an expressly cerebral filmmaker who gives little attention to emotion in general, and yet his remake of The Fly and this film are shining counterexamples to that assessment, not to mention The Brood, a heartfelt nightmare inspired by his divorce and resulting custody battle. I love Cronenberg's work in general, as you may have guessed, but this one is my favourite overall.

The Elephant Man (David Lynch)
A lot of people have made a meal about how this film is "different" from much of Lynch's other work, comparing it more to his Disney-funded The Straight Story than something like Blue Velvet, yet it contains many of his typical themes; the rot lurking beneath the polished surface of polite society, the confusion and misery of the downtrodden and misunderstood, deep emotional trauma, protagonists not in control of their own lives even at the best of times. Throw in the characteristic "body horror" and black and white industrial photography of Eraserhead and as far as I'm concerned it's very much a Lynch joint, and one of his best.

The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg)
Back with the other Dave, and this time he's joined by a psychic Christopher Walken in this adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Is it faithful? I don't know! I haven't read anything of his besides The Stand and The Dark Tower. It plays much more as a supernatural thriller than a horror film, and is full of that smell-it-a-mile-away Kingian cheese that I love when it's handled well, which it is here. Walken steals the show with his classically bizarre line delivery, but credit should also go to Martin Sheen, who gives a wonderfully big performance as a corrupt politician, and Herbert Lom in his understated role as Dr Weizak.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 26, 2013, 10:13:36 PM
The Dead Zone (David Cronenberg)
Back with the other Dave, and this time he's joined by a psychic Christopher Walken in this adaptation of the Stephen King novel. Is it faithful? I don't know! I haven't read anything of his besides The Stand and The Dark Tower. It plays much more as a supernatural thriller than a horror film, and is full of that smell-it-a-mile-away Kingian cheese that I love when it's handled well, which it is here. Walken steals the show with his classically bizarre line delivery, but credit should also go to Martin Sheen, who gives a wonderfully big performance as a corrupt politician, and Herbert Lom in his understated role as Dr Weizak.

O: As a huge Stephen King fan, I am interested.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 27, 2013, 08:38:40 AM
The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 27, 2013, 02:54:41 PM
The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.

I heard it was mostly fanfiction that had nothing to do with the book.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 27, 2013, 03:26:14 PM
Christopher Walken is great in everything.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 27, 2013, 07:51:16 PM
The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.
I really disliked it. I enjoyed the first one more if just for the character development. The second seemed cheap and shallow. I thought the river barrel scene was ridiculous. And the audience I was in kept laughing during really inappropriate times simply because the whole movie had a goofy "don't take me seriously" vibe. Like when Bilbo says "mine" for the first time when grabbing the ring... How is that funny?

Kili/Tauriel, Smaug, and Gandalf using magic were the only decent parts in a way too drawn out movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 27, 2013, 07:59:07 PM
The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.

I heard it was mostly fanfiction that had nothing to do with the book.

All of Jackson's movies are mostly fan fiction. Making a good movie out of the books is near impossible.

The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.
I really disliked it. I enjoyed the first one more if just for the character development. The second seemed cheap and shallow. I thought the river barrel scene was ridiculous. And the audience I was in kept laughing during really inappropriate times simply because the whole movie had a goofy "don't take me seriously" vibe. Like when Bilbo says "mine" for the first time when grabbing the ring... How is that funny?

Kili/Tauriel, Smaug, and Gandalf using magic were the only decent parts in a way too drawn out movie.

Uh, there's more characters in the second and the dwarves don't receive any more development than they did in the first. The only thing I agree with here is that it went too long, 2 hours 40 minutes is too long for this movie. And your audience is retarded.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 27, 2013, 08:29:57 PM
Yes, there are more characters but that doesn't have anything to do with character development. And it certainly seems like Thorin and Bilbo are not as prevalent as they were in the first movie.

We probably get to know Tauriel the best, but she's not even in the books.

The audience was stupid but so was the over the top goofy-comedy of the movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 27, 2013, 08:32:57 PM
I'm glad I don't give a fuck about these films.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 27, 2013, 09:23:48 PM
Yes, there are more characters but that doesn't have anything to do with character development. And it certainly seems like Thorin and Bilbo are not as prevalent as they were in the first movie.

We probably get to know Tauriel the best, but she's not even in the books.

More characters were developed.

Quote

The audience was stupid but so was the over the top goofy-comedy of the movie.

Have you seen the first movie?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 27, 2013, 09:41:49 PM
Yes, there are more characters but that doesn't have anything to do with character development. And it certainly seems like Thorin and Bilbo are not as prevalent as they were in the first movie.

We probably get to know Tauriel the best, but she's not even in the books.

More characters were developed.

Quote

The audience was stupid but so was the over the top goofy-comedy of the movie.

Have you seen the first movie?
Having more characters does not equal character development. Like I already said it was extremely shallow and each character had basically one emotion throughout the whole movie.

The first one had its comic relief as well. It's something I generally dislike about the movies. But it didn't have a 30 min barrel ride of a bouncy fat dwarf.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 27, 2013, 09:46:28 PM
Omg racist
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 27, 2013, 09:47:12 PM
I dunno, as far as I can recall the book was pretty goofy too. That's one of the things I was hoping Jackson would make sure to do with the films, rather than making it broody mcbroodwalking like the LotR. That said, I do think the goofiness was over the top, as you say, but I definitely don't think the goofy atmosphere is a flaw or a bad thing. I liked the whole barrel section, it was one of the less boring parts of the film. I remember finding that part funny in the book, though I might be crazy, so I'm glad it was equally as silly in the film. I loved Bilbo's moment of realization after he pushed them all off into the river.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lemon on December 27, 2013, 09:50:09 PM
Ah people that examine movies. If you sat down and enjoyed it, it's good. No need to examine everything.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 27, 2013, 09:51:53 PM
I dunno, as far as I can recall the book was pretty goofy too. That's one of the things I was hoping Jackson would make sure to do with the films, rather than making it broody mcbroodwalking like the LotR. That said, I do think the goofiness was over the top, as you say, but I definitely don't think the goofy atmosphere is a flaw or a bad thing. I liked the whole barrel section, it was one of the less boring parts of the film. I remember finding that part funny in the book, though I might be crazy, so I'm glad it was equally as silly in the film. I loved Bilbo's moment of realization after he pushed them all off into the river.
It's true that the book is geared more towards kids. (Or at least it's the one we were forced to read in middle school.) But I was hoping for the broody mcbroodwalking.

And Lemon, I didn't enjoy it so I was explaining why.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lemon on December 27, 2013, 09:52:35 PM
And Lemon, I didn't enjoy it so I was explaining why.

Aye, carry on.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on December 27, 2013, 10:08:41 PM
Just watched A Clockwork Orange.

Very Kubrickious. Loved the score. Even the synthesized bits were Bach. The old guy in the wheelchair reminded me of Hector Salamanca from Breaking Bad when he got angry. Overall, I'd give it an 8.4/10. I received the movie as a Christmas gift. It came with The Shining and 2001. I'll rewatch both of those soon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 28, 2013, 01:29:01 AM
I dunno, as far as I can recall the book was pretty goofy too. That's one of the things I was hoping Jackson would make sure to do with the films, rather than making it broody mcbroodwalking like the LotR. That said, I do think the goofiness was over the top, as you say, but I definitely don't think the goofy atmosphere is a flaw or a bad thing. I liked the whole barrel section, it was one of the less boring parts of the film. I remember finding that part funny in the book, though I might be crazy, so I'm glad it was equally as silly in the film. I loved Bilbo's moment of realization after he pushed them all off into the river.
It's true that the book is geared more towards kids. (Or at least it's the one we were forced to read in middle school.) But I was hoping for the broody mcbroodwalking.

And Lemon, I didn't enjoy it so I was explaining why.

The Hobbit is a kids book so the movie is for kids. Treating the retaking of Erebor the same as the war of the ring would be foolish, one is a simple adventure and the other concerns the fate of the world. Jackson has also shoe horned in Sauron and some very brief "my precious" forshadowing, so calling the movie overly goofy is odd.

In the first movie, you had barely any character development. Bilbo and Thorin had their arch, and that was about it as everyone else was either already established or received very little screen time (the dwarves).

The second movie established Beorn, the elves, laketown (bard and the mayor), and Smaug while giving some more development to a few of the dwarves. There wasn't really an arch, but the movie was already packed with subplots anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 28, 2013, 02:11:36 AM
And all of these character "establishments" were really shallow. You're not going to convince me otherwise. The movie focused on CGI sequences and a love story which never existed in the book.

The ring foreshadowing was still done with quirkiness, which is why my dumb audience laughed at it. It was overly goofy.

But you're right that the movie is for kids and I just can't get into it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 28, 2013, 03:09:28 AM
And all of these character "establishments" were really shallow. You're not going to convince me otherwise. The movie focused on CGI sequences and a love story which never existed in the book.

So basically it's the first movie :)

The ring foreshadowing was still done with quirkiness, which is why my dumb audience laughed at it. It was overly goofy.

But you're right that the movie is for kids and I just can't get into it.

lol, how was it quirky? No one in my theatre laughed. SPOILERS:

Bilbo killed a baby spider standing on the ring, then picked the ring up and whispered "MY precious" or some such. Nothing about that scene was funny, if anything it was a bit sad and depraved (which I felt was what Jackson was going for). Your audience was retarted.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on December 28, 2013, 03:32:27 AM
I watched Kingdom of Heaven today.

Overall, it's a 7.5/10. It seems Ridley Scott was reminiscing on Gladiator with this one, at least in the battle sequences. The fights were absolutely phenomenal. I like how he uses blood. Orlando Bloom did fairly well, but his pathetic excuse for facial hair made him seem a delicate flower next to some of the beards he fought against. There were some excellent shots, about 3 or 4 in particular where I immediately reviewed them after they happened.

My only complaint was that I felt like I was watching the movie from battle to battle. The between segments were nice, but the action was what made the movie for me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on December 28, 2013, 03:57:41 AM
The Hobbit 2 was a considerable improvement over the first, mostly because it jumps straight into the story instead of spending 40 minutes sitting around. The action scenes, especially the barrel scene, were fantastic, and the dragon was some damn fine CGI. It did drag for some bits (although I barely noticed) and the Tauriel love triangle was a bit grating, but overall it was pretty good. I'm not sure whether I liked how they ended it, but I definitely want to see the next one.

I heard it was mostly fanfiction that had nothing to do with the book.
Originally it was supposed to be 2 movies, but when it got expanded to 3, they wound up drawing from other Tolkien books to act as filler.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on December 28, 2013, 04:17:21 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 28, 2013, 04:20:50 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on December 28, 2013, 04:24:47 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.

So I imagine you must have really hated the original LOTR trilogy since they crammed so much into a single trilogy.  I mean, given that it's five fucking times as long as The Hobbit in print but about the same length on screen.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 28, 2013, 05:00:59 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.

So I imagine you must have really hated the original LOTR trilogy since they crammed so much into a single trilogy.  I mean, given that it's five fucking times as long as The Hobbit in print but about the same length on screen.

The original trilogy was also nothing like the books. It was completely rearranged for pacing, and whole events were removed and changed to fit within the movies. It's impossible to make a 100% faithful movie out of the books, what matters is whether the movies are good. And they are.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 28, 2013, 05:26:39 AM
And they are.
NO!  >o<
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 28, 2013, 05:29:24 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.

So I imagine you must have really hated the original LOTR trilogy since they crammed so much into a single trilogy.  I mean, given that it's five fucking times as long as The Hobbit in print but about the same length on screen.

The original trilogy was also nothing like the books. It was completely rearranged for pacing, and whole events were removed and changed to fit within the movies. It's impossible to make a 100% faithful movie out of the books, what matters is whether the movies are good. And they are.

Not to mention that about 95% of the LotR books were Tolkien telling you what the rocks beneath their feet looked like, so once you cut out all that and Tom Bombadil's fifty pages of singing there was substantially less plot to cover.

That said, I do think it should've been two movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 28, 2013, 05:33:19 AM
Not to mention that about 95% of the LotR books were Tolkien telling you what the rocks beneath their feet looked like
I have been saying this exact same phrase for so long now. It's why I could never finish the trilogy, I got so tired of the excruciatingly detailed descriptions.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on December 28, 2013, 06:27:05 AM
Okay, I'll allow that the excruciating detail of the LOTR series makes a difference, but I can't imagine it makes that much of a difference.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 28, 2013, 06:49:21 AM
It should have been one movie, but they recognized the opportunity to sucker loads of fanboys who can't wait to spend their money on anything LOTR, and stretched it out to the point where it's just ridiculous.  I mean, seriously.  It was a simple, short book with some entertaining vignettes and a spectacular climactic battle.  They could have done it so easily in one movie and it could have been great.

So much of the first movie was filler.  I imagine this one is the same. I mean stretching 300 pages into 8 hours.  Give me a fucking break.

I don't see how they could turn it into a single movie. 2 movies maybe, but not 1. Too much crap happens, you would have to jump directly from event to event in order to fit it all in, leaving no time for anything else.

I'd prefer 3 bloated movies to 1 awful one.

So I imagine you must have really hated the original LOTR trilogy since they crammed so much into a single trilogy.  I mean, given that it's five fucking times as long as The Hobbit in print but about the same length on screen.

The original trilogy was also nothing like the books. It was completely rearranged for pacing, and whole events were removed and changed to fit within the movies. It's impossible to make a 100% faithful movie out of the books, what matters is whether the movies are good. And they are.

Not to mention that about 95% of the LotR books were Tolkien telling you what the rocks beneath their feet looked like, so once you cut out all that and Tom Bombadil's fifty pages of singing there was substantially less plot to cover.

That said, I do think it should've been two movies.

SPOILERS:

No idea how they would have made 2 movies out of it. Hobbit 2 doesn't slow down very often, and even if you trim out all of the extra scenes and characters, I think it would still have 2 hours left. Some people were even bitching that not enough time was spent in places like Murkwood. We only got up to Smaug going at Laketown, so there's plenty of ground to cover in a third movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 01, 2014, 06:06:10 PM
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Werner Herzog)
Classically indescribable Herzog takes the true story of Kaspar Hauser and uses it to conduct a social experiment, allowing the audience to see Western civilisation through the eyes of a true alien. Tragic, touching, astounding and funny, the character of Hauser fits perfectly with Herzog's idiosyncratic filmmaking style. A near masterpiece.

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
Ridley Scott has always been a great worldbuilder, even in his worst films, but here he manages to strike a balance between worldbuilding and storytelling he has seldom replicated, helped in no small part by a great performance by Rutger Hauer as the all-too-human replicant Roy Batty. However, the least believable romance captured on film since Moment By Moment casts a nagging shadow over the second half.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 01, 2014, 06:22:31 PM
And of course, it inspired one of the better sidequests of F3.  But that's its own thread, let's not derail this one.  Yes, it is a fine movie.  I first watched when I was pretty young, and I remember being really bored, but now that I'm older I can appreciate the intelligence and subtlety behind it a lot more.  I think I may have been expecting an action movie before I first saw it, which is just another part of my youthful foolishness.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 01, 2014, 06:34:10 PM
And of course, it inspired one of the better sidequests of F3.  But that's its own thread, let's not derail this one.  Yes, it is a fine movie.  I first watched when I was pretty young, and I remember being really bored, but now that I'm older I can appreciate the intelligence and subtlety behind it a lot more.  I think I may have been expecting an action movie before I first saw it, which is just another part of my youthful foolishness.

Yeah, Kaspar Hauser is an unusual film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 01, 2014, 08:27:25 PM
hehehehe very funny

Also, modern medical opinions have taken a fairly skeptical view of Kaspar Hauser's claims.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 02, 2014, 12:53:08 AM
hehehehe very funny

Also, modern medical opinions have taken a fairly skeptical view of Kaspar Hauser's claims.
You looked that up just for me, didn't you? Oh sadaam... <3

also

Wild at Heart (David Lynch)
Seen it a million times, still captivates me like no other film can. Watch it right now.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on January 02, 2014, 09:07:55 PM
Watched season one of American Horror Story. I watched season 2 (Asylum) a while back, i thought that was definitely better. The first season was a jumbled incoherent mess, and was dumb. However, Jessica Lange is a great actress, imo.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 03, 2014, 01:51:00 AM
Death Wish (Michael Winner)
Unlike the reputation the Death Wish name would later come to hold by merit of its increasingly bloody and ridiculous sequels, the original is actually quite a reasonable and dare I say realistic thriller that sees a well-to-do man driven to vigilantism by a senseless attack on his family. A substantial portion of the film is spent developing Charles Bronson's now iconic character, and as such the switch from mild mannered office worker to streetcleaner extraordinaire is understandable, helped further in the believability department by the fact that he isn't gunning down hundreds of criminals with a magic never-need-to-reload gun in the manner of a Stallone or Schwarzenegger. Highly entertaining throughout.

Transmorphers (Leigh Scott)
What happens when you take the cast of Eastenders and insert them into FMV sequences from an unreleased Command & Conquer game? Transmorphers may be the closest we will ever come to discovering the answer to this pertinent question.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on January 03, 2014, 02:59:14 AM
Watched season one of American Horror Story. I watched season 2 (Asylum) a while back, i thought that was definitely better. The first season was a jumbled incoherent mess, and was dumb. However, Jessica Lange is a great actress, imo.

It was dumb, but it was fun dumb.  Season 2 was definitely much better.  I feel like Season 3, at least so far, is more on par with the first than the second.  And Jessica Lange is always awesome.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on January 03, 2014, 03:03:28 AM
I feel like Lange's performance overshadowed of the main roles, I don't know the actor's name but I thought Tate was a good, well played character. Them and the maid are who made the dumb show fairly decent. In fact I thought the leads were not very good, especially the mother. Lange was fantastic in Asylum as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on January 03, 2014, 07:46:37 PM

Wild at Heart (David Lynch)
Seen it a million times, still captivates me like no other film can. Watch it right now.

I just watched it finally. It is certainly a wild film. I really enjoyed it, though still not as much as my favorite Lynch films.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on January 10, 2014, 03:35:22 AM
I've been watching a lot of Louie on Netflix. It really is a brilliant show. I love Louis C.K.'s stand-up. All his specials are great. He writes, directs, and stars in a sitcom as a fictional version of himself, and his shitty, awkward life. The show intelligently intertwines stand-up bits that are usually loosely related to the theme of the episode. A little more slow paced humor than the traditional sitcom, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on January 11, 2014, 12:33:11 AM
Her (Spike Jonze)

This film is definitely something special. I had been waiting to see this for the last few years, and it really blew me away. Joaquin Phoenix was amazing as usual, as well as Amy Adams. Spike Jonze's direction was great, but so was his writing. I certainly am looking forward to him writing more of his films. The cinematography definitely stood out, and was used very effectively. I also really loved the music and the score by Arcade Fire.
Her is a very beautiful experience that is heartbreaking and sad, but also incredibly uplifting and hopeful. I felt a strong personal connection to this film, and I was in tears through a good amount of it. But when it was over and the credits were rolling, I just sat there feeling better than I have in a long time. I have to see it again soon.


I loved this film very much and I strongly recommend it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 27, 2014, 08:03:40 AM
Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur)
Good but not quite great film noir with Robert Mitchum as a seemingly well to do man on the run from his shady past. Some really fine performances, particularly from Kirk Douglas, and a pretty complex plot make for entertaining viewing, but ultimately I was left feeling that it didn't quite come together.

A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)
Unlike Mitchum, Viggo Mortensen's seemingly well to do man has managed to suppress all memories of his shady past and now leads a quiet life in a small town, complete with wife and kids and a job running a local diner. A lot of people think Cronenberg left horror behind entirely in the 2000s, but this is just as much a horror story as The Fly or Videodrome, and like those films is a meditation on the psychology of personal transformation, the animalistic side of man and man's potential for extreme violence. The plot is very straightforward, alarmingly so by Dave's usual standards, but this is a very internal film where the inner workings of the characters are the focus above all else.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on January 27, 2014, 10:01:36 AM
Inside Llewin Davis

A bitter, scathing but funny slice of life of a failed musician atty the birth of the folk music scene in new York. as always, the coen brothers have struck gold.

Hopefully it doesn't win an Oscar, though. Considering the nature of the film it would be strangely inappropriate.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 28, 2014, 08:22:35 PM
Wild Palms (Various directors overseen by Oliver Stone)

It's 2007, which as we all know was a time of rampant crypto-fascism and televisual brainwashing in which people in inane sitcoms are projected onto your couch and you have sex with them through the magic of drugs. Maybe that didn't happen, maybe it did and we were too busy hallucinating cathedrals to notice, but if we were ever in that alternate future-past we would all be having nightmares about rhinoceroses and getting shouted at by Robert Loggia because of Brad Dourif's sunglasses — or something — and really, who doesn't lay awake at night wishing they could live that life?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on January 29, 2014, 07:45:33 PM
Wild Palms (Various directors overseen by Oliver Stone)

It's 2007, which as we all know was a time of rampant crypto-fascism and televisual brainwashing in which people in inane sitcoms are projected onto your couch and you have sex with them through the magic of drugs. Maybe that didn't happen, maybe it did and we were too busy hallucinating cathedrals to notice, but if we were ever in that alternate future-past we would all be having nightmares about rhinoceroses and getting shouted at by Robert Loggia because of Brad Dourif's sunglasses — or something — and really, who doesn't lay awake at night wishing they could live that life?

I must see this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on February 06, 2014, 06:18:12 AM
12 Years A Slave. It was powerful, and probably the best film I've seen all year (although I haven't seen as many as I would have liked). The only thing I didn't like about it was the soundtrack, which kept distracting me as it sounded exactly like Inception. Big surprise when it turns out that Hans Zimmer scored it. He needs to do less movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on February 06, 2014, 06:20:52 PM
12 Years A Slave. It was powerful, and probably the best film I've seen all year (although I haven't seen as many as I would have liked). The only thing I didn't like about it was the soundtrack, which kept distracting me as it sounded exactly like Inception. Big surprise when it turns out that Hans Zimmer scored it. He needs to do less movies.
I really want to see this one. I almost convinced A&A to go down to New Orleans with me for a weekend so I could try and celebrity hunt. I even had the address to the plantation mapped out on my phone.

But really, I just love the idea of New Orleans. It's so old and rich in culture.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on February 09, 2014, 07:17:27 PM
Breakfast at Tiffany's (Blake Edwards)
I finally saw it and loved it so much that I watched it again less than an hour later.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 10, 2014, 02:51:47 AM
Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)

Second viewing, now have no qualms calling it an absolute masterpiece, and definitely one of the greatest films of our time. The late Philip Seymour Hoffman gives a masterful performance as the increasingly decrepit playwright Caden Cotard, who takes advantage of his MacArthur Fellowship grant to mount an unprecedented production which becomes a living, breathing simulacrum of his own life.

A History of Violence (David Cronenberg)

Watched it with commentary this time, the sheer volume of insight the director offers into everything going on in the film is quite staggering. The subtlety of Viggo Mortensen's performance in particular is highlighted in this viewing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 19, 2014, 02:15:19 PM
Men Behind the Sun (Mou Tun Fei)

Graphic depiction of the horrors inflicted on Chinese prisoners by the Japanese military at Unit 731. From the very beginning, it is quite obvious that this is a serious drama about political history, and I think its common mislabelling as an exploitation film is most unfortunate. The entire purpose of an exploitation film is to exploit (no, really?!) for the purposes of entertainment a particular thing, whether it's Nazi war crimes or rape or extreme violence or even the death of Bruce Lee, Men Behind the Sun, on the other hand, is more in line with Schindler's List, a serious and sincere attempt to document an historic case of extreme brutality. It's not perfect, the English dub is especially grating, but it is a harrowing and worthwhile film which has a serious message.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on February 19, 2014, 02:43:50 PM
The entire purpose of an exploitation film is to exploit (no, really?!) for the purposes of entertainment a particular thing, whether it's Nazi war crimes or rape or extreme violence or even the death of Bruce Lee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkPyFz3_ApY
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 19, 2014, 03:54:36 PM
The entire purpose of an exploitation film is to exploit (no, really?!) for the purposes of entertainment a particular thing, whether it's Nazi war crimes or rape or extreme violence or even the death of Bruce Lee

<Clones of Bruce Lee>

Off the top of my head I can think of Bruce Lee Fights Back From the Grave, Exit the Dragon, Enter the Tiger and New Fist of Fury to go with that one. Good old Bruceploitation.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on February 19, 2014, 03:59:41 PM
I don't think New Fist of Fury can be considered Bruceploitation since Jackie Chan's character in that movie was not supposed to be Bruce Lee or any of Bruce's characters, and they didn't try to make him look like Bruce either. It was just a sequel to Fist of Fury.
I know Lo Wei tried to marked Chan as "the new bruce lee" with this film, but it wasn't like the real Bruceploitation movies where they outright marketed their character AS Bruce Lee himself.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 19, 2014, 09:42:34 PM
I don't think New Fist of Fury can be considered Bruceploitation since Jackie Chan's character in that movie was not supposed to be Bruce Lee or any of Bruce's characters, and they didn't try to make him look like Bruce either. It was just a sequel to Fist of Fury.
I know Lo Wei tried to marked Chan as "the new bruce lee" with this film, but it wasn't like the real Bruceploitation movies where they outright marketed their character AS Bruce Lee himself.
Oh, that's right... I'll concede that one, then. I just remembered it as Bruceploitation because of the name, I guess.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 24, 2014, 04:57:51 PM
Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)

It was good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on March 01, 2014, 12:59:24 AM
Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland)
I really don't know what was going on in this film, but it was a very enjoyable film experience.
I will see again.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on March 01, 2014, 06:42:31 PM
Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch)

A wonderful exploration of the state of being alone and being lonely, wanting people around oneself but wanting them to leave once they are there. The minimalist plot and languid pacing offer up a meditative 90 minutes of bizarre, absurdly funny and often poignant interactions. I really like it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on March 01, 2014, 10:34:27 PM
Dr Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick)

It was good.

Love Dr Strangelove.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on March 10, 2014, 08:55:13 PM
I've just finished a marathon of those Marvel universe movies, as I had tragically fallen behind in the last few years.  The only ones I skipped over were the Hulk one and the third Iron Man, because I heard they were kind of underwhelming.  Anyway, the second Thor movie was the last one I watched, so, thoughts.  You know you've got a pathetic villain when the hero's mother, of all people, can kick his ass in a fight.  Also, Kat Dennings still isn't funny.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on March 11, 2014, 12:16:01 AM
Hulk was actually pretty good. Ironman 3 was terrible. I liked Thor 2 more than the first; it felt like a more compelling story.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on March 11, 2014, 12:39:55 AM
The villain still sucked.  I know that Loki was a hard act to follow, but it's like they made no effort at all with him.  He was just some guy.  Some boring, uninteresting, unimpressive guy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on March 11, 2014, 05:40:52 AM
Now watch them again. All of them.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on March 11, 2014, 06:00:07 AM
Hulk was actually pretty good. Ironman 3 was terrible. I liked Thor 2 more than the first; it felt like a more compelling story.

Why do people hate IM3 so much?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on March 11, 2014, 01:11:07 PM
Hulk was actually pretty good. Ironman 3 was terrible. I liked Thor 2 more than the first; it felt like a more compelling story.

Why do people hate IM3 so much?

I think it's because of the infamous little fakeout that they pulled with the Mandarin.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on March 16, 2014, 01:51:40 AM
I thought it was hysterical.  Ben Kingsley killed in that role.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on March 16, 2014, 02:42:51 AM
Hulk was actually pretty good. Ironman 3 was terrible. I liked Thor 2 more than the first; it felt like a more compelling story.

Why do people hate IM3 so much?

I think it's because of the infamous little fakeout that they pulled with the Mandarin.

I always thought that was one of the best parts of the film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on March 16, 2014, 03:22:39 AM
Just watched Castle. And yeah I have been drinking.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on March 16, 2014, 03:29:56 AM
Hulk was actually pretty good. Ironman 3 was terrible. I liked Thor 2 more than the first; it felt like a more compelling story.

Why do people hate IM3 so much?

I think it's because of the infamous little fakeout that they pulled with the Mandarin.

I always thought that was one of the best parts of the film.

Well, I think that the Mandarin would have made for a far better villain than Generic Corporate Douchebag #7734.  Especially seeing how the previous two movies had already given us generic corporate douchebags as villains.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on March 22, 2014, 03:32:49 AM
Just watched Free to Play, the documentary about professional Dota 2 players made by Valve. It was pretty good for a doco made by a game developer. Little bit too short, and some parts of it felt like they were throwing way too much content at you too quickly. But otherwise, it was a pretty compelling view of what professional players go through to compete. The source film maker shots were great as well, especially the final Dendi play with Puck.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 05:43:51 PM
Blackfish- A documentary about the plight of orcas in captivity mostly at Seaworld in Orlando, FL.  Surprisingly moving and at points downright shocking.  I highly recommend it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 06:00:31 PM
Blackfish- A documentary about the plight of orcas in captivity mostly at Seaworld in Orlando, FL.  Surprisingly moving and at points downright shocking.  I highly recommend it.
I read a pretty great unbiased article on how the movie basically relies on an appeal to emotion, assumptions, and people who are not real animal behavioralists.

I don't want to watch it for those reasons. I feel like it's probably going to be some truths mixed in with a lot of untruths in the fashion of PETA.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 06:44:47 PM
One of the key people interviewed is a whale researcher who testified in the successful suit against Seaworld (who incidentally is careful to say they can draw no certain conclusions from the attacks of the primary whale featured), and then trainers who worked and in a lot of cases witnessed the attacks.  To be sure, Seaworld has often not been forthright, and often demonstrably lied, in a lot of important ways.  That being said, there is also a strong appeal to emotion.  Does not bother me at all and it is a good watch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 07:05:40 PM
One of the key people interviewed is a whale researcher who testified in the successful suit against Seaworld (who incidentally is careful to say they can draw no certain conclusions from the attacks of the primary whale featured), and then trainers who worked and in a lot of cases witnessed the attacks.  To be sure, Seaworld has often not been forthright, and often demonstrably lied, in a lot of important ways.  That being said, there is also a strong appeal to emotion.  Does not bother me at all and it is a good watch.
Yeah, it makes sense that Seaworld would lie. I'm sure they do questionable things, the article was not biased toward either side, like I mentioned. What is scary is that I don't think you have to have much experience or that much training before getting into a tank with the animals. But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

My qualm with appealing to emotion is that they will forego accuracy and facts in lieu of just getting a reaction from people. It's what PETA does and I hate it. Any documentary that goes that route I automatically dislike it. It's a good tactic to get people invested in a cause without promoting any skepticism so then you get a lot of people up-in-arms without doing any research.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 07:22:58 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.

My qualm with appealing to emotion is that they will forego accuracy and facts in lieu of just getting a reaction from people. It's what PETA does and I hate it. Any documentary that goes that route I automatically dislike it. It's a good tactic to get people invested in a cause without promoting any skepticism so then you get a lot of people up-in-arms without doing any research.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 07:43:11 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 09, 2014, 07:44:23 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 08:21:56 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
There are a lot of articles that say exactly the same things. Why would I want to watch people being attacked by orcas?

I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 08:27:48 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
There are a lot of articles that say exactly the same things. Why would I want to watch people being attacked by orcas?

I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

Well you seem to have made up your mind that that is what it is, but if I may, its not.  Its greyer than people make it out to be. 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 08:35:23 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
There are a lot of articles that say exactly the same things. Why would I want to watch people being attacked by orcas?

I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

Well you seem to have made up your mind that that is what it is, but if I may, its not.  Its greyer than people make it out to be. 
I just said I wasn't saying that. My only point is that it's not the full truth; that my only qualm with it is that it makes pretty bold statements and portrays everything in a way that gets people emotionally involved in something that's not necessarily true. It's why I dislike documentaries that try and rally people behind a cause.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on April 09, 2014, 08:44:34 PM
troll hunter

Deliciously tongue-in-cheek mockumentary in the style of Blair witch.. I got a few of the references but I'm sure there were more subtle nods to nordic folklore than I know - even with Humon Comic's tutoring.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 08:53:23 PM
troll hunter

Deliciously tongue-in-cheek mockumentary in the style of Blair witch.. I got a few of the references but I'm sure there were more subtle nods to nordic folklore than I know - even with Humon Comic's tutoring.
I couldn't pick up on much of the folklore, but I loved it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 09, 2014, 08:57:20 PM
I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

You mean, you'd rather have someone else research it than research it yourself.

Researching the documentary yourself would require you actually watching it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on April 09, 2014, 09:00:18 PM
troll hunter

Deliciously tongue-in-cheek mockumentary in the style of Blair witch.. I got a few of the references but I'm sure there were more subtle nods to nordic folklore than I know - even with Humon Comic's tutoring.
I couldn't pick up on much of the folklore, but I loved it.

I got the billy goats gruff, the food eating contest, the big noses, the hall of the mountain king, turning to stone in sunlight, living under bridges.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 09:23:37 PM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
There are a lot of articles that say exactly the same things. Why would I want to watch people being attacked by orcas?

I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

Well you seem to have made up your mind that that is what it is, but if I may, its not.  Its greyer than people make it out to be. 
I just said I wasn't saying that. My only point is that it's not the full truth; that my only qualm with it is that it makes pretty bold statements and portrays everything in a way that gets people emotionally involved in something that's not necessarily true. It's why I dislike documentaries that try and rally people behind a cause.

Are you Rushy's alt or something?  You have made up your mind that this doc is rallying people to a cause without knowing anything but someone else's interpretation of the doc.  You say they seem unbiased, but you do not really know that.  That is why I said you sound you like you made up your mind. 
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

Thats not really true.  The doc points out that attacks in the wild on humans by orcas is almost entirely unheard of and that orcas are extremely social animals that likely have as strong if not stronger emotional lives than humans do.  They also show orcas mercilessly hunting seals, so any construing of the films portrayal of orcas as merely fun-loving animals is not really accurate.
That's not dismissing what I said, the context of those 2 aspects is important. I can't pick it apart more than that, but let me just link you to the article.

http://melissaasmith.hubpages.com/hub/blackfish-film

So you're basing your opinion on a backwoods internet article? Shouldn't you just watch the documentary yourself?
There are a lot of articles that say exactly the same things. Why would I want to watch people being attacked by orcas?

I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

Well you seem to have made up your mind that that is what it is, but if I may, its not.  Its greyer than people make it out to be. 
I just said I wasn't saying that. My only point is that it's not the full truth; that my only qualm with it is that it makes pretty bold statements and portrays everything in a way that gets people emotionally involved in something that's not necessarily true. It's why I dislike documentaries that try and rally people behind a cause.

You sound like you have made up your mind, regardless of what you say you are doing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 09, 2014, 09:25:19 PM
What a surprising turn of events... rooster is Rushy's alt.  :o
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 09, 2014, 09:52:01 PM
On further shittiness by Sea World:

http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/sea-world-accused-of-fishy-pr-practices-rigging-blackfish-poll.html
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 09, 2014, 10:02:14 PM
A typical board meeting at SeaWorld:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8z7-DIa1As
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 09, 2014, 10:17:03 PM
On further shittiness by Sea World:

http://www.cbc.ca/newsblogs/yourcommunity/2014/01/sea-world-accused-of-fishy-pr-practices-rigging-blackfish-poll.html

" It would appear curious then, with so much public outcry, that in a Dec. 31 Orlando Business Journal poll asking readers whether or not “CNN’s Blackfish documentary [had] changed [their] perception of SeaWorld” 99 per cent of respondents claimed "No."

Sensing something fishy, the newspaper investigated and discovered that a single Internat Protocal Address (IP Address) was responsible for 54% of the votes.

That IP, verified by several third-party IP tracking websites according to the publication, belonged to SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. "


Wow Seaworld, next time use a proxy.  ::)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 09, 2014, 10:20:46 PM
I'm not saying it's all fabricated lies, I rather just research it myself than watch a movie length PETA ad.

You mean, you'd rather have someone else research it than research it yourself.

Researching the documentary yourself would require you actually watching it.
I didn't mean research the movie, I meant researching claims against Sea World. I don't need to watch a doc for that.

I've seen enough meat and food documentaries to know it's not something I'd want to watch. My only point here was to introduce a bit of skepticism which many people don't do, especially when it comes to abusing animals.

I've read several articles about Tilikum and Sea World in general so it's not just one person that I'm getting all my perspective from.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 10, 2014, 01:25:17 AM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

But I think they explain the reasoning for this. Orcas are pretty intelligent, social animals that roam across thousands of miles. Stick them in a tiny tank and make them splash fat 5-year-olds every day and they might get pissed off. It's not hypocritical to say that different causes give different effects.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 10, 2014, 03:27:43 AM
But the article made a great point of how the movie portrays the orcas as fun-loving peaceful animals when in the wild, (which is a nice fantasy). But they also mentioned how the movie was hypocritical in glorifying orcas in the wild when it suits them but also showing them as vicious predators when it suited them.

But I think they explain the reasoning for this. Orcas are pretty intelligent, social animals that roam across thousands of miles. Stick them in a tiny tank and make them splash fat 5-year-olds every day and they might get pissed off. It's not hypocritical to say that different causes give different effects.
I didn't explain it very well since I was paraphrasing from that article I read a couple weeks ago. You should read it if you've seen the movie, it was pretty interesting.

Most articles on the topic don't really rail against the main points of the movie, just how they're presented and the fallacies it uses.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 10, 2014, 03:38:57 AM
I didn't explain it very well since I was paraphrasing from that article I read a couple weeks ago. You should read it if you've seen the movie, it was pretty interesting.

Most articles on the topic don't really rail against the main points of the movie, just how they're presented and the fallacies it uses.

Yeah I read it. Kind of true in that the film does play the emotion card, and that it does seem to anthropomorphise orcas a little too much. If I was in open water and someone told me orcas were near by I wouldn't go "Wooo they're so friendly" and start slapping the water's surface. Some of the people in that documentary remind me of Timothy Treadwell (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Treadwell).

But all those things being said. Seaworld do seem like assholes and orcas really shouldn't be there.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 10, 2014, 03:43:57 AM
I'm not really an anti-captivity person, but I really don't like any animals being trained to do shows.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Thork on April 10, 2014, 08:30:32 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzsrooteAZw

I love Cyanide & Happiness soooo much! lol.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 10, 2014, 10:04:38 PM
http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=58795.msg1550210#msg1550210

Quote
Okay, Thork.  This isn't the "Post YouTube videos" thread.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 10, 2014, 10:49:03 PM
It's not necessarily cruel to keep an animal in captivity or teach it to do tricks.

Dogs are a good example. If I released a pet dog into the wild it would be cruel.

Same goes with any animal that has only known captivity all it's life.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 10, 2014, 10:55:18 PM
It's not necessarily cruel to keep an animal in captivity or teach it to do tricks.

Dogs are a good example. If I released a pet dog into the wild it would be cruel.

Same goes with any animal that has only known captivity all it's life.
Dogs are not a good example, really. Some animals do better in captivity while others do not. For example, apparently great white sharks are terrible in captivity. Animals that have been domesticated are very different to forcing tigers, lions, elephants, orcas, and dolphins to do tricks.

But for animals that do well in captivity, I see no reason why they shouldn't be- especially if it helps conservationism. There are zoos that really should be shut down though. I've been to some pretty sad and depressing ones that really shouldn't have any animals.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 11, 2014, 02:27:14 AM
Can we all please just shut the fuck up about the animals already?

Anyway, I have watched The Incredible Hulk.  It was okay, I guess.  It was certainly an improvement over that horrific one Ang Lee gave us back in 2003, the one that had this priceless scene in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGXERUKBj4
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 11, 2014, 02:29:49 AM
Can we all please just shut the fuck up about the animals already?

Anyway, I have watched The Incredible Hulk.  It was okay, I guess.  It was certainly an improvement over that horrific one Ang Lee gave us back in 2003, the one that had this priceless scene in it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSGXERUKBj4
Why, Eric Bana? Why did you ever agree to do such a shit fest?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 11, 2014, 07:10:08 AM
I never understood why Ang Lee's Hulk was so bad. It was a pretty average movie, besides the Hulk looking kinda shit. But it was ages ago. I didn't think the Edward Norton one was any better. Funnily enough, Ruffalo in the Avengers was easily the best portrayal so far despite the movie not even being about him.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 11, 2014, 01:14:44 PM
It was overly long, slow, dull, angsty, and sorely lacking in excitement.  The Norton one wasn't great, but at least there they understood that what audiences wanted to see was action, not a deep psychological drama.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 11, 2014, 04:54:07 PM
Soo about those animals...
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on April 12, 2014, 09:06:37 AM
Watched Brazil again last night. Still a wonderfully weird film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 21, 2014, 07:10:17 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/M0cVrud.jpg)

Surprisingly entertaining.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 23, 2014, 09:05:50 PM
As you've all no doubt heard, Captain America: The Winter Soldier was great!  My one big issue with it was (I'll try to keep this fairly vague to avoid spoilers) the rehashing of HYDRA as antagonists.  The movie was of course trying to be politically relevant, and that's great, but I think the message would have resonated a lot more strongly if the villains hadn't been dressed up as black-flag-waving, mustache-twirling supervillains.  For example, they could have been portrayed as, you know, fallible human beings.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 23, 2014, 09:44:22 PM
I liked that Robert Redford actually took a role in one of these superhero movies, and did quite well. Also nice to see the Russo brothers (Community and Arrested Development) capable of handling such a big project.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 23, 2014, 10:53:09 PM
The first one was so awful I didn't bother seeing Winter Soldier. I'm surprised that I've been hearing nothing but good reviews, but I'm still too traumatized from the first one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 23, 2014, 11:22:26 PM
The first one was not as bad that. Winter Soldier is in Dark Knight league for me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 24, 2014, 12:39:49 AM
The first one was not as bad that. Winter Soldier is in Dark Knight league for me.
Hey now, you can't tell me how horrible I thought it was. I was either falling asleep or laughing at how awful it was. I was actually shocked at how terrible Hugo Weaving was as Red Skull. It was the worst movie I'd seen in awhile.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 24, 2014, 12:46:50 AM
The first one was not as bad that. Winter Soldier is in Dark Knight league for me.
Hey now, you can't tell me how horrible I thought it was. I was either falling asleep or laughing at how awful it was. I was actually shocked at how terrible Hugo Weaving was as Red Skull. It was the worst movie I'd seen in awhile.

I have also seen the first Captain America movie. I also thought it was terrible. It is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 24, 2014, 01:13:54 AM
The first one was not as bad that. Winter Soldier is in Dark Knight league for me.
Hey now, you can't tell me how horrible I thought it was. I was either falling asleep or laughing at how awful it was. I was actually shocked at how terrible Hugo Weaving was as Red Skull. It was the worst movie I'd seen in awhile.
The first one was not as bad that. Winter Soldier is in Dark Knight league for me.
Hey now, you can't tell me how horrible I thought it was. I was either falling asleep or laughing at how awful it was. I was actually shocked at how terrible Hugo Weaving was as Red Skull. It was the worst movie I'd seen in awhile.

I have also seen the first Captain America movie. I also thought it was terrible. It is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Both of you need to see more movies.  There are a vast quantitu of kife films out there that make Captain America look like "Au Bou du Souffle".
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 24, 2014, 02:10:22 AM
I dunno, I think "one of the worst movies" is...yikes. You must not have seen many movies at all. :P

I thought the first Captain America was alright, though. It's supposed to be really cheesy and I don't think a lot of people realized that; it stuck to the tone of the original comics very closely. I know a lot of people who were upset that it was "too silly" and "not serious" and crap, because apparently everything needs to be dark and gritty now and we can't just have cheesy fun...à la the 1960s Batman show, or even the Tim Burton Batman films. Or, really, the comics.

But yeah, I thought Winter Soldier was a much, much better film, and the Marvel fangirl in me was very satisfied with it, the nods to other Marvel comics and all the little easter eggs sprinkled throughout. The moment when the Winter Soldier punched Cap's shield sent shivers down my spine. Also, I loved what they did with Zola in the supercomputer, because his actual robotic display form would have been really, really stupid to see in live-action...
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 24, 2014, 02:48:17 AM
I thought the first Captain America was alright, though. It's supposed to be really cheesy and I don't think a lot of people realized that; it stuck to the tone of the original comics very closely. I know a lot of people who were upset that it was "too silly" and "not serious" and crap, because apparently everything needs to be dark and gritty now and we can't just have cheesy fun...à la the 1960s Batman show, or even the Tim Burton Batman films. Or, really, the comics.

And:

broody mcbroodwalking

It's also worth pointing out that they don't stick to that pulpy, forties-inspired style for the sequel - which makes sense, seeing how it's not set in the forties anymore.  So if the goofy tone was what you naysayers disliked about the first one, rest assured that you won't see it here.

Anyway, this is the greatest Captain America film of them all:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0KwKXTSADw
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 24, 2014, 02:48:48 AM
I dunno, I think "one of the worst movies" is...yikes. You must not have seen many movies at all. :P
Technically, I said "one of the worst movies I had seen in awhile." So I hope you're just talking to Ghost.

But it was still bad. I just don't care much for comic book movies in general, hell I didn't even like The Avengers that much so. :/
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 24, 2014, 03:24:18 AM
I dunno, I think "one of the worst movies" is...yikes. You must not have seen many movies at all. :P
Technically, I said "one of the worst movies I had seen in awhile." So I hope you're just talking to Ghost.

But it was still bad. I just don't care much for comic book movies in general, hell I didn't even like The Avengers that much so. :/

But Loki
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 24, 2014, 03:57:33 AM
Technically, I said "one of the worst movies I had seen in awhile." So I hope you're just talking to Ghost.

But it was still bad. I just don't care much for comic book movies in general, hell I didn't even like The Avengers that much so. :/

Yeah, that was towards Ghost.

And ahh, well there's your problem. :P


It's also worth pointing out that they don't stick to that pulpy, forties-inspired style for the sequel - which makes sense, seeing how it's not set in the forties anymore.  So if the goofy tone was what you naysayers disliked about the first one, rest assured that you won't see it here.

This is trufax.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 24, 2014, 10:59:27 AM
Rooster accidentally saw Captain America (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/) and thought it was The First Avenger.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 24, 2014, 11:57:04 AM
Fuck. I forgot to go see it. I had planned on going to the last screening to avoid a crowded theatre, and now they don't show it in my town any more. :(
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 24, 2014, 12:46:35 PM

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzkti8_s3e15-bsg-a-day-in-the-life_lifestyle
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 24, 2014, 12:57:40 PM
Rooster accidentally saw Captain America (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/) and thought it was The First Avenger.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/board/thread/217578565
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 24, 2014, 02:36:30 PM
Rooster accidentally saw Captain America (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/) and thought it was The First Avenger.
No. And it was shit. I bet the Captain America you're linking to was better.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 24, 2014, 04:30:56 PM
I still think the movie's shit too.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 24, 2014, 07:24:54 PM
Or maybe you just have shit taste.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 24, 2014, 08:45:53 PM
Rooster accidentally saw Captain America (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/) and thought it was The First Avenger.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103923/board/thread/217578565

It's funny because in the 1990 version, Captain America's main superpower is stealing cars from innocent people. Honestly, the first avenger was a fine movie and you guys are completely wrong. I'm not sure how you can hate an average movie so much.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 24, 2014, 09:36:19 PM
Or maybe you just have shit taste.

If you are claiming that its a good movie then you're the one with shit taste. I'm just glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater or I would have sued for emotional stress and damages.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 24, 2014, 10:59:02 PM
Or maybe you just have shit taste.

If you are claiming that its a good movie then you're the one with shit taste. I'm just glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater or I would have sued for emotional stress and damages.

Your reaction is further evidence that you have poor judgement.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 02:19:24 AM
Awful. Just awful.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 25, 2014, 02:56:58 AM
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.

This reminds me of that debate about porn with rooster.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 03:03:47 AM
Rooster has unpopular opinions
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 25, 2014, 03:05:39 AM
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.
- I think the movie is good.
- I don't think the movie is good.

This reminds me of that debate about porn with rooster.

Isn't that how most discussions go around here? It's terrible.

Also, I think porn is terrible.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 03:11:45 AM
Worst fucking movie of all time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 03:19:17 AM
Worst fucking movie of all time.

(http://doublefeatureshow.com/images/covers/the-room.jpg)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 03:21:36 AM
No, The Room is awesome compared to the first Captain America movie. Take that back. Your opinion is wrong.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 03:25:50 AM
You're tearing me apart!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 03:37:52 AM
Oh hi doggie
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on April 25, 2014, 03:58:32 AM
The Room isn't even that bad. After Last Season is a serious contender for worst film ever made.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 04:16:25 AM
Not the Dungeons and Dragons movie? Wait, no, that's an awesome movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on April 25, 2014, 04:29:10 AM
Finished a rewatch of Twin Peaks and The X-Files . Now Mad Men again. I haven't watched a new film in some time. Sad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 25, 2014, 04:32:36 AM
What about The First Avenger was bad, besides "red skull sucked"? I honestly found Hugo Weaving fine, as Marvel movies aren't known for their strong villains. Evans was good, Atwell was good, the setting was enjoyable and the action was good. The ending was a bit dumb, but every big action movie has a big dumb ending. I can't understand how people can hate the movie. It's not offensive nor is it terribly made.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 04:53:39 AM
It just sucked. That's why its a bad film. I'd watch it again and give you a more detailed review on how it sucked, but having seen it once... why would I subject myself to it again? That's a waste of time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 25, 2014, 05:05:58 AM
It just sucked. That's why its a bad film. I'd watch it again and give you a more detailed review on how it sucked, but having seen it once... why would I subject myself to it again? That's a waste of time.

Well, you've convinced me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 05:08:52 AM
 8)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 25, 2014, 05:10:05 AM
What's wrong with The First Avenger? I bet Roosroos is just mad because they portrayed Chris Evans as a scrawny little skinny guy in the first half of the film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 11:19:14 AM
I'm not into Chris Evans but I think he makes a decent Captain.

It's been awhile, but my main problem with it was the acting and the plot. A movie can't get by on action or budget alone in my opinion. And really, if the acting is bad then I'll probably hate it. The love interest was awful, Bucky was awful, and Hugo was awful in that role. His German accent was ludicrous.

And generally, I just don't care for comic book campy-ness.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 11:31:58 AM
And generally, I just don't care for comic book campy-ness.

The confirmation bias is strong in this one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 25, 2014, 11:49:31 AM
I don't think he was trying to pull off a german accent to begin with.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 12:19:53 PM
I don't think he was trying to pull off a german accent to begin with.
Yes, he was. He even said that he didn't enjoy the role.

And while I don't generally like campy comic book movies, Captain America was particularly bad. I don't like Spiderman at all but at least the acting is better.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 25, 2014, 12:33:38 PM
First off, people, The Room is a masterpiece and you're all terrible for suggesting it's anywhere near "bad".

Secondly, I guess Captain America just comes down to opinion, since you don't like comic book campy and I thought the acting was fine, especially for campy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 25, 2014, 01:31:33 PM
A movie can't get by on action or budget alone in my opinion.

This has been the problem with every Marvel film over the last 10+ years. Prove me wrong.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 01:46:01 PM
A movie can't get by on action or budget alone in my opinion.

This has been the problem with every Marvel film over the last 10+ years. Prove me wrong.

Robert Downey Jr.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 25, 2014, 01:52:14 PM
Millionaire invents power suit. Takes cockish smarm to new altitudes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 25, 2014, 01:52:50 PM
What's wrong with some mindless entertainment?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 25, 2014, 02:00:24 PM
it not entertainment if it mindless.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 25, 2014, 02:07:21 PM
Of course it is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 02:48:20 PM
Millionaire invents power suit. Takes cockish smarm to new altitudes.

I don't see where the problem is.  You can make anything sound trite if you want to treat it like that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 25, 2014, 06:14:22 PM
The only Marvel movies I liked were the Thor movies and the first Iron Man.

I'm just biased with Thor because I love mythology, I actually read the Thor comics, and I love Hemsworth/Hiddleston. And I liked Iron Man because the story had more substance and wasn't just plain mindless action.

But I would never own one of these movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 25, 2014, 06:20:47 PM
Millionaire invents power suit. Takes cockish smarm to new altitudes.

I don't see where the problem is.  You can make anything sound trite if you want to treat it like that.

Kind of. The point is nothing significant happens. He's a rich smarmy dick to begin with and he's a rich smarmy dick at the end. This reflects comic books accurately. Comic books are soap operas that can never end.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 06:30:27 PM
I'm also in the same boat as Rooster. I don't like the basic superhero archetype or story because most of them feel like silly soap operas with men in tights that oftentimes take themselves too seriously. However, I will like a superhero movie if it's entertaining to watch, either from the action scenes or sometimes comedic elements in the movie. While The First Avenger does have these things, it doesn't do any of them well. That's why it's a bad movie. The action scenes are superfluous and any comedy in the movie is utterly destroyed by the terrible delivery of all the actors in the film. Iron Man sucks too, for the same reasons.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 25, 2014, 08:39:32 PM
Mindless action is great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 25, 2014, 11:21:23 PM
The First Avenger wasn't mindless. They took a good shot at replicating the 40s. Half of the movie looks like a picture taken during WWII. The acting is bad? What the shit. I realise interpretation of good acting is somewhat arguable, but that criticism sounds like grasping at straws. It sounds like you guys went in there not liking it and left the same, which is fine, but you don't need to justify it with silly claims.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 25, 2014, 11:24:51 PM
you don't need to justify it with silly claims.

We do when you ask us to justify our position.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 25, 2014, 11:33:02 PM
you don't need to justify it with silly claims.

We do when you ask us to justify our position.

They need not be silly.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 12:57:11 AM
you don't need to justify it with silly claims.

We do when you ask us to justify our position.

I wanted to know how people could hate an average movie so much. Hate is a pretty strong emotion. Turns out the reason is "just becuz".
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 01:00:51 AM
The First Avenger wasn't mindless. They took a good shot at replicating the 40s. Half of the movie looks like a picture taken during WWII. The acting is bad? What the shit. I realise interpretation of good acting is somewhat arguable, but that criticism sounds like grasping at straws. It sounds like you guys went in there not liking it and left the same, which is fine, but you don't need to justify it with silly claims.
What the shit yourself, mate.

You have no fucking idea how I went into the movie. I thought it would be fine. I love the 40s. I can enjoy a Marvel movie (they're never great but they can still be alright). But the acting was fucking awful. Hugo Weaving was surprisingly awful and he's one of my favorites. He even didn't like doing the role cause he couldn't get into such a shallow, unchallenging character (paraphrasing).

So next time you ask for my opinion on why I think a movie sucks, how bout you just accept what I'm saying rather than disregard it and make up your own ideas or belittle our thoughts down to "just becuz". Jesus fuck.

/angryrant

Can we move on? This discussion is literally going nowhere.

I've been watching the RiffTrax version of the Harry Potter movies. They're decent. The guys are definitely not in their MST3K prime, but they still have great moments.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 01:09:35 AM
But the acting was fucking awful.

Welp, I don't think anyone is going to substantiate this beyond "Hugo weaving didn't like the role" (which I recall having read, but I can't seem to find his actual quote regarding the role).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 01:16:21 AM
But the acting was fucking awful.

Welp, I don't think anyone is going to substantiate this beyond "Hugo weaving didn't like the role" (which I recall having read, but I can't seem to find his actual quote regarding the role).
I'm sorry, did you want me to break down the highs and lows of everyone's performance from a movie that had me falling asleep 3 years ago? They were all forgettable. The plot was forgettable. It was campy beyond belief. It didn't hook, engage, or thrill me in any way. The lines were delivered with such shallow feeling that I could almost see the words written on paper.

I'm sorry you missed the points we made in early posts. And also a pretty movie set in the 40s doesn't mean the action isn't mindless.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 01:27:27 AM
I'm sorry, did you want me to break down the highs and lows of everyone's performance from a movie that had me falling asleep 3 years ago? They were all forgettable.

Forgettable doesn't equate to "fucking awful". Many movies have forgettable plots, characters and acting, but they're not awful or even bad movies. Transformers 3 was a good example, I was falling asleep during that, but I don't hate the movie.

It didn't hook, engage, or thrill me in any way.

Well, that's just your taste, which is totally fine. No reason to say the acting is awful though.

And also a pretty movie set in the 40s doesn't mean the action isn't mindless.

No, but it means the movie wasn't mindless. They put thought into how they wanted the movie to look.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 01:30:04 AM
As desperately anxious as I am for this horrible, horrible conversation to be moved on from, I am curious about the Hugo Weaving thing, because the most I've found is basically "I don't think they'd want me to return, and I'm not really sure if I'd want to, though I enjoyed the experience" and "that kind of film is not necessarily my thing". I'm not saying you're lying or something, but either you're thinking of something else or extrapolating a lot from nothing.

Quote
During a recent conversation with Collider, Weaving was asked whether he had any plans to return to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As most actors are signed on to multi-picture deals, it seemed like a fair question, but Weaving gave the impression he wanted to put put some distance between himself and his role in Captain America: The First Avenger.

“I think the tendency, with those films, would be to probably not bring a villain back. They might for The Avengers, but I didn’t think I’d be in Captain America 2 or 3. I don’t think Red Skull will be there,” Weaving said. “And it’s not something I would want to do again.”

With that being said, Weaving made it clear he has no hard feelings toward Marvel and is glad he joined the project. But he also said he hopes he won’t be asked back.

“I did sign up for a number of pictures and I suppose, contractually, I would be obliged to, if they forced me to, but they wouldn’t want to force someone to do it, if they didn’t want to,” he said. “I think I’ve done my dash with that sort of film. It was good to do it and try it out, but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by. As an actor, to do all sorts of different films is great. It stretches you in different ways. But, I increasingly like to go back to what I used to always do, which is to get involved with projects that I really have a personal affiliation with.”
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 01:43:36 AM
No. The movie fucking sucked and everyone who says otherwise is wrong.


Also, Snupes, from that quote can you not infer that he disliked the role? Or does he have to specifically state that he hates the role in order for you to accept it?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 02:02:14 AM
Also, Snupes, from that quote can you not infer that he disliked the role? Or does he have to specifically state that he hates the role in order for you to accept it?

I infer that he wasn't fond of it and wouldn't necessarily want to come back, but that's a far cry from "he didn't like doing it because he couldn't get into such a shallow, unchallenging character" and the like, it just sounds to me like he wasn't particularly interested in the role but that he didn't necessarily dislike it. Why are you so hostile about this?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 02:21:57 AM
Because I'm trolling. I've never even seen the movie. My cover is blown now.  >:(
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 02:59:58 AM
Because I'm trolling. I've never even seen the movie. My cover is blown now.  >:(

Maybe you should watch a sped up version of the movie so you understand what you're talking about, you casual.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 03:23:44 AM
Because I'm trolling. I've never even seen the movie. My cover is blown now.  >:(

I don't appreciate being lied to. My feelings are hurt. :[

Watch a speedrun of it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 03:26:14 AM
Because I'm trolling. I've never even seen the movie. My cover is blown now.  >:(

I don't appreciate being lied to. My feelings are hurt. :[

Watch a speedrun of it.

Captain America is badly designed.  All he does is dodge or block with his shield.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 03:33:01 AM
Look, it's not my problem you didn't hate Transformers 3. That's another one I hated.

Plots, characters, and acting are what's important to me. Not action or budget. I honestly can't believe you can still like a forgettable movie, but we can't all love the same things. And you're insanely immature for not allowing my opinion that the acting and writing was terrible. I don't understand how anyone can like the movie but I'm not interested in hearing a thesis on why you do. I just accept that you do and we have different tastes.

And Snupes, it's pretty clear that Hugo is saying he didn't like the role in a very tactful way. I assume it's because the character didn't challenge or interest him, I mean, that's typically why a great actor doesn't like a certain role.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 03:38:00 AM
Look, it's not my problem you didn't hate Transformers 3. That's another one I hated.

Plots, characters, and acting are what's important to me. Not action or budget. I honestly can't believe you can still like a forgettable movie, but we can't all love the same things. And you're insanely immature for not allowing my opinion that the acting and writing was terrible. I don't understand how anyone can like the movie but I'm not interested in hearing a thesis on why you do. I just accept that you do and we have different tastes.
 

Who are you talking to?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 03:39:36 AM
I've already said that I think the acting was perfectly fine, just about everything was because it was a pretty average movie. You're a very angry person, Rooster.

Look, it's not my problem you didn't hate Transformers 3. That's another one I hated.

Plots, characters, and acting are what's important to me. Not action or budget. I honestly can't believe you can still like a forgettable movie, but we can't all love the same things. And you're insanely immature for not allowing my opinion that the acting and writing was terrible. I don't understand how anyone can like the movie but I'm not interested in hearing a thesis on why you do. I just accept that you do and we have different tastes.
 

Who are you talking to?

Me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 03:50:16 AM
I didn't ask your opinion on the acting cause I don't care.

I'm only angry because you're a very dense person and it's really frustrating when people become obsessed with my opinions.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 03:52:41 AM
And Snupes, it's pretty clear that Hugo is saying he didn't like the role in a very tactful way. I assume it's because the character didn't challenge or interest him, I mean, that's typically why a great actor doesn't like a certain role.

I agree with the former, but not necessarily with the latter sentence. Maybe it didn't interest him, sure, but there are a plethora of reasons other than it being badly-written or something like that, so I guess we'll just have to disagree there.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 03:58:49 AM
And Snupes, it's pretty clear that Hugo is saying he didn't like the role in a very tactful way. I assume it's because the character didn't challenge or interest him, I mean, that's typically why a great actor doesn't like a certain role.

I agree with the former, but not necessarily with the latter sentence. Maybe it didn't interest him, sure, but there are a plethora of reasons other than it being badly-written or something like that, so I guess we'll just have to disagree there.

Quote
but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by.

"This is really well written, but I typically don't like this sort of thing and please don't ask me to do it again."
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 04:12:03 AM
I didn't ask your opinion on the acting cause I don't care.

I'm only angry because you're a very dense person and it's really frustrating when people become obsessed with my opinions.

I was addressing your claim of TFA relying on action sequences, when I felt the movie didn't rely on them. Hugo Weaving said in another quote that he prefers productions he has personal ties to, so that's probably one reason he didn't enjoy TFA.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 05:01:35 AM
And Snupes, it's pretty clear that Hugo is saying he didn't like the role in a very tactful way. I assume it's because the character didn't challenge or interest him, I mean, that's typically why a great actor doesn't like a certain role.

I agree with the former, but not necessarily with the latter sentence. Maybe it didn't interest him, sure, but there are a plethora of reasons other than it being badly-written or something like that, so I guess we'll just have to disagree there.

Quote
but to be honest, it’s not the sort of film I seek out and really am excited by.

"This is really well written, but I typically don't like this sort of thing and please don't ask me to do it again."

I can't tell if you're snarking or if you're agreeing with me. That's basically what I'm saying I think he meant, yes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 26, 2014, 05:33:34 AM
Roosroos is mad and angry. She is angry and mad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 09:04:47 AM
Hugo Weaving said in another quote that he prefers productions he has personal ties to, so that's probably one reason he didn't enjoy TFA.

Also because it sucked.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 26, 2014, 09:48:19 AM
I don't know about anyone else but there are times when I want to watch a film that doesn't use too much brain power. The Avengers etc... falls into that category nicely for me.

There are also times when I fancy a film that has more depth to it.

It all depends on my mood really.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 03:16:29 PM
I don't know about anyone else but there are times when I want to watch a film that doesn't use too much brain power. The Avengers etc... falls into that category nicely for me.

There are also times when I fancy a film that has more depth to it.

It all depends on my mood really.
Sure, sometimes that's the case. TFA still wouldn't make that cut.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 26, 2014, 03:27:14 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 03:44:35 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
Some are alright. DC is definitely better. X-Men is better than the Avenger series. And graphic novel movies are pretty great, but graphic novels have better writing than comic books.

Spawn may be the worst tho.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 26, 2014, 05:13:53 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
Some are alright. DC is definitely better. X-Men is better than the Avenger series. And graphic novel movies are pretty great, but graphic novels have better writing than comic books.

Spawn may be the worst tho.

I for one am eager to see Ben Affleck don the Batsuit.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 05:15:28 PM
And graphic novel movies are pretty great, but graphic novels have better writing than comic books.

Most "graphic novels" are just comic books shoved into a big collection. I'm guessing you don't read much.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on April 26, 2014, 05:18:20 PM
Short argument:

I don't like this film and my opinion is fact.

Personally I don't care either way - I heard bad reviews for TFA and CapAm was never my cup of tea so I didn't bother to see it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 05:33:03 PM
Short argument:

I don't like this film and my opinion is fact.

Personally I don't care either way - I heard bad reviews for TFA and CapAm was never my cup of tea so I didn't bother to see it.
Whoa, I never said it was fact. I definitely don't ever feel that way about my opinions. I've clearly said that it's the way I feel but I accept that people like it. I know TFA rates as a good movie, I just don't see it though. Everyone else was all bent out of shape and needed an acceptable reason why I feel the way I do.

And yes, I do read graphic novels and some comic books. While they may be collections, they're generally written better because they don't suffer the need to keep things going for years so they are very different. V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Frank Miller's stuff - it's all a lot darker and less campy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 26, 2014, 05:33:18 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
X-Men is better than the Avenger series.
no
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 05:35:17 PM
And yes, I do read graphic novels and some comic books. While they may be collections, they're generally written better because they don't suffer the need to keep things going for years so they are very different. V for Vendetta, Watchmen, Frank Miller's stuff - it's all a lot darker and less campy.

Indeed. My favorite graphic novel is probably Ronin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronin_(DC_Comics)). But I've read V for Vendetta, Watchmen, and some other graphics novels by Frank Miller.

My favorite comic series would probably be The Sandman series, by Neil Gaiman.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 26, 2014, 05:37:27 PM
The Thor movies are bad.  What silly stories.  What unlikable characters.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 05:42:39 PM
The Thor movies are bad.  What silly stories.  What unlikable characters.
omg I must go on the offensive for 3 pages while you explain in detail how you can dislike a movie I like!!!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 05:48:42 PM
I wish you had done that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 05:58:31 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
X-Men is better than the Avenger series.
no

Yeah, I've given up at this stage. "I like Xmen more than the Avenger series" is how I'll read it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 26, 2014, 06:08:41 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 06:08:50 PM
Hey guys, superhero movies...are bad. :P
X-Men is better than the Avenger series.
no

Yeah, I've given up at this stage. "I like Xmen more than the Avenger series" is how I'll read it.
That's how you should always read it cause it's almost like entertainment and art are subjective or something. Crazy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 06:10:50 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 06:13:21 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?
Because his dad was of the firm belief that the world wasn't ready for something like Superman and Clark was raised believing the same. Saving his dad would have revealed him to the crowd.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 06:14:52 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?

When people say this it feels like they did not actually watch the movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 26, 2014, 06:15:03 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?

It had something to do with the world not being ready for someone like Clark Kent.

I don't know why Clark didn't rescue the dog instead of his dad though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 06:15:59 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?

It had something to do with the world not being ready for someone like Clark Kent.

I don't know why Clark didn't rescue the dog instead of his dad though.

Clark was taking care of his mom.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 06:16:21 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?
Because his dad was of the firm belief that the world wasn't ready for something like Superman and Clark was raised believing the same. Saving his dad would have revealed him to the crowd.

In Smallville Clark Kent saves people in front of crowds all the time. He's faster than a "speeding bullet".... no one would even see him do it. The fact that he let his father die in such a trivial way goes against everything Superman stands for. It's his adoptive father. Any other version of Superman would have saved him in that situation.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 06:18:28 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?
Because his dad was of the firm belief that the world wasn't ready for something like Superman and Clark was raised believing the same. Saving his dad would have revealed him to the crowd.

In Smallville Clark Kent saves people in front of crowds all the time. He's faster than a "speeding bullet".... no one would even see him do it. The fact that he let his father die in such a trivial way goes against everything Superman stands for. It's his adoptive father. Any other version of Superman would have saved him. This is why Man of Steel sucks.

It's an origin story. Superman does not stand for anything yet. The movie goes through great pains to establish how superman comes to stand for the things he does.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 06:19:19 PM
Oh well the movie isn't based on Smallville so that might have confused you.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on April 26, 2014, 06:24:12 PM
Somehow I got the feeling that they were trying to make young Clark look like Tom Welling though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on April 26, 2014, 06:28:04 PM
Doesn't Superman kill about a million people in the final battle in that movie?  Also, the product placement was incredibly obnoxious.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 06:31:11 PM
The movie goes through great pains to establish how superman comes to stand for the things he does.

No it doesn't. I would have to watch it again to give examples, but the development of Superman was handled poorly in my opinion.

Oh well the movie isn't based on Smallville so that might have confused you.

I know that, but Superman is Superman. His character is similar across different media. I appreciate your snarkiness though, seems to be a trademark of yours.

Doesn't Superman kill about a million people in the final battle in that movie?  Also, the product placement was incredibly obnoxious.

No, but he does help destroy a good portion of Smallville and ends up snapping someone's neck, which is weird for Superman.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 06:35:25 PM
Somehow I got the feeling that they were trying to make young Clark look like Tom Welling though.
Henry Cavill and Tom Welling resemble each other so that would make sense.

I never did a body count for the final battle, but it seemed realistic. Superman was matched by General Zod so breaking away to save people while still winning the fight  seems improbable.

And Ghost, don't let the snarkiness rustle your jimmies. This Superman was supposed to be a bit darker and more conflicted than other versions. He went to great lengths to hide who he was. Plus, when he was that young we don't really know the extent of his power development. He might not have been that fast yet.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 26, 2014, 06:46:11 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

It was alright. Jonathan Kent's death was moronic. Clark could have easily saved him, why didn't he?

It had something to do with the world not being ready for someone like Clark Kent.

I don't know why Clark didn't rescue the dog instead of his dad though.

Clark was taking care of his mom.

His Mum didn't need taking care of.

I thought they were trying to make superman more vulnerable and human like compared to the other films about him.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on April 26, 2014, 08:44:09 PM
Doesn't Superman kill about a million people in the final battle in that movie?  Also, the product placement was incredibly obnoxious.

Yeah, I still wish they had more of a focus on him helping people during the battle, going out of his way to put himself at risk for something as simple as getting one or two people out of harm's way, rather than throwing people through Arby's and stuff.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 26, 2014, 08:51:47 PM
They wreck a lot of Metropolis yes, but if you are doing a realistic version of Superman what else would happen?  Superman is on his heels for a lot of the fight and there is a bunch of immovable object/unstoppable force type physics happening.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 08:55:16 PM
I just didn't like how grim and serious the whole thing was. It's a Superman movie, yet I had next to no fun watching it. I even winced when people in metroplis were levitated and smashed on the ground. What the hell is that doing in Superman?

They wreck a lot of Metropolis yes, but if you are doing a realistic version of Superman what else would happen?  Superman is on his heels for a lot of the fight and there is a bunch of immovable object/unstoppable force type physics happening.

This is a fairly common argument. It's not hard to imagine that they simply fought elsewhere, or Superman moved the fight elsewhere. In any case, the final 40 minute destruction sequence was just 1 of many problems.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 08:55:42 PM
And Ghost, don't let the snarkiness rustle your jimmies. This Superman was supposed to be a bit darker and more conflicted than other versions. He went to great lengths to hide who he was. Plus, when he was that young we don't really know the extent of his power development. He might not have been that fast yet.

Jonathan's death was forced. It felt like forced character development, which just ends up feeling cheap.

"We need to motivate Supes, wut do?"
"Oh lets kill Jonathan Kent in tornado. Lol. supes will be sad and his character will develop lol"

His death could have had so much meaning, like in other adaptions of the Superman mythos, but no. Man of Steel is disappointing to say the least, but at least the fight scenes were entertaining.

(http://i.imgur.com/nPqKjWl.jpg)

Derp.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 09:14:42 PM
I just didn't like how grim and serious the whole thing was.
I think this is ultimately why we don't see eye to eye when it comes to comic books movies.

I would hazard a guess that people who already liked Superman didn't care for the movie and the people who didn't care for Superman before liked the movie. From my experience that's what it seems like at least and for precisely the reasons that Snupes and Vindictus are pointing out.

Jonathan's death was forced. It felt like forced character development, which just ends up feeling cheap.
Do you think it might have felt forced because it was a flashback? Just curious.

I don't have a lot to compare it to since I've never been into the Superman series. But I guess they wanted it as a freak accident where Clark had to make a decision whether to hide or reveal himself. It still felt realistic to me just because freak accidents don't leave a lot of time for decision making and Clark fell back on what he was taught (hiding his powers). Right before Jonathan died they had an argument on what Clark should do, the guilt of calling him out as not actually being his father was probably a factor when he listened to Jonathan's judgement. Throughout the movie that theme is persistent; he loves humanity and will do whatever he can to protect it, but he also fears that they will reject him.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 09:18:18 PM
he loves humanity and will do whatever he can to protect it, but he also fears that they will reject him.

Then logically he would have saved Jonathan Kent... unless in the next Superman movie we find out that Supes from Man of Steel is actually Bizzaro Supes. I would support this plot twist.

I know I'm not making convincing arguments as to why I disliked this part so much, but it's also a movie and ultimately subjective.

I just didn't like how grim and serious the whole thing was. It's a Superman movie, yet I had next to no fun watching it. I even winced when people in metroplis were levitated and smashed on the ground. What the hell is that doing in Superman?

I liked the tone of the film. I feel like comics don't show enough violence to begin with, especially older comics. Showing a villain straight up smash a human being into blood and dust makes the villain seem more realistic... also it makes it more satisfying when that villain gets what s/he deserves. I hate all the "I HAVE A DEATH RAY" villains, because they're not threatening.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 09:22:42 PM
he loves humanity and will do whatever he can to protect it, but he also fears that they will reject him.

Then logically he would have saved Jonathan Kent... unless in the next Superman movie we find out that Supes from Man of Steel is actually Bizzaro Supes. I would support this plot twist.

But then this:
It still felt realistic to me just because freak accidents don't leave a lot of time for decision making and Clark fell back on what he was taught (hiding his powers). Right before Jonathan died they had an argument on what Clark should do, the guilt of calling him out as not actually being his father was probably a factor when he listened to Jonathan's judgement.

Hence, conflicted feelings. During that small time frame he instinctively fell back on what he was taught which is a very real human thing to do.
 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Thork on April 26, 2014, 09:26:40 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqziQX7eEv0#t=77

Poor cow is dropping hints all over the place, but he just wants to play pool.


*Also, pizzaplanet, I asked this video to start 77 seconds in. The plugin ignores this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 09:27:00 PM
Hence, conflicted feelings. During that small time frame he instinctively fell back on what he was taught which is a very real human thing to do.

Clark Kent is not human. He was rebellious toward his adoptive father to begin with, although he did respect him completely. Which might prompt him to disobey his advice, like he had done in the past. I suppose the argument could be made that Supes has a human's moral code since he was not aware of his alien nature at the time of Jonathan's death, or was he? I forget.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 26, 2014, 09:39:38 PM
Hence, conflicted feelings. During that small time frame he instinctively fell back on what he was taught which is a very real human thing to do.

Clark Kent is not human. He was rebellious toward his adoptive father to begin with, although he did respect him completely. Which might prompt him to disobey his advice, like he had done in the past. I suppose the argument could be made that Supes has a human's moral code since he was not aware of his alien nature at the time of Jonathan's death, or was he? I forget.
He knew he was an alien at that point. But does Superman typically not act like a human with human morals?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 09:46:56 PM
I didn't like Superman before MoS and I still don't find him a terribly interesting hero. Never read any comic books. I don't see how they're relevant to the movies. I guess it took them a tent pole movie to realise that they can't do an enjoyable, hyper realistic, broody superman. Maybe it was just Goyer's shitty writing and Afleck's addition will improve things.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the sequel, hopefully it finally launches things for DC. It's funny to point out the failure of WB to capitalize as Disney has, but after a while it's just sad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 09:52:11 PM
I didn't like Superman before MoS and I still don't find him a terribly interesting hero. Never read any comic books. I don't see how they're relevant to the movies. I guess it took them a tent pole movie to realise that they can't do an enjoyable, hyper realistic, broody superman. Maybe it was just Goyer's shitty writing and Afleck's addition will improve things.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the sequel, hopefully it finally launches things for DC. It's funny to point out the failure of WB to capitalize as Disney has, but after a while it's just sad.

I recommend watching Smallville. I thought Superman was the worst superhero ever before watching it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 26, 2014, 09:59:32 PM
Aquaman is the worst superhero ever. I just don't find Superman terribly interesting. I'm aware of some good Superman stories, but I prefer heroes who have flaws in their powers. Plus I've loved iron man since I was a kid so I'm inherently biased.

I have watched some Smallville but it was years ago. I only remember the hot brunette love interest..
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 26, 2014, 10:01:49 PM
I have watched some Smallville but it was years ago. I only remember the hot brunette love interest..

Lana Lang? She's the fucking worst.

And yeah, Aquaman is the worst superhero ever. I'm glad we agree on something. Interestingly enough, Aquaman is in several Smallville episodes and is portrayed with a dumbass surfer-esque persona, like he should be because he fucking sucks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on April 26, 2014, 11:37:54 PM
Le Plaisir (Max Ophüls)

Ophüls is one of those directors who frames every shot like a painting, the sheer beauty of the camera work in this particular film even makes up for parts in which the middle story (of three, after Guy de Maupassant) starts to drag. I don't think it's a dramatic masterpiece, but it is good, and simply as a piece of cinema it is masterful.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on April 27, 2014, 05:35:10 AM
I just didn't like how grim and serious the whole thing was. It's a Superman movie, yet I had next to no fun watching it. I even winced when people in metroplis were levitated and smashed on the ground. What the hell is that doing in Superman?

That you require certain material or tone in a superman movie is your own bias that you should not project on to Man of Steel

Quote
They wreck a lot of Metropolis yes, but if you are doing a realistic version of Superman what else would happen?  Superman is on his heels for a lot of the fight and there is a bunch of immovable object/unstoppable force type physics happening.

This is a fairly common argument. It's not hard to imagine that they simply fought elsewhere, or Superman moved the fight elsewhere. In any case, the final 40 minute destruction sequence was just 1 of many problems.
It's not hard to imagine and it is much less interesting for them to fight in a say , a cornfield. Kal-El was fighting a trained soldier. He could not choose the location.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 27, 2014, 07:22:33 AM
That you require certain material or tone in a superman movie is your own bias that you should not project on to Man of Steel

That's true, but I felt it ruined the movie for me. When you leave a superhero movie feeling like you just watched 9/11, then there's something wrong. The Avengers did citywide destruction without making me feel like killing myself.

It's not hard to imagine and it is much less interesting for them to fight in a say , a cornfield. Kal-El was fighting a trained soldier. He could not choose the location.

That's true. I guess they could have just scaled down the buildings falling on people and Superman throwing Zod through buildings for no reason. Another thing that bugs me about the movie was the Superman had like 30 years of getting used to his powers, Zod had like 1 week. So him being a general doesn't mean squat, really.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 27, 2014, 03:22:27 PM
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on April 27, 2014, 04:27:51 PM
7th Heaven (Frank Borzage)

Classic silent romance with Janet Gaynor as the abused sister of an alcoholic criminal of some sort. She is rescued from one of her sister's attacks by a sewer cleaner and circumstances force her to pose as his wife, the rest pretty much goes from there. It's often crazily melodramatic, plenty of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's a magic captured in the combination of visuals, music and text, such that I found myself willingly going along with it no matter what happened.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on April 27, 2014, 04:39:38 PM
pool.

There are so many fouls committed in that clip I'm surprised he doesn't get thrown out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 27, 2014, 04:44:27 PM
Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I started watching Attack on Titan a few days ago, is it worth finishing?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 27, 2014, 06:47:36 PM
Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I started watching Attack on Titan a few days ago, is it worth finishing?
I think it's great. The story is interesting and the action looks great. The plot moves fast in the beginning so they move up to cadets really quickly.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on April 27, 2014, 09:07:53 PM
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I don't shy away from heavy and dark movies. They were trying to emulate Batman in a Superman movie and I think they failed miserably. Not because Superman is supposed to be happy or anything, it just wasn't fun. Even TDK was fun.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: DDDDAts all folks on April 27, 2014, 09:19:38 PM
I thought the superman film before the man of steel with Brandon Routh had a good twist to it as well. I don't know why they didn't carry it on a bit more.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on April 27, 2014, 09:38:12 PM
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I don't shy away from heavy and dark movies. They were trying to emulate Batman in a Superman movie and I think they failed miserably. Not because Superman is supposed to be happy or anything, it just wasn't fun. Even TDK was fun.
I guess I just don't understand where you're coming from then.

Fun isn't really a word I would ever use to describe a heavy/dark movie. I like TDK and Man of Steel, but neither of them were my definition of fun.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 27, 2014, 10:55:39 PM
The lighthearted fun nature of previous Superman movies is one of the things that turned me off from Superman to begin with.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on April 27, 2014, 10:56:00 PM
Oh, and his costume.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on April 29, 2014, 06:00:08 PM
Sideways (Alexander Payne)

I was initially not too impressed with Sideways, beginning as it does in a very shallow “two dudes hit the road to par-tay!” mode, but this is eventually eased off as the film shifts into darker, sometimes even metaphysical territory. I think in context the opening is given something of a get out of jail free (maybe more like a get out of jail for £10) card by the much richer second half, in which the apparent shallow qualities of the former are given some depth and meaning.

The film does suffer from a tonal imbalance, where it can't quite decide if it wants to be a light hearted buddy movie or an absurdist black comedy, and there are helpings of both coming at the audience in awkward rhythms which I don't think the writer/director is quite able to pull off. I think this is also in part down to the acting, which is highly uneven, like the actors have emotional on/off switches they keep accidentally knocking against the furniture during conversations.
 
There are, conversely, scenes that are both cleverly written and movingly portrayed. One very intimate interaction between Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen, ostensibly about why they like their favourite wines, has a subtlety and complexity that the film manages to reach only in its very best moments, and this can leave some other parts of the film feeling a little dull by comparison.

The problems with this film cannot be solely attributed to the uneven writing and acting, much of the time I found the music to be far and away the worst offender, often becoming intrusive in scenes that would have been better silent. A lot of the more poignant or even funny moments, even in the scene I mentioned above, are abruptly foreshortened by incoming music “bits”, and I use that word because there doesn't seem to be a score so much as a pool of stock bits they dip into from time to time.

Watching Sideways, there is this nagging feeling I can't quite shake, and the feeling is that I'm watching a “serious” film which borrows some of the aesthetic values of '90s teen comedy. For me it does have enough good stuff in it to outweigh the bad overall, and it did make me laugh out loud many times, but it is not the film it seems to want to be, and I think many of its themes, particularly depression, anxiety, loneliness, and writing, have all been explored better by Charlie Kaufman in his films Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York

Ultimately, Sideways is pretty good, but it should be great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 01, 2014, 05:53:47 PM
Stop trying to raise the intellectual level of the discussion, Crudblud.  This thread is now for bitching about superhero movies.

Speaking of which, I finally saw Iron Man 3.  It wasn't as bad as I had heard.  There was some good action, mainly at the end, the humor worked for the most part, and I especially liked the way they put the focus on Tony Stark himself being the hero, not the basically-indestructible suit of armor that happens to have him inside it.  Even the subplot with the kid I thought was pretty well-handled, and that could have backfired in a major way.

The main problem I had with it, however, was the basic premise, or the conflict.  It's just generic corporate douchebaggery.  That's it.  That's really all there is to it.  A generic corporate douchebag is greedy and wants more money, therefore conflict of the movie.  Oh, and I guess there's an element of personal revenge in it, because Tony...snubbed him at an event several years ago.  That makes it even dumber.  They could have made a point about terrorism, or maybe even the utilitarian ideal that they hinted at the start of the movie with the Extremis virus, but no, let's just go with generic corporate douchebaggery.  Bleh.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Kanye_West on May 01, 2014, 05:57:01 PM
Dawg, I been watchin' HOUSE lately. That nigga be off tha hook, na'meen?

Oh its tachychardia. Nevermind, he's hemorrhaging. Must be cancer. Nvm. CANCER and LUPUS that he got from PIPE DUST IN ASIA.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 01, 2014, 06:13:52 PM
Yes, let's continue to lower the intellectual level.

Iron Man 3 is alright.
Arrested Development is funny.
Yay
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 01, 2014, 06:19:36 PM
Yes, let's continue to lower the intellectual level.

Iron Man 3 is alright.
Arrested Development is funny.
Yay

Rooster still cannot get it right on superhero movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 01, 2014, 06:56:10 PM
I agree with "alright [sic]" as a judgment of the movie.  It seems fair.  It wasn't as bad as either of the Hulk movies, but neither was it Avengers-quality.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 01, 2014, 07:27:57 PM
Is Iron Man 3 the one with the fake Mandarin? That movie was literally the worst.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Kanye_West on May 01, 2014, 07:50:33 PM
Is Iron Man 3 the one with the fake Mandarin? That movie was literally the worst.

HAAANH You actually watch that shit nigga??!?!?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 01, 2014, 08:20:43 PM
Yes, it's the one with the fake Mandarin.  Killian's weak "No, I'm the real Mandarin!" was, I suspect, a last-minute change they threw in to try and placate fans who would have received the actor revelation poorly.  Nobody bought it, of course.  It's obvious that they simply decided to sacrifice the Mandarin as a villain just so they could pull their "clever" little twist.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 01, 2014, 09:36:17 PM
Yes, it's the one with the fake Mandarin.  Killian's weak "No, I'm the real Mandarin!" was, I suspect, a last-minute change they threw in to try and placate fans who would have received the actor revelation poorly.  Nobody bought it, of course.  It's obvious that they simply decided to sacrifice the Mandarin as a villain just so they could pull their "clever" little twist.

Which is a terrible way to tell a story.  Clever is the death of good story-telling.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 01, 2014, 09:41:21 PM
Yes, it's the one with the fake Mandarin.  Killian's weak "No, I'm the real Mandarin!" was, I suspect, a last-minute change they threw in to try and placate fans who would have received the actor revelation poorly.  Nobody bought it, of course.  It's obvious that they simply decided to sacrifice the Mandarin as a villain just so they could pull their "clever" little twist.

Which is a terrible way to tell a story.  Clever is the death of good story-telling.

Not always. But it does come off as extremely desperate in most cases.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 01, 2014, 10:33:57 PM
I also thought that the bad guys being turned into super-strong fiery demons was a bit of a stretch for a movie like this, handwaving about the virus aside.  Iron Man's corner of the universe is supposed to be sci-fi, not fantasy.  Fighting monsters like that in his own movie just seems wrong, in the same way that seeing Thor clacking away at a keyboard in his movie would be wrong.

And Rebecca Hall's character was absolutely pointless.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 01, 2014, 10:46:16 PM
The representation of the virus' effects was true to the comic books afaik.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 01, 2014, 11:49:19 PM
Yes, let's continue to lower the intellectual level.

Iron Man 3 is alright.
Arrested Development is funny.
Yay

Rooster still cannot get it right on superhero movies.
Sorry, not sorry.

There was better character development. I still think Avengers is better than Iron Man 3 but it's not as bad as Captain America is all I'm saying.

I really like Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Pierce as actors so that's always to a movie's advantage.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 12:42:46 AM
The representation of the virus' effects was true to the comic books afaik.

They weren't worried about being true to the comics when they turned the Mandarin into a joke!  Anyway, they should have at least toned it down a little.  It just didn't fit the sci-fi setting to have all that silly fire-breathing and whatnot.

Time to change the subject, because I'm the boss of this thread and I can totally do that.  Is anyone looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardians_of_the_Galaxy_(film))?  That's the one they teased at the end of Thor: The Dark World with Benicio del Toro playing that Mugatu-meets-Liberace-meets-Billy-Idol guy.  Here's a trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B16Bo47KS2g

This looks awfully risky, even for Marvel.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 02, 2014, 01:01:57 AM
Risky? How so?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 01:25:48 AM
I mean it looks like a movie that would be really easy to fuck up.  For example, there's a talking raccoon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 02, 2014, 01:26:42 AM
Anything involving anthropomorphic raccoons is risky.

Edit: Saddamn it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 02, 2014, 01:41:39 AM
I mean it looks like a movie that would be really easy to fuck up.  For example, there's a talking raccoon.

Agreed.  It is either a flop or amazing.  The preview looks decent and it should be important to introducing either elements of the 2nd Avengers movie or the 3rd(!) if that is when they plan on doing the Thanos story.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 01:41:56 AM
Rocket Raccoon is a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.  The only game he's ever been in... Guardians or the Galaxy is announced a year or so afterwards. Coincidence?


Am I excited? Hell no. 90% of Marvel films are trash. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 01:52:55 AM
The second Avengers movie is going to be about Ultron, so I doubt there'll be much of a connection to this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 02, 2014, 01:54:52 AM
The second Avengers movie is going to be about Ultron, so I doubt there'll be much of a connection to this.

Probably, but then you never know with these crazy marvel bastards.  Maybe Ultron is Thanos in disguise.

On another note, did anyone get excited at the mention of Dr. Strange in Captain America 2?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 02, 2014, 07:01:32 AM
I don't get why they decided to bother with this Guardians of the Galaxy thing. Who the hell knows anything about them? It's probably going to turn out like Green Lantern with all these goofy looking characters.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on May 02, 2014, 07:07:26 AM
I guess they figured out that anything they ever churned out would turn in a profit, so maybe they're testing that with this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 08:00:39 AM
I guess they figured out that anything they ever churned out would turn in a profit, so maybe they're testing that with this.

This could either lead to great things or just awful awful terrible things.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on May 02, 2014, 11:41:19 AM
I guess they figured out that anything they ever churned out would turn in a profit, so maybe they're testing that with this.

This could either lead to great things or just awful awful terrible things.

Well, we already have the awful awful terrible things.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 02, 2014, 12:05:27 PM
I'm more curious to see how parks and rec guy does.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 02, 2014, 12:06:02 PM
They weren't worried about being true to the comics when they turned the Mandarin into a joke!  Anyway, they should have at least toned it down a little.  It just didn't fit the sci-fi setting to have all that silly fire-breathing and whatnot.

Yet...you were disappointed they didn't actually have the ridiculous character with ten super-magical-powers rings? I was delighted by the twist because a) the Mandarin is stupid, and b) they would've had to pull some really dumb strings to make him realistic or "sci-fi" at all.

Also, I'm looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy because the Guardians of the Galaxy are awesome
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 02, 2014, 12:37:57 PM
Also, I'm looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy because the Guardians of the Galaxy are awesome
It's not a popular comic, so it can't be good! >o<
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 12:45:59 PM
Yet...you were disappointed they didn't actually have the ridiculous character with ten super-magical-powers rings? I was delighted by the twist because a) the Mandarin is stupid, and b) they would've had to pull some really dumb strings to make him realistic or "sci-fi" at all.

It's less the faithfulness to the comics that concerns me and more if what goes into the movie is interesting in its own right.  Ben Kingsley as a terrorist leader was interesting.  Guy Pearce as the same generic corporate douchebag that we've seen a million times before (including in the previous two films) was not.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 02, 2014, 01:06:00 PM
Guy Pearce is never interesting.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 02, 2014, 01:18:27 PM
Pearce was good in L.A. Confidential, probably the best performance in the whole film, in fact.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 01:37:03 PM
No actor could have made such a generic villain interesting.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 02, 2014, 04:41:56 PM
No actor could have made such a generic villain interesting.

Daniel Day Lewis could. Prove me wrong.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 04:45:44 PM
They weren't worried about being true to the comics when they turned the Mandarin into a joke!  Anyway, they should have at least toned it down a little.  It just didn't fit the sci-fi setting to have all that silly fire-breathing and whatnot.

Yet...you were disappointed they didn't actually have the ridiculous character with ten super-magical-powers rings? I was delighted by the twist because a) the Mandarin is stupid, and b) they would've had to pull some really dumb strings to make him realistic or "sci-fi" at all.

Also, I'm looking forward to Guardians of the Galaxy because the Guardians of the Galaxy are awesome


I'm aware of the Iron Man 3 plot, but how was the movie advertised? Did it tease a "real" Mandarin just to reveal that he's fake when you watch the movie, or was this known from the start?

The whole situation kind of reminds me of Metal Gear Solid 2's release, how everyone thought that Solid Snake was the playable character but it turned out to be a different guy (http://i.imgur.com/sHbLE3F.jpg).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 05:17:10 PM
Kingsley was very heavily hyped as being the Mandarin.  Someone link a trailer, I'm on my phone.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 02, 2014, 06:27:16 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muIsc5lIEyQ
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 02, 2014, 07:23:51 PM
Okay, now that's one not just misleading, it's downright dishonest.  He never said half of that shit in the movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 07:27:03 PM
Good ol' bait 'n switch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Onix on May 02, 2014, 07:37:22 PM
Rocket Raccoon is a playable character in Marvel vs. Capcom 3.  The only game he's ever been in... Guardians or the Galaxy is announced a year or so afterwards. Coincidence?


Am I excited? Hell no. 90% of Marvel films are trash. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

I think it is a coincidence. Now his inclusion in MvC3 definitely didn't keep him from the big screen, but I doubt it influenced it. Raccoon is (probably, I dont read comics) a recognizable and somewhat-famous Marvel character. Which is why he was probably put in MvC3. But I would think the real reason is that comic movies are huge now. Probably one of the biggest trends in movies in the past 15 years. Pretty much since X-Men. But they're running out of characters. They're making a god damn Antman movie for crying out loud. So its not surprising at all that RR is in a movie.

On another note, I had no idea about this movie. I'm really interested in them putting Chris Pratt as the lead. From the trailer...he still seems just like Andy from PnR. Who's he playing? Comic fans, does he seem like a good fit?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 07:51:17 PM
Raccoon is (probably, I dont read comics) a recognizable and somewhat-famous Marvel character.

He's not popular, he's actually very obscure... Not many know of his existence, outside hardcore marvel fans of course. That's why people are concerned, because Guardians of the Galaxy is relatively unknown. Damn, Rocket Racoon was introduced as a main character in the comics only in 2008 (although he's been around since 76, but as a minor nobody character), so that didn't leave much time for people to discover him and his team either.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Onix on May 02, 2014, 08:01:00 PM
Raccoon is (probably, I dont read comics) a recognizable and somewhat-famous Marvel character.

He's not popular, he's actually very obscure... Not many know of his existence, outside hardcore marvel fans of course. That's why people are concerned, because Guardians of the Galaxy is relatively unknown. Damn, Rocket Racoon was introduced as a main character in the comics only in 2008 (although he's been around since 76, but as a minor nobody character), so that didn't leave much time for people to discover him and his team either.

I just don't think some Hollywood bigwigs were like...Rocket Raccoon is in this fighting game, lets put him in a movie. I feel like if that were the case we would've seen a Nova movie or Hawkeye or something like that before Rocket Raccoon.

I could be wrong, I dunno, lol.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 02, 2014, 08:12:37 PM
Raccoon is (probably, I dont read comics) a recognizable and somewhat-famous Marvel character.

He's not popular, he's actually very obscure... Not many know of his existence, outside hardcore marvel fans of course. That's why people are concerned, because Guardians of the Galaxy is relatively unknown. Damn, Rocket Racoon was introduced as a main character in the comics only in 2008 (although he's been around since 76, but as a minor nobody character), so that didn't leave much time for people to discover him and his team either.

I just don't think some Hollywood bigwigs were like...Rocket Raccoon is in this fighting game, lets put him in a movie. I feel like if that were the case we would've seen a Nova movie or Hawkeye or something like that before Rocket Raccoon.

I could be wrong, I dunno, lol.

No, I know. I was just messing around. It's just a weird coincidence. I think they did it mostly because, like I said, Rocket Raccoon was introduced as a somewhat main character in his own series in 2008, and MvC3 came out about the same time so they just threw him in there for lulz or whatever. Keep in mind, Marvel does control part of the Marvel Vs. Capcom series, it's not all just Capcom. They probably had the Guardians of the Galaxy movie in the works before MvC3 was released, and Marvel themselves decided to put him in MvC3 just to raise awareness. This is all speculation, of course.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 03, 2014, 04:13:28 AM
The Ant-Man movie will be the best of them all.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 03, 2014, 10:22:57 AM
Surely.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 04, 2014, 04:35:16 AM
The Ant-Man movie will be the best of them all.

It's directed by Edgar Wright. His entire filmography (aside from one young college project) is Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World's End. It can't be bad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 04, 2014, 01:13:30 PM
The Ant-Man movie will be the best of them all.

It's directed by Edgar Wright. His entire filmography (aside from one young college project) is Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World's End. It can't be bad.

Based on that list I'd expect it to be somewhere between mediocre and terrible. I want to like Wright and Pegg and friends, as I do think they are talented, but none of them has managed to live up to the early promise they showed in Spaced.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 04, 2014, 02:59:00 PM
Shaun of The Dead were good. Hot Fuzz and Worlds End were just remakes of the same film. Scott Pilgrim were good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 04, 2014, 03:57:27 PM
Crudblud is just being a balkno.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 04, 2014, 04:07:38 PM
Crudblud is just being a balkno.
Crudblud is the balkno of movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 09, 2014, 07:20:38 PM
moar superhero movies

I watched The Amazing Spider-Man.  It was pretty good, although I don't know why it was hyped as being the grittier, more realistic take on Spider-Man, given how silly it was (the crane scene at the climax was the utter worst).  It was interesting the way they kind of nerfed him in comparison to the Raimi movies.  I always thought that he was a bit too overpowered in those.  Anyway, part of the reason I wanted to watch this was because I heard that its sequel was hilariously awful, so I guess that one's next.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 09, 2014, 11:11:32 PM
grittier, more realistic

Every sequel that ever gets made says that. Apart from Care Bears 2: Return to Cuddle Land.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 10, 2014, 12:10:23 AM
Not a sequel, a reboot.

Also, the Bing product placement was hilarious.  Not quite as ridiculous as this, but still, pretty funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfHuZ5qrYX4
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 10, 2014, 10:39:29 PM
reboot

Sorry that's a trigger word please can a mod intervene I feel too upset
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 20, 2014, 12:06:44 AM
I heard that its sequel was hilariously awful, so I guess that one's next.

And so it was.  Probably the best thing I can say about it is that the effects were fantastic.  Apart from that, it's a mess, particularly the writing.  Peter and Gwen's on-off relationship is annoyingly repetitive, Electro's villainous motivation is extremely weak, Paul Giamatti has a terrible cameo, the Green Goblin has about five minutes of screentime (that's not an exaggeration), and the whole conspiracy subplot involving Peter's parents doesn't add anything to the story.  Oh yeah, and the last ten minutes or so where they try to set up their cinematic universe Marvel-style is just sad.  They really don't have the material for that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 12:23:44 AM
Watched The Wolf of Wallstreet. Sucked.

Sucked big time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on May 21, 2014, 08:05:22 AM
Watched The Wolf of Wallstreet. Sucked.

Sucked big time.

What didn't you like?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 21, 2014, 01:10:36 PM
I heard that its sequel was hilariously awful, so I guess that one's next.

And so it was.  Probably the best thing I can say about it is that the effects were fantastic.  Apart from that, it's a mess, particularly the writing.  Peter and Gwen's on-off relationship is annoyingly repetitive, Electro's villainous motivation is extremely weak,  Paul Giamatti has a terrible cameo, the Green Goblin has about five minutes of screentime (that's not an exaggeration), and the whole conspiracy subplot involving Peter's parents doesn't add anything to the story.  Oh yeah, and the last ten minutes or so where they try to set up their cinematic universe Marvel-style is just sad.  They really don't have the material for that.

It wasn't very good
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 05:04:48 PM
Watched The Wolf of Wallstreet. Sucked.

Sucked big time.

What didn't you like?

The shear amount of debauchery was unnecessary. It's awkward having to sit through sex scenes that do absolutely nothing for the plot. I understand that those type of scenes established how fucked up Leonardo's character was, but I gathered that much without the ridiculous amount of nudity. It seemed like most of those scenes were thrown in for shock value.  Plus, there was no moral to the story at all. You figure he would be punished to some extent for his insane crimes, but no... he spends 12 months in what basically amounts to a summer camp, then gets out scott free. I guess the fact that I'm discussing it means the film did its job, but I still didn't enjoy watching it.

Wall Street and the sequel Money Never Sleeps did what this movie was trying to do, just 10x better.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 21, 2014, 05:26:44 PM
It's a dark comedy. I thought it was hilarious even though I wanted to be disgusted. And justice doesn't always work the way you want it to in real life.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 05:42:54 PM
It's a dark comedy. I thought it was hilarious even though I wanted to be disgusted. And justice doesn't always work the way you want it to in real life.

I'm aware of the genre, still doesn't make it a good film. Did you really find it hilarious? Your sense of humor obviously differs from mine. I thought it was superficial and trite, it relied on shock value for laughs which is just lazy, imo.  Dr. Strangelove is really the only good example of black comedy that actually does it right.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 21, 2014, 06:14:11 PM
I wouldn't call it shock value. The scene where he tries to drive on those ludes is really funny but not shocking. In fact I didn't think anything really seemed shocking. But I know you're easily offended by nudity and depictions of sex which is why you said you don't like Game of Thrones. And that's fine, just don't expect everyone to define it as shock value.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 07:50:14 PM
I wouldn't call it shock value. The scene where he tries to drive on those ludes is really funny but not shocking. In fact I didn't think anything really seemed shocking. But I know you're easily offended by nudity and depictions of sex which is why you said you don't like Game of Thrones. And that's fine, just don't expect everyone to define it as shock value.

Maybe it's a personal problem. I don't know. It is what it is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 21, 2014, 08:21:37 PM
Plus, there was no moral to the story at all. You figure he would be punished to some extent for his insane crimes, but no...

Stories should not have to have any 'moral'. They should be allowed to just be stories as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 08:58:32 PM
Plus, there was no moral to the story at all. You figure he would be punished to some extent for his insane crimes, but no...

Stories should not have to have any 'moral'. They should be allowed to just be stories as well.

I agree. I just tacked that on there to make it seem worse than it is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 21, 2014, 09:02:42 PM
Plus, there was no moral to the story at all. You figure he would be punished to some extent for his insane crimes, but no... he spends 12 months in what basically amounts to a summer camp, then gets out scott free.

The film is relying on your morality, not its own. You should be shocked to learn that bankers got off largely scot free for fucking up the planet for a good many years. You should come out of the cinema and say "lol but that didn't really happen did it lol" Then get angry when you find out it did. (In fact I'm not sure any bankers/traders/agents had been to jail before the film was made).

NB I haven't seen this film because I don't like stories about dragons.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 09:22:22 PM
Plus, there was no moral to the story at all. You figure he would be punished to some extent for his insane crimes, but no... he spends 12 months in what basically amounts to a summer camp, then gets out scott free.

The film is relying on your morality, not its own. You should be shocked to learn that bankers got off largely scot free for fucking up the planet for a good many years. You should come out of the cinema and say "lol but that didn't really happen did it lol" Then get angry when you find out it did. (In fact I'm not sure any bankers/traders/agents had been to jail before the film was made).

NB I haven't seen this film because I don't like stories about dragons.

That's exactly how it makes you feel. I guess it accomplishes its goal well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 21, 2014, 10:50:42 PM
And if you're learning for the first time that people on Wall Street get off easy then I can see how it's shocking. It certainly makes me angry but I felt the movie was exaggerated enough to just make it funny imo. Plus, if you need justice, just remember that they are some of the most unhappy, fucked up people in the world.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on May 21, 2014, 11:10:44 PM
It's a dark comedy because there are people who spent $30 on the blu-Ray to see how the general public gets fucked over and then get upset about it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 21, 2014, 11:16:06 PM
If people are paying full price to buy a movie they've never seen before then they've got the money to blow and are probably not the ones who get upset about salesmen mentalities.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 21, 2014, 11:34:46 PM
It's a dark comedy because there are people who spent $30 on the blu-Ray to see how the general public gets fucked over and then get upset about it.

I spent exactly $0 watching this movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on May 22, 2014, 05:40:23 AM
It's a dark comedy because there are people who spent $30 on the blu-Ray to see how the general public gets fucked over and then get upset about it.

I spent exactly $0 watching this movie.

I know, don't worry.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 25, 2014, 01:04:30 AM
The Ant-Man movie will be the best of them all.

It's directed by Edgar Wright. His entire filmography (aside from one young college project) is Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and The World's End. It can't be bad.

Alas, this is no longer true:

http://time.com/112453/edgar-wright-marvel-ant-man/
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 25, 2014, 05:33:03 AM
...wat

Well, there goes any inclination of me being vaguely excited about that movie. I can't wait for another mediocre Paul Rudd comedy
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 25, 2014, 05:35:55 PM
Down By Law (Jim Jarmusch)
Great.

Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch)
Really good.

Lolita (Stanley Kubrick)
Good bits, bad bits, a bit too hokey over all. Vaguely positive.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 25, 2014, 06:16:14 PM
...wat

Well, there goes any inclination of me being vaguely excited about that movie. I can't wait for another mediocre Paul Rudd comedy

But it's not a comedy.

WILL THIS BE MARVEL'S FIRST FLOP?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 25, 2014, 09:10:05 PM
Last night I had a prophetic dream. Paul Rudd was cast to play the 13th Doctor. Then this happens...
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 25, 2014, 09:34:46 PM
Just watched X-Men: Days of Future Past. Fucking wonderful. I had so much doubt about this movie (thanks in part to what I thought was terrible casting for Pietro/Quicksilver), but it blew all that out of the water. The movie was powerfully-directed, had some incredible acting, magnificent pacing and just handled itself extremely well. Evan Peters was the perfect Quicksilver and now I actually have doubts that Whedon's Quicksilver will be able to be a better one even though before seeing this I thought it was going to be the other way around. All his scenes were apparently shot at 3600 frames per second or something, and it gives some of the best scenes of the film. Seeing how Quicksilver sees the world is brilliant and exciting and just reminds me why I was so enchanted with him and his powers as a child; he was my favourite character for a long time (and remains one of my top few). He was also just really entertaining in general, most of his scenes were pretty funny.

James McAvoy as a young Xavier who gave up his powers because he couldn't handle experiencing other peoples' suffering was excellent and probably the most moving part of the film. This is also the closest we've gotten to classic Wolverine since the first few movies, and the fact that they managed to bring back so many old faces added a lot to the film. I wish we got to see more of Ellen Page as Shadowcat; she plays a very important role in the film, but it leaves her very little room to act or anything. And apparently Anna Paquin's Rogue was going to play a more promininent role but got cut down to a cameo in post-production which sucks a lot.

Overall, it handled the "Days of Future Past" timeline from the comics staggeringly well, far more so than I thought a film would be able to. How ruthless it was with its characters and willingness to ignore star power or favouritism to show the terribleness of the world they were in made added a lot, I think, particularly in how it didn't hesitate to brutally show the death of even the biggest characters. It was kind of stunning and, in a morbid way, refreshing. It wasn't scared to pull any punches.

I was disappointed that, while they had Quicksilver, they didn't have his sister, Scarlet Witch. Well, there was a moment where he was holding his younger sister (though they're supposed to be twins, so I don't know if it was her), which...I genuinely hope wasn't Wanda (Scarlet Witch), because in the Ultimate Marvel comics they also fall in love and everything, which makes watching him hold young her in his lap a really weird kind of awkward. It's admittedly one of the more interesting comic storylines, but I don't want those kind of thoughts in my head while he's got his little sister in his lap, creepy incestuous pedophila is not something I'm ready for in Marvel stories

Anyway...moving on from that...yeah, I liked the movie a lot. Minor spoilers about the end: It was really nostalgic and sort of dream-like to see all the old, original X-Men finally reunited again. Scott, Jean, all the original incarnations of characters like Beast, Professor Xavier, etc. It felt like a weird, warm, fuzzy trip a decade or so into the past, which is oddly fitting for this film.

So yeah, I was very surprised and pleased with this movie. Also, the post-credits scene hints at Apocalypse, which I've been waiting for a long time to see in an X-Men film already. So it's about time. I'll be interested to see the Avengers version of Quicksilver too, but knowing that Aaron-Taylor Johnson (a.k.a. the main character from Kick-Ass) will be playing him originally excited me, yet after seeing how bland he was in Godzilla (which I honestly thought was, otherwise, a very good movie) I'm not sure I'm really looking forward to it much anymore.

The one other shitty thing is that Channing Tatum is announced to be playing Gambit in the next X-Men film. This sucks. Gambit is my favourite X-Men character and he's supposed to be all sleek and suave and French and charming, not...fucking Channing Tatum. >:[ Even the guy who played him crappily in X-Men Origins: Wolverine would've been preferable.

EDIT: Oh, a couple other thoughts I forgot to put down. I forgot to mention that Blink's portrayal in the film was awesome and one of the most exciting powers to see in action. It was like seeing the portal gun from Portal being put to use with X-Men powers. The second thing was that while the film had some wonderful CGI, it also had some exceedingly shitty CGI. Colossus, Sunspot and Iceman in particular. When Colossus goes all metal he looks like the T-1000's liquidy state, looking like he was probably rendered in the same era as well. Sunspot and Iceman's forms (all flamey and all icy, respectively) look like they're from a video game. It's really weird.

The only other thing I was really disappointed with was the Sentinels, which look so modernized and overly sleek. I was hoping for at least a slight nod to their creepy, unsettling origins design-wise. Peter Dinklage was great as Trask, Jennifer Lawrence was okay as Raven/Mystique, and Patrick Stewart/Ian McKellan were good as Professor X/Magneto but didn't really get any chance to shine, which is unfortunate because they're fucking Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and should be showcased in any film they're in. The bits of screentime they did get were great. I think that's about all the bases covered. All the little nods to other mutants were great, I much prefer this film's version of Toad to the older films', seeing Ink in the film was about the last mutant cameo I ever expected, and Warpath was extremely disappointing because he just seemed like a really fit, athletic guy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 25, 2014, 10:52:24 PM
tl;dr
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 26, 2014, 12:02:09 AM
I just saw it as well and pretty much agree with everything said.

I really loved Quicksilver, but I already thought Evan Peters was great. I was also disappointed with the look of the sentinels and I kinda wish the story didn't focus so much on Raven/Mystique but I can understand that she was the personification of the overall theme.

I really wish Rogue had been a bigger character, she and Nightcrawler are my favorites. Speaking of which, I want Nightcrawler back. A better one. Alan Cumming was alright but he wasn't flirty or energetic enough.

I forgot about Chatum being the next Gambit. I laughed a lot when I heard about that one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 26, 2014, 01:45:45 AM
There are too many superhero franchises out there. >o<  I haven't seen any of these X-Men movies since the original trilogy.  Should I watch them?  I've heard they're all good except for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 26, 2014, 01:47:11 AM
I thought the X-Men movie with young baldy and cool badass anti-hero was really good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 26, 2014, 01:48:26 AM
First Class is good and you kind of have to watch it to understand this one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 26, 2014, 01:49:57 AM
First Class is good and you kind of have to watch it to understand this one.

Is Future Past a sequel to First Class?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 26, 2014, 01:59:12 AM
First Class is good and you kind of have to watch it to understand this one.

Is Future Past a sequel to First Class?

Yes.

There are too many superhero franchises out there. >o<  I haven't seen any of these X-Men movies since the original trilogy.  Should I watch them?  I've heard they're all good except for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

X3 was also crap.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 26, 2014, 02:05:52 AM
There are too many superhero franchises out there. >o<  I haven't seen any of these X-Men movies since the original trilogy.  Should I watch them?  I've heard they're all good except for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

X3 was also crap.

Yes, it was.  I had been referring to the movies since the original trilogy, because I've already seen them.  I probably should have made that a bit more clear, though.

Also, who owns the rights to Quicksilver?  I don't understand how two rival studios can be waving around the same character like this.  Surely one of them should be suing the other by now?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 26, 2014, 02:12:29 AM
Probably because he's not quite as big as the other heroes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 26, 2014, 02:13:29 AM
Here's an explanation, actually:

http://www.thegeektwins.com/2014/04/why-is-quicksilver-in-two-movies-x-men.html

I guess it makes sense.  Sort of.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 26, 2014, 02:53:38 AM
I really wish Rogue had been a bigger character, she and Nightcrawler are my favorites. Speaking of which, I want Nightcrawler back. A better one. Alan Cumming was alright but he wasn't flirty or energetic enough.

Ffff definitely. I love Nightcrawler. ;o; I was sad because when Wolverine first said he knew someone who could break into the Pentagon unnoticed, my immediate first thought was actually Nightcrawler. :[


There are too many superhero franchises out there. >o<  I haven't seen any of these X-Men movies since the original trilogy.  Should I watch them?  I've heard they're all good except for X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Yes. This is the best of the bunch, though. But you definitely want to see all of them to understand it.


Is Future Past a sequel to First Class?

It's a sequel to every X-Men movie made up to this point, pretty much. But more narrowly, it's basically a sequel to X-Men: First Class and X3: The Last Stand at the same time. It deals with both the past and present and alternate timelines. It's great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 26, 2014, 03:06:15 AM
I thought they meant Nightcrawler too! But then I realized it couldn't possibly be him considering his origins.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on May 26, 2014, 10:25:07 PM
X-Men was not so good. They tried to pack too much into one story and did not concentrate on Phoenix like it appeared they would.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 27, 2014, 02:42:36 AM
Sony needs to sell the Spider-Man film rights back to Marvel.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 27, 2014, 02:48:08 AM
Saddam, you're becoming really good at being the first person on the Internet to say things.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 27, 2014, 04:38:35 AM
Sony needs to sell the Spider-Man film rights back to Marvel.

Fucking hell, you have no idea how much I agree with this, regardless of Vindictusnark. Marvel has such an amazing universe and continuity going that, as far as I can think of, has never really been quite done before in film, at least not in such a huge way. I'm just so eternally crushed that Spider-Man won't be in the Avengers like he should; can you imagine Joss Whedon writing Spidey's wit and jabs alongside Iron Man like he should be doing? And if they got the X-Men rights again...fuck, this pisses me off even more because in the comics Spider-Man and Wolverine are so Goddamn amazing together, they're a historical comic book duo. But we won't see them on-screen together because stupid idiotic studios I hate them so much
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 27, 2014, 08:29:54 AM
Spiderman would be another token Joss Whedon character, just like every other hero. Except it suits Spiderman more than it suits Thor.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 27, 2014, 08:28:24 PM
Snupes, you're the Marvel expert.  Tell me, have the Fantastic Four ever not sucked?  I ask because all I know about them is that they had three terrible movies and now there's a reboot coming out.  Go away superhero franchises.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 27, 2014, 08:30:38 PM
Hasn't every superhero sucked at one stage of their comic book lives?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 27, 2014, 08:43:20 PM
Sure, but I'm wondering what it is specifically about the Fantastic Four that keeps tripping filmmakers up.  Same with the Punisher.  Three attempts, all of them duds.  What gives?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 27, 2014, 08:49:58 PM
Bad directors/writers. e.g. Batman & Robin, Man of Steel.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on May 27, 2014, 09:26:45 PM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on May 27, 2014, 09:28:02 PM
Film or TV series?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on May 27, 2014, 09:32:29 PM
film. I will probably end up watching the show at some point.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 27, 2014, 09:32:33 PM
Sure, but I'm wondering what it is specifically about the Fantastic Four that keeps tripping filmmakers up.  Same with the Punisher.  Three attempts, all of them duds.  What gives?

Y'see I prefer the Punisher films to the Spidey shite we get crammed down our throats every 6 months.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on May 27, 2014, 10:09:01 PM
I went to see Locke on the weekend, a fantastic little film starring Tom Hardy and Olivia Coleman.

The film is watching a man's life fall apart through a series of phone calls as he drives to London to be there for a birth of a child he didn't want or mean to happen. very real, very painful and also funny in times as he tries to manage a multi-million pound construction project through his inept assistant.

It's not big on action, there's no great plot twists or eye-popping special effects - if anything, it's most similar to 12 angry men and has a similar sense of claustrophobia and stress.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 27, 2014, 10:32:21 PM
The way you describe it reminds me of Buried, with Ryan Reynolds. The entire thing takes place in a coffin/box underground and is incredibly claustrophobic. I wonder if there are more films like it, 'cause I (really uncomfortably) enjoyed that experience.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 28, 2014, 04:13:23 AM
But I already answered you, Saddam.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 28, 2014, 06:44:39 AM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.

If you liked that, I recommend Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There and A Serious Man by the same directors.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on May 28, 2014, 06:38:06 PM
The way you describe it reminds me of Buried, with Ryan Reynolds. The entire thing takes place in a coffin/box underground and is incredibly claustrophobic. I wonder if there are more films like it, 'cause I (really uncomfortably) enjoyed that experience.

I haven't seen Buried, but the premise is similar.

Locke is more like people-watching. The audience is simply eavesdropping on an ordinary man having an ordinary, but devastating series of phone calls. It's Tom Hardy's subtle acting which makes it, he may be becoming one of my favourite actors.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 28, 2014, 06:46:30 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/8pz7pko.jpg)\

Pom Poko. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pom_Poko)
Great Ghibli movie about a bunch of Japanese Raccoon Dogs trying to save their forest. It is pro-environment but it's not pushy, and it's hilarious. Explains a good deal about Japanese mythology, specifically the tanuki. Probably my favorite Studio Ghibli movie, perhaps tied with Princess Mononoke.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on May 29, 2014, 03:54:05 AM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.

If you liked that, I recommend Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There and A Serious Man by the same directors.

Barton Fink is great. I have seen a few other Coen brothers films. Which of these do you recommend most urgently?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on May 29, 2014, 07:23:51 PM
Quote
Great Ghibli movie about a bunch of Japanese Raccoon Dogs trying to save their forest. It is pro-environment but it's not pushy, and it's hilarious. Explains a good deal about Japanese mythology, specifically the tanuki. Probably my favorite Studio Ghibli movie, perhaps tied with Princess Mononoke.

So... it's a Japanese Animals of Farthing Wood?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on May 29, 2014, 10:01:39 PM
(http://i58.tinypic.com/euk8y1.jpg)

About as unfunny as the first. Contains maybe 4 laughs. Will Ferrell isn't really that good. This needs to stop.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 30, 2014, 02:20:25 AM
In a shocking twist, I have watched something non-superhero related; namely, the two Hobbit movies.  I quite liked the first one.  Padded at times, yes, and we could have done without those scenes with Radagast, but still enjoyable.  As everyone in the world has already pointed out, they didn't feel the need to be all broody mcbroodwalking, and the movie was stronger for it.  Like the way they kept to the silly tone of the scenes with the trolls and the Great Goblin, and didn't just depict them as monsters incapable of normal speech.  That was a pleasant surprise.

The second one, though, was not so good.  My biggest issue with it was all the LotR shit they shoved in, especially with Gandalf at Dol Guldur.  I watched this movie because I wanted to see The Hobbit.  I didn't watch it because I wanted to see LotR Episode One: The Phantom MenaceThe Hobbit is its own story.  It's not a "prequel" to LotR, and giving it that treatment not only distracts from the main story, but weakens the film overall by rehashing elements that were so ubiquitous in LotR.  It was fanfiction, and not even good fanfiction.  Jackson was so preoccupied with whether or not he could show us these scenes that he didn't stop to think if he should.

There were a few other things I didn't like about the movie, although nothing quite so major.  Legolas's technically-flawless, pitch-perfect combat prowess is fun to watch at first, just like in LotR, but starts to get annoying as your suspension of disbelief slowly fades and you realize you're watching someone's Mary Sue self-insertion fantasy - again, just like in LotR.  The overly-long climax with Smaug wore itself out after a while, too, and the dwarves' constantly whipping elaborate traps and escape methods out of their asses was a bit too much of a stretch - uh, no pun intended.  One thing that I honestly didn't mind too much was the love triangle subplot.  It wasn't fantastic or anything, but for whatever reason, it just didn't bother me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 30, 2014, 03:31:20 AM
You're just hoping for a dwarf sex scene. Admit it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on May 30, 2014, 04:10:00 AM
I agree with Saddam about the second Hobbit movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 30, 2014, 05:30:36 AM
The barrel axe spin scene made me chortle. Well, everything Bombur did made me chortle. In both films.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 30, 2014, 06:54:36 AM
Gandalf actually went to Dol Guldur though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on May 30, 2014, 08:04:39 AM
The barrel scene was the best part of the second movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 30, 2014, 08:25:44 AM
Yeah, I quite liked the barrel scene. First time I saw it I actually laughed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on May 30, 2014, 09:19:06 AM
Terminator Legolas needs moar screen time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 30, 2014, 10:17:13 AM
Gandalf actually went to Dol Guldur though.

Yeah but, unless I'm mistaken, you don't read about it in the book aside from some sort of aside where Gandalf mentions where he went vaguely.

Snupes, you're the Marvel expert.  Tell me, have the Fantastic Four ever not sucked?  I ask because all I know about them is that they had three terrible movies and now there's a reboot coming out.  Go away superhero franchises.

They're one of the cheesiest superhero franchises and have proven difficult to seriousify really well. I think they could potentially make a good film, they just need someone who isn't terrible making it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 30, 2014, 03:58:33 PM
I think they should stop with this "gritty realism" bullshit and make a superhero movie. Be cheesy, over the top, camp, whatever, you're making movies about dudes in full body spandex with magical powers, embrace it or go and do something else.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 30, 2014, 04:36:59 PM
Gandalf actually went to Dol Guldur though.

Yes, but the timing is a little off - he went there before the events of The Hobbit, not during them, and I don't like how it was portrayed.  Maybe this is just my own personal interpretation of the story, but I always imagined it as being a quiet, dark, and sad scene in which Gandalf finds Thrain, realizes that he can't save him, but promises to pass on the key and map to Thorin and help him retake Erebor.  Everyone sniffles and we have an Oscar clip, etc.  What Jackson did, being all BOOM ACTION FLASHING LIGHTS SO EPIC just seems all wrong.

Snupes, you're the Marvel expert.  Tell me, have the Fantastic Four ever not sucked?  I ask because all I know about them is that they had three terrible movies and now there's a reboot coming out.  Go away superhero franchises.

They're one of the cheesiest superhero franchises and have proven difficult to seriousify really well. I think they could potentially make a good film, they just need someone who isn't terrible making it.

How about the guy who directed Chronicle?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 30, 2014, 05:15:21 PM
Finally, I'm not the only one who liked the first Hobbit more than the second.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 30, 2014, 05:43:40 PM
Finally, I'm not the only one who liked the first Hobbit more than the second.

However, you remain the only one who doesn't like superhero movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on May 30, 2014, 05:45:39 PM
Finally, I'm not the only one who liked the first Hobbit more than the second.

However, you remain the only one who doesn't like superhero movies.

Nah.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 30, 2014, 05:47:48 PM
You hate everything, balkno.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on May 30, 2014, 05:50:37 PM
Superhero movies aren't deep, complex and intellectually challenging enough for the mature viewers such as balkno.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 30, 2014, 06:24:11 PM
I think they should stop with this "gritty realism" bullshit and make a superhero movie. Be cheesy, over the top, camp, whatever, you're making movies about dudes in full body spandex with magical powers, embrace it or go and do something else.
The Avenger movies are the type of cheese you're looking for.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 30, 2014, 10:42:31 PM
X-men was alright, I don't think it's worth the reviews people have been giving it. It was really weird when Eric decided randomly to kill Mystique after believing Wolverine's 100% true story about time travel. Bunch of other issues that come up because of time travel, but that's expected. It wasn't a dumb movie, but it helped if you just turn your brain off and watch. The Quicksilver scene was probably one of the best parts of the movie.

Also, has anyone stayed for the after credits sequence? Because I couldn't be bothered.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 30, 2014, 10:58:39 PM
X-men was alright, I don't think it's worth the reviews people have been giving it. It was really weird when Eric decided randomly to kill Mystique after believing Wolverine's 100% true story about time travel. Bunch of other issues that come up because of time travel, but that's expected. It wasn't a dumb movie, but it helped if you just turn your brain off and watch. The Quicksilver scene was probably one of the best parts of the movie.

Also, has anyone stayed for the after credits sequence? Because I couldn't be bothered.
Yeah, it's just a snippet of the villain from next movie which the title gives away. You can find it on youtube if you care.

I believed Eric's choice. He may like Mystique but he's way more concerned about the well-being of mutants, it would be worth it to kill her with what he knew of her involvement.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on May 31, 2014, 12:31:40 AM
His decision to kill her wasn't that crazy, it was that he instantly believes Wolverines story. They gave screen time to convincing charles, and even that was too little I felt.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on May 31, 2014, 12:34:31 AM
Well in the mutant world I'm sure time travel wouldn't be as unbelievable as it is to us. Once Charles's powers came back then they would be all in. Plus, Logan wanted Charles to read his mind to see he was telling the truth before he knew his powers weren't working which seems like a good indication of honesty.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 31, 2014, 12:39:14 AM
I think they should stop with this "gritty realism" bullshit and make a superhero movie. Be cheesy, over the top, camp, whatever, you're making movies about dudes in full body spandex with magical powers, embrace it or go and do something else.

Absolutely agree. This is why I liked Captain America: The First Avenger and, really, the Marvel universe in general.


How about the guy who directed Chronicle?

Oh, hm, maybe. He strikes me as way too gritty for The Fantastic Four (one guy is a genius whose superpower is stretching, for Christ's sake), but I don't know of any of his other work. He's very talented, at least, and I'd trust him more than most people.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on May 31, 2014, 04:35:00 AM
Being dark and gritty can work.  Nolan did it well with the Dark Knight trilogy, and of course I did it even better with my eternally-unfinished magnum opus The Sequel, although that didn't really have any superheroes...no, scratch that, it totally did.  Anyway, it's more of a risk, and it's a lot easier to make fun of when it goes terribly wrong, but I don't think it's right to be saying that superheroes should be silly as a rule.  Even Man of Steel could have worked, perhaps if it had narrowed its scope a bit and focused on telling an origin story, taking its time with relatable situations and naturalistic character development, rather than quickly bolting through all that so we could see an hour's worth of mindless carnage and hilarious product placement.  Bleh.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on May 31, 2014, 08:22:18 AM
"Could work", yeah, but I have a feeling The Fantastic Four would be impossibly difficult to make effectively "dark and gritty". I guess we'll see.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on May 31, 2014, 05:22:02 PM
Being dark and gritty can work.  Nolan did it well with the Dark Knight trilogy, and of course I did it even better with my eternally-unfinished magnum opus The Sequel, although that didn't really have any superheroes...no, scratch that, it totally did.  Anyway, it's more of a risk, and it's a lot easier to make fun of when it goes terribly wrong, but I don't think it's right to be saying that superheroes should be silly as a rule.  Even Man of Steel could have worked, perhaps if it had narrowed its scope a bit and focused on telling an origin story, taking its time with relatable situations and naturalistic character development, rather than quickly bolting through all that so we could see an hour's worth of mindless carnage and hilarious product placement.  Bleh.

Batman works in that mode, though I don't think Nolan's trilogy is a masterpiece by any stretch, they are quite baggy and often pretentious. I for one would like to see a return to the noir style of Batman: The Animated Series, it's dark and moody but it also allows for a more heavily stylised approach. This is why I think Tim Burton's attempts are the best so far, they tread the fine lines between serious and dull, style and camp very well, and they genuinely feel like comic book movies rather than high concept action flicks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 01, 2014, 03:24:17 AM
http://screenrant.com/thanos-josh-brolin-marvel/

What a strange choice.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 01, 2014, 05:59:04 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/WlrJTL1.gif)

Josh Brolin
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 01, 2014, 06:00:38 AM
Er, he definitely looks the part. Especially with some makeup. Does it matter though? Thanos isn't going to be part of the next Avengers is he?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 01, 2014, 12:58:53 PM
The same article says he will.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on June 01, 2014, 01:21:53 PM
Likely only in a teaser unless they want to make an awful movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on June 01, 2014, 01:55:24 PM
I can absolutely see Josh Brolin as Thanos. I think that's a great choice. I wonder, will he just be doing the voice, since we've already seen Thanos? Because either way...he's got the perfect face shape for Thanos, and I think with some post-production modification his voice would be perfect as well. I'm actually really pleased with this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on June 01, 2014, 03:28:16 PM
Penny Dreadful.

Billie Piper can't do an Irish accent very well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 01, 2014, 07:08:59 PM
Penny Dreadful.

Billie Piper can't do an Irish accent very well.

Does she play a call girl in that too?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on June 01, 2014, 08:21:01 PM
I think so. It was difficult to decipher anything she said but she did have sex with a rich guy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 02, 2014, 01:42:35 AM
Why am I not surprised?


Anyways, I just got back from seeing the new X-Men movie. It was entertaining. They really fucked up with the Sentinels though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 02, 2014, 02:18:22 PM
This is why I think Tim Burton's attempts are the best so far, they tread the fine lines between serious and dull, style and camp very well, and they genuinely feel like comic book movies rather than high concept action flicks.

Style over substance! >o<  Even though I'm not a comic book fan by any means, I can't forgive the first movie for stomping roughshod all over Batman lore.  You've got Batman nonchalantly and deliberately slaughtering people, Alfred letting visitors in to the Batcave, the Joker having a very detailed origin story that strips away all mystery from the character, not to mention including the fact that now he's the one who killed Batman's parents.  Bleh, I say.  Bleh.  And the second movie was just shit.  I don't know why it seems to be so adored by critics and fans.  It's more like a parody of superhero films than a superhero film itself.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 02, 2014, 03:16:46 PM
Also, no Red Hood.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 04, 2014, 02:47:49 PM
I watched X-Men Origins - Wolverine.  It sucked.  Also, while I'll reiterate that I'm no comic book fan, I'm pretty damn sure that Deadpool isn't even remotely similar to how he was depicted in this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 04, 2014, 03:24:53 PM
He's not. That was the biggest failure in that movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 04, 2014, 09:24:20 PM
Uh, are there supposed to be subtitles for the foreign dialogue in X-Men: First Class?  I thought I might just not be seeing them because I'm streaming it, but I've looked this up, and apparently a few other people have had the same issue.  Was this movie intended for polyglots?

That annoying little detail aside, it was a good movie.  I'm glad that they took the risk of not making it be all about Wolverine again, although his brief cameo was hilarious.  That being said, I must say that the movie came across as kind of sexist.  More so than the other films in the series, I mean.  The women do hardly any fighting, most of them go bad by the end, and they seem to spend a lot of time in their underwear.  And the penultimate scene with MacTaggart reinforcing her superiors' image of her being a dumb lovesick little girl didn't really help things either.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 04, 2014, 09:32:07 PM
There were no foreign subtitles in the one I downloaded.
I didn't like it very much, and I hated the way they made Charles and Mystique to be childhood friends. It's also strange how Erik and Charles part ways so early even though they're still working together in the early 90's in the third film when they visit Jean Grey, both of them aged and Charles still being able to walk.

PLOTHOLES
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 04, 2014, 10:03:35 PM
It's also strange how Erik and Charles part ways so early even though they're still working together in the early 90's in the third film when they visit Jean Grey, both of them aged and Charles still being able to walk.

They have an on again-off again kind of relationship.

And yes Saddam, the 60s were a sexist time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 04, 2014, 11:03:22 PM
Simply portraying sexism is one thing, but portraying it and reinforcing it within the context of the movie is another.  That's the big issue with that scene - the men are apparently justified in writing her off as a silly girl who's just sighing about some guy, because that's exactly what she's presenting herself as.  There's no reason why she couldn't have handled her memory wipe with some dignity or professionalism, or even why she really needed to have her memory wiped at all.  Didn't Xavier trust her to keep his secrets?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 05, 2014, 12:07:16 AM
Simply portraying sexism is one thing, but portraying it and reinforcing it within the context of the movie is another.  That's the big issue with that scene - the men are apparently justified in writing her off as a silly girl who's just sighing about some guy, because that's exactly what she's presenting herself as.  There's no reason why she couldn't have handled her memory wipe with some dignity or professionalism, or even why she really needed to have her memory wiped at all.  Didn't Xavier trust her to keep his secrets?
Are you saying it's sexist to be a silly girl sighing about a man?

Not all women have to be dignified or professional.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 05, 2014, 12:32:06 AM
Not all women have to be dignified or professional.

But it helps.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 05, 2014, 04:54:56 AM
It's also strange how Erik and Charles part ways so early even though they're still working together in the early 90's in the third film when they visit Jean Grey, both of them aged and Charles still being able to walk.

They have an on again-off again kind of relationship.
Is this established int the new movie? And how is Charles able to walk in that scene? Is he wearing metal underwear that are controlled by Magneto?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 05, 2014, 05:02:01 AM
Hank is giving him a plot serum™ that allows him to walk while conveniently preventing the use of his powers.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 05, 2014, 01:40:42 PM
Simply portraying sexism is one thing, but portraying it and reinforcing it within the context of the movie is another.  That's the big issue with that scene - the men are apparently justified in writing her off as a silly girl who's just sighing about some guy, because that's exactly what she's presenting herself as.  There's no reason why she couldn't have handled her memory wipe with some dignity or professionalism, or even why she really needed to have her memory wiped at all.  Didn't Xavier trust her to keep his secrets?
Are you saying it's sexist to be a silly girl sighing about a man?

Not all women have to be dignified or professional.

But she was a CIA agent making a report to her superiors.  It wasn't a good time to be reminiscing about being kissed!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 05, 2014, 02:46:48 PM
Were there even women agents in the CIA in the 60s? Maybe she ruined it. All the men were like, "see, this is why we can't have women here."
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 06, 2014, 04:38:45 AM
NO U

Also:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/03/doctor-strange-director-marvel-scott-derrickson/

I don't know anything about this Doctor Strange fellow.  Is this a good thing, comic book nerds?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on June 06, 2014, 10:29:27 AM
Ick...that's an awesome thing, but I'm not fond of their directorial choice.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on June 06, 2014, 11:37:16 AM
NO U

Also:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/03/doctor-strange-director-marvel-scott-derrickson/

I don't know anything about this Doctor Strange fellow.  Is this a good thing, comic book nerds?

Awesome character. Don't know the director's work but the genre they are going for is obvious.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 06, 2014, 09:58:29 PM
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/scott_derrickson/

It doesn't seem like he has a lot to his name, and what he does have doesn't look too great.

And now I have watched The Wolverine.  Again, I'd have liked some subtitles for the scenes in which people spoke Japanese, but still, it was quite good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 06, 2014, 10:01:08 PM
And now I have watched The Wolverine.  Again, I'd have liked some subtitles for the scenes in which people spoke Japanese, but still, it was quite good.
Really? That's the only one I haven't seen just because the previews made it look so cheesy. Maybe just because I don't think the Canuck looks like he belongs with a bunch of katana-wielding Japanese.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 06, 2014, 10:11:25 PM
NO U

Also:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/03/doctor-strange-director-marvel-scott-derrickson/

I don't know anything about this Doctor Strange fellow.  Is this a good thing, comic book nerds?

Christ they'll be doing that guy that shoots clock hands out of his arms next.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on June 06, 2014, 10:27:35 PM
Melancholia (Lars von Trier)

This was only my second viewing and I loved it a lot more than the first. Very few films have affected me emotionally the way this film has. It is an experience that I highly recommend, though obviously it's not a film for most people.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 06, 2014, 10:50:27 PM
NO U

Also:

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2014/06/03/doctor-strange-director-marvel-scott-derrickson/

I don't know anything about this Doctor Strange fellow.  Is this a good thing, comic book nerds?

All my knowledge of him comes from Marvel vs Capcom 3. Apparently his main nemesis is Dormammu, and also Shuma Gorath. Both of which are from someplace called the Dark Dimension, which is pretty much the Marvel equivalent of Hell. Doctor Strange has an interesting backstory, and the whole Dark Dimension is a cool idea as well. The movie will probably translate terribly and be a disaster; shitting on lore and making stuff up, like most Marvel films. This will be doubly true if Johnny Depp is cast to play Doctor Strange.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 07, 2014, 05:33:34 PM
And now I have watched The Wolverine.  Again, I'd have liked some subtitles for the scenes in which people spoke Japanese, but still, it was quite good.
Really? That's the only one I haven't seen just because the previews made it look so cheesy. Maybe just because I don't think the Canuck looks like he belongs with a bunch of katana-wielding Japanese.

It wasn't really cheesy as far as superhero movies go, with the exception of a giant robot that appears in the last act and really feels out of place.  As for the Japanese setting, I think they handled that fairly well.  They don't go down the ridiculous "going native"/white savior road à la The Last Samurai, at least.  Oh, and the female characters actually did things and added to the story rather than just sitting around in their underwear.

/Tumblr
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 05:38:18 PM
I like going native movies, I thought The Last Samurai was a good one. They didn't refer to Tom Cruise as the last samurai so that's a plus.

But adding a dash of Japanese flavor to a sci-fi movie just seems like a cheap formula. But I guess I'll watch it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 07, 2014, 05:43:58 PM
I love The Last Samurai.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 07, 2014, 06:50:05 PM
I like going native movies, I thought The Last Samurai was a good one. They didn't refer to Tom Cruise as the last samurai so that's a plus.

But adding a dash of Japanese flavor to a sci-fi movie just seems like a cheap formula. But I guess I'll watch it.

I love The Last Samurai.

How very subliminally racist of you.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 08:29:47 PM
Wolverine fighting generic samurai/ninja characters and then a samurai robot seems more racist than Tom Cruise slowly being enculturated.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 07, 2014, 08:53:59 PM
Wolverine fighting generic samurai/ninja characters and then a samurai robot seems more racist than Tom Cruise slowly being enculturated.

How are depictions of samurai racist exactly? I don't see your point.

Samurai are a huge part of Japanese history.

I haven't seen the movie, so I might not know what I'm talking about.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 07, 2014, 09:16:13 PM
I saw Edge of Tomorrow on Friday. It was pretty damn good. The only things I didn't like was that they watered down Tom Cruise and Blunt's overpowered characters, and changed some of the details of the mimics from the book. Otherwise, the action was great and didn't get repetitive. Surprisingly, there was a lot of humour and it worked to help ease the more boring parts of the movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 09:20:20 PM
Because it's taking one aspect of their culture/history and using it as a stereotype.

I'm just speaking broadly not about The Wolverine specifically as I haven't seen it yet either.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 07, 2014, 09:25:22 PM
Because it's taking one aspect of their culture/history and using it as a stereotype.

I'm just speaking broadly not about The Wolverine specifically as I haven't seen it yet either.

So any movie covering any period between the Heian period and the Meji Era is racist now?  ???


Does this apply to other things? Are all movies about basket ball racist because of blacks?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 09:45:53 PM
Because it's taking one aspect of their culture/history and using it as a stereotype.

I'm just speaking broadly not about The Wolverine specifically as I haven't seen it yet either.

So any movie covering any period between the Heian period and the Meji Era is racist now?  ???

Does this apply to other things? Are all movies about basket ball racist because of blacks?
That's clearly not what I'm saying otherwise I would think The Last Samurai is racist. It's more like if every black person in every movie were a basketball player. Or if every American Indian in every movie were some kind of spirit healer.

But I'm not getting into another argument with you. You refuse to read context.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 07, 2014, 09:59:19 PM
Because it's taking one aspect of their culture/history and using it as a stereotype.

I'm just speaking broadly not about The Wolverine specifically as I haven't seen it yet either.

So any movie covering any period between the Heian period and the Meji Era is racist now?  ???

Does this apply to other things? Are all movies about basket ball racist because of blacks?
That's clearly not what I'm saying otherwise I would think The Last Samurai is racist. It's more like if every black person in every movie were a basketball player. Or if every American Indian in every movie were some kind of spirit healer.

But I'm not getting into another argument with you. You refuse to read context.

I'm not ignoring context. I just don't understand how a depiction of samurai equals racism.

Am I missing something? Honest question. You haven't really explained your point. Are you trolling?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 07, 2014, 10:06:56 PM
At the heart of every FES argument is rooster.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 10:16:51 PM
When there are Japanese in a sci-fi/action movie they are usually either samurai, ninja, or experts in karate.
When Native Americans are in sci-fi they are usually related to some kind of spirit monster or old legend.

This is taking an aspect of their history and making it all they are ever associated with. It is a stereotype. Historically accurate films depicting time periods are not relevant to this point.

At the heart of every FES argument is rooster.
Then this place would be so boring without me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 07, 2014, 10:28:46 PM
I don't think every Japanese person in the film was a samurai/ninja/or martial arts expert. Your point is irrelevant. Samurai are something that Japan is known for. It makes sense to incorporate these elements into a movie that's set in Japan. Would you rather they portray Japan as America instead?

If what you're saying is correct then it is a two way street. Americans are usually portrayed as dumbass, arrogant, gun-slinging assholes. Chinese are usually portrayed as martial arts experts. Indian people are usually portrayed as Vishnu worshiping convenient store workers. Europeans are usually portrayed as pompous dandies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 07, 2014, 10:35:06 PM
I think every single japanese character in The Wolverine were some kind of martial artist, well maybe except the ladies who cleaned him up, but who knows?.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 07, 2014, 10:38:18 PM
Samurai are something that Japan is known for. It makes sense to incorporate these elements into a movie that's set in Japan. Would you rather they portray Japan as America instead?
wow

Quote
If what you're saying is correct then it is a two way street. Americans are usually portrayed as dumbass, arrogant, gun-slinging assholes. Chinese are usually portrayed as martial arts experts. Indian people are usually portrayed as Vishnu worshiping convenient store workers. Europeans are usually portrayed as pompous dandies.
Exactly and they are stereotypes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 08, 2014, 02:39:12 AM
At the heart of every FES argument is rooster.

Without her it'd be one giant circle jerk.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 08, 2014, 04:07:44 AM
Aww you guys. :3
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 08, 2014, 04:22:56 AM
You aren't too bad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 08, 2014, 05:22:34 AM
Anyway, Wolverine doesn't spend the entire movie fighting stereotypical ninja warriors.  There is a gang of them in the movie, and it is pretty silly, but they aren't really in it for all that long.  They show up a couple of times during the third act and then mysteriously just kind of go away to leave Wolverine and his ladies to fight the main couple of villains.  Most of the people that Wolverine fights during the buildup are pretty generic thugs that are a part of some Yakuza subplot.

Also, I maintain that The Last Samurai is, well, maybe "racist" is a bit too strong a word, but it's racially problematic, at the very least.  It's like Hollywood thinks that no one will be interested in seeing any kind of strange or foreign culture unless we have a white male lead to see us through it.  I understand that the fish-out-of-water setup is a tried-and-true formula, and that audiences usually want a relatable protagonist, but even if we let that slide, there's still the unpleasant theme of dominance pervading the whole thing.  It can't just be a simple character study of our hero, a learning experience for him to return to his own life a little wiser from; no, he always masters the culture.  He always becomes better than everyone else in the tribe at every aspect of their lifestyles, and emerges as their savior and/or leader.  They couldn't do a thing for themselves.  No, only this benevolent white messiah could set them free.

Still, I must admit that as far as patronizing white savior movies go, The Last Samurai isn't too bad.  The worst of those films tend to be the ones that don't involve the hero going native, but instead rescuing the helpless people of color from bad situations or lifestyles, like The Blind Side or The HelpThe Blind Side in particular...ugh.  That piece of shit is more racist than The Birth of a Nation.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 08, 2014, 06:04:18 AM
Also, I maintain that The Last Samurai is, well, maybe "racist" is a bit too strong a word, but it's racially problematic, at the very least.  It's like Hollywood thinks that no one will be interested in seeing any kind of strange or foreign culture, unless we have a white male lead to see us through it.  I understand that the fish-out-of-water setup is a tried-and-true formula, and that audiences usually want a relatable protagonist, but even if we let that slide, there's still the unpleasant theme of dominance pervading the whole thing.  It can't just be a simple character study of our hero, a learning experience for him to return to his own life a little wiser from; no, he always masters the culture.  He always becomes better than everyone else in the tribe at every aspect of their lifestyles, and emerges as their savior and/or leader.  They couldn't do a thing for themselves.  No, only this benevolent white messiah could set them free.

Still, I must admit that as far as patronizing white savior movies go, The Last Samurai isn't too bad.  The worst of those films tend to be the ones that don't involve the hero going native, but instead rescuing the helpless people of color from bad situations or lifestyles, like The Blind Side or The HelpThe Blind Side in particular...ugh.  That piece of shit is more racist than The Birth of a Nation.
Yes, and I will agree with that. Whites saving people from others or from themselves is a huge theme. When I had my ridiculous "Native Americans in Sci-Fi" class (taught by an archaeologist of course) that was one of the big themes. Whitey would come in and instantly be accepted into the tribe and he would save the day. The Last Samurai isn't as terrible as that since he doesn't actually save anyone, but nonetheless it does follow the formula. I remember the best show we watched that kicked that theme to the curb was an episode of Star Trek TNG, Jounrey's End. It was a dispute between some human American Indians and Cardassians and in the end the Traveler said "have faith in their abilities to solve their problems on their own." There were still a lot of stupid stereotypical elements though, but I did like that line. Unfortunately, the dumb theme continues.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 10, 2014, 03:39:00 AM
I've watched the first few episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Honestly, it's not as terrible as you might have heard, it's just, well, not great.  It's hokey, it's clichéd, and at times it comes across a little fanficcy, like when they make pointless references to elements from the movies.  It's as if they're saying to the audience, "Remember, this is being made by - sort of - the same people who made the movies, so it must great by association!"  Like I said, though, it's not bad, and I've heard it actually becomes quite good later on in the season.  So, if you're a big fan of the movies and want to see more of the universe or whatever, you might want to check it out.  Just don't be expecting something that delivers on the level of the movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 10, 2014, 09:28:56 PM
Jack Reacher.

I only watched it out of spite because they (The Conspiracy) kept taking it down off Usenet. Pretty mediocre film. I have no idea why Werner Herzog was in it. Google complete agrees with me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on June 11, 2014, 01:41:45 AM
I've watched the first few episodes of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Honestly, it's not as terrible as you might have heard, it's just, well, not great.  It's hokey, it's clichéd, and at times it comes across a little fanficcy, like when they make pointless references to elements from the movies.  It's as if they're saying to the audience, "Remember, this is being made by - sort of - the same people who made the movies, so it must great by association!"  Like I said, though, it's not bad, and I've heard it actually becomes quite good later on in the season.  So, if you're a big fan of the movies and want to see more of the universe or whatever, you might want to check it out.  Just don't be expecting something that delivers on the level of the movies.

A TV show budget can't deliver an experience on the same level as an action movie budget?  How surprising.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 13, 2014, 03:13:30 AM
Holy shit, Sif is in this show.

(http://i.imgur.com/sKCoP55.jpg?1?2561)

That joke was just for Blanko.  But seriously, she does guest star in one episode.  I guess if you're going to go fanficcy, you might as well get someone from the movies to show up and give things an air of authenticity.  It certainly beats having a bunch of mundane agents just sitting around and talking wistfully about how awesome the Asgardians are and how hot Thor is.  And Jaimie Alexander is at least believable as a super-powered alien/pseudo-goddess, which is more than I can say for Peter MacNicol.  Yes, I did say Peter MacNicol, and yes, it is as bad as it sounds.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 13, 2014, 03:19:09 AM
Only Balkno has played dark souls
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 13, 2014, 03:23:03 AM
Only Balkno and sadaam have, actually.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 13, 2014, 07:47:40 AM
I'm literally an expert on Dark Souls because I've been to /r/darksouls like twice.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 15, 2014, 04:24:19 AM
Anyway, as the end of the season draws near and the HYDRA element from Captain America: The Winter Soldier becomes the main focus, the quality of the show has increased considerably.  But just like with Winter Soldier, I don't like the fact that they feel the need to emphasize that this is HYDRA, not SHIELD, which has totally been infiltrated and destroyed by now, and yes, this HYDRA is indeed the same puppy-kicking, mustache-twirling group that Red Skull led back in WW2, and that's how we know they're the bad guys.  It almost entirely undercuts any political message they're trying to send about authoritarianism, or freedom being sacrificed in the name of security, or whatever.  There's just no real parallel between HYDRA and the shenanigans that our governments have been up to in recent years.  With SHIELD, there certainly is, and they might have had something good if they had just kept it at that.  But no, instead we're supposed to look at these idiots yelling "Hail Hydra!" and totally see the NSA there.  Right.

Okay, I'll talk about something that other people actually saw, X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I thought it was good, but not quite the masterpiece that all the critics seem to think it is.  For one thing, even with this whole timeline-merging thing, there are still some pretty glaring plot holes and continuity errors.  Why is Xavier alive?  When did the world turn into an apocalyptic wasteland, given that it was just fine when we last saw it in The Wolverine?  Did it take the government forty years to create the Sentinels after Trask was killed?  And didn't Trask say that the Sentinels were made out of some kind of plastic, or some other non-metal substance?  But when they're revealed, they're metal.

Also, Magneto sucked.  I don't mind that he's an antagonist - that kind of comes with the territory for him - but everything he did was so illogical, so myopic, and so objectively stupid that he was incredibly annoying to watch.  Magneto is a radical with a very different moral code to the heroes, yes.  But he's not an idiot who has no understanding of consequences.  And speaking of consequences, why does Magneto keep managing to avoid them at the end of every movie?  He hasn't faced any negative repercussions for his actions since the first film, and all jokes aside, this is something that's really beginning to frustrate me, maybe on a psychological level or something.  Would it really ruin the franchise if we could just get to see this asshole get his comeuppance every once in a while, rather than just having him exit stage left yelling "I'll get you next time!" after every movie?

Oh, and one more thing, the movie repeats the urban legend about how JFK was apparently killed with a curving bullet, and therefore, hint hint, he must have been killed by a different shot.  The way they talk about it is a very amusing take on the theory, but in reality, there was nothing unusual about the shot that killed JFK.  Not really a critique of the film itself, but it's such a common misconception that I felt I had to correct it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on June 15, 2014, 05:14:46 AM
Because of this thread I am now watching Battlestar Galactica. For some reason any time I saw commercials on SciFi channel for it, I thought it would be cheesy and never watched it.


The show is amazing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 15, 2014, 06:25:32 AM
I could never get over the cinematography/shaky cam.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on June 15, 2014, 08:25:47 AM
Okay, I'll talk about something that other people actually saw, X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I thought it was good, but not quite the masterpiece that all the critics seem to think it is.  For one thing, even with this whole timeline-merging thing, there are still some pretty glaring plot holes and continuity errors.  Why is Xavier alive?  When did the world turn into an apocalyptic wasteland, given that it was just fine when we last saw it in The Wolverine?  Did it take the government forty years to create the Sentinels after Trask was killed?  And didn't Trask say that the Sentinels were made out of some kind of plastic, or some other non-metal substance?  But when they're revealed, they're metal.

Xavier was alive at the end of The Last Stand. There was an amazingly comic-book/soap opera explanation, but he was alive. The simpler answer is that a lot of that movie was retconned in this one, because Bryan Singer didn't do that one and didn't want a lot of it to happen. The sentinels didn't come about for a while for one reason or another, or maybe they did but were locked up, who knows. And how do you know the sentinels are metal? Just because they look metal-ish?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on June 15, 2014, 12:27:34 PM
Anyway, as the end of the season draws near and the HYDRA element from Captain America: The Winter Soldier becomes the main focus, the quality of the show has increased considerably.  But just like with Winter Soldier, I don't like the fact that they feel the need to emphasize that this is HYDRA, not SHIELD, which has totally been infiltrated and destroyed by now, and yes, this HYDRA is indeed the same puppy-kicking, mustache-twirling group that Red Skull led back in WW2, and that's how we know they're the bad guys.  It almost entirely undercuts any political message they're trying to send about authoritarianism, or freedom being sacrificed in the name of security, or whatever.  There's just no real parallel between HYDRA and the shenanigans that our governments have been up to in recent years.  With SHIELD, there certainly is, and they might have had something good if they had just kept it at that.  But no, instead we're supposed to look at these idiots yelling "Hail Hydra!" and totally see the NSA there.  Right.
I watch SHIELD.

You're right that they want to separate them but shield as it existed was hydra.  Coleson has to rebuild it from the ground up because it was so full of hydra.  Go back to the roots in essence.
And they did mention the "hail hydra" as being silly.


Okay, I'll talk about something that other people actually saw, X-Men: Days of Future Past.  I thought it was good, but not quite the masterpiece that all the critics seem to think it is.  For one thing, even with this whole timeline-merging thing, there are still some pretty glaring plot holes and continuity errors.  Why is Xavier alive?  When did the world turn into an apocalyptic wasteland, given that it was just fine when we last saw it in The Wolverine?  Did it take the government forty years to create the Sentinels after Trask was killed?  And didn't Trask say that the Sentinels were made out of some kind of plastic, or some other non-metal substance?  But when they're revealed, they're metal.

Also, Magneto sucked.  I don't mind that he's an antagonist - that kind of comes with the territory for him - but everything he did was so illogical, so myopic, and so objectively stupid that he was incredibly annoying to watch.  Magneto is a radical with a very different moral code to the heroes, yes.  But he's not an idiot who has no understanding of consequences.  And speaking of consequences, why does Magneto keep managing to avoid them at the end of every movie?  He hasn't faced any negative repercussions for his actions since the first film, and all jokes aside, this is something that's really beginning to frustrate me, maybe on a psychological level or something.  Would it really ruin the franchise if we could just get to see this asshole get his comeuppance every once in a while, rather than just having him exit stage left yelling "I'll get you next time!" after every movie?

Oh, and one more thing, the movie repeats the urban legend about how JFK was apparently killed with a curving bullet, and therefore, hint hint, he must have been killed by a different shot.  The way they talk about it is a very amusing take on the theory, but in reality, there was nothing unusual about the shot that killed JFK.  Not really a critique of the film itself, but it's such a common misconception that I felt I had to correct it.
Saw that too.

Xavier has done a lot of "ha ha I'm not dead" in the comics. I think his count is 3 or 4.
Each time he just shows up and says "oh I didn't die I just made you think I did so I could go on a secret mission which I'll never talk about." Or "nope, it was a shape shifter that looked like me and I didn't bother telling you I was alive because you needed to fight without me."
And of course they introduced his brain dead twin brother who was kept on life support his entire existence.  This was done so Xavier could beam his mind into the body during one of his apparent deaths.
Yes its all comic cannon. 

As for the sentinels.  (Assuming you mean originals) why would you think they're made of metal?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 15, 2014, 05:42:01 PM
Because of this thread I am now watching Battlestar Galactica. For some reason any time I saw commercials on SciFi channel for it, I thought it would be cheesy and never watched it.


The show is amazing.

Join the club.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 15, 2014, 06:05:56 PM
I am now watching Battlestar Galactica. ... The show is amazing.

Incorrect.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on June 15, 2014, 06:25:25 PM
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 15, 2014, 09:09:16 PM
About the Sentinels, it seemed to me as though Magneto was controlling them.  They started, I don't know, almost posing with him when he first showed up, flying around him in some odd formation, and then they only attacked the other mutants and completely ignored him.  Maybe I misinterpreted that scene?

I watch SHIELD.

You're right that they want to separate them but shield as it existed was hydra.  Coleson has to rebuild it from the ground up because it was so full of hydra.  Go back to the roots in essence.
And they did mention the "hail hydra" as being silly.

We are the cool kids.  That's good.  But I'm not sure what you're addressing here.  I'm not criticizing the writing as being logically inconsistent or having plot holes or anything, I just don't like the overall idea.  It's like Marvel is trying to have their cake and eat it too - they want to give us silly escapist entertainment in which the heroes fight over-the-top villains in ridiculous circumstances, but they also want to be deep and intelligent and deliver sharp social commentary.  Maybe there's a way to balance those two approaches, but if there is, I don't think they've found it yet.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 15, 2014, 09:55:45 PM
lol, you forgot the scene where he put the metal from the train tracks throughout their bodies so he could control them, you boob.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 17, 2014, 03:12:06 AM
Also:

http://comicsalliance.com/bryan-singer-sexual-assault-rape-allegations-x-men-apocalypse-fired/

dun dun dun
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on June 17, 2014, 09:21:43 AM
This is the first I've heard of any lawsuit.
And why a lawsuit and not criminal charges?  Last I checked abusing a minor was illegal.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 17, 2014, 09:38:11 PM
Quote
a $75,000 lawsuit

Strangely low.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on June 18, 2014, 01:52:32 PM
I am now watching Battlestar Galactica. ... The show is amazing.

Incorrect.


Incorrect.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 19, 2014, 02:53:52 AM
Here, have another trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CqymRQ1uUU
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on June 19, 2014, 06:09:26 AM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.

If you liked that, I recommend Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There and A Serious Man by the same directors.

Barton Fink is great. I have seen a few other Coen brothers films. Which of these do you recommend most urgently?

Missed this post thanks to the deluge of superhero crap. Probably A Serious Man and Blood Simple.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on June 19, 2014, 06:18:52 AM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.

If you liked that, I recommend Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There and A Serious Man by the same directors.

Barton Fink is great. I have seen a few other Coen brothers films. Which of these do you recommend most urgently?

Missed this post thanks to the deluge of superhero crap. Probably A Serious Man and Blood Simple.

I also agree with these two recommendations.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 19, 2014, 01:26:03 PM
The deluge of superhero crap will never end.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on June 19, 2014, 05:23:07 PM
The Diary of Anne Frank (Jon Jones)

Now my preferred adaptation of her story, this was surprisingly good. I felt this was not only a more accurate depiction of Anne and her feelings, but also much more emotional. As someone who is somewhat obsessed with Anne Frank and her story, I am very happy to have this miniseries.

Godzilla (Gareth Edwards)

While not perfect, I really enjoyed this.

House (Nobuhiko Obayashi)

Holy shit. What a strange and amazing experience.

Magnolia (Paul Thomas Anderson)

I have seen many times of course, but this is one of the best films I have ever seen.

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)

Watched again for the first time in like 10 years, this is an incredible and mesmerizing film. Though I am sad it took me this long to watch it again, I simply couldn't have fully appreciated this film back then. I may even like it better than Eyes Wide Shut.

The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

I liked this overall I think, but I think I will have to watch it again. I at least like it better than a lot of Scorsese's more recent work, but I've never really been such a huge fan of his.

Wild Strawberries
(Ingmar Bergman)

One of my very favorites of all time and it never fails to make me cry. I am a huge fan of the Bergman films I have seen, but I need to see a lot more of his work. I will do that soon.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on June 20, 2014, 12:33:40 AM
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

I liked this overall I think, but I think I will have to watch it again. I at least like it better than a lot of Scorsese's more recent work, but I've never really been such a huge fan of his.

I'm not a big Scorsese fan either, I respect his knowledge and craftsmanship and his film preservation efforts, but overall his films don't tend to work so well for me. One film of his I really love is The King of Comedy, I think you might like it too.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on June 20, 2014, 04:10:26 AM
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

I liked this overall I think, but I think I will have to watch it again. I at least like it better than a lot of Scorsese's more recent work, but I've never really been such a huge fan of his.

I'm not a big Scorsese fan either, I respect his knowledge and craftsmanship and his film preservation efforts, but overall his films don't tend to work so well for me. One film of his I really love is The King of Comedy, I think you might like it too.

I will try to watch it soon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on June 20, 2014, 04:49:43 AM
Considering two of its main characters were played by well-known comedians, that was a deeply disturbing movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on June 20, 2014, 09:42:10 AM
Quote
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)

Watched again for the first time in like 10 years, this is an incredible and mesmerizing film. Though I am sad it took me this long to watch it again, I simply couldn't have fully appreciated this film back then. I may even like it better than Eyes Wide Shut.

I couldn't get on with 2001. Stylistically, it's wonderful, but there is so much which is simply incomprehensible unless you've read the novel. The ending is the obvious example, but HAL's breakdown isn't explored as deeply as I'd have liked.

Also, watching a man's face being lit with different colours for fifteen minutes does not an exciting scene make unless you're high.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on June 20, 2014, 04:37:03 PM
I watched Fargo yesterday at the recommendation of a family member after I told him I was going to school in Minnesota. I don't know why I haven't watched it before; it was phenomenal.

If you liked that, I recommend Blood Simple, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There and A Serious Man by the same directors.

Barton Fink is great. I have seen a few other Coen brothers films. Which of these do you recommend most urgently?

Missed this post thanks to the deluge of superhero crap. Probably A Serious Man and Blood Simple.

Miller's Crossing never gets enough love. Probably my favorite performances by Turtutrro and Gabriel Byrne.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 23, 2014, 06:57:49 PM
I decided to watch Stargate: SG-1 because I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson.  I fell asleep about half-way through the pilot. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't convince James Spader to stay as Daniel Jackson, because James Spader plays a much more convincing absent-minded professor.

Anyone else a fan of this series?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 23, 2014, 08:35:30 PM
I was.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 23, 2014, 08:55:50 PM
I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson

Play Fallout.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 23, 2014, 09:16:29 PM
I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson

Play Fallout.

I've played all of them with the exception of the Fallout: Tactics because it looked shitty.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on June 23, 2014, 10:30:41 PM
I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson

Play Fallout.

I've played all of them with the exception of the Fallout: Tactics because it looked shitty.

It's worth a look if you like X-COM type squad tactics games, but it's nowhere near as good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 24, 2014, 06:20:01 AM
I don't know whether to go see Transformers 4 or not. I know it's probably going to be shit but I need to see it for myself to find out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on June 24, 2014, 10:19:35 AM
I decided to watch Stargate: SG-1 because I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson.  I fell asleep about half-way through the pilot. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't convince James Spader to stay as Daniel Jackson, because James Spader plays a much more convincing absent-minded professor.

Anyone else a fan of this series?
I am.
The first season sucks.  It gets much better, trust me.

Also, I find Michael shanks to be better at the role.  Especially later on.  It jus takes a while for the show to figure out what it wants to do.
The last season sucks.(last two maybe). But the Arc of Truth is good. (End movie 1)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 24, 2014, 02:28:25 PM
I don't know whether to go see Transformers 4 or not. I know it's probably going to be shit but I need to see it for myself to find out.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/

Yes, it's shit.  No viewing is required.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 24, 2014, 04:40:25 PM
I decided to watch Stargate: SG-1 because I'm a fan of Richard Dean Anderson.  I fell asleep about half-way through the pilot. I was a bit disappointed that they didn't convince James Spader to stay as Daniel Jackson, because James Spader plays a much more convincing absent-minded professor.

Anyone else a fan of this series?
I am.
The first season sucks.  It gets much better, trust me.

Also, I find Michael shanks to be better at the role.  Especially later on.  It jus takes a while for the show to figure out what it wants to do.
The last season sucks.(last two maybe). But the Arc of Truth is good. (End movie 1)

I watched it a bit more last night. Everything you're saying is consistent with what I've read about the series. Shanks is starting to grow on me a bit, but I still prefer Spader. It'll be interesting to watch Shanks transform Daniel into his own character instead of a poor imitation of Spader's performance.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 24, 2014, 07:34:34 PM
I don't know whether to go see Transformers 4 or not. I know it's probably going to be shit but I need to see it for myself to find out.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/transformers_age_of_extinction/

Yes, it's shit.  No viewing is required.

Usually the ratings go down over time, but it's risen from 50% to 57%. That suggests it's shit enough to not bother watching since I usually don't bother with movies below 60, but I'm still undecided. I might work around paying for it. Can't believe it goes for 160 minutes though, what the fuck were they thinking?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on June 26, 2014, 04:30:20 PM
True Detective

Watch it, because it's fucking great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on June 26, 2014, 05:12:02 PM
Went to see Richard Wilson in a performance (public dress rehearsal) of Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape at the Crucible theatre last night. Aside from what I would call an over-accentuation of comedy during the silent opening, it was a damn fine performance. Wilson really communicates the isolation and misery of Krapp, but also offers up an almost sprightly counter-performance as the voice of his younger self, though tinged with a sense of denial that tells of the man he is to become. The direction and set design are very well done, it's in the round and the set is a closed-in room, amplified, on a very slowly rotating platform, the use of light and sound to convey things not said is very effective.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on June 28, 2014, 04:36:19 AM
I have watched Celebration Day.  Sneer about dadrock all you like, but it was great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 28, 2014, 06:11:32 AM
Just watched The Big Lebowski. It was strange. I don't know if I liked it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 28, 2014, 07:25:51 AM
Just watched The Big Lebowski. It was strange. I don't know if I liked it.

Well that's just, like, your opinion, man.

It's a film for fans of their movies, a cult film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on June 28, 2014, 12:41:20 PM
Just watched The Big Lebowski. It was strange. I don't know if I liked it.

Watch it again.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on June 28, 2014, 04:41:13 PM
I thought The Big Lebowski was a pretentious film. It tried too hard to be funny and seems like it was made solely so people would call it a cult film. It was trying to be weird and unique, but just ended up too try-hard and unfunny for my tastes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on June 28, 2014, 06:47:28 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/28kznDV.jpg)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on June 29, 2014, 01:23:32 AM
They didn't make it to be a cult film, it just became a cult film. They made it purely as a Coen brothers movie, if that makes any sense.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on June 29, 2014, 02:40:56 AM
It makes sense to me.

I love The Big Lebowski. His jellies crack me up every time because I had a pink pair as a child and they could pinch something awful.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on July 14, 2014, 10:49:47 PM
I watched the first episode of Extant. It seemed pretty dull.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on July 16, 2014, 04:13:07 AM
Deluge of superhero crap:

http://marvel.com/news/movies/2014/6/7/22643/director_peyton_reed_and_writer_adam_mckay_join_marvels_ant-man

http://screenrant.com/ant-man-director-peyton-reed-discussion/

Will this guy do better than Edgar Wright?  Probably not, but whatever.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on July 16, 2014, 08:03:29 AM
What? They're not having Hank Pym to be Ant-Man? They're jumping straight to Scott Lang? Why?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on July 17, 2014, 02:05:59 AM
God, I've watched so many things and I'm so behind.

Most relevantly and importantly, I've been watching the anime WataMote (full title: Watashi ga Motenai no wa dō Kangaetemo Omaera ga Warui!). It's basically a dark comedy about a girl suffering from incredibly severe social anxiety and possibly some form of depression, and just her going through high school and trying to deal with her problems. I'd heard that people who can relate to her absolutely love the show so I decided on a whim to start watching.

Lo and behold, I love it. It's scary how much I can identify with her and the situations she gets into and has to deal with. The show is obviously a quite exaggerated and stylized version of that sort of stuff, but that's what makes it entertaining rather than just depressing. The animation is superb, and I love the way it changes on a whim to dramaticize a situation or something. It's really beautiful. So blahblah I love the show and need moar. I'm four episodes in and it's twelve episodes long, so I am sad.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on July 17, 2014, 02:55:32 AM
After watching anime for a while, I've come to an inescapable conclusion: Japan's anti-drug laws aren't working.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on July 17, 2014, 09:27:24 AM
After watching anime for a while
Go do some old man stuff already, old man.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on July 17, 2014, 12:29:49 PM
After watching anime for a while
Go do some old man stuff already, old man.
Old people can't watch cartoons?  ???
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on July 17, 2014, 05:14:51 PM
After watching anime for a while
Go do some old man stuff already, old man.
Old people can't watch cartoons?  ???
Only if they are old classic Disney of Looney Tunes cartoons.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on July 25, 2014, 04:17:13 PM
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)

My second viewing of this film comes after six years. I greatly enjoyed it the first time, when some friends and I stumbled upon it on a now defunct pay-per-view movie channel for the bargain price of literally one pence. I have no idea why it was available so cheap considering it was a major Academy Award contender that received high critical acclaim on opening, but it was that cheap and by god we took advantage of that fact. We were laughing along heartily with Daniel Day-Lewis's insane performance that only gets crazier as we head to the denouement, but this second time I was alone, able to sit and appreciate without distraction this masterfully directed, wonderfully scored and brilliantly acted character piece. I won't say much about the content of the film, because I want to encourage as many people as possible to get it and watch it and experience it for themselves, it deserves your attention if you haven't already seen it. And if you have seen it why not watch it again? There's so much more that I picked up on a second time around that I wholeheartedly recommend multiple viewings.

I do hope to do a proper analysis of the ending at some point, but that will take time, not something to be done off-hand like this little write-up.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on July 25, 2014, 04:29:33 PM
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson)

My second viewing of this film comes after six years. I greatly enjoyed it the first time, when some friends and I stumbled upon it on a now defunct pay-per-view movie channel for the bargain price of literally one pence. I have no idea why it was available so cheap considering it was a major Academy Award contender that received high critical acclaim on opening, but it was that cheap and by god we took advantage of that fact. We were laughing along heartily with Daniel Day-Lewis's insane performance that only gets crazier as we head to the denouement, but this second time I was alone, able to sit and appreciate without distraction this masterfully directed, wonderfully scored and brilliantly acted character piece. I won't say much about the content of the film, because I want to encourage as many people as possible to get it and watch it and experience it for themselves, it deserves your attention if you haven't already seen it. And if you have seen it why not watch it again? There's so much more that I picked up on a second time around that I wholeheartedly recommend multiple viewings.

Heck yes! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I will probably be watching it again soon myself, along with many other PTA films.

I do hope to do a proper analysis of the ending at some point, but that will take time, not something to be done off-hand like this little write-up.

If you did this I would really love to read it. I thought about doing an analysis of The Master, but I really am not good at that sort of thing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on July 25, 2014, 04:38:02 PM
I watched The World's End.  It was good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on July 26, 2014, 12:00:55 AM
I watched The World's End.  It was good.

If by "good" you mean "amazing".
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on July 26, 2014, 05:59:33 PM
I saw Hercules.

I love Dwayne Johnson so for that alone it was good. The previews were a little misleading since it stripped the mythology aspect and made it a realistic story. Overall, meh. It was good for what it was. I was hoping for the straight mythological story though.

I did see a preview for Exodus before the movie. I'd love to see that one.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: juner on July 27, 2014, 12:02:38 AM
I saw Hercules.

I love Dwayne Johnson

steroid's  >o<
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on July 27, 2014, 03:29:32 AM
http://io9.com/brett-ratners-hercules-is-a-lie-dont-fall-for-it-1610881361
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on July 27, 2014, 03:51:55 AM
http://io9.com/brett-ratners-hercules-is-a-lie-dont-fall-for-it-1610881361
Actually, I think that seems like an interesting take on it, at least the idea that Hercules is more myth than man. But then, no take on Hercules beats this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJoLaxokzM
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on July 27, 2014, 04:09:21 AM
http://io9.com/brett-ratners-hercules-is-a-lie-dont-fall-for-it-1610881361
Actually, I think that seems like an interesting take on it, at least the idea that Hercules is more myth than man. But then, no take on Hercules beats this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJoLaxokzM

Magnificent.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 01, 2014, 11:20:30 AM
So I just finished watching an anime called 'Attack on Titan' or 'Shingeki no Kyojin'. It's well paced, original, has complex character development and isn't terribly tropey (which is probably the nicest part, really). The creators aren't afraid to kill off characters and the battle scenes in it are pretty intense and enjoyable to watch. It's also fairly recent, as it was just released last year. It was one of those TV shows that I wasn't sure about to begin with, but ended up binge watching it after I got a few episodes in.

So I'm not sure if anyone around here watches anime, but I'd recommend this. It's on Netflix.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 01, 2014, 01:07:02 PM
Yeah, I've watched it.

It does get a bit slow in places but the story is great. And I do love that they're not afraid to kill characters cause it makes it all more stressful to watch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on August 01, 2014, 02:34:37 PM
http://io9.com/brett-ratners-hercules-is-a-lie-dont-fall-for-it-1610881361
Actually, I think that seems like an interesting take on it, at least the idea that Hercules is more myth than man. But then, no take on Hercules beats this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOJoLaxokzM

Sentimental favorite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEHeqz-zbwM
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 01, 2014, 10:28:01 PM
Oh, for fuck's sake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSzeFFsKEt4

What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?  And the effects just look awful.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 01, 2014, 10:31:50 PM
Something about the use of the word "the" in one title really bothers me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 01, 2014, 11:39:57 PM
Oh, for fuck's sake:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSzeFFsKEt4

What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?  And the effects just look awful.

Because big armies n stuff bring in more people. Durrr Saddam. Looks like they wreck Smaug in the first 10 mins, then 40 minutes of build up with more Sauron tomfoolery before the final 60 minute (120 minute in extended edition) battle.

Yeah, I've watched it.

It does get a bit slow in places but the story is great. And I do love that they're not afraid to kill characters cause it makes it all more stressful to watch.

Awesome. It does tend to slow down, but I felt the slower sections really made you love the fights, which were extremely fast paced with people flying all over the place like spiderman.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 02, 2014, 12:34:08 AM
Oh yeah, the action is great. I tried to read further with the manga but the art isn't very pleasing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 02, 2014, 02:08:03 AM
I tried reading the manga last night as well, and I agree; I think the anime is much more enjoyable. I might keep reading in my spare time just because I really want more details on the titans and characters. The next season is so far away as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on August 02, 2014, 03:46:01 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 02, 2014, 03:50:53 PM
So what are the five armies? Is this something they pulled out of their asses?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on August 02, 2014, 04:44:39 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?

Er...

"The Hobbit: There and Back Again"
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 02, 2014, 04:52:16 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?

Excellent point. Since you came up with a few retarded alternatives, I now believe that "The Battle of the Five Armies" is the only possible combination of English words that could describe this movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 02, 2014, 06:38:38 PM
The Hobbit: The Final Movie and the Conclusion to the Trilogy
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on August 02, 2014, 06:51:06 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?

Er...

"The Hobbit: There and Back Again"

Oh, that would have been pretty good.

In all seriousness I still like the title.  I think it's catchier than Saddam gives it credit for and perfectly embodies the main story of the movie.  And even if it is a bit unwieldy, maybe that's even appropriate on a meta level for what they've done with the movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 02, 2014, 09:09:06 PM
Here's an idea: it's one book called The Hobbit, make one movie and call it The Hobbit. I know it's already too late for that, but god damn, why do they feel the need to have it match up to LOTR in terms of duration? Maybe there will be a fan edit which is just the events from the book and not the million minutiae of the appendices PJ decided to throw in for no conceivable reason, I would probably watch that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 02, 2014, 09:49:23 PM
You know why. Money.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on August 02, 2014, 10:19:07 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?

Er...

"The Hobbit: There and Back Again"

Oh, that would have been pretty good.

In all seriousness I still like the title.  I think it's catchier than Saddam gives it credit for and perfectly embodies the main story of the movie.  And even if it is a bit unwieldy, maybe that's even appropriate on a meta level for what they've done with the movies.
That's because that's what it was originally called. :l They inexplicably renamed it to "The Battle of Five Armies" a little while back after the second film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on August 02, 2014, 10:26:24 PM
Okay, well I'm sure they had a reason.  Maybe they didn't want future generations to look at the title, recognize that it's what Tolkein called the original story, and assume that they would have actually turned such a massive tome into a single movie.  I know such a scenario seems far-fetched but people can be dumb like that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 03, 2014, 05:25:52 AM
So what are the five armies? Is this something they pulled out of their asses?

No, it was in the book.  It refers to the men, elves, dwarves, orcs, and wargs.  It's still a very silly, kiddy name for a battle that you'd expect to find in a book like The Hobbit and not in LotR.  In fact, I was very surprised when I was reading LotR and a character referred to the battle by name.  I would have expected Tolkien to quietly retcon the name into something more dignified and adult-sounding, like the way he changed "goblins" to "orcs."

Anyway, it's a terrible name for a movie, and there's nothing justifying it.  They've already got all the seats filled by virtue of the fact that it's The Hobbit.  Nobody is going to base their decision on whether or not to see it by the subtitle.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on August 03, 2014, 06:58:18 AM
So I saw Guardians of the Galaxy today (well, technically yesterday now). It was Marvelous (he he)

Really though, I loved it. I was a little worried it wouldn't be that great, but it's a really wonderfully fun and funny film. It's an awesome mix of action and comedy, and almost every time it starts to head toward some action movie/space film/movies-in-general cliché, it subverts it in a fun way and makes you (well, me) laugh instead. I definitely want to see it again. Star Lord was hilarious, but even more so were Rocket and Groot (not to mention Rocket is adorable and awesome). Drax was far funnier than I expected him to be, too. The only disappointing thing is Gomora because there's really nothing special about her character-wise; everyone else in the main cast stands out in some ways, but she really doesn't.

I'm way too tired for a detailed review—I just gave up trying to sleep after laying in bed trying to for ~6 hours—but tl;dr: I was very pleasantly surprised and loved it. I wish I wasn't as tired as I was when I saw it, because the movie is fast-paced as all hell at points and was difficult for me to keep track of sometimes, but yeah. It was great and I want to see it agian.

Oh, and earlier this week I saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was amazing as well. Surprisingly emotional and very, very well-done.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 03, 2014, 01:57:55 PM
The only disappointing thing is Gomora because there's really nothing special about her character-wise; everyone else in the main cast stands out in some ways, but she really doesn't.

She is green.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on August 03, 2014, 02:21:30 PM
So I saw Guardians of the Galaxy today (well, technically yesterday now). It was Marvelous (he he)

Really though, I loved it. I was a little worried it wouldn't be that great, but it's a really wonderfully fun and funny film. It's an awesome mix of action and comedy, and almost every time it starts to head toward some action movie/space film/movies-in-general cliché, it subverts it in a fun way and makes you (well, me) laugh instead. I definitely want to see it again. Star Lord was hilarious, but even more so were Rocket and Groot (not to mention Rocket is adorable and awesome). Drax was far funnier than I expected him to be, too. The only disappointing thing is Gomora because there's really nothing special about her character-wise; everyone else in the main cast stands out in some ways, but she really doesn't.

I'm way too tired for a detailed review—I just gave up trying to sleep after laying in bed trying to for ~6 hours—but tl;dr: I was very pleasantly surprised and loved it. I wish I wasn't as tired as I was when I saw it, because the movie is fast-paced as all hell at points and was difficult for me to keep track of sometimes, but yeah. It was great and I want to see it agian.

Oh, and earlier this week I saw Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which was amazing as well. Surprisingly emotional and very, very well-done.
I saw this yesterday too.  Agreed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on August 03, 2014, 08:22:15 PM
What an ungainly, awkward title.  Who thought that was a good idea?

Surely "The Battle of the Five Armies" is exactly the right subtitle for the next Hobbit movie?  What else were they going to call it? 

"The Hobbit: The Finale"?
"The Hobbit: Back to the Shire"?
"The Hobbit: What a Long Strange Trip It's Been"?
"The Hobbit: Endgame"?

"The Hobbit: Dragon Dies in the First Ten Minutes"
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 03, 2014, 09:26:32 PM
I do really want to see Guardians of the Galaxy. Mostly because I like raccoons.

I will return once I've seen it to complain about how it does not properly capture the comic source material.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on August 06, 2014, 03:46:36 AM
The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola)

Still one of my favorite films eva.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 06, 2014, 04:46:52 AM
I watched the first few episodes of Breaking Bad, partially to stop friends and family from constantly pestering me with "Did you watch Breaking Bad yet?  Did you watch Breaking Bad yet?," but mainly because I've heard so many good things about it that I finally had to see what the fuss was about.  I'm sure that most of you have probably already watched the show, so I won't bother writing elaborate reviews for it or anything.  We all know by now that it's a great show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on August 06, 2014, 05:09:31 AM
Breaking Bad is pretty great. If you aren't convinced after the first couple episodes, rest assured. Every season is better than the last, in my opinion.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on August 06, 2014, 05:15:29 AM
Breaking Bad is pretty great.

It is really great and I love the whole thing.

I watched the first few episodes of Breaking Bad, partially to stop friends and family from constantly pestering me with "Did you watch Breaking Bad yet?  Did you watch Breaking Bad yet?," but mainly because I've heard so many good things about it that I finally had to see what the fuss was about.  I'm sure that most of you have probably already watched the show, so I won't bother writing elaborate reviews for it or anything.  We all know by now that it's a great show.

What did you think, and will you continue watching?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 06, 2014, 05:50:16 AM
It's great, I'm definitely going to watch it all.  My one main issue with it so far - and yes, I know that this is a really original criticism and I'm literally so brave for pointing it out - is the wife, Skyler.  It's not because I'm sexist and I can't stand to see a strong female character who challenges her husband or whatever accusation it is that the actress herself has made (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html); it's because she's an incredibly unlikable character with nothing interesting or enjoyable to her.  Any time she appears onscreen, the smile drops right off my face, because I know it's just going to be another killjoy moment.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 06, 2014, 06:14:26 AM
What makes Breaking Bad so good? I watched a few episodes and felt it was too melodramatic. It was hard to take seriously. Are the artsy camera angles supposed to evoke some sort of emotional reaction from me? Because all I feel is disdain.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 06, 2014, 06:56:09 AM
Vauxy is literally a poor man's Rushy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 06, 2014, 07:10:32 AM
No really. I don't see the appeal. What exactly is so amazing about Breaking Bad?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 06, 2014, 07:45:19 AM
Compelling story centered around a character that's easy to empathize with. Great acting across the board.

And yeah, fuck skyler. Designed to be annoying, which makes it worse.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 06, 2014, 10:14:42 AM
I grew to like Skylar more as Walt became more of an asshole.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 06, 2014, 12:24:37 PM
It's great, I'm definitely going to watch it all.  My one main issue with it so far - and yes, I know that this is a really original criticism and I'm literally so brave for pointing it out - is the wife, Skyler.  It's not because I'm sexist and I can't stand to see a strong female character who challenges her husband or whatever accusation it is that the actress herself has made (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html); it's because she's an incredibly unlikable character with nothing interesting or enjoyable to her.  Any time she appears onscreen, the smile drops right off my face, because I know it's just going to be another killjoy moment.

Have any of the plot elements been spoiled for you by the internet? 

What makes Breaking Bad so good? I watched a few episodes and felt it was too melodramatic. It was hard to take seriously. Are the artsy camera angles supposed to evoke some sort of emotional reaction from me? Because all I feel is disdain.

Yes, the emotional appeal of the show is in its many artsy camera angles. You're just not sophisticated enough to understand them.

No really. I don't see the appeal. What exactly is so amazing about Breaking Bad?

The artsy camera angles.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 06, 2014, 09:16:57 PM
The angles weren't that "artsy".
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 06, 2014, 09:26:56 PM
The angles weren't that "artsy".

No, I have no idea what he's talking about.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on August 07, 2014, 02:04:17 AM
It's great, I'm definitely going to watch it all.  My one main issue with it so far - and yes, I know that this is a really original criticism and I'm literally so brave for pointing it out - is the wife, Skyler.  It's not because I'm sexist and I can't stand to see a strong female character who challenges her husband or whatever accusation it is that the actress herself has made (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html); it's because she's an incredibly unlikable character with nothing interesting or enjoyable to her.  Any time she appears onscreen, the smile drops right off my face, because I know it's just going to be another killjoy moment.

I felt that way about Marie (Hank's wife).  I was pretty much indifferent to Skyler for a long time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on August 07, 2014, 04:09:51 PM
Breaking Bad is pretty great. If you aren't convinced after the first couple episodes, rest assured. Every season is better than the last, in my opinion.

I thought S4 dragged a little in the middle, then it picked up in a big way.

I started off hating Skyler, but she became better as


[SPOILERS]




She became more and more drawn into Walt's world. When she started to become as scheming, manipulative and dark as Walt had become. I've just started S5 and am enjoying the refreshing return to the feel of the earlier seasons, with Walt and Jesse cooking by themselves, without the 'support' of the Cartel behind them. Also, Mike's great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 07, 2014, 04:15:13 PM
We have actual spoiler tags, you know.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 07, 2014, 04:17:29 PM
Yeah, sure. Hate the woman who is trying to get by with a shady, downright villainous husband and only like her when she helps him out against her morals.

Pfft, men.  ::)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 07, 2014, 04:28:18 PM
Yeah, sure. Hate the woman who is trying to get by with a shady, downright villainous husband and only like her when she helps him out against her morals.

Pfft, men.  ::)

Irrelevant.  Her worth as a character is the issue, not her worth as a human being in RL terms.  Don't be like those people who say "What do you mean GTA is sexist?  The men in these games are terrible people, therefore the games aren't sexist!"
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on August 07, 2014, 04:34:51 PM
Yeah, sure. Hate the woman who is trying to get by with a shady, downright villainous husband and only like her when she helps him out against her morals.

Pfft, men.  ::)

Although her frustration with Walt is entirely justified, when the main drama in an episode is about Walt and Jesse trying to survive psychopathic druglords, Skyler's complaints just come across as whiny.

She became really good in her own right when she started to take control, to use her financial skills, start juggling the lies to Hank and the family, holding off the IRS... basically being an active character rather than one merely acted upon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 07, 2014, 04:37:08 PM
Yeah, sure. Hate the woman who is trying to get by with a shady, downright villainous husband and only like her when she helps him out against her morals.

Pfft, men.  ::)

Well, it can be generalized simply as being "this character is annoying when she's not sympathetic towards the character the audience is sympathetic towards." That sexist implication is just a side effect of how the characters happen to be.

Honestly though, I think Breaking Bad just has a major issue with one-dimensional characterization. Contrast that with something like Mad Men where nearly every character can be either a massive cunt or genuinely likable depending on the circumstances, and none of it ever feels out of place.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 07, 2014, 04:43:13 PM
I was just teasing.

I thought all of her complaints were justifiable personally, from her POV Walt is changing drastically and she has no idea why. And Walt's family life becomes more important to the story in the last season.

I don't see it as a sexist issue either. I just think it's easy to forget how everything plays out in Skyler's life when we see everything Walt is doing. She's confused, frustrated, depressed, etc.

As far as characterization goes, Mad Men does a much better job with it. I felt that BB could have done Walt's downward spiral better. It seemed like a switch was a flipped and he turned psycho.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 07, 2014, 04:55:54 PM
I just think it's easy to forget how everything plays out in Skyler's life when we see everything Walt is doing. She's confused, frustrated, depressed, etc.

It's easy to forget because we never see her as being anything else. All they really needed to do was start the show off by having her appear as likable and sympathetic, yet instead we're immediately presented with the contrast between an overworked dad and a generally useless housewife. It's not as much "Walt's ruining the family dynamic that he's fighting to preserve" as it is "Walt's escaping the family dynamic because it sucks shit and being a drug kingpin is way more interesting for the audience". As a result we simply don't care about his family life and when Skyler is acting reasonably frustrated, it doesn't resonate with the audience because we don't want to see that part of the story, and she comes across as a "bitch" instead.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 07, 2014, 05:28:14 PM
As a result we simply don't care about his family life and when Skyler is acting reasonably frustrated, it doesn't resonate with the audience because we don't want to see that part of the story, and she comes across as a "bitch" instead.
Yes, that is what I'm addressing. People forget that her frustrations are reasonable and she's not simply a bitch, plain and simple. We see the story from Walt's POV mostly so when she complains to him, she's complaining to the audience and the first reaction is to think she's a bitch even though from her POV it's all totally justifiable.

Why wasn't she working at first? She used to do accounting and then stopped but got a job when Walt lost his teaching one. I don't think Walt even wanted her working. I wouldn't really call that useless. But you're right in that she wasn't really supposed to offer any more to the story other than motivation and then to push Walt away.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 07, 2014, 05:45:56 PM
Yes, but it's the showmakers' job to make sure that we understand that her motivations are justifiable. Audiences don't base their preferences on afterthoughts or rational analysis, it's effectively entirely based on how the characters come across as they are watching the show and as such it's emotionally driven. I just think it's pointless to remark thinks like "people forget that..." when having the audience "forget" things in the first place is a failure on the showmakers' behalf.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 07, 2014, 05:51:19 PM
when having the audience "forget" things in the first place is a failure on the showmakers' behalf.
Agreed. I'm just rationalizing her character because it's just what I tend to do for shows and movies in general. I try and put myself in everyone's POV, but I agree that the writers could have done a better job overall with characterization.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on August 07, 2014, 11:04:41 PM
Mad Men

Did you watch season 7 part 1 yet?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 08, 2014, 01:51:40 PM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 08, 2014, 02:13:39 PM
Mad Men

Did you watch season 7 part 1 yet?

No, but Very Soon Now
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 08, 2014, 04:46:44 PM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Really?

Even my Facebook feed is blowing up, "zomg best Marvel movie evar!" But I'll be seeing it tomorrow anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 08, 2014, 09:49:35 PM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Really?

Even my Facebook feed is blowing up, "zomg best Marvel movie evar!" But I'll be seeing it tomorrow anyway.

It was a good movie, but Reddit is praising it as the second coming of Jesus. People have even been saying crazy things like it's better than the Avengers.

My only complaints are that the script is a bit weak in some places, there's a bunch of times when characters talk basically pure exposition that would be extremely weird in context (since we're in a wacky universe there needs to be some of this, I think Starlord would have been a better vehicle for audience but he wasn't quite used that way). And the villain is really, really weak. It kind of works for the movie because it gives plenty of focus on the main crew, but I think I would have preferred a stronger villain with more screen time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 08, 2014, 09:52:21 PM
Why do you even know what Reddit thinks about things
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 08, 2014, 09:53:06 PM
Because I'm brave enough to frequent /r/movies, which is covered in jizz laden GotG threads.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on August 08, 2014, 09:55:15 PM
masochism = brave ok
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 08, 2014, 09:57:16 PM
There can occasionally be good discussion in there, but since there's so many people it can get pretty retarded as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 08, 2014, 11:47:32 PM
Has anyone seen Boyhood? The guys at RLM hated it (http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-boyhood-and-guardians-of-the-galaxy/), but most critics seem to love it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on August 09, 2014, 12:14:51 AM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Really?

Even my Facebook feed is blowing up, "zomg best Marvel movie evar!" But I'll be seeing it tomorrow anyway.

It was a good movie, but Reddit is praising it as the second coming of Jesus. People have even been saying crazy things like it's better than the Avengers.

My only complaints are that the script is a bit weak in some places, there's a bunch of times when characters talk basically pure exposition that would be extremely weird in context (since we're in a wacky universe there needs to be some of this, I think Starlord would have been a better vehicle for audience but he wasn't quite used that way). And the villain is really, really weak. It kind of works for the movie because it gives plenty of focus on the main crew, but I think I would have preferred a stronger villain with more screen time.
A nearly unkillable Hitler is a weak villain?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 09, 2014, 12:17:10 AM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Really?

Even my Facebook feed is blowing up, "zomg best Marvel movie evar!" But I'll be seeing it tomorrow anyway.

It was a good movie, but Reddit is praising it as the second coming of Jesus. People have even been saying crazy things like it's better than the Avengers.

My only complaints are that the script is a bit weak in some places, there's a bunch of times when characters talk basically pure exposition that would be extremely weird in context (since we're in a wacky universe there needs to be some of this, I think Starlord would have been a better vehicle for audience but he wasn't quite used that way). And the villain is really, really weak. It kind of works for the movie because it gives plenty of focus on the main crew, but I think I would have preferred a stronger villain with more screen time.
A nearly unkillable Hitler is a weak villain?

Not physically weak, weak as a character. He basically just wanted to kill everyone because reasons, and had a ridiculous amount of resources to do it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on August 09, 2014, 12:36:22 AM
Guardians of the galaxy. Wasn't as good as reddit nerds thought it was.
Really?

Even my Facebook feed is blowing up, "zomg best Marvel movie evar!" But I'll be seeing it tomorrow anyway.

It was a good movie, but Reddit is praising it as the second coming of Jesus. People have even been saying crazy things like it's better than the Avengers.

My only complaints are that the script is a bit weak in some places, there's a bunch of times when characters talk basically pure exposition that would be extremely weird in context (since we're in a wacky universe there needs to be some of this, I think Starlord would have been a better vehicle for audience but he wasn't quite used that way). And the villain is really, really weak. It kind of works for the movie because it gives plenty of focus on the main crew, but I think I would have preferred a stronger villain with more screen time.
A nearly unkillable Hitler is a weak villain?

Not physically weak, weak as a character. He basically just wanted to kill everyone because reasons, and had a ridiculous amount of resources to do it.
Again, Space Hitler.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 09, 2014, 04:19:30 AM
Then yes. Another thing I forgot is that this is another marvel movie driven by a macguffin.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 09, 2014, 04:35:42 AM
I've been binging True Blood. It's terrible, stupid, and addicting.

It's why I posted Robert Kazinsky in the what you'd hit thread. He was alright in Pacific Rim but he made the boring 6th season watchable.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 09, 2014, 05:34:41 AM
I've been binging True Blood. It's terrible, stupid, and addicting.

It's why I posted Robert Kazinsky in the what you'd hit thread. He was alright in Pacific Rim but he made the boring 6th season watchable.

I can't even watch that show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 09, 2014, 05:39:06 AM
I don't know a single man that can.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 09, 2014, 05:39:52 AM
I don't know a single man that can.

I might have to start watching it now.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 09, 2014, 05:45:36 AM
I don't know a single man that can.

I might have to start watching it now.
Before you do let me warn you. Kazinsky may have been the hottest guy but he was the dumbest character (aside from Bill becoming the vampire god), he was a faerie/vampire half breed. Yeah. Faerie vampire.

But he was a day walker because of it so whenever I watch Blade again I'll think about how Wesley Snipes must be a faerie vampire.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on August 09, 2014, 03:29:19 PM
I don't know a single man that can.

How many men in relationships can?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 09, 2014, 03:43:50 PM
I don't know any man that can.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 09, 2014, 05:50:34 PM
Has anyone seen Boyhood? The guys at RLM hated it (http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-boyhood-and-guardians-of-the-galaxy/), but most critics seem to love it.
I haven't seen it, but like most of Linklater's other films I'm guessing it's for people who enjoy Richard Linklater films. I'm fortunate enough to be one of those people, so I'm looking forward to it hitting BD.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 09, 2014, 08:57:00 PM
I watched GotG.  It was good.  The villain was lame.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 09, 2014, 10:44:28 PM
Has anyone seen Boyhood? The guys at RLM hated it (http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-boyhood-and-guardians-of-the-galaxy/), but most critics seem to love it.
I haven't seen it, but like most of Linklater's other films I'm guessing it's for people who enjoy Richard Linklater films. I'm fortunate enough to be one of those people, so I'm looking forward to it hitting BD.

Yeah, they did mention that. Jay at least liked most of it, as he said he enjoys Linklater's films.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 05:32:29 AM
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy today.

Really overhyped. 4/10. My main issue was that it didn't follow the comics accurately, followed by the completely generic soundtrack consisting of "best of the oldies! 98.9!!!". Also, the characters were shallow with barely any backstory.

Regardless, still the best Marvel movie I've ever seen.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 11, 2014, 07:00:21 AM
I saw Guardians of the Galaxy today.

Really overhyped. 4/10. My main issue was that it didn't follow the comics accurately, followed by the completely generic soundtrack consisting of "best of the oldies! 98.9!!!". Also, the characters were shallow with barely any backstory.

Regardless, still the best Marvel movie I've ever seen.

>not hans zimmer
>generic sound track

But really, the comics mean jack shit. It makes no difference how loyal movies are to their source material, only how well they're constructed as movies.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 07:47:44 AM


I saw Guardians of the Galaxy today.

Really overhyped. 4/10. My main issue was that it didn't follow the comics accurately, followed by the completely generic soundtrack consisting of "best of the oldies! 98.9!!!". Also, the characters were shallow with barely any backstory.

Regardless, still the best Marvel movie I've ever seen.
But really, the comics mean jack shit. It makes no difference how loyal movies are to their source material, only how well they're constructed as movies.

That explains why Marvel hasn't made a good movie since well... ever.

Correction, Spiderman 3 was pretty good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 11, 2014, 09:25:29 AM
epic bait
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 04:50:55 PM
Well, one point in my first post still stands: it was the best Marvel movie I've ever seen.

I actually really liked it. It pains me because I couldn't find much to bitch about. Chris Pratt was great, like I suspected he would be, and Rocket was awesome.

The biggest issue, like others have stated, was the villain and the "chase the macguffin" plot (although this was lampshaded a few times, which I appreciated). The movie was so much fun that it was hard to care about the conventional storyline and shallow villain. I would have liked more Thanos screentime, but whatever. Knowhere was also a really cool setting, something you'd see out of Doctor Who or something.

I haven't seen Avengers or many Marvel movies recently, but isn't an infinity stone the driving force behind a few different recent Marvel movies?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 11, 2014, 04:55:59 PM
I haven't seen Avengers or many Marvel movies recently, but isn't an infinity stone the driving force behind a few different recent Marvel movies?
Yeah, so there are three (or four depending on who you ask) stones accounted for.

Tesseract = space
Aether = reality
Loki's scepter = mind
And the orb in Guardians = power
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 11, 2014, 05:02:14 PM
Then yes. Another thing I forgot is that this is another marvel movie driven by a macguffin.

The Infinity Stones are not MacGuffins!  Well, okay, they kind of are, but they're not just interchangeable plot coupons.  They all do different things, and they're probably all going to reappear in the future.

EDIT: What a strange coincidence, the most recent two posts touched on this subject.  Anyway, yes, it's rumored that Loki's scepter contains the mind stone, but hasn't been confirmed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 05:13:18 PM
So, what? That's like 3+ movies based around chasing macguffins?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 11, 2014, 05:17:20 PM
So, what? That's like 3+ movies based around chasing macguffins?
Just 3 movies.

I really want an infinity gauntlet movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 11, 2014, 05:18:19 PM
Four if you include the first Captain America, but that didn't really drive the plot in the way that MacGuffins typically do, it was more incidental to the story.

I really want an infinity gauntlet movie.

The gauntlet was briefly shown in the first Thor movie.  Did you see it?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 05:20:46 PM
Four if you include the first Captain America, but that didn't really drive the plot in the way that MacGuffins typically do, it was more incidental to the story.

The First Avenger? That was literally one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

How dare you even bring that up.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 11, 2014, 05:58:00 PM
Four if you include the first Captain America, but that didn't really drive the plot in the way that MacGuffins typically do, it was more incidental to the story.

I really want an infinity gauntlet movie.

The gauntlet was briefly shown in the first Thor movie.  Did you see it?
Yes I did. Did you guys notice Warlock's cacoon at the Collector's?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 11, 2014, 07:35:45 PM
On the notion of Howard the Duck.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 07:42:49 PM
On the notion of Howard the Duck.

There's already a canon film (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_the_Duck_(film)) on the subject.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on August 11, 2014, 08:15:53 PM
I would have liked more Thanos screentime, but whatever.

I'm liking him having little tease scenes in the movies, because it's going to be all the more exciting when he's finally the main antagonist.


So, what? That's like 3+ movies based around chasing macguffins?

That depends on how you define "MacGuffin" for this. Some people use it as a generic term for "any object a film's plot revolves around", whereas others use the definition of an ultimately meaningless item (like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction) that's meant to drive the film without actually mattering or being important in the overall plot or continuity. If you mean the former then yes, but if you mean the latter then no.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 11, 2014, 08:24:29 PM
I would have liked more Thanos screentime, but whatever.

I'm liking him having little tease scenes in the movies, because it's going to be all the more exciting when he's finally the main antagonist.


So, what? That's like 3+ movies based around chasing macguffins?

That depends on how you define "MacGuffin" for this. Some people use it as a generic term for "any object a film's plot revolves around", whereas others use the definition of an ultimately meaningless item (like the briefcase in Pulp Fiction) that's meant to drive the film without actually mattering or being important in the overall plot or continuity. If you mean the former then yes, but if you mean the latter then no.


The Infinity stone falls into the former. I usually just ignore macguffins altogether, but an entirely different trope is used in GotG. I can't remember the trope name, but it goes something like this: character is in possession of said macguffin, doesn't understand the macguffin until later, and then gets into an unwinnable situation in which the macguffin ultimately resolves.

Deus ex Macguffin?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on August 11, 2014, 08:46:56 PM
That's pretty much The Avengers too.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on August 11, 2014, 08:56:15 PM
So, what? That's like 3+ movies based around chasing macguffins?
Just 3 movies.

I really want an infinity gauntlet movie.
Avengers 3.
That's the rumored Infinity Gauntlet movie.  Hence why they put each stone into every single move.

By the time Avengers 3 rolls out, all of them will be shown and Thanos will suddenly have all of them.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 16, 2014, 02:13:14 PM
Avengers 3.
That's the rumored Infinity Gauntlet movie.  Hence why they put each stone into every single move.

By the time Avengers 3 rolls out, all of them will be shown and Thanos will suddenly have all of them.

We literally just went over how they've only appeared in four of the movies.

Also, these movies have enough white male leads.  Where are all the women and/or people of color?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on August 16, 2014, 02:19:57 PM
Well, the Hulk is green.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on August 16, 2014, 06:24:04 PM
Avengers 3.
That's the rumored Infinity Gauntlet movie.  Hence why they put each stone into every single movie.

By the time Avengers 3 rolls out, all of them will be shown and Thanos will suddenly have all of them.

We literally just went over how they've only appeared in four of the movies.
Point.  Sorry, I was thinking wrong.  But they are putting the gems in a lot of their movies, especially since Thor 1.

Gauntlet in Thor 1
Gem of Space in both Captain America 1 and Avengers 1
Gem of Reality in Thor 2
Gem of Power in Guardians of the Galaxy
Gem of Mind is rumored to be in Loki's staff in Avengers 1

So that leaves 2 more gems. 

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Pete Svarrior on August 16, 2014, 09:03:31 PM
Where are all the women
The kitchen

and/or people of color?
Ferguson, MO
OH SNAP YOU GUYS :D
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 04:21:08 AM
Also, these movies have enough white male leads.  Where are all the women and/or people of color?

They aren't hero material.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on August 17, 2014, 04:23:44 AM
Is there even such a thing as a black female hero?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 17, 2014, 04:54:33 AM
Is there even such a thing as a black female hero?
Storm
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 02:15:47 PM
Storm

Name an X-men movie where Storm played the lead role.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 17, 2014, 03:15:30 PM
He didn't ask if a black female hero played as the lead protagonist.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 03:52:24 PM
He didn't ask if a black female hero played as the lead protagonist.

Where did I say he did?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 17, 2014, 05:25:09 PM
She never did play a lead in any of the live action movies, I don't know about cartoons. But she is a black female hero.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 05:27:14 PM
She never did play a lead in any of the live action movies, I don't know about cartoons. But she is a black female hero.

Which is probably what lead Saddam to this:

Also, these movies have enough white male leads.  Where are all the women and/or people of color?

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on August 17, 2014, 06:34:08 PM
wow gr8 point rush
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 17, 2014, 06:40:04 PM
mkaaay, so here we are. What a fun circle.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 17, 2014, 07:56:30 PM
"The Batman of Africa" (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batwing_(DC_Comics))
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 07:57:47 PM
mkaaay, so here we are. What a fun circle.

Roosroos still doesn't know how to FES.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 17, 2014, 08:05:25 PM
Rush still doesn't know how to roosroos.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 08:29:24 PM
Rush still doesn't know how to roosroos.

This is true, but not relevant to my previous statement.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 17, 2014, 08:37:13 PM
Posting like Rushy does is not how to "FES". I think we can pretty much all agree that he's one of the most annoying.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 08:43:14 PM
Posting like Rushy does is not how to "FES".

Who said it was?

I think we can pretty much all agree that he's one of the most annoying.

Learn to English.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 17, 2014, 08:48:05 PM
Posting like Rushy does is not how to "FES".

Who said it was?

I think we can pretty much all agree that he's one of the most annoying.

Learn to English.

Yeah, like this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 09:01:05 PM
Yeah, like this.

Roosroos is better at this than you.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 17, 2014, 09:06:51 PM
What's "this"?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 17, 2014, 09:15:56 PM
When are you two going to admit your undying love and homosexual attraction for each other?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 17, 2014, 11:19:38 PM
What's "this"?

Quote from: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/this
pronoun, plural these
[th eez] (Show IPA)
1. (used to indicate a person, thing, idea, state, event, time, remark, etc., as present, near, just mentioned or pointed out, supposed to be understood, or by way of emphasis):
This is my coat.
2. (used to indicate one of two or more persons, things, etc., referring to the one nearer in place, time, or thought; opposed to that):
This is Liza and that is Amy.
3. (used to indicate one of two or more persons, things, etc., implying a contrast or contradistinction; opposed to that):
I'd take that instead of this.
4. what is about to follow:
Now hear this! Watch this!

adjective, plural these
[th eez] (Show IPA)
5. (used to indicate a person, place, thing, or degree as present, near, just indicated or mentioned, or as well-known or characteristic):
These people are my friends. This problem has worried me for a long time.
6. (used to indicate the nearer in time, place, or thought of two persons, things, etc.; opposed to that).
7. (used to imply mere contradistinction; opposed to that).
8. (used in place of an indefinite article for emphasis):
I was walking down the street when I heard this explosion.
adverb
9. (used with adjectives and adverbs of quantity or extent) to the extent or degree indicated:
this far; this softly.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on August 18, 2014, 12:16:40 AM
Kick Ass anyone?  He's a dude but we all know who gets the job done.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on August 18, 2014, 05:41:39 PM
Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier)

This was an excellent fucking film overall, and I loved it. Charlotte Gainsbourg was of course great, but I was also very impressed by Christian Slater's performance. Uma Thurman was also a standout. The cinematography was gorgeous, and the editing overall. Some of the editing felt weird, and I'm not sure if it's due to the length being cut down. I still need to see the full uncut version if it becomes available. Like many von Trier films, this was a very intensely emotional film for me. While most people would be put off by its length and content, I was fully hooked and it really didn't feel that long. I look forward to whatever Lars von Trier brings us next.


The Fisher King (Terry Gilliam)

It was kind of good overall, but I wasn't really too into the film. Though, I really loved the performances of Jeff Bridges, Robin Williams, and Amanda Plummer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 20, 2014, 12:43:22 AM
I'm almost caught up on The Leftovers. Anyone watching it? It's a pretty depressing, character driven show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: model 29 on August 20, 2014, 06:41:07 AM
Watched 'Russian Ark' tonight.

Very interesting film.  I'm impressed by the sheer logistics of they pulled off with everything that's going on and the fact that the entire movie is a single 96 minute take.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on August 20, 2014, 08:19:08 AM
Watched Captain America The Winter Soldier last night. Was alright. I thought Strucker was going to be the main villain in this one. At least he appeared in the mid-credits scene.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on August 20, 2014, 04:24:24 PM
Watched Captain America The Winter Soldier last night. Was alright. I thought Strucker was going to be the main villain in this one. At least he appeared in the mid-credits scene.

....
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 20, 2014, 04:52:04 PM
The contribution of Vauxhall.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on August 20, 2014, 05:04:41 PM
Indeed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on August 20, 2014, 06:18:49 PM
Also, these movies have enough white male leads.  Where are all the women and/or people of color?
Blade.  Catwoman.  Spawn.  Elektra. Hancock. Vampirella.  Wonder Woman (TV series).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on August 21, 2014, 04:26:11 PM
Marvel could make a film of the storyline where the Punisher turned black.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 21, 2014, 05:04:13 PM
Punisher movies have always been terrible.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on August 21, 2014, 05:54:39 PM
Marvel could make a film of the storyline where the Punisher turned black.
Black Panther is supposed to be in development.  Of course, whether or not it ever gets made is a different story.
http://screenrant.com/black-panther-movie-development-update-phase-4-5/
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 21, 2014, 08:55:04 PM
Hollywood usually doesn't like to give black people lead roles unless it's Denzel, Will Smith, or, God help us, Eddie Murphy.  Fortunately, I can't see any of them in this role.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on August 21, 2014, 08:56:05 PM
What about Morgan Slaveman?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 22, 2014, 01:06:20 AM
Hollywood usually doesn't like to give black people lead roles unless it's Denzel, Will Smith, or, God help us, Eddie Murphy.  Fortunately, I can't see any of them in this role.

Hey, Eddie Murphy is a good actor, he's just been in some shit lately.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on August 22, 2014, 03:06:51 AM
"lately"
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on August 22, 2014, 03:13:56 AM
"Hey"
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on August 22, 2014, 11:12:36 AM
Marlon Wayans as Black Panther?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on August 22, 2014, 01:07:22 PM
If Damon Wayans can be Blank Man, then why not?
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Cr-6Mm8Pa8/UDrPrZeHAPI/AAAAAAAAA0Y/B7m4aTFQU8E/s320/0004339606549_500X500.jpg)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on August 22, 2014, 01:50:52 PM
Hollywood usually doesn't like to give black people lead roles unless it's Denzel, Will Smith, or, God help us, Eddie Murphy.  Fortunately, I can't see any of them in this role.

Idris Elba ftw
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: The Terror on August 22, 2014, 03:52:13 PM
I watched the first episode of Bojack Horseman. I was disappointed, it was basically a bog standard story of a faded celebrity. Maybe the series will get better.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 22, 2014, 04:15:56 PM
Hollywood usually doesn't like to give black people lead roles unless it's Denzel, Will Smith, or, God help us, Eddie Murphy.  Fortunately, I can't see any of them in this role.

Idris Elba ftw

but he's Heimdall
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on August 23, 2014, 01:08:52 AM
But Saddam, Heimdall is the only one who ever showed any form of intelligence among Asgardians. 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 23, 2014, 02:12:38 AM
Yeah, the All-Mother was a total dunce.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on August 27, 2014, 02:30:56 PM
Since Saddam thinks The Leftovers is Left Behind, I'll write more of a review.

2% of the population suddenly goes missing at the same time and the show takes place three years later. People aren't coping very well with what happened. There's not a lot of religion involved. Sure, some people think it was the Rapture or whatever, but terrible people went missing so not a lot of people buy into it.

The writing is great, it's largely character driven since the show is about the darker side of human emotions and interactions. Weird things happen to the protagonist to make it seem like he might be going crazy. In the last couple of episodes it's been addressing that more directly and kind of leaves you with a "what the fuck is happening" feeling.

The only people I know who are into The Leftovers were also the people who were into True Detective if that tells you anything about the nature of the show. You get a notion that maybe something more is happening but it's not explicitly said.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 27, 2014, 04:08:45 PM
Perfect Blue (Satoshi Kon)
Classic psychological thriller in which a pop idol transferring to a career in acting becomes the victim of a bizarre personal vendetta. It's a great piece of animation and uses the format to convey a disorienting world in which you can never be sure what is actually happening. Fans of David Lynch in particular will dig this, I think, and it bears similarities to his films Mulholland Dr. and Inland Empire though was made before either of them.

Paprika (Satoshi Kon)
Lively Gilliam-esque science fiction in which dreams and reality merge. It looks great and as a collection of individual set pieces is quite enthralling, but I was left feeling that it didn't come to much more than that. This was Kon's last completed feature before he died and I can't help but feel it is not the last hurrah one would want from such an imaginative director (hopefully his half-complete Dreaming Machine will be finished soon). The soundtrack is also nauseating and badly mixed with dialogue at times, which was no small source of annoyance. It's not terrible, it just doesn't work.

Hausu (Nobuhiko Kobayashi)
Japanese haunted house movie which might be the craziest thing I've ever seen. In addition to the bizarre and often hilarious death scenes, it has a sense of humour that switches from slapstick to the macabre to pure absurdism. Watch it.

Melancholia (Lars von Trier)
The thing that stood out to me most, perhaps, besides the tasteful use of CGI which is really quite breathtaking  at times, is how funny it is. I did have a problem with the handheld camera work, which I understand is one of Trier's trademarks, but apart from that I have nothing bad to say about it. It's certainly the best disaster movie I've ever seen, and that's probably because it's not about survival, it's about total unavoidable destruction. Again, despite it being about that, it's funny, hilarious even, and in a wholly intentional way.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 27, 2014, 11:22:20 PM
Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
Magic realism on the birth of cinema. Magic is definitely part of what it's about, comparing cinema, automata, and magic shows via the work of Georges Méliès - the famous director of silent films like Le Voyage dans la Lune, which figures prominently through the film - and indeed the experience is quite a magical one, often taking on the quality of fairytale with its broad characters and cheeky sense of humour. The clockwork sequences are magnificent to behold, from the clock towers in the train station to the inner workings of Hugo's automaton, and the warm colours of the clockwork cogs and gears are contrasted with the bleak Parisian Winter beating outside. It's definitely a visual feast, and the story and characters are heart-warming without being cloying, no mean feat for a cinéaste par excellence like Scorsese, especially not when he is writing a gushing love letter to cinema as he is here. Hugo is up there with The King of Comedy as one of my very favourite of his works, which might not appear to be saying much as I find his highly acclaimed works Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas to be quite dreadful, but it is meant sincerely, he is at the top of his game here.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 29, 2014, 12:00:57 AM
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick)
Second viewing, still don't get it. I do honestly believe it's great, because it draws me in effortlessly, but I still don't get it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on August 29, 2014, 01:29:03 AM
I find his highly acclaimed works Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas to be quite dreadful

hipster
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on August 29, 2014, 01:20:52 PM
I find his highly acclaimed works Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas to be quite dreadful

hipster

>liking hugo, a highly acclaimed, hugely mainstream, oscar winning movie
>hipster

Come on Saddam, you can do better than this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 04, 2014, 12:52:55 AM
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson) - Very good

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick) - Great

Room 237 (Rodney Ascher) - Okay

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer) - Very good
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 04, 2014, 03:14:32 AM
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson) - Very good

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick) - Great

Room 237 (Rodney Ascher) - Okay

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer) - Very good

You're getting lazy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 04, 2014, 06:01:34 AM
Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson) - Very good

The Shining (Stanley Kubrick) - Great

Room 237 (Rodney Ascher) - Okay

La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (Carl Th. Dreyer) - Very good

You're getting lazy.

I'm not feeling wordy at the moment.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on September 04, 2014, 10:04:27 PM
Eddie Murphy

The 90s called they want their lead black actor back.

Also

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=black+actors&tbm=isch
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on September 05, 2014, 02:38:07 AM
Leon: The Professional

Aside from some logical flaws, it was excellent. Gary Oldman was Psychotic, young Natalie Portman was creepy as hell, and that guy from The Pink Panther was badass.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 05, 2014, 03:04:49 AM
that guy from The Pink Panther

If you only know of Jean Reno from his role in that shitty movie, you are doing something terribly wrong.

Also, I binge-watched the first half of Breaking Bad's second season today.  The first season was good and all, but it's only now that I've really gotten hooked.  Skyler still sucks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on September 05, 2014, 03:35:34 AM
that guy from The Pink Panther

If you only know of Jean Reno from his role in that shitty movie, you are doing something terribly wrong.

Also, I binge-watched the first half of Breaking Bad's second season today.  The first season was good and all, but it's only now that I've really gotten hooked.  Skyler still sucks.

She was my least favorite character.

I have watched the first half of the second season of Hannibal. Don't know what I think of it rally. It uses a lot of  obvious tricks to create mood and the narrative is very loose but Hannibal is great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on September 05, 2014, 04:00:59 AM
that guy from The Pink Panther

If you only know of Jean Reno from his role in that shitty movie, you are doing something terribly wrong.


I was 10 when that movie came out, it was right up my alley >o<

Also, watch moar BB.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: fappenhosen on September 05, 2014, 09:17:56 PM
Skyler still sucks.

The whole sister storyline blows dead dicks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 06, 2014, 01:30:56 AM
Inkheart (Iain Softley)

Owing much to the work of Terry Gilliam and the underrated Neil Gaiman penned Stardust, this seems like something I would like a lot, and that's why it was so disappointing to find myself checking the time and sighing at the thought of having 20 more minutes to go till the end. Although the basic premise of being able to read a page from a book aloud and have the things in it come into the real world is interesting, it seems under-utilised. Our lead is Mortimer, a "silvertongue" who can bring books to life, one day he is plunged into battle with the villains of a fantasy novel, but he never thinks it's a good idea, despite being surrounded by books in most scenes, to bring a couple of appropriate titles along for ammunition? It feels like a flimsy excuse to drag the story out for longer than is necessary, and for that reason I say this is an 80 minute film that lasts for 100.

The acting ranges from good to passable. Brendan Fraser, who I think is unfairly dismissed by most people, does a good job in the lead role, Andy Serkis is menacing enough as the smooth talking but rather unhinged villain, and Eliza Bennett is a believable female lead. It's really only Paul Bettany and his clunky accent, woefully mismatched with the dialogue (lots of "we gotta do this" "we gotta long road ahead of us" "you gotta read the book" gotta gotta gotta etc.), which is kind of off putting. It's actually a reminiscent of some of the dialogue/accent combinations in Skyrim, and that's not a good thing. Part of the blame lies with the characters themselves, they seem very much "to type", and while this is understandable from the perspective of some of them being taken right out of old fantasy stories, for me it just doesn't work.

The music is generic to say the least, but perfectly functional, which is impressive enough. The special effects are quite well done for the most part: extended shots of the Minotaur from the tale of Theseus which look quite believable, and the flying monkeys from Oz and so on, all fine. The Shadow, an original monster from the titular Inkheart book, looks pretty good too as it billows smoke and ash with every move, though I can't stop thinking it looks a bit like the Balrog from Lord of the Rings had an accident involving a giant fire extinguisher.

While it has good ideas, a decent cast, and good special effects, Inkheart seems to have a difficult time coming together into a genuinely satisfying film. As a fantasy "epic" it simply does not have the strength of its convictions and ends up being a severely flawed piece of work, but not in a charming way like the aforementioned Stardust, which I recommend checking out, along with Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, as quality contemporary alternatives that have more to offer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 08, 2014, 01:08:26 PM
Zodiac (David Fincher)

Slow burn paperwork drama with a bit of blood added for contrast here and there. Fincher's usual gloss is on full display and for most of the film acts as a kind of detaching presence, leaving the audience a couple of steps removed from the drama. While the characters felt kind of flat for me (liking Animal Crackers isn't a character trait, I'm sorry, it just isn't) I did find myself eventually becoming engrossed in the plot, which isn't so much about the Zodiac Killer as it is about what obsession can do to people. It's a flawed piece, but it is entertaining throughout, and Fincher's visual style is as slick and pretty as ever.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on September 08, 2014, 01:39:40 PM
I love that one. It follows the book pretty well and it makes you feel like you're the one investigating the Zodiac killer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 09, 2014, 03:00:48 AM
Has anyone else seen Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai? Excellent film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 10, 2014, 07:02:06 AM
The Dish (Rob Sitch)

Comedy drama about Australian involvement in the TV broadcast of the Apollo 11 mission, based on actual events. "Actual events" is where the problem lies, while there are considerable departures from recorded history it never really goes for broke to deliver satire or even farce. Obviously this was not the intention of the people who made the film, which is fine, but I feel it would have benefited from a more subversive approach à la Dr. Strangelove. What we get instead is a sort of cosy parochial feelgood piece in which the eccentricities of Australian behaviour meet the procedural constraints of NASA, and it feels like many opportunities for big laughs concerning this ramshackle professionalism in the face of bureaucracy were missed as the whole thing comes to a somewhat unpleasantly romantic conclusion.

Having said all that, I don't think it's a bad film. It's well shot (I especially appreciated the number of shots the titular dish received, the size and beauty of the machinery is the visual highlight of the film) and well acted, and I laughed quite a few times. I'm sure I missed some of the humour in the script owing to my not being familiar with Australian comedy, but I felt that it was fairly functional in that regard nonetheless. Overall I'd say it's an okay film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 10, 2014, 09:05:40 AM
I'm not sure what Australian comedy is. Drop bear jokes?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 10, 2014, 10:17:29 AM
I'm not sure what Australian comedy is. Drop bear jokes?
By Australian comedy I mean humour specific to Australian culture, which I really don't know much of anything about.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 10, 2014, 03:10:56 PM
Australian comedy mainly consists of saying "Oi!" and jokes about kangaroos.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 10, 2014, 07:16:54 PM
We need an expert Australian to tell us.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on September 11, 2014, 12:39:24 AM
Just finished watching Spike Jonze's Her. I'd been wanting to see this ever since the first previews came out (partly because Arcade Fire did the score) and have avoided pretty much everything about it since.

Now that it's over, I'm not really sure what I think. The film's cinematography was gorgeous (most of the time) to a crazy extent. The acting was amazing, and Joaquin in particular was just wonderful as all hell. I often found myself stepping outside of the film for a moment, so to speak, just to admire how good he was at portraying his character and just how sincere he seemed. Scarlett Johansson was very good as Samantha, but to be honest I wasn't as enthralled with her performance as a lot of people seem to have been.

As for the story itself, I'd say the first hour or so I really really loved, but from there on I don't think it was as interesting. The premise is great—man falls in love with an intelligent OS—and it holds up very well for a while, but towards the end it feels like it sort of decays into a more traditional love story and I just kinda found myself being less enraptured by what's happening and becoming less emotionally invested. When I of all people am not crying at very sad parts, something's wrong. While the specifics of their relationship and troubles were fascinating and for all intensive porpoises should have made it feel like more than any other romantic film, it really didn't in that last 30-45 minutes. Everything felt, more or less, relatable to more usual problems and while that's great for analogizing the relationship to any other human relationship, it also meant that it felt overly familiar and less interesting and exciting.

Of course, this is just me and clearly most people disagree with me, but yeah, I don't know if I loved it or just thought it was good. But it was definitely gorgeous to look at and hear, and featured probably the only sex scene I've found kind of beautiful, so that's definitely an achievement. :P
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 12, 2014, 03:06:13 PM
In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute)

LaBute's debut casts him in somewhat different light to "the guy who made that film with Nicolas Cage punching women while wearing a bear costume", even if the subject matter isn't necessarily all that different. The story concerns two men who are heading out of town on business for six weeks, while waiting for a flight they, going through messy break-ups and wanting revenge on women, make a pact to find a lonely fragile woman, wine and dine her separately, and then break her heart for the sake of hurting her. I don't want to give much else away because I really think people should just see it, it's definitely the most brilliant satire I've seen in a long time, and not only has major laughs but tangible pain and sadness, often in the same moment. It's a really great piece of work.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on September 12, 2014, 04:08:27 PM
In the Company of Men (Neil LaBute)

LaBute's debut casts him in somewhat different light to "the guy who made that film with Nicolas Cage punching women while wearing a bear costume", even if the subject matter isn't necessarily all that different. The story concerns two men who are heading out of town on business for six weeks, while waiting for a flight they, going through messy break-ups and wanting revenge on women, make a pact to find a lonely fragile woman, wine and dine her separately, and then break her heart for the sake of hurting her. I don't want to give much else away because I really think people should just see it, it's definitely the most brilliant satire I've seen in a long time, and not only has major laughs but tangible pain and sadness, often in the same moment. It's a really great piece of work.

A movie one should avoid seeing with their significant other at all costs.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on September 14, 2014, 05:33:39 PM
First season of Black Sails. A political drama with the most historically accurate pirates I've ever seen. This show actually makes me interested to learn more about them. They use a historian on set so they just nail the time period. Plus, the characters are very well written. It just looks fantastic as well.

It can be a bit boring with the more political moments, but after two episodes you get really sucked into the plot. I just finished it yesterday but I'm already re-watching it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 14, 2014, 06:38:54 PM
But that's on Starz and has Michael Bay as a producer.  Both Starz and Michael Bay are terrible.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 14, 2014, 07:03:38 PM
They have physicists working on The Big Bang Theory but that show still sucks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on September 14, 2014, 07:57:41 PM
But that's on Starz and has Michael Bay as a producer.  Both Starz and Michael Bay are terrible.
Starz is fine. Michael Bay is just the producer which means they've got a lot of money. He's not a director so there are no dumb explosions.

They have physicists working on The Big Bang Theory but that show still sucks.
That's cause the comedy is dumb.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on September 14, 2014, 08:02:31 PM
I think The Big Bang Theory is funny. Bring it on, haters.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on September 14, 2014, 08:09:06 PM
I think The Big Bang Theory is funny. Bring it on, haters.
So do I, actually.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 14, 2014, 08:10:49 PM
Both of you are terrible.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 14, 2014, 08:13:21 PM
I think The Big Bang Theory is funny. Bring it on, haters.

The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on September 14, 2014, 09:11:53 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 14, 2014, 09:25:51 PM
TBBT is objectively terrible.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on September 14, 2014, 09:35:27 PM
TBBT is objectively terrible.

Incorrect. It is funny as fuck.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 14, 2014, 09:36:01 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?


Because good sitcoms do it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on September 14, 2014, 09:38:26 PM
Because good sitcoms do it.

A good sitcom is funny. That is the only criteria.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on September 14, 2014, 09:48:54 PM
Poorly-coded N64 emulator ehehehehe
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on September 14, 2014, 09:55:14 PM
Blackface for nerds

Srsly though, terrible show. Doesn't even get its nerd facts right. I try to watch and they fuck up a Super Mario 64 reference. What shits.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 14, 2014, 09:56:33 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?

I'm not. I want the exact opposite of that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on September 14, 2014, 10:33:07 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?

I'm not. I want the exact opposite of that.

Shallow and thoughtless character development? Then The Big Bang Theory is perfect for you! :^)))
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 14, 2014, 10:44:25 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?

I'm not. I want the exact opposite of that.

Shallow and thoughtless character development? Then The Big Bang Theory is perfect for you! :^)))
I would like Sheldon to be the same character he was when they first started the show. Ambiguously asexual, eccentric, neurotic, and somewhat chauvinistic at times. It was very funny. They introduced Amy and toned down his character x100. Now we get to watch Sheldon, the Jewish guy, and every other damn character bicker with their girlfriends/wives, with the occasional "aweeeeee so cute they totally love each other" moment.  Maybe I was spoiled by the masterwork that is Seinfeld, because I usually hold most sitcoms to that standard of excellence. Foolish, I know.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 14, 2014, 11:12:03 PM
Blackface for nerds

Srsly though, terrible show. Doesn't even get its nerd facts right. I try to watch and they fuck up a Super Mario 64 reference. What shits.

WELL YOU'RE WRONG BECAUSE BARENAKED LADIES DID THE INTRO AND WIL WHEATON ON THE SHOW PLUS THEY HAVE PHYSICS GUYS GET THE MATH RIGHT

edit: derp
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on September 15, 2014, 12:57:42 AM
I'm currently watching a show called Continuum (apparently there is a SyFy show that goes by this name, I am talking about the Canadian one). It started off pretty dull and overdone "erma gawd, we went back in time!!!1!!1!" but the story depth is getting a lot better and I am now starting season 2.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954347/

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on September 15, 2014, 01:24:09 AM
Synopsis sounds really lame.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 15, 2014, 01:39:12 AM
I am a tough guy, not a nerd, so I am not offended by their depictions of nerds.  What I am offended by is how obnoxious and unfunny it is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on September 15, 2014, 01:53:23 AM
B-B-B-B-BAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on September 15, 2014, 01:30:18 PM
the masterwork that is Seinfeld

This is the sort of person that watches and enjoys TBBT
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on September 15, 2014, 01:53:32 PM
I have been watching the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica, and its follow-up, Galactica 1980. I only have an episode and a half to go of the latter (the second-last episode seems to be broken halfway through, so I wasn't able to watch the end).

Battlestar Galactica starts off being literally Star Wars, but gets consistently better throughout its first (and only) season. The latter half is mostly good, particularly after Sheba joins the Galactica. On the whole, it feels like a cross between Star Trek (the original series) and Star Wars, and is much recommended. The overarching plot concerns a group of spacefaring humans from a distant galaxy who are all but extinct after a terrible war, and seek to find their distant cousins on Earth. The series ends with them receiving a transmission of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Then they made the absolutely terrible decision to bring it back two years later, set an unspecified number of decades after the original, after they have found Earth. They dropped most of the original cast, and replaced them with completely unmemorable characters who don't seem to have any personality beyond making markjokes at every opportunity. None of the characters have clear motives for their actions, and the story is told by narrating everything that's about to happen before it actually does. What little isn't foretold is filled in with sci-fi cliches, so the entirety of every episode after the narration is completely pointless.

Oh, and did I mention that the main plot of the series involves a renegade Galactican who travels back in time with the intention of messing with history, yet there are never any visible effects of his actions in the present? How about the fact that Earth gravity is weaker than Galactican gravity, leading to the absolutely hilarious scenes where the protagonists escape law enforcement by leaping into the treetops? Oh, and one of them "accidentally" robs a bank because he thinks pulling out a laser pistol and pointing it at someone holding a bag full of money is a completely innocent gesture. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.

I'll leave you with one of the more memorable scenes from Galactica 1980:


http://ftp.steven-mcdonald.id.au/galactica_children.webm
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on September 15, 2014, 02:23:04 PM
The first two seasons are really great, but after that it's just endless relationship dramas. Why does Sheldon even have a fucking girlfriend? They changed his character at that point, and the show is far worse because of it.

Why are you looking for deep and thoughtful character development in a sitcom?


Because good sitcoms do it.

Some do, some don't.  Seinfeld never really developed character, simply adjusted their circumstances, same with Cheers, MASH, Friends.  All of these were wildly successful in some form.  Rushy is right; the most important criteria for a sitcom is the laugh.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 15, 2014, 03:55:27 PM
Inland Empire (David Lynch)

Anyone who knows me knows I love me some David Lynch. When I first saw Inland Empire a few years ago I had no idea what I was watching, it seemed like a half-baked mish mash of scenes put together by a computer algorithm, some grand statement "I am experimental" from Lynch, who had gone so far with his previous films that there was no way to top them but to, in the tradition of James Joyce, create a final (though from Lynch, I sincerely hope there are more features to come) work so beyond what had come before it that it would keep people guessing for years, decades, centuries to come.

With Lynch it is so very often the second time around that makes a viewer realise the brilliance of the work, whether it is understanding the dream narrative of Mulholland Dr. or unravelling the mystery of "Fred" in Lost Highway, the second viewing can often come across like an essay on the first. Inland Empire goes one step further, it is singular among Lynch's work in that the second viewing is not so much an answerer of questions but a window to an entirely different film. I may still not understand the symbols, the interjections, the parallel narratives, but rather than coming out of it confused I came out uplifted.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on September 15, 2014, 08:30:07 PM
TBBT is objectively terrible.

Incorrect. It was funny as fuck.

fix'd

The first season was awful, when it was just "Hehe, aren't nerds funny" jokes, then it got better until it reached its natural stopping point which was Howard getting married. Until then all the characters were different, they were together because they were outcasts and they could get away with being dicks because they were naive.

Now, pretty much all the male cast are interchangeable and the female cast are differentiated purely by their one character trait: Penny-Stupid, Amy-Socially awkward, Bernadette... erm... controlling, maybe?

Time to let it die peacefully.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 15, 2014, 08:35:26 PM
TBBT cast make $1million an episode, and people eat it up. The show's not going anywhere. But I agree with all your points.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on September 16, 2014, 02:05:47 AM
I can also say that I like the show despite an avid physics teacher telling me he met the actor who plays Sheldon and was disappointed to find out the guy was a dick in real life (not the funny kind). This was a while ago, right when the show's first season was airing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on September 16, 2014, 02:07:50 AM
I think The Big Bang Theory is funny. Bring it on, haters.

Why am I not surprised?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 16, 2014, 06:12:36 PM
I can also say that I like the show despite an avid physics teacher telling me he met the actor who plays Sheldon and was disappointed to find out the guy was a dick in real life (not the funny kind). This was a while ago, right when the show's first season was airing.

He's not only a dick. He also likes it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: markjo on September 16, 2014, 07:59:07 PM
Blackface for nerds

Srsly though, terrible show. Doesn't even get its nerd facts right. I try to watch and they fuck up a Super Mario 64 reference. What shits.
Fact checking a sitcom. (http://i43.tinypic.com/2nq74gy.jpg)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 16, 2014, 08:25:54 PM
Even in a discussion about this stupid show, markjo still provides the worst post.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on September 16, 2014, 08:31:11 PM
Even in a discussion about this stupid show, markjo still provides the worst post.

Incorrect.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on September 20, 2014, 07:37:28 PM
I finished Galactica 1980. I hereby unhesitatingly declare that it is, without a doubt, the worst TV series I have ever made the mistake of deciding to watch.

Every single episode makes its plot painfully obvious from the start. The original Battlestar Galactica included previews of the episode to come at the start too, but just enough to give the viewer an appetite for things to come. 1980 gives away everything at the start.

Part of the problem is that they never introduce any significant complications. The good guys come up with a plan, they execute it, the bad guys practically trip over their own toes, and the plan is successful. But it doesn't feel like a victory when there was nothing in their way at any point.

I honestly wish they'd never tried to bring it back. The original Battlestar Galactica stands quite well on its own.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on September 20, 2014, 07:44:57 PM
What about the 2004 series?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 20, 2014, 07:46:02 PM
What about the 2004 series?

2004 series is amazing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on September 21, 2014, 11:16:31 AM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on September 21, 2014, 01:22:19 PM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.

I started that one but never finished, even though I meant to. I should watch it soon as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on September 21, 2014, 07:07:25 PM
Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Instantly one of my favorite horror films. Polanski's ability to create suspense is phenomenal.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on September 21, 2014, 07:23:46 PM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.
Are you going to watch the Stargate franchise some time?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Daniel Jackson on September 21, 2014, 07:30:58 PM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.
Are you going to watch the Stargate franchise some time?

Great series. I recommend it with the highest honors. Take it from me, the real Daniel Jackson.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 25, 2014, 01:26:06 AM
I have finished the fourth season of Breaking Bad.  Apparently this is where the show jumped the shark.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on September 25, 2014, 04:25:50 AM
I have finished the fourth season of Breaking Bad.  Apparently this is where the show jumped the shark.
Disagree
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on September 26, 2014, 09:30:59 PM
I have finished the fourth season of Breaking Bad.  Apparently this is where the show jumped the shark.

It starts with one of my favorite scenes I have ever seen on a TV show (Gus visits the lab) and has an awesome ending (Gus visits the hospital) and the in between was excellent.  What was too much for you?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 26, 2014, 09:47:50 PM
I have finished the fourth season of Breaking Bad.  Apparently this is where the show jumped the shark.

It starts with one of my favorite scenes I have ever seen on a TV show (Gus visits the lab) and has an awesome ending (Gus visits the hospital) and the in between was excellent.  What was too much for you?

I thought it was great.  What I meant was that I've heard from a few people that the final season is a big step down from the rest of the show's quality.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on September 27, 2014, 07:07:16 AM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.
Are you going to watch the Stargate franchise some time?

Perhaps. I generally decide what I'm going to watch next after I finish watching the last thing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on September 27, 2014, 10:24:12 AM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.
Are you going to watch the Stargate franchise some time?

Perhaps. I generally decide what I'm going to watch next after I finish watching the last thing.

And this time you are deciding to watch Twin Peaks. Thanks.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on September 29, 2014, 06:26:33 PM
I have now finished Breaking Bad.  While I'm sure that most of you have probably already watched it (at least out of those of you who would be interested in watching such a show), I still feel like sharing my thoughts.  No spoilers, I promise.

First of all, the setting is great.  It would have been easy for these guys to move it a little bit to the west and set it in Los Angeles because we don't have nearly enough TV shows, movies, etc. set in fucking Los Angeles these days, or move it a little bit to the east and set it in Texas and give us a bunch of yee-haws and cowboy hats.  Instead, they took a chance on a setting that we don't see too often, with an interesting culture and a look and feel that fits the show perfectly.  It's a modern Western of sorts, but one that's written so well that it avoids almost all of the clichés that most Westerns suffer from.

Speaking of the writing, it's fantastic.  What particularly stands out about it (and the directing) is the blend of gritty realism and occasional bursts of - let's face it, complete and utter silliness.  The goofy montages with the offbeat, jarring music.  Walter pulling ridiculous solutions to his problems out of his ass with SCIENCE!  Saul is basically a cartoon character.  Gus is pretty much a Bond villain.  I could go on, but the point is that this isn't a bad thing.  It actually plays a vital role in livening up the show and making it entertaining as well as compelling.  Most importantly of all, it never - well, almost never - overplays this element and make the story seem too far-fetched.

I was somewhat disappointed with the final season.  A lot of it is just filler, and the new antagonists were really, really lame.  I won't go into more detail because spoilers oh no, but I'm sure those of you who have yet to watch this will see what I mean when you get around to that part.  Still, it was a reasonably satisfying conclusion to the series, and with the finale in particular I was especially glad to see that they kept it nice and straightforward, with none of that stupid, "deep," abstract bullshit that certain other shows concluded with.

I'm not sure if I have anything else to say about it.  I tried to avoid talking about things that the critics and reviewers have already discussed to death, which is why I'm not bothering with praising Bryan Cranston's performance or whatever.  Anyway, the show is gud, watch it if you haven't already.

tl;dr Snape kills Dumbledore
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on September 29, 2014, 06:34:23 PM
tl;dr Snape kills Dumbledore

You son of a bitch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on October 06, 2014, 10:16:35 AM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.

Now downloading obtaining through legitimate and above-board means. I'll be watching the opening mini-series shortly.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on October 06, 2014, 06:53:38 PM
Gone Girl (David Fincher)

This film was way better than I had expected and I think it is one of Fincher's best works.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on October 06, 2014, 07:16:58 PM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.

Now downloading obtaining through legitimate and above-board means. I'll be watching the opening mini-series shortly.

Have fun.  Its my fave <3
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 06, 2014, 07:49:47 PM
Gone Girl (David Fincher)

This film was way better than I had expected and I think it is one of Fincher's best works.

https://deadline.com/2014/10/twin-peaks-series-showtime-david-lynch-mark-frost-845804/

Twin Peaks is coming back with new episodes in 2016.

Thought you might be interested.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on October 06, 2014, 08:05:38 PM
Gone Girl (David Fincher)

This film was way better than I had expected and I think it is one of Fincher's best works.

https://deadline.com/2014/10/twin-peaks-series-showtime-david-lynch-mark-frost-845804/

Twin Peaks is coming back with new episodes in 2016.

Thought you might be interested.

He has already been informed.

IT WAS ALL ME
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 06, 2014, 08:06:35 PM
I really don't know how I feel about new episodes of Twin Peaks... I'm conflicted.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on October 06, 2014, 09:07:11 PM
I really don't know how I feel about new episodes of Twin Peaks... I'm conflicted.
As far as I'm concerned: it's new shit from David Lynch — I am happy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on October 06, 2014, 10:20:47 PM
I really don't know how I feel about new episodes of Twin Peaks... I'm conflicted.
As far as I'm concerned: it's new shit from David Lynch — I am happy.

Same. I am excited!!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 07, 2014, 12:12:39 AM
I wonder if it will continue the cliffhanger of the original series, or maybe it will do a timeskip with all new characters?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 07, 2014, 12:37:22 AM
Didn't you read the article you linked?

Quote
The new Twin Peaks will be set in the present day, more than two decades after the events in the first two seasons.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on October 07, 2014, 12:44:21 AM
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)

All the camera tricks in the world can't save this ponderous bloated nothing of a film from its own putrescence. Aside from the actually quite good opening section, this is how the film goes: the camera swirls around a room for a bit, someone says something, the camera zooms into a light source or something else, there's a trippy light show, then we're in another scene in which the exact same thing happens. After a while the formula gets boring, and Noé realises this, so he throws a bunch of sex scenes in there as if to say "look, I know, and I'm sorry, here's something else" and then that goes on for way too long instead.

Occasionally, the picture goes to black, no sound or anything. Every time that happened I was thinking surely I have been sat here for 160 minutes already, there can't be more? and the numbness of my buttocks seemed to confirm this. No sooner has the thought occurred than the camera starts swirling about again, showing me more people I don't care about doing things that aren't interesting. Maybe if it had been better acted I could have tolerated the rest, but this is ostensibly a bunch of "street" characters played by people who have apparently never even been near a street. It's dreadful, the dialogue frequently lapses into "hey man, you got the stuff, yeah? Hardcore!"

It's a shame, the basic premise of seeing through the eyes of the dead as possibly imagined in Bardo Thodol is interesting enough, and the camera style, while it stops being impressive after about the second or third time it does its little swirl and zoom routine, and stops being interesting around the same time, would have been fine if the content lived up to the idea. Unfortunately it was impossible for me to care about 90% of what was presented to me on the screen, and the 10% I was interested in was swept away in the tidal wave of fancy camera tricks and CGI and neon lights and naked people. This is an exhausting film not because it is intense but because it cannot stop throwing stuff at you: here's some stuff, look at that stuff, do you want more stuff? here's some more stuff LOOK AT ALL THIS FUCKING STUFF!!! Apart from all that it's a really straightforward film that probably could have been told more effectively without the ghost camera swirly zoomy stuff-throwing sex-having nonsense that is this two and a half hours of my life I'll never get back.

Early on in the film, one character tells another that his drug dealer is a pervert who smears his own excrement on the back of his sex partners' heads. I would rather have seen a film about that guy than this.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 07, 2014, 01:02:49 AM
Didn't you read the article you linked?

Quote
The new Twin Peaks will be set in the present day, more than two decades after the events in the first two seasons.

Nope.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on October 07, 2014, 07:51:28 AM
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)

All the camera tricks in the world can't save this ponderous bloated nothing of a film from its own putrescence. Aside from the actually quite good opening section, this is how the film goes: the camera swirls around a room for a bit, someone says something, the camera zooms into a light source or something else, there's a trippy light show, then we're in another scene in which the exact same thing happens. After a while the formula gets boring, and Noé realises this, so he throws a bunch of sex scenes in there as if to say "look, I know, and I'm sorry, here's something else" and then that goes on for way too long instead.

Occasionally, the picture goes to black, no sound or anything. Every time that happened I was thinking surely I have been sat here for 160 minutes already, there can't be more? and the numbness of my buttocks seemed to confirm this. No sooner has the thought occurred than the camera starts swirling about again, showing me more people I don't care about doing things that aren't interesting. Maybe if it had been better acted I could have tolerated the rest, but this is ostensibly a bunch of "street" characters played by people who have apparently never even been near a street. It's dreadful, the dialogue frequently lapses into "hey man, you got the stuff, yeah? Hardcore!"

It's a shame, the basic premise of seeing through the eyes of the dead as possibly imagined in Bardo Thodol is interesting enough, and the camera style, while it stops being impressive after about the second or third time it does its little swirl and zoom routine, and stops being interesting around the same time, would have been fine if the content lived up to the idea. Unfortunately it was impossible for me to care about 90% of what was presented to me on the screen, and the 10% I was interested in was swept away in the tidal wave of fancy camera tricks and CGI and neon lights and naked people. This is an exhausting film not because it is intense but because it cannot stop throwing stuff at you: here's some stuff, look at that stuff, do you want more stuff? here's some more stuff LOOK AT ALL THIS FUCKING STUFF!!! Apart from all that it's a really straightforward film that probably could have been told more effectively without the ghost camera swirly zoomy stuff-throwing sex-having nonsense that is this two and a half hours of my life I'll never get back.

Early on in the film, one character tells another that his drug dealer is a pervert who smears his own excrement on the back of his sex partners' heads. I would rather have seen a film about that guy than this.

I agree with everything here. Major dissapoint
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 07, 2014, 05:49:56 PM
I've watched the first four episodes of True Detective.  I don't want to sound like I hate it, because I don't, but I have to say that I'm disappointed by how incredibly clichéd it is, especially with the two main characters.  I won't go into detail because spoilers, but come on, I've seen these guys before.  We all have, and I was hoping that a show that's been this acclaimed might have been in part because it showed a bit more originality with the plot and characters.  Clearly, that wasn't the case.

Anyway, I like it overall, the acting is fantastic, and I'm interested to see where the story is going, so I'm definitely going to watch the second half.  It just seems to me that in this day and age, we ought to be moving past some of these tired clichés.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 10, 2014, 04:56:58 PM
I quite like the new Superman Man of Steel film.

Ugh.
It's the only Superman movie I've liked. But I don't really care for Superman.

I've watched the first four episodes of True Detective.  I don't want to sound like I hate it, because I don't, but I have to say that I'm disappointed by how incredibly clichéd it is, especially with the two main characters.  I won't go into detail because spoilers, but come on, I've seen these guys before.  We all have, and I was hoping that a show that's been this acclaimed might have been in part because it showed a bit more originality with the plot and characters.  Clearly, that wasn't the case.

Anyway, I like it overall, the acting is fantastic, and I'm interested to see where the story is going, so I'm definitely going to watch the second half.  It just seems to me that in this day and age, we ought to be moving past some of these tired clichés.
You're cliched and I hate you. Cohle and Hart forever. ♥

Honestly, I can see the cliches but I think there's originality there as well. Hart is made to be relate-able. He's the good ole boy we all know exists even if we don't know personally. That in itself is a tired character, but he's way more likable than they usually are. He's not stupid and he's a lot more honest and vulnerable than the classic good ole boys. And I can't think of any characters off the top of my head who are like Cohle. Certain broad aspects are cliched like the loner cop deal, but when looking closer at specifics I don't see any cliches. Plus I really enjoy the way they interact. Most of the time when there are two very different cops it's a comedy, but in True Detective sometimes they truly hate each other. Well, maybe not on Cohle's part but Hart definitely seems to hate Cohle at times. And yet, a deep deep bond develops there as they work on a long, emotionally draining, and repulsive case. It's a great relationship.

It's a modern Noir, so by definition it has a lot of classic elements. I think the writing is great, but really, it's the acting that makes it. Maybe Hart wouldn't have been as likable if it wasn't for Harrelson and maybe Cohle wouldn't have been as haunting if it wasn't for McConaughey. Maybe it was their chemistry that made it. The second season will decide that for me, I suppose.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 10, 2014, 07:24:08 PM
I think it's a bit of a stretch to accuse the two main characters of being cliched. I didn't even care anyway, the show was put together very well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 11, 2014, 11:40:48 PM
Finally getting around to watching Parks and Rec and I love it. The boyfriend always wants to watch The Office so it's nice to have a better comedy to watch instead.

I posted Justin Theroux in the Post What You'd Hit thread but I think he's a downgrade from Louis CK. But hey, I love gingers and cops so Dave is just great. 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 14, 2014, 04:53:21 PM
I'm now on season 7 of Stargate SG-1. This is a really great series. It can be cheesy at times, but it's constantly fun to watch and they explore some interesting sci-fi concepts. I'm ready to see Anubis dead, and I feel like they really missed some great opportunities with ascended Daniel Jackson. But I'm guessing there was a real-world reason why Michael Shanks wasn't a regular in season 6, which probably limited his screen-time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 14, 2014, 04:56:35 PM
Enjoy the one remaining good season.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 14, 2014, 05:31:03 PM
:(

Is Atlantis any good? SGU?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 15, 2014, 04:58:13 AM
Atlantis is good. SGU is not.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 15, 2014, 04:17:32 PM
Since Halloween is soon - anyone want to recommend some good scary movies?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 15, 2014, 11:46:58 PM
I'm now on season 7 of Stargate SG-1. This is a really great series. It can be cheesy at times, but it's constantly fun to watch and they explore some interesting sci-fi concepts. I'm ready to see Anubis dead, and I feel like they really missed some great opportunities with ascended Daniel Jackson. But I'm guessing there was a real-world reason why Michael Shanks wasn't a regular in season 6, which probably limited his screen-time.
1. Prepare to be disappointed.
2. Yeah.... about that.

Atlantis is good. SGU is not.
I loved SGU.  It's really all about what you like.  I enjoyed the people drama mixed with the "oh shit our ship sucks".  Think "The Walking Dead" but instead of zombies it's a ship that could stop working any moment.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 16, 2014, 07:55:47 AM
I'm now on season 7 of Stargate SG-1. This is a really great series. It can be cheesy at times, but it's constantly fun to watch and they explore some interesting sci-fi concepts. I'm ready to see Anubis dead, and I feel like they really missed some great opportunities with ascended Daniel Jackson. But I'm guessing there was a real-world reason why Michael Shanks wasn't a regular in season 6, which probably limited his screen-time.

I used to love SG1, but the others are right, you're cresting the peak now.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 16, 2014, 01:20:22 PM
I think Atlantis is worth watching though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 18, 2014, 07:28:33 PM
Fury

It does not romanticize war at all. It focused on how the horrors of total war transformed men. Norman (Lerman) joins the tank crew to introduce naive innocence and humanity into the veteran, almost heartless, crew. There are moments when you see glimpses of the men they used to be before WWII started, even "Coon-Ass" who seems like a mindless beast in the movie. Even during the quiet moments, something will happen to remind you that they're in Germany and surrounded by the enemy.

The soundtrack was awesome too. Very heavy and dark with lots of subtle German chanting.

It made me want to read All Quiet on the Western Front again. It was emotionally hard-hitting from start to finish.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Jack1704 on October 18, 2014, 07:32:58 PM
I started watching a few US programmes such as SGU and then it just stopped.

I used to love Journeyman but that only lasted 1 series, oh and Alcatraz.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 19, 2014, 05:46:23 PM
I've finished True Detective.  Sorry to the fans of the show here, but I can't really say that I thought it was very good.  I was tentatively approving of it earlier, as you might remember, but I was honestly giving it the benefit of the doubt based on its impressive technical competence, intriguing style, and a decent first couple of episodes.  From there, it all went downhill.  For all its weight, all its gravitas, all its grim seriousness, this show doesn't amount to much more than a stock serial killer hunt, one that's stretched out over eight very long, dull, slow hours.  Along the way, it hits pretty much every predictable cliché there is.  All the cop clichés are here.  All the serial killer clichés are here.  It even strives to fall in line with the standard "Golden Age" tropes, like douchebag protagonists, painful-to-watch family melodrama, and women seldom being more than interfering family members or disposable sex objects. 

And all this stuff would be fine, if the show had any self-awareness and tried to have some fun along the way, but it doesn't.  It's consistently dark, depressing, humorless, and joyless, and yet doesn't have a decent story that might make it worth sitting through all the doom and gloom.  The combination of clichés and weight is truly strange.  It's like it tried to have it both ways - be fun, and at the same time be deep and emotionally compelling, but somehow they screwed it up and ended up with the worst of both worlds - it's hackneyed, and at the same time it's pretentious wangst.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 19, 2014, 06:54:21 PM
I would like a detailed cliche list from tvtropes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 19, 2014, 07:47:39 PM
I would like a detailed cliche list from tvtropes.
There's a lot of tropes, but none that I think are shallow enough to seem like lazy cliche writing. I love The black and gray morality theme myself. And the lack of strong female characters doesn't bother me since a) Hart is a man whore and b) Cohle is damaged beyond repair. Everyone sucks. And it's just about 2 guys, one being a good ole boy so is bound to be sexist anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on October 19, 2014, 08:47:28 PM
Just saw Fury. Fucking hate it
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 19, 2014, 09:20:31 PM
Just saw Fury. Fucking hate it

Go on.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 19, 2014, 09:52:07 PM
Just saw Fury. Fucking hate it
boo

I'm curious why you hate it. It has solid good ratings.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on October 20, 2014, 03:28:40 AM
Okay, so this isn't just just watched, but I saw the first two seasons of Louis C.K.'s Louie fairly recently. Overall impression positive! When it's funny, it's very funny, though I found the second season to be a bit too heavy handed when it came to more serious topics, and the USO episode in particular had some cringe sentimental moments, almost to the point that I felt like I was watching Scrubs or something. However, the episode with Doug Stanhope proved that C.K. can write an affecting scene without going overboard, so I hope any revisits to Serious Land in future seasons follow that same approach.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on October 20, 2014, 04:08:16 AM
Okay, so this isn't just just watched, but I saw the first two seasons of Louis C.K.'s Louie fairly recently. Overall impression positive! When it's funny, it's very funny, though I found the second season to be a bit too heavy handed when it came to more serious topics, and the USO episode in particular had some cringe sentimental moments, almost to the point that I felt like I was watching Scrubs or something. However, the episode with Doug Stanhope proved that C.K. can write an affecting scene without going overboard, so I hope any revisits to Serious Land in future seasons follow that same approach.

I'm glad you like it so far!! I think the "serious" bits get a lot better as it goes on—actually, I think everything basically gets better, especially in season 4. Seasons 1, 2 and 3, for me, feel like he's sort of going all over the place and trying everything out, seeing what sticks and what works, then season 4 (imo) feels like he's got a firm grasp of it and decides to make a cohesive season with what he's learned.


Just saw Fury. Fucking hate it
boo

I'm curious why you hate it. It has solid good ratings.

Alright, well, my initial post was kind of reactionary, purposely so, and in the moment. I genuinely felt hatred and wanted to post that to see for myself how it held up later. It's kind of interesting. I mean, I genuinely was very upset at the movie, but in a good way. It was an amazing movie. Semi-spoilers ahead, so don't read further if you want to see it (which I do recommend you do). I can't stand most war movies, it's all so overdone and everything is romanticized and it's damn near impossible to not be generic and clichéd, but Fury was a fucking impressive film. I loved it as a movie, but I hated it down to the marrow in my bones because it was a disgusting movie. And that's a good thing, it's supposed to be—that just means it served its purpose, in my eyes. War is hell, and that movie sold it for me more than any other film, story or writing ever has before it. I hated the people, I hated their reserved demeanors towards what they were doing, I hated the joy they found in it, I hated how they personified an entire country as "more pigs to kill", I hate how they took an innocent kid and rubbed his face right into the dirt, blood and tears until he was just as apathetic towards (and even pulled into) the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of people, I hated seeing, more and more as the movie went on, that all the people I hated were just like him, went through the same process as him and were all really just as scared as him. I hated that movie. And because of that, I loved it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 20, 2014, 04:33:27 PM
Alright, well, my initial post was kind of reactionary, purposely so, and in the moment. I genuinely felt hatred and wanted to post that to see for myself how it held up later. It's kind of interesting. I mean, I genuinely was very upset at the movie, but in a good way. It was an amazing movie. Semi-spoilers ahead, so don't read further if you want to see it (which I do recommend you do). I can't stand most war movies, it's all so overdone and everything is romanticized and it's damn near impossible to not be generic and clichéd, but Fury was a fucking impressive film. I loved it as a movie, but I hated it down to the marrow in my bones because it was a disgusting movie. And that's a good thing, it's supposed to be—that just means it served its purpose, in my eyes. War is hell, and that movie sold it for me more than any other film, story or writing ever has before it. I hated the people, I hated their reserved demeanors towards what they were doing, I hated the joy they found in it, I hated how they personified an entire country as "more pigs to kill", I hate how they took an innocent kid and rubbed his face right into the dirt, blood and tears until he was just as apathetic towards (and even pulled into) the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of people, I hated seeing, more and more as the movie went on, that all the people I hated were just like him, went through the same process as him and were all really just as scared as him. I hated that movie. And because of that, I loved it.
Gotcha, that makes more sense. It was a rough movie and I am really glad they didn't romanticize it all.

As someone who is fascinated with WWI and WWII front line stories, this movie did the experience a lot more justice.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 20, 2014, 09:03:41 PM
I think Atlantis is worth watching though.

I disagree.

In addition, I really don't recommend Gotham. In a way, I feel sorry for the production team, they've clearly spent a lot of time and effort making Gotham look and feel right, somewhere between Burton and Nolan's Batman - art deco and modern, that they seem to have forgotten to get actors who can act or writers who can write dialogue.

A big disappointment.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 20, 2014, 09:08:29 PM
I think Atlantis is worth watching though.

I disagree.

In addition, I really don't recommend Gotham. In a way, I feel sorry for the production team, they've clearly spent a lot of time and effort making Gotham look and feel right, somewhere between Burton and Nolan's Batman - art deco and modern, that they seem to have forgotten to get actors who can act or writers who can write dialogue.

A big disappointment.

Oh, go on.  Tell us more about this awful writing/acting.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 20, 2014, 09:17:05 PM
Atlantis may not be as interesting as SG-1 with it's lack of mythological references and interesting villains. But it does have some good characters (as well as bad ones, but SG-1 has its share of terrible character as well *chough*Suemantha Carter*chough*).McKay is heaps more fun to watch than Carter ever was, and the two final seasons were better than the two final SG-1 seasons.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 21, 2014, 01:55:09 AM
I've begun watching Gotham, and so far it is ridiculous, stupid, and quite entertaining.  The fake New York accents are truly awful, though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on October 21, 2014, 02:31:58 PM
I've begun watching Gotham, and so far it is ridiculous, stupid, and quite entertaining.  The fake New York accents are truly awful, though.
They aren't supposed to be New York accents, they are Gotham accents. Get your facts straight.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 21, 2014, 04:38:58 PM
Atlantis may not be as interesting as SG-1 with it's lack of mythological references and interesting villains. But it does have some good characters (as well as bad ones, but SG-1 has its share of terrible character as well *chough*Suemantha Carter*chough*).McKay is heaps more fun to watch than Carter ever was, and the two final seasons were better than the two final SG-1 seasons.

Are the main villains in Atlantis the Ori?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Jack1704 on October 21, 2014, 07:31:23 PM
Atlantis may not be as interesting as SG-1 with it's lack of mythological references and interesting villains. But it does have some good characters (as well as bad ones, but SG-1 has its share of terrible character as well *chough*Suemantha Carter*chough*).McKay is heaps more fun to watch than Carter ever was, and the two final seasons were better than the two final SG-1 seasons.

Are the main villains in Atlantis the Ori?
It starts off with the wraith ad then replicators.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 21, 2014, 10:14:17 PM
And then back to Wraith.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 23, 2014, 09:05:26 AM
Next Avengers trailer just dropped, looks pretty good. Like Ultron's look and voice. Lots of typical trailer cool shots like Hulk vs Hulk armour. Pretty much zero plot spoilage but this is only a preliminary trailer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on October 24, 2014, 03:45:42 PM
Children of Men

Same director that did Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón. He really likes his long takes. This was my favorite scene from the movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfBSncUspBk

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 26, 2014, 10:27:22 PM
Well, they fucked up Teal'c's character a good bit in season 8. Just finished the episode where he is living in his own apartment and gets arrested for homicide. O'neil is now the brigadier general of the SGC and Suemantha Carter is the commander of Sg-1. When does the new commander show up?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 26, 2014, 10:40:32 PM
Well, they fucked up Teal'c's character a good bit in season 8. Just finished the episode where he is living in his own apartment and gets arrested for homicide. O'neil is now the brigadier general of the SGC and Suemantha Carter is the commander of Sg-1. When does the new commander show up?

Stop watching it right now. Let the show stay in your memory as a thing of greatness. Don't let the shitty later seasons ruin it all for you.

McKay is heaps more fun to watch than Carter ever was

What? McKay is the single most annoying character ever created in fiction. I would honestly rather watch thousands of hours of jar-jar binks movie clips stitched together than watch that idiot say a single line.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 26, 2014, 10:44:29 PM
Is it really that bad? It's interesting watching them change the formula a little.

Although Teal'c's insistence that he's from Mozambique and obsession with displaying African artifacts in his apartment did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Samantha Carter's relationship with Pete is shallow. The only reason I'm sticking around is because I like watching O'neil break basic protocol every episode as commander of the SGC.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 27, 2014, 01:25:18 AM
Is it really that bad? It's interesting watching them change the formula a little.

Although Teal'c's insistence that he's from Mozambique and obsession with displaying African artifacts in his apartment did leave a sour taste in my mouth. Samantha Carter's relationship with Pete is shallow. The only reason I'm sticking around is because I like watching O'neil break basic protocol every episode as commander of the SGC.

O'Neill's status as brigadier general is to prep the audience on him leaving the show. After he is gone, well, it all goes to shit. I'm not sure of the exact cause of it; maybe its the writers running out of ideas, Amanda Tapping getting older, Richard Dean Anderson not acting anymore, all the above, hell maybe I just don't plain like the later seasons. They just, you know, suck balls.

I didn't like Atlantis either, but that is mainly because of McKay. I had hoped he died in the pilot or something. Stargate Universe was an okay show but it didn't match up with the rest of the stargate series (it took itself very seriously, which isn't the norm for a stargate series).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 01:31:10 AM
Well, I plan on watching the entire franchise. It deserves that much. I can tell the quality of the writing has gone down, even as early as season 7.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 27, 2014, 01:33:06 AM
Well, I plan on watching the entire franchise. It deserves that much. I can tell the quality of the writing has gone down, even as early as season 7.

Oh it gets bad before Richard Dean Anderson leaves, but that's like comparing a rainy day to a cat 5 hurricane. Yeah the rainy day sucks, but it doesn't really suck that much.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 01:34:25 AM
I've heard Universe described as Battlestar Galactica(reboot)-lite. For a show that relies on humor to lighten the mood I'm interested in Universe's change in tone, but I am cautious as well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 01:52:56 AM
I've also seen a few new episodes of The Walking Dead. My impressions are pretty negative. Seems like the writers can't think of what to do next, and the biggest new threat (and obvious source of story material) has been quickly eliminated. Now we get to watch Rick's group slowly become more jaded and barbaric as if it's some revolutionary new concept that's supposed to hold my attention because it's so philosophically deep. This show really takes itself too seriously.

I can honestly say that I did enjoy the first two seasons, with the 2nd season being better than the first ... But what has come after that is just monotonous storytelling and lack of direction. -2/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 27, 2014, 01:59:36 AM
Zombie survival stories always run out of juice in very little time. I'm surprised it has lasted this long.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 02:04:12 AM
Zombie survival stories always run out of juice in very little time. I'm surprised it has lasted this long.

Well the first 2 seasons are heavily character based, which is what I think made it enjoyable to watch. I have never been a fan of the zombie survival genre in any form of media, as it's all the same crap over and over.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 27, 2014, 02:10:02 AM
I've never heard anyone say anything positive about that show, ever.  It seems like everyone watches it, and then they all go online and rant about how awful it was.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 27, 2014, 03:06:11 AM
I've never heard anyone say anything positive about that show, ever.  It seems like everyone watches it, and then they all go online and rant about how awful it was.
I like it.

Me and my friends are playing a fantasy Walking Dead game where we choose our "teams" every week.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 03:16:03 AM
Why do you like it?

And yes Saddam, it is entertaining to watch a train wreck in progress. This is humans 101.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 27, 2014, 04:33:35 AM
Surely not for season after season.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 27, 2014, 04:35:45 AM
I know plenty of people that genuinely enjoy watching it. They're the same kind of people that Rooster described. I think the fun is guessing who gets ate next or something. I watched a few episodes but to me it is just a generic zombie survival show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 27, 2014, 07:21:47 AM
Play DayZ and experience the Walking Dead for yourself.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on October 27, 2014, 11:47:35 AM
Or plat Telltale's amazing Walking Dead games that are infinitely more enjoyable than watching the show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 27, 2014, 01:35:48 PM
What is a "generic zombie survival show"? Are there a lot of these things around that I don't know about?

I like the Walking Dead because I've grown attached to the characters and the writing is acceptable. I personally haven't seen too much bitching from people since the end of second season. The whole barn shit was definitely the worst and turned off a lot of people I think.

I need to catch up to the last two episodes, but someone told me they're following a new plot branch from the comics so I don't know where the "writers don't know what to do next" theory is coming from. They have on-going canon material to work from so they shouldn't run out of ideas any time soon.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 27, 2014, 05:40:25 PM
The writers used to write original content loosely based off the comics. You're telling me that they're now just blatantly lifting from the comics? Then you're telling me you don't understand how the writers are running out of ideas?

I haven't read the comics, because like I said: I don't like the zombie survival genre. It's one of the most brainless genres out there (no pun intended). There's always zombies popping up for no explainable reason. Why are there zombies? Virus. Where did it come from? Someone either created it as an experiment or it fell from space. Is it stoppable? No, we're all doomed. What do we do? Camp out until we are overrun and some of us die, then rinse/repeat. Oh no, one of my family has turned! So drama.

And do you honestly not know of any other zombie survival media? We weren't talking about just TV shows, but the whole genre itself. Games, TV, movies, etc. Its getting ridiculous.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 27, 2014, 06:40:33 PM
To be fair, it was Rushy who originally specified "shows," and it's true that's there's only one zombie show.  Well, I suppose there's that new one that's on the Siffy channel, but good luck finding anyone who'll admit to watching that.  I agree with you that all the zombie shit is tired and needs to go away, though.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 27, 2014, 07:09:34 PM
I don't consider the term "show" to specifically cater to television series.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on October 27, 2014, 11:39:15 PM
I don't consider the term "show" to specifically cater to television series.

What else were you referring to, then? Shows on Broadway?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 28, 2014, 12:15:45 AM
What else were you referring to, then? Shows on Broadway?

I was referring to pretty much all media portraying a zombie survival story. "Show" might have been poor word choice, but it doesn't have to specifically refer to television series.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 12:34:56 AM
Why is zombie stuff so popular? That's the real question. I understand the "Who's going to die next?" line of thinking... but that usually doesn't apply to movies and games.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 28, 2014, 12:40:40 AM
Why is zombie stuff so popular? That's the real question. I understand the "Who's going to die next?" line of thinking... but that usually doesn't apply to movies and games.

They're an easy infinite hoard of "bad guys" that no one could have any real moral quandary about killing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 12:42:05 AM
Why is zombie stuff so popular? That's the real question. I understand the "Who's going to die next?" line of thinking... but that usually doesn't apply to movies and games.

They're an easy infinite hoard of "bad guys" that no one could have any real moral quandary about killing.

Yes, but that should get boring after a movie or so.

Why has it become such a pop culture phenomenon? I see all these people dressing up like zombies and going to cons like it's the next best thing to godhood.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 28, 2014, 12:50:45 AM
Yes, but that should get boring after a movie or so.

Well, it most obviously did not.

Why has it become such a pop culture phenomenon? I see all these people dressing up like zombies and going to cons like it's the next best thing to godhood.

You'd have to ask some expert in sociology. Try google.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 28, 2014, 03:46:07 PM
The writers used to write original content loosely based off the comics. You're telling me that they're now just blatantly lifting from the comics? Then you're telling me you don't understand how the writers are running out of ideas?
They are still sticking to the same premise. There are common plot threads they follow but it's not exactly the same. If it were, a lot of the people still on the show should already be dead. They're not running out of ideas...  they're writing a show based off the comics. It's not a crazy concept to understand.

Quote
I haven't read the comics, because like I said: I don't like the zombie survival genre. It's one of the most brainless genres out there (no pun intended). There's always zombies popping up for no explainable reason. Why are there zombies? Virus. Where did it come from? Someone either created it as an experiment or it fell from space. Is it stoppable? No, we're all doomed. What do we do? Camp out until we are overrun and some of us die, then rinse/repeat. Oh no, one of my family has turned! So drama.
Well it's quite different from that. It was never said to be a virus.. the comics left it intentionally vague and almost hinting to some divine plan or something, I dunno. There is a lot of inner group drama and drama/action with other people which is really the most interesting part of the show. I don't really care about zombies myself. My favorite before Walking Dead was probably 28 Days Later just because sprinting infected people are terrifying. But this one is really more for the drama with the occasional macabre action.

Quote
And do you honestly not know of any other zombie survival media? We weren't talking about just TV shows, but the whole genre itself. Games, TV, movies, etc. Its getting ridiculous.
I was responding to Rushy's use of the word "show". Why are you so worked up over this? Horror themes get recycled all the time - vampires are another good example of this. And look at how many possession movies there are. The classics will always be re-used. Get over it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 04:04:51 PM
They're lifting material from a comic. Is it safe to say that they ran out of ideas before they even started?

The comics hint that it is divine punishment?
I hate to be a Rushy here, but that's not so clever and has been done before as well. I guess intentionally leaving it vague was their point, but that just goes to show that they knew it was a stupid generic premise from the get go and didn't want to justify it. I like my stories to make sense (at least in universe sense) and have a proper resolution. The Walking Dead lacks both things.


And no wonder I've always disliked the horror genre.

I would like to see a zombie story told from the point of view of the zombies, maybe show them grouping up and scheming to take down the humans because they're viewed as stains on the Earth or something.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 28, 2014, 04:49:24 PM
They're lifting material from a comic. Is it safe to say that they ran out of ideas before they even started?
I'm coupling the show and the comics together here. Their writing material comes from the comics so they're not going to get stuck with no more plot threads to follow is what I mean by "run out of ideas".

Quote
The comics hint that it is divine punishment?
I hate to be a Rushy here, but that's not so clever and has been done before as well. I guess intentionally leaving it vague was their point, but that just goes to show that they knew it was a stupid generic premise from the get go and didn't want to justify it. I like my stories to make sense (at least in universe sense) and have a proper resolution. The Walking Dead lacks both things.
Yeah, I won't defend this. I don't know if there will be a proper resolution to the big problem. There are definitely resolutions to the various sub-plots though.

Quote
And no wonder I've always disliked the horror genre.
That's fine.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 28, 2014, 05:30:20 PM
Horror themes get recycled all the time - vampires are another good example of this. And look at how many possession movies there are. The classics will always be re-used. Get over it.

As a general concept (as opposed to a specific franchise, like Twilight), neither vampires or possessions are anywhere near as popular as zombies.  And in any case, at least the archetypes of most other horror themes can be actual characters, with intelligence and reasonable motivations and such.  Zombies - at least the most common variant that we keep seeing over and over again - are inherently one-dimensional creatures, basically animals rather than people.  If you've seen one, you've seen them all.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 05:35:53 PM
As a general concept (as opposed to a specific franchise, like Twilight), neither vampires or possessions are anywhere near as popular as zombies.  And in any case, at least the archetypes of most other horror themes can be actual characters, with intelligence and reasonable motivations and such.  Zombies - at least the most common variant that we keep seeing over and over again - are inherently one-dimensional creatures, basically animals rather than people.  If you see one, you've seen them all.

I don't know about all this. I agree with zombies being very one-dimensional... but vampires are pretty popular. From Bram Stoker to Anne Rice to Stephenie Meyer, to Buffy the Vampire Slayer... etc.

I think zombos are more popular for now, but it seems to fluctuate among the masses..
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 28, 2014, 05:43:25 PM
All those works came out in different time periods, and the vampires were portrayed differently in every one.  Perhaps I should have specified that there's never really been a craze about vampires or the like that's measured up to the absurd following zombies have gotten over the past...eight or nine years, is it?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 28, 2014, 08:00:31 PM
Horror themes get recycled all the time - vampires are another good example of this. And look at how many possession movies there are. The classics will always be re-used. Get over it.
Zombies - at least the most common variant that we keep seeing over and over again - are inherently one-dimensional creatures, basically animals rather than people.  If you've seen one, you've seen them all.
It's true they don't have any personality to them, but there are variants.

You have slow zombies and running zombies. Virus zombies, voodoo zombies, and supernatural zombies. Zombies that can shoot guns and zombies that just bounce into things. Maybe there are others I'm missing, I don't watch a lot of zombie stuff. As I said before, I'm not really into them. I like Walking Dead for the drama between other human factions but I'm just really into post-apocalyptic stories in general for that same reason.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 08:03:47 PM
Horror themes get recycled all the time - vampires are another good example of this. And look at how many possession movies there are. The classics will always be re-used. Get over it.
Zombies - at least the most common variant that we keep seeing over and over again - are inherently one-dimensional creatures, basically animals rather than people.  If you've seen one, you've seen them all.
It's true they don't have any personality to them, but there are variants.

You have slow zombies and running zombies. Virus zombies, voodoo zombies, and supernatural zombies. Zombies that can shoot guns and zombies that just bounce into things. Maybe there are others I'm missing, I don't watch a lot of zombie stuff. As I said before, I'm not really into them. I like Walking Dead for the drama between other human factions but I'm just really into post-apocalyptic stories in general for that same reason.

I feel like they should have dragged out the Terminus story line a bit longer because I felt it had a lot of potential and was actually somewhat interesting.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on October 28, 2014, 09:02:51 PM
Zombie comes and family is kill oh no. Find friends and then zombie is kill, but sometimes new friend is kill too. Find safety for a bit. Friend is kill by friend because no food. Friend is kill before he become zombie. Very sad. More zombie is kill. The end, yawn.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 09:10:19 PM
Zombie comes and family is kill oh no. Find friends and then zombie is kill, but sometimes new friend is kill too. Find safety for a bit. Friend is kill by friend because no food. Friend is kill before he become zombie. Very sad. More zombie is kill. The end, yawn.

WE HAVE TO GET TO CDC/WASHINGTON/ARMY BASE/PRISON lol zombos closing in gotta sacrifice the farm animals lulz OH NO friend is showing signs of barbarism time to ostracize frum da grup
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on October 28, 2014, 09:38:56 PM
You guys are so jaded and wise.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 28, 2014, 09:50:39 PM
PHEW! we finally made it to the CDC/WASHINGTON/ARMY BASE/ ETC. this is grea-.... OH GOD THEY'RE TRYING TO KILL US
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on October 28, 2014, 10:10:07 PM
Louie [Season 3]

Whatever problems I had with the previous two seasons, all is made up for by this. It mixes comedy and drama in a manner best described as "bravura", it's bold and fearless in its mish-mash of materials, and from a directorial standpoint Louis C.K. seems really to have matured immensely. Great performances from guests like Parker Posey, Robin Williams, F. Murray Abraham, David Lynch, and others (including some seriously good recurring performances from the child actors) also help the show with their consistently high quality and approaches one might not expect — consider Williams in a reserved performance where his nuanced facial expressions do most of the talking. Snupes tells me that the best is yet to come, I don't want to get my hopes up for an even better season four, but if it can maintain season three's level it's gold.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 28, 2014, 10:20:24 PM
I used to like the Walking Dead but not anymore.  Once they hit the Prison I was like "Hey, this is great.  Defensible walls, fences, fields, and enough supplies to feed/house hundreds of people.  What could go wrong?"  Then they threw in the Governor shit.

And really, why haven't they seen more survivors?  And more easily defended buildings?  A school, for example, is usually nice and easy to defend.  Lots of rooms, nice thick doors, and a cafeteria full of food.  That school in Season 2: Perfect spot. 

Or what about traps?  I saw ONE zombie attractor/trap and it was designed to just capture them.  WTF?  Is it really that hard?  I played Half-Life 2 and that had better zombie traps than the walking dead.



Sorry, ranting.  Long story short: Zombie movies have stupid people.  Except Zombieland.  They only have two stupid girls who aren't dumb enough to leave their guns when they go on the rides.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 01:39:21 AM
I used to like the Walking Dead but not anymore.  Once they hit the Prison I was like "Hey, this is great.  Defensible walls, fences, fields, and enough supplies to feed/house hundreds of people.  What could go wrong?"  Then they threw in the Governor shit.
Good. Who wants to watch a show about a group of people surviving a zombie apocalypse in a prison? That's not entertaining.

Quote
And really, why haven't they seen more survivors?  And more easily defended buildings?  A school, for example, is usually nice and easy to defend.  Lots of rooms, nice thick doors, and a cafeteria full of food.  That school in Season 2: Perfect spot.
Hordes are what ruin everything. Even if you have an easily defended building you'd probably have to make runs to get food and other supplies. Especially since any stored food would spoil quickly with no electricity and you can only rely on limited canned food for so long. And if a horde decides to camp outside your building then you will most likely not be too successful staying alive for an extended period of time.

I don't know if you know this but it's hard work staying alive. You usually have to be by fresh water and hunt/grow food. You can't really do these things in a fortress.

Quote
Or what about traps?  I saw ONE zombie attractor/trap and it was designed to just capture them.  WTF?  Is it really that hard?  I played Half-Life 2 and that had better zombie traps than the walking dead.
A video game had better traps than real life? That shit craycray.
The guy who set up the traps was/is insane. He set up the traps and killed them later at his convenience. And again- hordes. Traps won't stop a horde.


I have a really difficult time seeing Lord Dave with his newborn baby making it through a zombie apocalypse.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 29, 2014, 02:29:37 AM
I used to like the Walking Dead but not anymore.  Once they hit the Prison I was like "Hey, this is great.  Defensible walls, fences, fields, and enough supplies to feed/house hundreds of people.  What could go wrong?"  Then they threw in the Governor shit.
Good. Who wants to watch a show about a group of people surviving a zombie apocalypse in a prison? That's not entertaining.

Quote
And really, why haven't they seen more survivors?  And more easily defended buildings?  A school, for example, is usually nice and easy to defend.  Lots of rooms, nice thick doors, and a cafeteria full of food.  That school in Season 2: Perfect spot.
Hordes are what ruin everything. Even if you have an easily defended building you'd probably have to make runs to get food and other supplies. Especially since any stored food would spoil quickly with no electricity and you can only rely on limited canned food for so long. And if a horde decides to camp outside your building then you will most likely not be too successful staying alive for an extended period of time.

I don't know if you know this but it's hard work staying alive. You usually have to be by fresh water and hunt/grow food. You can't really do these things in a fortress.

Quote
Or what about traps?  I saw ONE zombie attractor/trap and it was designed to just capture them.  WTF?  Is it really that hard?  I played Half-Life 2 and that had better zombie traps than the walking dead.
A video game had better traps than real life? That shit craycray.
The guy who set up the traps was/is insane. He set up the traps and killed them later at his convenience. And again- hordes. Traps won't stop a horde.


I have a really difficult time seeing Lord Dave with his newborn baby making it through a zombie apocalypse.

Hords?  HA!  Hords are dumb.  If I'm trapped in my own apartment building, I'm mostly screwed against a hord but only because it's a fort.  Steel door, narrow hall, one way entrance, and second floor.  I'd probably break the window open, use power cables to create a rope, and drop heavy stuff on them over and over again.  Probably by sharpening the wooden chair legs into spikes.  Maybe use some of my computer stuff.  They aren't exactly light.  And metal.  With pointy edges.


Of course, I would have ran into the school I work for if given time.  Why?  Because I have all the keys, the doors are solid steel, the walls brick, and the windows, while fragile glass, can be sealed off from every room that's accessible to the outside.  Also, well water and a septic system.  Steam run heat.  Lots of food.  Also the glass windows are fairly small, aside from the rescue windows.   The school also has everything from flammable gas to battery operated power tools.

But how do I get past a zombie hord?
Loud noises.  Take a smoke alarm, rig it up as a makeshift beeper, stick a timer, then either throw it or place it somewhere far away.  Zombies are stupid.

Hell, after a month of decomposition, a good truck will crush any hord to jelly.  I'm not worried.  As long as I stay far away from NYC anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 29, 2014, 02:34:56 AM
Hords?  HA!  Hords are dumb.  If I'm trapped in my own apartment building, I'm mostly screwed against a hord but only because it's a fort.  Steel door, narrow hall, one way entrance, and second floor.  I'd probably break the window open, use power cables to create a rope, and drop heavy stuff on them over and over again.  Probably by sharpening the wooden chair legs into spikes.  Maybe use some of my computer stuff.  They aren't exactly light.  And metal.  With pointy edges.


Of course, I would have ran into the school I work for if given time.  Why?  Because I have all the keys, the doors are solid steel, the walls brick, and the windows, while fragile glass, can be sealed off from every room that's accessible to the outside.  Also, well water and a septic system.  Steam run heat.  Lots of food.  Also the glass windows are fairly small, aside from the rescue windows.   The school also has everything from flammable gas to battery operated power tools.

But how do I get past a zombie hord?
Loud noises.  Take a smoke alarm, rig it up as a makeshift beeper, stick a timer, then either throw it or place it somewhere far away.  Zombies are stupid.

Hell, after a month of decomposition, a good truck will crush any hord to jelly.  I'm not worried.  As long as I stay far away from NYC anyway.

da fuq is a hord
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 02:37:13 AM
Horde*

Yep, you can easily combat them all while every surviving human leaves you alone and lets you keep supplies all to yourself. So easy.  ::)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 29, 2014, 02:50:25 AM
Hords?  HA!  Hords are dumb.  If I'm trapped in my own apartment building, I'm mostly screwed against a hord but only because it's a fort.  Steel door, narrow hall, one way entrance, and second floor.  I'd probably break the window open, use power cables to create a rope, and drop heavy stuff on them over and over again.  Probably by sharpening the wooden chair legs into spikes.  Maybe use some of my computer stuff.  They aren't exactly light.  And metal.  With pointy edges.


Of course, I would have ran into the school I work for if given time.  Why?  Because I have all the keys, the doors are solid steel, the walls brick, and the windows, while fragile glass, can be sealed off from every room that's accessible to the outside.  Also, well water and a septic system.  Steam run heat.  Lots of food.  Also the glass windows are fairly small, aside from the rescue windows.   The school also has everything from flammable gas to battery operated power tools.

But how do I get past a zombie hord?
Loud noises.  Take a smoke alarm, rig it up as a makeshift beeper, stick a timer, then either throw it or place it somewhere far away.  Zombies are stupid.

Hell, after a month of decomposition, a good truck will crush any hord to jelly.  I'm not worried.  As long as I stay far away from NYC anyway.

da fuq is a hord
It's like a Horde except Dave can't spell for shit.


Horde*

Yep, you can easily combat them all while every surviving human leaves you alone and lets you keep supplies all to yourself. So easy.  ::)
If we go by The Walking Dead that would be all... what?  12 people in a 50 mile radius?

Of course, most people aren't violent evil people.  They're desperate and scared but that's when you offer them food and shelter and, more importantly, a plan.  And if I got enough survivors together, we could easily make supply runs, keep the lines safe (armored vans/trucks/school buses), and build a lovely community.

It also helps that I'm in an area with a lot of farms.  So being able to build walls around the farms shouldn't be a big deal.   Even if it's just some solid chain link fences.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 29, 2014, 02:52:40 AM
Of course, most people aren't violent evil people. 

You funny guy, dave.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 02:53:50 AM
Hordes break fences. Your plan falls apart as soon as you add new elements.

Most people aren't evil but most are selfish and greedy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 29, 2014, 02:55:07 AM
I could use Eve Online and DayZ as examples, but those games might just be naturally full of psychopaths. I can never be quite sure.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 03:06:20 AM
Guys, zombies aren't real. Stop being that guy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 29, 2014, 03:07:14 AM
Guys, zombies aren't real. Stop being that guy.

You're not real.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 03:07:37 AM
Obviously the solution would be to live on a houseboat and fish for food.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 03:12:41 AM
Have fun with scurvy.

This conversation is way more fun than the ongoing Stargate crap.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on October 29, 2014, 03:14:00 AM
Fury was pretty great, right up until the ridiculous final battle.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 03:23:38 AM
Fury was pretty great, right up until the ridiculous final battle.

Didn't know you were into animals, PP.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 29, 2014, 10:15:51 AM
All this talk about zombies makes me wonder: where do they all come from?
I get that some people are bit but run away and die.  But they're isolated and easy to spot.  The people who are bit but can't get away are eaten right?  So how do they become a zombie?  Especially when you have a group of zombies attacking a group of humans.  If the humans are overrun, they should be ripped apart and chowed down on.  Just like the horse in walking dead.

And with people who are scared, anyone who looks sick gets isolated quick.  And maybe shot.


So where do all these almost prestine (unchewed) zombies come from?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 01:07:34 PM
All this talk about zombies makes me wonder: where do they all come from?
I get that some people are bit but run away and die.  But they're isolated and easy to spot.  The people who are bit but can't get away are eaten right?  So how do they become a zombie?  Especially when you have a group of zombies attacking a group of humans.  If the humans are overrun, they should be ripped apart and chowed down on.  Just like the horse in walking dead.

And with people who are scared, anyone who looks sick gets isolated quick.  And maybe shot.


So where do all these almost prestine (unchewed) zombies come from?
Depends on the story.

In Walking Dead everyone is already infected with the virus, you just have to die. Shane was the one who made this clear. Rick shot him and then zombieShane.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 29, 2014, 03:55:54 PM
All this talk about zombies makes me wonder: where do they all come from?
I get that some people are bit but run away and die.  But they're isolated and easy to spot.  The people who are bit but can't get away are eaten right?  So how do they become a zombie?  Especially when you have a group of zombies attacking a group of humans.  If the humans are overrun, they should be ripped apart and chowed down on.  Just like the horse in walking dead.

And with people who are scared, anyone who looks sick gets isolated quick.  And maybe shot.


So where do all these almost prestine (unchewed) zombies come from?
Depends on the story.

In Walking Dead everyone is already infected with the virus, you just have to die. Shane was the one who made this clear. Rick shot him and then zombieShane.
Except the rest of the world didn't die of natural causes all at once.  How did they die? 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 29, 2014, 04:04:41 PM
No zombie story using viruses makes sense because we already have a "zombie" virus called rabies and even before the vaccine it did not kill the entire planet in a matter of months.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 04:07:46 PM
Depends on the story.

In Walking Dead everyone is already infected with the virus, you just have to die. Shane was the one who made this clear. Rick shot him and then zombieShane.
Except the rest of the world didn't die of natural causes all at once.  How did they die? 
Shane was shot, so that right there is not a natural cause. In fact, a lot of people are shot. Did you ever see Shane's flashback to the hospital? Once there was a zombie outbreak inside the building the SWAT team just started shooting everyone. And let's not forget about how many suicides there would be. I imagine people would die from standard illnesses without proper medical care. Then a lot could have died from starvation, exposure to the elements, or even in a mob stampede during the initial panic. Without access to our comfortable lifestyles I would assume a lot of people would actually die from natural causes. But it seems most people who survive all that seem to die from a stray bite or two (happens a lot in the show at least) and die from the resulting infection/blood loss.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on October 29, 2014, 04:11:21 PM
No zombie story using viruses makes sense because we already have a "zombie" virus called rabies and even before the vaccine it did not kill the entire planet in a matter of months.

And there could never ever be a virus any worse than rabies. Not even in fiction.

Source: sarcasm
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 04:18:50 PM
All this talk about zombies makes me wonder: where do they all come from?
I get that some people are bit but run away and die.  But they're isolated and easy to spot.  The people who are bit but can't get away are eaten right?  So how do they become a zombie?  Especially when you have a group of zombies attacking a group of humans.  If the humans are overrun, they should be ripped apart and chowed down on.  Just like the horse in walking dead.

And with people who are scared, anyone who looks sick gets isolated quick.  And maybe shot.


So where do all these almost prestine (unchewed) zombies come from?
Depends on the story.

In Walking Dead everyone is already infected with the virus, you just have to die. Shane was the one who made this clear. Rick shot him and then zombieShane.
Except the rest of the world didn't die of natural causes all at once.  How did they die?

This is an interesting question and possibly a huge plot hole.

Where did the initial wave come from? Did God just flip a switch?

If everyone has the zombie virus then why weren't people turning before the initial outbreak?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 04:47:21 PM
This is an interesting question and possibly a huge plot hole.

Where did the initial wave come from? Did God just flip a switch?

If everyone has the zombie virus then why weren't people turning before the initial outbreak?
It's not technically a plot hole since we just travel with the group and they don't know everything.

Just because the big picture storyline is not completely laid out for the viewer from start to finish doesn't mean it's a plot hole. It's more an unanswered question than a plot hole.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 04:54:33 PM
This is an interesting question and possibly a huge plot hole.

Where did the initial wave come from? Did God just flip a switch?

If everyone has the zombie virus then why weren't people turning before the initial outbreak?
It's not technically a plot hole since we just travel with the group and they don't know everything.

Just because the big picture storyline is not completely laid out for the viewer from start to finish doesn't mean it's a plot hole. It's more an unanswered question than a plot hole.

I doubt the story will answer this question either, because it doesn't really make sense... unless everyone got infected at the same time, which would either be an act of God or some sort of space dust virus that somehow contaminated the entire Earth's atmosphere (but the Earth's atompshere doesn't really allow for things like that to survive the trip down, unless it was carried by a meteor). Either way, it's kind of a difficult issue to reconcile with a serious answer because it's so silly. I'm sure the writers of the comics and the show don't know how it started, and they will probably never touch on it. So that kinda makes it a plot hole, unless they plan on answering this question later on.

Many zombie movies/shows/whatever have these kind of plot holes, but the writers try to disguise them as "mysteries to be answered later on" but are never actually answered. Resident Evil is one of the exceptions to this, so is 28 Days Later (which is a pretty good film for the zombie genre, great music too).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 07:19:37 PM
I think they do hint at the God theory. But even if it is never answered.. I'm not sure if that does qualify as a plot hole. I always see them as contradictory explanations/occurrences, so not knowing something doesn't equate to a plot hole. I could be wrong, but that's just how I always interpreted it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 07:44:51 PM
I think they do hint at the God theory. But even if it is never answered.. I'm not sure if that does qualify as a plot hole. I always see them as contradictory explanations/occurrences, so not knowing something doesn't equate to a plot hole. I could be wrong, but that's just how I always interpreted it.

It does when the writers don't know how it happened either. It's usually considered shitty writing in most mediums when the main focus of the plot is unexplained. It is intentionally left vague and unanswered because the writers themselves do not know how it started. That, to me, is a plot hole. Especially when the vague explanation we are given (everyone has the virus) creates more questions than it answers. If they never plan on addressing these questions (why did the outbreak happen all at once?) then that is a plot hole.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on October 29, 2014, 07:56:13 PM
A plot hole is something relevant to the plot that is missing or inconsistent, like in Iron Man 3, everyone seems to fit perfectly in to the armor designed specially to fit Tony Stark.

For me, the answer to the question of where the zombies came from is kind of irrelevant, unless they want to make that a story arc.  For the record, I think they should, because the "we are survivors" story line is wearing very thin.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 07:58:23 PM
A plot hole is something relevant to the plot that is missing or inconsistent, like in Iron Man 3, everyone seems to fit perfectly in to the armor designed specially to fit Tony Stark.

For me, the answer to the question of where the zombies came from is kind of irrelevant, unless they want to make that a story arc.  For the record, I think they should, because the "we are survivors" story line is wearing very thin.

"Everyone has the virus" was a small storyarc in the first two seasons. The questions brought up from that are never explained.


I think this might be why I generally don't like zombie stuff.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 09:10:17 PM
like in Iron Man 3, everyone seems to fit perfectly in to the armor designed specially to fit Tony Stark.
Yes, that is a plot hole.

But if we're shown a very narrow perspective then I don't see how it's considered a plot hole. Like in The Road - we experience the apocalypse and the new world through the eyes of a man and his son. We never find out what really happened but how can we expect some random dude to know all the answers? So if the random guy doesn't know what happened then neither do we. To me, that's not a plot hole.

It's not to say the writers don't know. Maybe they do. Or maybe it just doesn't matter because we have such a narrow perspective of the story.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 29, 2014, 09:14:40 PM
Or maybe it just doesn't matter because we have such a narrow perspective of the story.

Seems like pretty lazy writing to me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 29, 2014, 09:16:25 PM
Or maybe it just doesn't matter because we have such a narrow perspective of the story.

Seems like pretty lazy writing to me.
It's really just a style of story-telling and they're generally my favorites, but okay.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on October 29, 2014, 11:26:54 PM
No zombie story using viruses makes sense because we already have a "zombie" virus called rabies and even before the vaccine it did not kill the entire planet in a matter of months.

This is probably bait, but your an retart anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on October 29, 2014, 11:29:47 PM
No zombie story using viruses makes sense because we already have a "zombie" virus called rabies and even before the vaccine it did not kill the entire planet in a matter of months.

This is probably bait, but your an retart anyway.

We already have a dedicated thread for this bait in CN.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 12:37:58 AM
Apparently everything I say becomes "bait" after an argument ensues and I dominate every poster in the thread.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Fortuna on October 30, 2014, 12:48:43 AM
Apparently everything I say becomes "bait" after an argument ensues and I dominate every poster in the thread.

It's because you're bad at arguing, so you usually pick a little irrelevant detail out of someone's post to argue about instead of staying on topic. So, now it seems like a lot of forum goers are just calling you a troll or a pedant and leaving it at that. That's pretty much what you are anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 01:01:31 AM
shit's personal now
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 01:06:13 AM
It's because you're bad at arguing, so you usually pick a little irrelevant detail out of someone's post to argue about instead of staying on topic. So, now it seems like a lot of forum goers are just calling you a troll or a pedant and leaving it at that. That's pretty much what you are anyway.

why u mad bro
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 30, 2014, 02:22:22 AM
All right, that's enough of that.  Behold, not one, but two deluges of superhero crap:

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/marvel_vs_dc_comics_which_movi.html
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 02:30:31 AM
Quote
"Black Panther" (Nov. 3, 2017)

Uhh.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 02:32:12 AM
I had no interest in Doctor Strange until Benedict Cumberbatch was announced as the titular character.

Now I must see it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 30, 2014, 01:37:04 PM
Just started watching Firefly. I can see why it was cancelled, the budget spent on every episode must have ben enormous.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 30, 2014, 01:43:58 PM
Just started watching Firefly. I can see why it was cancelled, the budget spent on every episode must have ben enormous.
Yep.  Just look at all the top tier actors, the elaborate sets, and the realistic special effects.  Undeniably expensive...
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 01:46:52 PM
Just started watching Firefly. I can see why it was cancelled, the budget spent on every episode must have ben enormous.

It was cancelled due to a lot of little things that added up. Writing errors, budget issues (this was not a big problem though) and time slotting competition all matched the stars up to result in cancelling the show. Make sure you watch Serenity after you complete the series.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 30, 2014, 01:56:22 PM
Quote
"Black Panther" (Nov. 3, 2017)

Uhh.

Uhh what?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 02:04:15 PM
Quote
"Black Panther" (Nov. 3, 2017)
Uhh.
Uhh what?

Well, it just depends. Is the superhero's name literally Black Panther? That would be a really bad thing to do. If the movie is about a villain named Black Panther then that would probably be better.

Either way it is a strange movie title that has connotations outside of comic books. I would never name a comic book movie Ku Klux.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 30, 2014, 02:31:48 PM
(http://comicbookrealm.com/cover-scan/c840da4d342a29827b6c907c03a76f80/xl/marvel-black-panther-issue-2.jpg)

The Black Panther's name predates the October 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 02:47:49 PM
The Black Panther's name predates the October 1966 founding of the Black Panther Party.

Yes, and the word "gay" simply means to be happy. Sure have been a lot of people declaring themselves to be happy lately. I heard even the CEO of Apple is happy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 30, 2014, 04:21:57 PM
It's a proper noun, though. He's been in comics for fifty-odd years and is established in the marvel canon as 'Black Panther'
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 04:40:36 PM
It's a proper noun, though. He's been in comics for fifty-odd years and is established in the marvel canon as 'Black Panther'

I'd honestly never heard of him before now, but I still say its a strange hero to make a movie about.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on October 30, 2014, 05:16:16 PM
All right, that's enough of that.  Behold, not one, but two deluges of superhero crap:

http://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2014/10/marvel_vs_dc_comics_which_movi.html

Yes. I can't express my excitement with these announcements, particularly the Inhumans. Black Bolt omg


I had no interest in Doctor Strange until Benedict Cumberbatch was announced as the titular character.

Now I must see it.

Really? I'm the other way around. I love Benedict Cumberbatch a lot, but I don't like the casting.


I'd honestly never heard of him before now, but I still say its a strange hero to make a movie about.

He's awesome though, T'Challa and Wakanda are fun to say
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on October 30, 2014, 05:44:22 PM
Given the success of GotG, I think it's safe to say that there is officially no source material in the world that Marvel can't potentially turn into a hit.  And it's great that a black guy and a lady are going to be able to helm their own movies.  Diversity for all!

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on October 30, 2014, 06:55:14 PM
Just watched the four episodes of The Flash. I haven't watched Arrow, and nor do I care to, but it doesn't look like it's necessary anyway.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 07:14:38 PM
Firefly. I have the series on DVD. It's entertaining but I don't think it deserves the large cult following that it has.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 30, 2014, 07:44:41 PM
I like Firefly a lot, but I hate everyone who wears a Jayne hat.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 30, 2014, 08:00:26 PM
^ haters
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 09:24:37 PM
Firefly. I have the series on DVD. It's entertaining but I don't think it deserves the large cult following that it has.

trolololol

I like Firefly a lot, but I hate everyone who wears a Jayne hat.

I never quite understood the fascination with the hat.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 09:32:29 PM
People are only obsessed with Firefly because of its "tragic" cancelation. The show was too expensive, broadcast out of order, and is clearly a loose rip off of Cowboy Bebop.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on October 30, 2014, 09:35:19 PM
People are only obsessed with Firefly because of its "tragic" cancelation. The show was too expensive, broadcast out of order, and is clearly a loose rip off of Cowboy Bebop.

Okay.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on October 30, 2014, 09:53:26 PM
People are only obsessed with Firefly because of its "tragic" cancelation. The show was too expensive, broadcast out of order, and is clearly a loose rip off of Cowboy Bebop.

The setting maybe. The things that make Bebop great are not present in Firefly. The things that make Firefly great are not ripped from Bebop.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 09:59:10 PM
People are only obsessed with Firefly because of its "tragic" cancelation. The show was too expensive, broadcast out of order, and is clearly a loose rip off of Cowboy Bebop.

The setting maybe. The things that make Bebop great are not present in Firefly. The things that make Firefly great are not ripped from Bebop.

What exactly makes Firefly great?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 30, 2014, 10:00:25 PM
Why do you own the DVD set if you don't think it's great? Do you just like wasting money?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on October 30, 2014, 10:15:53 PM
Why do you own the DVD set if you don't think it's great? Do you just like wasting money?

I like it? I have the movie too.

I just think it's a bit overrated, is all. The characters are shallow personified tropes and the story is pretty plain. But it is very fun to watch and is entertaining. The main problem is that it was so short lived, the universe is bland and the characters are not properly developed and seem predictable because of it. I'm sure most of these problems would have been alleviated provided that it didn't get canceled, but I'm not going to praise it for what it could have been.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on October 31, 2014, 01:51:27 AM
There's nothing wrong with cliche so long as they do it right. I love the characters regardless of how predictable they are because they worked really well together.

It was great because the ideas came together really well. It was light and fun but with some good heart to it. There's not a lot of shows like that, especially not in the sci-fi genre.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on October 31, 2014, 02:18:38 AM
There's nothing wrong with cliche so long as they do it right. I love the characters regardless of how predictable they are because they worked really well together.

It was great because the ideas came together really well. It was light and fun but with some good heart to it. There's not a lot of shows like that, especially not in the sci-fi genre.
This.

The characters were cliched but they made the chiches work with each other. 
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on October 31, 2014, 08:29:52 AM
There's nothing wrong with cliche so long as they do it right. I love the characters regardless of how predictable they are because they worked really well together.

It was great because the ideas came together really well. It was light and fun but with some good heart to it. There's not a lot of shows like that, especially not in the sci-fi genre.

I think it's because we haven't had a light hearted space opera (that wasn't Star Trek) for years. Farscape was probably the last one that was any good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 01, 2014, 05:15:02 PM
Just started SG-1 season 9. Ummm...

What does everyone think about Cameron Mitchell? Oh, and Vala? I really hope Vala does not stick around. I absolutely loathe her character with every fiber of my being. She's too extreme to the point of unbelievable, she's oversexualized and needs to put some damn clothes on, and she's another typical "dark girl with a dark past" thing that has been played over and over ad nauseum. Just another mary sue character in a show that is already full of mary sues. I have a feeling she is going to be on the show for the remainder of it's run, and that's no good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 03, 2014, 04:23:07 AM
Saw the new Walking Dead. Even worse than the previous episode. Its wonderful watching this terrible show slowly crash and burn. Hahahahhaa.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on November 03, 2014, 04:41:13 AM
Except that the seasons have steadily gone up in ratings...
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 03, 2014, 05:00:32 AM
Ratings? Lol.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 03, 2014, 08:00:13 AM
Community is the worst show ever.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on November 03, 2014, 08:25:09 AM
Vindictus, you are as dumb as his avatar has have been having me thinks he is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on November 03, 2014, 11:20:30 AM
Just started SG-1 season 9. Ummm...

What does everyone think about Cameron Mitchell? Oh, and Vala? I really hope Vala does not stick around. I absolutely loathe her character with every fiber of my being. She's too extreme to the point of unbelievable, she's oversexualized and needs to put some damn clothes on, and she's another typical "dark girl with a dark past" thing that has been played over and over ad nauseum. Just another mary sue character in a show that is already full of mary sues. I have a feeling she is going to be on the show for the remainder of it's run, and that's no good.
She's in S10 and both movies as well. Worst character. I wouldn't have been so bothered about her being as sexualised as she is if they had picked a younger actress though. I think Mitchell is pretty cool, but he's not O'Neill.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 06, 2014, 02:09:55 AM
OMG TWO SECONDS OF ANT-MAN FOOTAGE

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Ant-Man-Just-Released-Its-First-Footage-Check-It-Our-Here-68052.html
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Lord Dave on November 06, 2014, 01:39:47 PM
Just started SG-1 season 9. Ummm...

What does everyone think about Cameron Mitchell? Oh, and Vala? I really hope Vala does not stick around. I absolutely loathe her character with every fiber of my being. She's too extreme to the point of unbelievable, she's oversexualized and needs to put some damn clothes on, and she's another typical "dark girl with a dark past" thing that has been played over and over ad nauseum. Just another mary sue character in a show that is already full of mary sues. I have a feeling she is going to be on the show for the remainder of it's run, and that's no good.
In like Vala.  Specifically the Vala/Daniel interaction.

Cameron tries to be O'Neil and that's why he sucks for a while.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: jroa on November 06, 2014, 01:49:48 PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLqqZmNFa_A
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 06, 2014, 10:52:49 PM
Just started SG-1 season 9. Ummm...

What does everyone think about Cameron Mitchell? Oh, and Vala? I really hope Vala does not stick around. I absolutely loathe her character with every fiber of my being. She's too extreme to the point of unbelievable, she's oversexualized and needs to put some damn clothes on, and she's another typical "dark girl with a dark past" thing that has been played over and over ad nauseum. Just another mary sue character in a show that is already full of mary sues. I have a feeling she is going to be on the show for the remainder of it's run, and that's no good.
In like Vala.  Specifically the Vala/Daniel interaction.

Cameron tries to be O'Neil and that's why he sucks for a while.

I'm about half way through season 9. I'm glad Vala is not in every episode, but I still let out a big sigh whenever she does grace the screen with her barely clothed presence..

I'm starting to like Mitchell because he is just like O'Neil. I've heard he was the captain or something in Farscape, and I've heard a lot of complaints that he's pretty much the same character in SG-1. He's got this weird expression that's always on his face that is somewhat endearing, but his range as an actor does seem a bit limited.

I'm kinda interested in Farscape now. Has anyone seen it? Any good?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 07, 2014, 07:45:56 AM
I haven't seen Interstellar yet, but what are the opinions on it?

The discussion thread on /r/movies is filled with praise for it and any dissent is getting downvoted (big surprise!), even though most reviews I've read so far are pretty lukewarm about the movie.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 07, 2014, 08:00:14 AM
I haven't seen Interstellar yet, but what are the opinions on it?

The discussion thread on /r/movies is filled with praise for it and any dissent is getting downvoted (big surprise!), even though most reviews I've read so far are pretty lukewarm about the movie.

I've learned that reddit is usually not a good place to get unbiased reviews.

Just pirate it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on November 07, 2014, 11:15:58 AM
Farscape is good but kinda weird most of the time. The Vala actress is a main character in it too, but she plays a much less retarded character. Although, her wardrobe isn't much better than in Stargate half of the time, especially in the later seasons but the more serious character makes it more tolerable. Yes, Ben Browder plays the central main character. He's pretty much like Mitchell, except he's a scientist with sideburns instead of a military officer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on November 07, 2014, 06:33:21 PM
I haven't seen Interstellar yet, but what are the opinions on it?

The discussion thread on /r/movies is filled with praise for it and any dissent is getting downvoted (big surprise!), even though most reviews I've read so far are pretty lukewarm about the movie.

I am going to see it tonight in imax.  Will try and post some thoughts tonight.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on November 08, 2014, 04:02:32 AM
Just watched Insterstellar and despite the numerous plot holes or massaging of laws of physics, it was very good.  The science fiction portion tried to keep it as plausible as it could be managed, and it was very gratifying to see a movie use the silence of space to good effect and to deal with the problems posed by relativity to space travel. 

I enjoyed all the performances except maybe the one surprise cameo and Matthew McConaughey in particular brought all the depth and urgency to the story that you could want.

The ending almost lost me as it got a bit abstract, and I thought that it would not pay off the relationships set up in the beginning, but I was pleasantly surprised at the conclusion.  It was a very moving ending and ultimately posed a lot of good questions about the complexities of choosing between your own interests vs those of the greater good.

Some here will happily note that the film references the Apollo missions as a hoax designed to bankrupt the Soviet Union.

Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on November 09, 2014, 09:02:04 PM
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)

This was an incredible film experience, and I loved it. I will try to write a lot more about it soon when I have time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 09, 2014, 10:03:48 PM
Interstellar (Christopher Nolan)

This was an incredible film experience, and I loved it. I will try to write a lot more about it soon when I have time.

fghugghgghh I think it might be my all-time favourite movie, I loved the shit out of it and ajlgug

The visuals were incredible, the realistic rendering of wormholes and black holes and the "fourth dimension" insofar as humans can understand it was aghahg and the music was simply amazing and gorgeous and the whole movie was gorgeous and I love this movie i want to see it againann
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 09, 2014, 10:21:23 PM
I saw Interstellar and thought it was god awful. Am I missing something? Sorry Nolan, but you're not Stanely Kubrick.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 09, 2014, 10:30:34 PM
Vauxhall: Nope, people just have opinions.

Anyway, more rambling time now that I'm feeling slightly more coherent:

Interstellar. Wow. I think that may be the greatest film I've ever seen, for me. It was gorgeous on every single level...visually, aurally, even in the story... The realistic renderings of wormholes, black holes, the "fourth dimension" and tesseracts...God damn, just...as someone who loves science, particularly physics and space, to death...this film is the crowning moment of sci-fi, I think. It's a science fiction film that really, *genuinely* LOVES science and it shows. No half-assed special effects just to have big explosions and crap, no, this film is gorgeous because of its realism. I don't think people really *grasp* how *gorgeous* and amazing space is. We're fed this halfhearted crap by sci-fi films that we just take for granted now, but this film goes the whole damn mile to show you exactly what space is, how grand and expansive and unimaginably beyond imagination it is. When they're going through that wormhole...something we've seen in dozens of films, but when they're doing it here and it's modeled by a real physicist, rendered for hundreds of hours with complex algorithms to make sure it's accurate...it's beyond anything I've ever seen before.

And the music...and the absolute lack of it at times... I could go on for hours. It's absolutely beautiful. Minimal when it needs to be, and extremely loud and shrill when the film would benefit most...then dead silent in the vast expanse of space. It's chilling.

Then, finally, the story. I don't want to spoil anything, but god. I'll be the first to admit that the film forgoes realism at various points for the sake of film, and that it even veers into hypothetical—or sheerly tangential—territory at times, it's all worth it. This movie, man...this movie.  I haven't cried at a movie in a good while, but this one made me cry two and a half times. Once sort of early on I cried from Matthew McConaughey's amazing performance, then I teared up later on. Then afterwards, as I left the theater, I just started crying again...partly because it was just so amazing to me, but also because it got me thinking about the world so much.

Everyone should have to see this. THIS is the amazing, *real* stuff we're missing out on when we cut NASA funding because it's "not important". Not important? Do you forget who we are? Like they say in the film, humans are explorers, it's in us, our fate is not to die on this planet, it's to go beyond and yet we're letting ourselves be held back because people are so obsessed with the goddamn materialism and petty squabbles and attachments here. We're so short-sighted that we think it's better to pollute the hell out of this planet and then dismiss any solutions as "not worth it", or "too costly" or "unnecessary". Honestly, after this film...that line of thinking really disgusts me. It's actually really, really saddening...I want to see space, other planets, new discoveries and exploration. I don't want humanity to doom itself to a pathetic life of bitching between vaguely-different political parties or stupid fights about how people shouldn't be equal because everyone's so damn scared of change. I don't want humanity to have this amazing start where we colonized an entire planet, scraped the edge of space by sending men to the Goddamn *moon*, only to flicker out and die because we were too short-sighted, selfish and obsessed with immediate gain to continue our legacy. It's legitimately hard not to cry about, just looking up into the sky and knowing that we should be up there, we should be doing everything in our power to be among the fucking stars and just doing things we'd have never imagined possible before. I want that more than anything. I think this film, more than anything, has solidified my desire to get into science, to be a physicist. Hopefully I have the drive to do it. But, above all, I really hope more people see this movie and open their eyes to what we should be doing.

Our destiny is not on this planet. Earth should really just be our stepping stone to greater things. Our destiny is out there.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 10, 2014, 12:20:32 AM
But the film wasn't terribly (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/11/interstellar_science_review_the_movie_s_black_holes_wormholes_relativity.html) realistic. I've also seen criticism of the script, and heavy handed nature of the story telling. By all accounts, it's not even Nolan's best film, let alone the best film ever. Although I'm yet to see it, I have been interested in hunting down more critical opinions since gushing reviews are bloody useless.

Just about the only thing I've seen everyone agree on is McConaughey's performance.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 10, 2014, 12:42:27 AM
But the film wasn't terribly (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/11/interstellar_science_review_the_movie_s_black_holes_wormholes_relativity.html) realistic. I've also seen criticism of the script, and heavy handed nature of the story telling. By all accounts, it's not even Nolan's best film, let alone the best film ever. Although I'm yet to see it, I have been interested in hunting down more critical opinions since gushing reviews are bloody useless.

Just about the only thing I've seen everyone agree on is McConaughey's performance.

Sci-fi is never realistic. Sounds like they're trying to poke holes in the film by nitpicking.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 10, 2014, 12:53:54 AM


But the film wasn't terribly (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/11/interstellar_science_review_the_movie_s_black_holes_wormholes_relativity.html) realistic. I've also seen criticism of the script, and heavy handed nature of the story telling. By all accounts, it's not even Nolan's best film, let alone the best film ever. Although I'm yet to see it, I have been interested in hunting down more critical opinions since gushing reviews are bloody useless.

Just about the only thing I've seen everyone agree on is McConaughey's performance.

Okay...? I'm not trying to convince anyone it's great so your words are kinda wasted on me, I don't really judge whether it was one of his "best films" based on what other people say. I think it's easily his best. Also, it's pretty damn realistic as far as sci-fi goes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on November 10, 2014, 01:00:51 AM
Was gonna see Interstellar but decided on Nightcrawler because it seemed likemore fun. Going to see it in a bit.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on November 10, 2014, 01:04:44 AM
But the film wasn't terribly (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/11/interstellar_science_review_the_movie_s_black_holes_wormholes_relativity.html) realistic. I've also seen criticism of the script, and heavy handed nature of the story telling. By all accounts, it's not even Nolan's best film, let alone the best film ever. Although I'm yet to see it, I have been interested in hunting down more critical opinions since gushing reviews are bloody useless.

Just about the only thing I've seen everyone agree on is McConaughey's performance.

Nit-picking plot holes is an ego exercise at best. Don't get me wrong, I do it; I did it with Interstellar even though I am pretty much in Snupes' camp. This movie had a giant heart to it, the plot was interesting and even somewhat relevant politically if you care about that sort of thing. It explored tough questions about parenthood, sacrifice, humanity  there was so much good in this movie, that taking the piss because they didn't accurately portray the energetically of a black hopes accretion disc is kind of petty. I think a lot of the science was good and Neil de Grasse Tyson agreed. But go see it for all the things Snupes talked about.  it is very worthy on all fronts.

I want to know how they did all the sets on Mann's planet. Awesome scenery.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on November 10, 2014, 01:05:21 AM
Was gonna see Interstellar but decided on Nightcrawler because it seemed likemore fun. Going to see it in a bit.

Heard it was also awesome. Great time for movies, bad time to be a parent.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 10, 2014, 01:25:50 AM


But the film wasn't terribly (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/space_20/2014/11/interstellar_science_review_the_movie_s_black_holes_wormholes_relativity.html) realistic. I've also seen criticism of the script, and heavy handed nature of the story telling. By all accounts, it's not even Nolan's best film, let alone the best film ever. Although I'm yet to see it, I have been interested in hunting down more critical opinions since gushing reviews are bloody useless.

Just about the only thing I've seen everyone agree on is McConaughey's performance.

Okay...? I'm not trying to convince anyone it's great so your words are kinda wasted on me, I don't really judge whether it was one of his "best films" based on what other people say. I think it's easily his best. Also, it's pretty damn realistic as far as sci-fi goes.

Even better than TDK, and his earlier films?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 10, 2014, 01:42:06 AM
Yeah.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on November 10, 2014, 02:00:39 AM
Vauxhall: Nope, people just have opinions.

Anyway, more rambling time now that I'm feeling slightly more coherent:

Interstellar. Wow. I think that may be the greatest film I've ever seen, for me. It was gorgeous on every single level...visually, aurally, even in the story... The realistic renderings of wormholes, black holes, the "fourth dimension" and tesseracts...God damn, just...as someone who loves science, particularly physics and space, to death...this film is the crowning moment of sci-fi, I think. It's a science fiction film that really, *genuinely* LOVES science and it shows. No half-assed special effects just to have big explosions and crap, no, this film is gorgeous because of its realism. I don't think people really *grasp* how *gorgeous* and amazing space is. We're fed this halfhearted crap by sci-fi films that we just take for granted now, but this film goes the whole damn mile to show you exactly what space is, how grand and expansive and unimaginably beyond imagination it is. When they're going through that wormhole...something we've seen in dozens of films, but when they're doing it here and it's modeled by a real physicist, rendered for hundreds of hours with complex algorithms to make sure it's accurate...it's beyond anything I've ever seen before.

And the music...and the absolute lack of it at times... I could go on for hours. It's absolutely beautiful. Minimal when it needs to be, and extremely loud and shrill when the film would benefit most...then dead silent in the vast expanse of space. It's chilling.

Then, finally, the story. I don't want to spoil anything, but god. I'll be the first to admit that the film forgoes realism at various points for the sake of film, and that it even veers into hypothetical—or sheerly tangential—territory at times, it's all worth it. This movie, man...this movie.  I haven't cried at a movie in a good while, but this one made me cry two and a half times. Once sort of early on I cried from Matthew McConaughey's amazing performance, then I teared up later on. Then afterwards, as I left the theater, I just started crying again...partly because it was just so amazing to me, but also because it got me thinking about the world so much.

Everyone should have to see this. THIS is the amazing, *real* stuff we're missing out on when we cut NASA funding because it's "not important". Not important? Do you forget who we are? Like they say in the film, humans are explorers, it's in us, our fate is not to die on this planet, it's to go beyond and yet we're letting ourselves be held back because people are so obsessed with the goddamn materialism and petty squabbles and attachments here. We're so short-sighted that we think it's better to pollute the hell out of this planet and then dismiss any solutions as "not worth it", or "too costly" or "unnecessary". Honestly, after this film...that line of thinking really disgusts me. It's actually really, really saddening...I want to see space, other planets, new discoveries and exploration. I don't want humanity to doom itself to a pathetic life of bitching between vaguely-different political parties or stupid fights about how people shouldn't be equal because everyone's so damn scared of change. I don't want humanity to have this amazing start where we colonized an entire planet, scraped the edge of space by sending men to the Goddamn *moon*, only to flicker out and die because we were too short-sighted, selfish and obsessed with immediate gain to continue our legacy. It's legitimately hard not to cry about, just looking up into the sky and knowing that we should be up there, we should be doing everything in our power to be among the fucking stars and just doing things we'd have never imagined possible before. I want that more than anything. I think this film, more than anything, has solidified my desire to get into science, to be a physicist. Hopefully I have the drive to do it. But, above all, I really hope more people see this movie and open their eyes to what we should be doing.

Our destiny is not on this planet. Earth should really just be our stepping stone to greater things. Our destiny is out there.

omg I agree with all of this so much! It definitely my favorite of Nolan's films at this point.
I am going to see it again now
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on November 10, 2014, 03:30:05 AM
Short Cuts (Robert Altman)

I don't even know what to say. I loved it. It sits along side Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (a film it clearly inspired) and Todd Solondz's Happiness in breadth, humour, sadness and frankness, not to mention duration. If you like either of those films and you haven't seen this yet, you really owe it to yourself to check it out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on November 10, 2014, 08:55:46 AM
Watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel on the weekend. Such a good film with one of the best casts I've ever seen; also, an absolutely perfect depiction of India and its culture.

I've been to that step-well in Jaipur, too. Amazing place.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on November 11, 2014, 03:31:42 AM
The Player (Robert Altman)

More Altman, who I'm really starting to like as a director and want to explore more thoroughly ASAP. A totally different film to Short Cuts, The Player is a fairly easy going but effective satire of Hollywood, with plenty of laughs and some gripping scenes of suspense. Altman's directorial mastery is shown up front in the form of an almost ten minute long single take full of movement and featuring at least ten different conversations weaving in and out of each other. It's really well made stuff, and Tim Robbins gives a great performance as Griffin Mill, a petty and manipulative studio executive who starts receiving harassing postcards in the mail from an anonymous writer. Would make a great double feature preceding Neil LaBute's considerably tougher In the Company of Men.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on November 13, 2014, 05:49:39 PM
The Untouchables (1987)

Phenomenal. Extremely well written. Probably my favorite gangster movie. Capone's character was great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Jack1704 on November 14, 2014, 02:18:41 PM
Watching JEREMY KYLE
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on November 15, 2014, 09:35:56 PM
Play Time (Jacques Tati)
Brilliantly orchestrated comedy from Tati, with so many sight gags, prat falls, and weird noises that after a while one becomes lost in a whirlwind of almost balletic humour. Unfortunately it starts to outstay its welcome for me after the first 60 minutes, and I found myself becoming restless in my seat waiting for it to finish. While it's good, it's great, but there is not enough to keep it interesting for its two hour runtime.

The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman)
Low key take on the Philip Marlowe character with Elliott Gould in a slick yet dishevelled, wisecracking and spaced-out lead performance that must surely have had some influence on late '90s neo-noir such as The Big Lebowski and Cowboy Bebop. It's always entertaining and always goes places you aren't expecting. Apart from that, watch out for Sterling Hayden giving a fantastic performance as a washed up Hemingway type who walks with the weight of heavy and dark secrets on his shoulders.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 21, 2014, 06:03:34 PM
Finished Stargate SG-1. And, damn, am I glad that's over. There are way too many things wrong with Season 10 to list them all.



One thing that bothered me specifically: The Asgard. They didn't get a proper send-off. "We're dying, here's our knowledge. I gotta go now." That was it. The Asgard are easily the coolest alien race in the Stargate series, and this was not the correct way to handle their entire race's extinction. Just stupid. The entire episode was just retarted. Everyone is stuck in a time dilation field, they all age about 60 years, and then at the very end of the episode they figure out how to make a reset button. And Vala and Daniel Jackson hook up (?!?!?!). Outrageous. I'm guessing they were expecting to make a Season 11 because this finale fucking sucked as a series ender.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on November 21, 2014, 06:27:57 PM
Don't listen to Ghost and watch Atlantis too. Even though you should have started already when SG1 Season 8 started.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rushy on November 21, 2014, 06:35:18 PM
Finished Stargate SG-1. And, damn, am I glad that's over. There are way too many things wrong with Season 10 to list them all.



One thing that bothered me specifically: The Asgard. They didn't get a proper send-off. "We're dying, here's our knowledge. I gotta go now." That was it. The Asgard are easily the coolest alien race in the Stargate series, and this was not the correct way to handle their entire race's extinction. Just stupid. The entire episode was just retarted. Everyone is stuck in a time dilation field, they all age about 60 years, and then at the very end of the episode they figure out how to make a reset button. And Vala and Daniel Jackson hook up (?!?!?!). Outrageous. I'm guessing they were expecting to make a Season 11 because this finale fucking sucked as a series ender.

I told you to stop watching them. I tried to save you. This is your own fault.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 21, 2014, 06:42:47 PM
Don't listen to Ghost and watch Atlantis too. Even though you should have started already when SG1 Season 8 started.

Already started. So far it's much better than Season 9-10 of SG-1. I'll keep you posted.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on November 24, 2014, 05:02:36 AM
Just watched Interstellar. I share Snupes' sentiment almost exactly, so I won't repeat what she's already said. I did think it was funny that <spoilers> when Cooper and Murph are being questioned, and Cooper asks for assurance that he won't be killed... and one of the people at the table says something to the effect of "Haha, we're NASA!" as if that were supposed to be reassuring. I had to remind myself that the average globularist audience member wouldn't realize that there isn't a more sinister agency on the surface of this flat earth.</spoilers>

tl;dr cum awn TARS
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 24, 2014, 08:32:40 PM
I really like Stargate Atlantis so far. John Sheppard is a badass to the nth degree. Just finished the episode where he single-handedly thwarts the Genii's plan to take over Atlantis. Probably the best episode I've seen so far. Although, Rodney and Sheppard are the only interesting things about Atlantis right now. The secondary characters seem a bit weak and underdeveloped so far.

Oh, and Teyla seems like a female version of Teal'c. Pretty unoriginal.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 24, 2014, 09:13:54 PM
I'm still watching Gotham.  I don't know why.  It's really not very good.  I guess I just feel obliged to because it's Batman.  Well, sort of Batman.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on November 25, 2014, 04:39:50 PM
I really like Stargate Atlantis so far. John Sheppard is a badass to the nth degree. Just finished the episode where he single-handedly thwarts the Genii's plan to take over Atlantis. Probably the best episode I've seen so far. Although, Rodney and Sheppard are the only interesting things about Atlantis right now. The secondary characters seem a bit weak and underdeveloped so far.

Oh, and Teyla seems like a female version of Teal'c. Pretty unoriginal.
Yeah I don't like her either. Seems like she's there only for the "we need a strong female character or else it's sexist" factor.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on November 28, 2014, 11:45:48 AM
Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)

It is a good
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on November 28, 2014, 06:55:45 PM
Taxi Driver (Scorsese)

A great film documenting gradual and painful isolation, but I am not sure how I feel about the ending. Part of me feels like Travis liberated himself from his mania by liberating Iris from Matthew. The two characters seemed like parallels to me. Iris was trapped by her affection for Matthew, leading a lonely, hopeless life, and deep down feeling a need to escape. Travis' obsession and subsequent rejection with Betsy would lead to the same feelings. After Travis went apeshit and freed Iris, he seemed free from his obsession with Betsy. They were able to have an amiable conversation in the cab without Travis acting like a creep.

However, I can't help but think that the friendly Travis we see at the end is just a crazy killer who has let off some steam. After all, he did just try to assassinate a politician. It could only be a matter of time before tension builds within him again. But next time, he won't be seen as the hero.

It almost seems more appropriate for Travis to have died in the shootout.

Either way, it's an excellent film. Would recommend.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on November 28, 2014, 10:37:43 PM
Finally saw Interstellar.

I really enjoyed it. The story had me totally riveted up until the black hole. But even that wasn't cheesy enough for me to dislike it.
I don't agree with the theme of leaving the planet or have any fascination with space (I'm a historian after all), but it was still a great story and beautifully made.

Also, 10/10 would hit McConaughey
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 28, 2014, 11:49:00 PM
Why don't you agree with leaving the planet
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Pete Svarrior on November 28, 2014, 11:50:41 PM
Why don't you agree with leaving the planet
The atmosphere here is pretty good LOL XD
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 12:25:57 AM
It's harder to leave than it is to stay.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on November 29, 2014, 12:37:27 AM
Why don't you agree with leaving the planet
Well IF we cause the destruction of the planet then I think we should go down with it.

We're from Earth, why not die out with Earth? I also think humans are kinda terrible. I wouldn't wish us on any other planet.
I generally see humans as a really intelligent, terrible animal driven by instincts. I don't have very lofty ideals of evolution/adaptation.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 29, 2014, 12:43:48 AM
Why don't you agree with leaving the planet
Well IF we cause the destruction of the planet then I think we should go down with it.

We're from Earth, why not die out with Earth? I also think humans are kinda terrible. I wouldn't wish us on any other planet.
I generally see humans as a really intelligent, terrible animal driven by instincts. I don't have very lofty ideals of evolution/adaptation.

Your opinion is wrong.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 12:46:46 AM
Did not expect that kind of edge from Rooster. Confirmed for a 15y/o high schooler attempting philosophy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 29, 2014, 12:47:51 AM
Who's to say that Earth was even our original home planet?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on November 29, 2014, 02:10:20 AM


Why don't you agree with leaving the planet
We're from Earth, why not die out with Earth?

I don't really think those two things correlate at all
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 29, 2014, 04:09:35 AM
I watched the first film of the Star Trek reboot, the one from 2009.  It wasn't awful, but I can't say it was very good either.  They did a few things well, I'll grant.  Spock was good, Bones was good, and I liked how they tied it into the previous continuity with Nimoy showing up.  But there was one enormous flaw that ruined the movie for me, and his name was James T. Kirk.  Kirk sucked.  He really, really sucked.  He was an annoying, unlikable, obnoxious, unpleasant asshole whose constant douchebaggery was inexplicably rewarded with promotion and unwarranted praise throughout the entire film.  The logic of this movie seems to be that hey, this is Kirk, instantly recognizable as the hero of the franchise, and therefore, he doesn't need to actually act like a hero to gain the audience's loyalty.  Or like a competent officer.  Or even like a decent human being.  Well, it doesn't work like that.

And before anyone starts with crap like "But Shatner's Kirk was the exact same," or "You can't just have a handsome nice guy running around being heroic," or "He is persistent and a heroic," don't.  Because no, he wasn't, yes, you can, and no, he isn't.  Shatner played Kirk as being supremely confident, yes.  But, and here's the key difference between them, his Kirk could walk the walk as well as talk the talk.  He wasn't always right, but he proved again and again that he was a brilliant tactician, a great leader, and a loyal friend.  He earned every ounce of smugness that he ever displayed.  Pine's Kirk did not.  He's a cocky little bastard right from the start of the movie, long before he ever did anything worthwhile, and even by the end of it, he still hadn't done much to be proud of.  If anyone was the real hero of this film, it was Spock.  Like I said, he was handled very well.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 04:26:14 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/upgjJNQ.gif)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 29, 2014, 04:55:14 AM
Yes.  This is what I do.  I wait until long after the movies come out before I watch them myself and offer my opinions on them so as to appear original in my criticisms.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on November 29, 2014, 07:42:27 AM
Did not expect that kind of edge from Rooster. Confirmed for a 15y/o high schooler attempting philosophy.
It's the exact opposite of that.

I don't understand the whole "meant" to leave idea. That suggests destiny which I don't believe in at all. I'm aware that people think we're a really special, but I don't by into that. We're just violent animals with large frontal lobes.
It's not philosophy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 07:46:27 AM
But we are special, simply because we alone have the means to leave our own planet.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 29, 2014, 07:54:55 AM
But we are special, simply because we alone have the means to leave our own planet.

Going to have to agree with this. Eventually our resources will dwindle and we'll be forced between resettling on a different planet or extinction. Probably not in our lifetimes, but still. It will happen provided we don't kill each other or aliens enslave us and/or kill us all. It's not make believe.

Also, It has nothing to do with destiny. It's just plain ol science.

Do not take this as if I am supporting this awful film though. It really has no redeeming factors in my opinion.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 08:23:27 AM
That's another good point, I don't remember if I had a whinge about the destiny crap in the movie. It was only there for the first 20 minutes or so, but it was annoying. The implication that we're going to the stars anyway because it's our future devalues the accomplishment that space travel is. We're not born for space travel at all, it takes a shit load of hard work and sacrifices to get there. It's strange that a movie so pro-science completely ignored that in favour of lame "its arr destany" lines.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on November 29, 2014, 09:29:41 AM
What? The movie is all about hard work and sacrifices.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 29, 2014, 10:22:23 AM
What? The movie is all about hard work and sacrifices.

Yes, which is why it's weird to shoehorn the destiny garbage in while Cooper is still meandering around on Earth.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on November 29, 2014, 03:16:43 PM
What? The movie is all about hard work and sacrifices.

Yes, which is why it's weird to shoehorn the destiny garbage in while Cooper is still meandering around on Earth.
Yep. That is probably what bugged me most about the movie. But it was still great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 30, 2014, 04:47:50 AM
And now I've watched Into Darkness.  Kirk isn't a shithead in this movie, which I appreciated.  Apart from that, it sucked.  I'll admit that I've never been a particularly huge fan of Star Trek - at most, I've seen some of the movies and a handful of episodes - but even I can't help feeling offended by this.  It's an incredibly stupid, incredibly generic, homogeneous blockbuster without an ounce of uniqueness, creativity, or thematic similarity to the original franchise.  And even though it's full of what I'd normally call fanservice, like the quotes and reenactments of scenes from The Wrath of Khan, none of it feels respectful.  In fact, it comes across more like a mean-spirited parody than anything else.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on November 30, 2014, 05:06:27 AM
Khan in the series was Indian. Dark skinned. In the movie, Khan is a pale skinned Benedict Cumberbatch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on November 30, 2014, 05:32:58 AM
I am aware.  I would complain about it, but honestly, the real issue with Khan is that they shouldn't have bothered rehashing him in the first place.  Or if they absolutely felt compelled to put him in, then they ought to have let him take center stage as the villain.  Awkwardly juggling him with RoboCop so they could give us their oh-so-insightful political message of "terrorism is bad, mmkay," didn't work out well at all.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on November 30, 2014, 05:36:40 AM
I thought Into Darkness sucked too. Khan felt like a joke. I agree with Saddam, they should have left him out of it completely.

Actually, they should just stop making Star Trek movies altogether. Make a new series please.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on November 30, 2014, 05:59:41 AM
I thought Into Darkness sucked too. Khan felt like a joke. I agree with Saddam, they should have left him out of it completely.

Actually, they should just stop making Star Trek movies altogether. Make a new series please.

They are, it's called Star Wars.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on December 01, 2014, 08:44:32 PM
Mean Streets (Scorsese)

Very good. I prefer Scorsese's older stuff to the new, although I do love the new.

Having watched Taxi Driver recently, it's interesting to contrast character development in these two films, as they were made around the same time. One models gradual isolation resulting in madness, while the other models mounting pressure from multiple angles resulting in a somewhat similar madness. Both end with a bang, so to speak. Great stuff.

What I don't understand is his tendency to flood bar scenes with intense red lighting. It's annoying as hell. I don't know what effect he was going for other than creating a feeling of danger, but there's gotta be a better way.



No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers)

Phenomenal. I finally got around to seeing this, and was in no way disappointed.

While the ending was initially puzzling, it was very fitting. It helps to consider the sheriff as the character we get to really dig into, not Llewelyn. Consider the name of the film after all. It's not about Llewelyn's ordeal: stumbling across the cash, evading Anton, and trying (failing) to save himself and his wife. Rather, it is about the sheriff's struggle to continue, given the awful nature of his job, and his sort of existential pondering at the end. This is wrapped up nicely in the ending scene with the ex-sheriff dude in the wheelchair.

Anton is easily one of my favorite characters in any Coen brothers film, rivaled only by Charlie Meadows in Barton Fink. He's just so intense, so precise, so recklessly stable. Early in the movie, we get to see all that he does, and we get a good idea for how his character will respond in certain situations. Then, once we have that idea, we are often left following other characters, left to our own conclusions about what exactly he is doing. The death of the Mosses is not surprising in retrospect. The film is about the sheriff, and Anton is not a character that loses.

One thing in particular that I can't make sense of is Anton's car crash at the end. If anybody has any insight into that scene, feel free to enlighten me. I was thinking that maybe it reflected 'chance' or fate, as Anton often used a coin flip to determine the life or death of people he happened across. I can't really see anything beyond that.

Definitely my favorite Coen brothers film so far. 9.5/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on December 04, 2014, 07:41:44 PM
Nightcrawler

Great film. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was just phenomenal. Direction felt a little underwhelming at times, but it was sufficient enough to maintain tension where it was needed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: jroa on December 04, 2014, 08:04:47 PM
Watch SGU.  It is teh shit
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on December 04, 2014, 09:34:57 PM
Nightcrawler

Great film. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was just phenomenal. Direction felt a little underwhelming at times, but it was sufficient enough to maintain tension where it was needed.


The end was lazy lazy filmmaking. Gyllenhaal however was fantastic.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on December 05, 2014, 12:54:47 AM
Nightcrawler

Great film. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was just phenomenal. Direction felt a little underwhelming at times, but it was sufficient enough to maintain tension where it was needed.

I agree.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on December 05, 2014, 05:43:27 AM
Nightcrawler

Great film. Jake Gyllenhaal's performance was just phenomenal. Direction felt a little underwhelming at times, but it was sufficient enough to maintain tension where it was needed.


The end was lazy lazy filmmaking. Gyllenhaal however was fantastic.

Yeah, I agree about the ending. ***SPOILERS*** I thought it would end where the door to the editing room shuts behind him, but then it just continues with unnecessary exposition and the awkward interrogation scene which just shows how Lou gets away with everything with zero repercussions. It was just way too convenient and it went on for too long. All it really needed to do was cement Lou as an irredeemable sociopath by showing him interacting with the station crew unphased by the events and his partner's death, which is exactly what they did and which is where I thought the film should have ended.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on December 05, 2014, 06:11:39 AM
!!!Spoilers!!!!


The sequence where he filmed the death of his partner, and when he turned in the tapes to the station, brilliantly shot, but it seems the movie was just too short, so they added 15 minutes of things happening for no reason and abruptly ending the film leaving the audience being unsure as to what the message really was. I dunno, I just feel like a movie like this needs a solid conclusion to really cement the themes.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on December 05, 2014, 06:18:03 AM
What about the 2004 series?

That's up next.

Finally finished the 2004 Battlestar Galactica series (except The Plan, but I'm going to leave that for a while because the ending of the main series was just so awesome). If you're planning to read this post any further, you should expect spoilers.

Galactica is difficult to compare with other sci-fi I'm familiar with, because it's just so... different. I like that its relationship with modern civilisation is kept a secret until the very last episode, because it makes that aspect of the show all the more poignant when it finally arrives. Overall, it was much darker than any other sci-fi I've seen, tending to focus on the negative traits of humanity much moreso than the feel-good Star Trek franchise and friends.

I also really enjoyed the lack of a clear distinction between good and evil. In Trek, you're (nearly) always supposed to think the humans are good and the Klingons/Romulans/Dominion/Kazon are evil, although (to its credit) Trek sometimes does subvert that theme. But Galactica regularly portrays people who are regarded as heroes committing unspeakable acts of cruelty, balanced out with enough acts of kindness to avoid tipping the good/evil balance the other way. By the second season, I had already lost the sense of who was right and who was wrong, and had learned to expect that any of the characters could turn against their own people, given the opportunity.

That's not to say that I like it better than Trek. I find the Star Trek universe makes a very good example of what we should strive for, but the Battlestar Galactica universe is a much better commentary on the darker side of human nature. It manages to deliver a striking commentary on modern society and religion without coming across as cheesy; no easy feat, given the number of cliches bouncing around in sci-fi in this area.

I'm tempted to watch it all again at some point, just because of the density of content. There are a lot of little things that are easy to miss; for example, the music is very intricate and detailed (and even has its own Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Battlestar_Galactica_%282004_TV_series%29)), which tended to register subconsciously moreso than consciously on my first watch. Another running theme that I found quite striking once I noticed it was the tendency of people in positions of power to have discussions that impact the entire fleet (especially those forced to work overtime refining fuel, for instance) while indulging in heavy drinking in their comfortable offices. That's generally something most sci-fi goes to great lengths to avoid depicting, and I appreciate the fact that Galactica makes a point of showing it on a regular basis, while never quite drawing attention to it.

That was a bigger wall of text than I intended, but I really did like it a lot. It's a show that boldly goes where no sci-fi has gone before, and thus feels much less like a Star Trek rehash than a new breed of sci-fi. 10/10 would watch again.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 05, 2014, 12:20:09 PM
Stargate next.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 05, 2014, 12:44:54 PM
Parsifal: Are there boobs in it?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 05, 2014, 12:46:12 PM
There's boobs and vaginas in the first Stargate episode.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on December 05, 2014, 01:42:21 PM
Maybe you guys should consider starting a Stargate topic.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 05, 2014, 03:59:53 PM
There's boobs and vaginas in the first Stargate episode.
So it's literally Game of Thrones in space
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 05, 2014, 06:21:36 PM
I started watching Farscape a few nights ago because I needed a break from Stargate. It's pretty interesting, but also very campy. I've only watched 2 episodes so far (the pilot, and the one with the bugs). I didn't realize it was made by the Jim Henson company. The puppets are kind of off-putting and uncanny valley at times, which I have mixed feelings about. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I have never been a big fan of puppets of any kind in media. Although, they do make Farscape feel a lot more unique when compared to other televised space operas. I like Claudia Black's character here much better than her character in Stargate SG-1, and that also applies to Ben Browder's character.

It's not a very long series, so I will probably finish it shortly. So far so good.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on December 06, 2014, 01:23:14 PM
Just watched Iron Man as part of a deal where Snupes would listen to Atom Heart Mother and Meddle. It was the worst pile of crap I've endured in years. The plot was boring, the gags were predictable, the one-liners weren't funny, the physics was unrealistic and the villains were walking cliches.

That leaves the remaining feature of the film, which is heavy things moving around at high speeds, shooting fire and causing explosions. Maybe I'd have liked it more if I was 14 and got off on seeing people get killed in repetitive and uncreative ways, but that just doesn't do it for me at 25.

0/10, would buy it if the frisbees were all sold out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 06, 2014, 01:26:44 PM
literally balkno
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 06, 2014, 01:27:45 PM
*snicker*
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Snupes on December 06, 2014, 02:44:43 PM
That was actually more positive than I expected
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 20, 2014, 10:11:56 PM
Happened to catch an episode of The Blacklist, starring James Spader. Pretty terrible, except for Spader's performance as a criminal mastermind. I could see myself watching it solely because of him, but without him this show would be heaps of fail and try-hard. It's too similar to some other shows on tv already. It's like White Collar but more mature and less pandering to fangirls. The female lead is Megan Boone, and she's pretty hard to watch. Maybe it's her character, or the overabundance of melodrama surrounding her character. I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just a sexist. Yeah, that's probably it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 20, 2014, 10:15:28 PM
Spader is good in everything.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 20, 2014, 10:15:45 PM
Spader is good in everything.

Truer words have never been typed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Daniel Jackson on December 20, 2014, 10:18:41 PM
Spader is good in everything.

Mostly everything, but I am still the real Daniel Jackson.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on December 20, 2014, 10:27:26 PM
Fuck off, Vauxy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 22, 2014, 08:14:05 PM
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)

It's been screening for a few weeks across the UK as part of the BFI's Days of Fear and Wonder classic science fiction season (other films shown include Blade Runner (Ridley Scott) and Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull (who was in charge, insofar as anyone is in charge on a Kubrick film besides Kubrick himself, of 2001's incredible special effects))) and I finally had the time to go and see it with a friend of mine. I don't really have much to say about it, it's been praised beyond reason in the 46 years since its release, other than to say that I love the film. I remain unconvinced of the idea that viewing a film in a cinema is superior to seeing it at home, save for the bone rattling sound of a good cinema system (possibly the best way to hear Ligeti), but I'm very glad I went to see it, it loses none of its impact the second time around.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on December 23, 2014, 06:39:20 PM
I had been meaning to look into Paul Thomas Anderson's films for a long-ass time, and a couple weeks ago I finally got around to watching The Master, with it having been near the top of my to-watch list due to Foxy and Crudblud having had hyped it up for me. And because it was great and I felt dumb for not having seen it earlier, in the past few days I got around to watching every other full-feature film he's made. So I thought I'd write up some short reviews for them, listed in the order in which I saw them.

The Master (2012)

It's a small-scale character study set in the 1950s, focusing on a drifting alcoholic WWII soldier who can't get a grip on his life, and his coming to get involved with a religious cult not too dissimilar to scientology. There's not too much to say about it, but at the same time there's so much to say about it that it's too difficult to articulate. At its simplest it's a neat and well executed character study, and it doesn't need to be anything more than that. I've read a lot of posts that go way more in-depth on thematic analysis, even drawing some startingly accuracte analogies to Freudian psychology. But without having considered any of that shit in my viewing of it, I still thoroughly enjoyed it for the realistic actions of the main characters and how they interact with each other, the magnificent performances from Phoenix and Hoffman, and the gorgeous cinematography, in part thanks to the film having been shot in 70mm, that portrays the period in beautiful vivid colours. 9/10

There Will Be Blood (2007)

Everyone's already praising it, so might as well join the club. It shows a much bigger character ark than the subdued character study in The Master, starting from Daniel Plainview's humble beginning as a miner, through his growth as a charming businessman, and finally as a crazy recluse holed up in his mansion. But for such a huge story to go through in two and a half hours, it really doesn't feel like it's missing anything. Every action feels justifiably motivated within the framework of the story, and without a doubt much of that is achieved by Daniel Day-Lewis' magnificent performance. Paul Dano deserves much praise as well as the evangelical pastor.

Once again, Anderson nails the aesthetic of the period, with all of its oily grittiness and dry plains. It's just an all around very well executed film. 9/10

Magnolia (1999)

So, this film has a lot going on. The narrated intro really sets you up for an expectation for a deeply layered, tangled story involving a large cast of characters, but what I ultimately felt at the end of it was just that there were six, give or take, stories that were at best tangentially connected. It feels more like most of the work on trying to make this network of stories work was done in editing, because this film has a habit of not following any particular story for a lengthy period of time. On several occasions the film falls into a groove of having rapid shots of the different stories cycled through with the same music playing consistently throughout the sequence. Usually this sort of thing is used at the climax of the story and for only a brief moment, but here they go on for 20-30 minutes, and just to move the stories forward. It's too exhausting to watch, and to me it seems to only serve the purpose of creating an illusion of interconnectivity, but ultimately I found it to be detrimental more than anything else. This all sounds pretty negative, but the individual stories themselves are all quite great and the characters are well fleshed out, so it does have that going for it.

There's a magnificent idea hidden in this film, and with better execution it could have been a magnificent film, but it missed its mark by too much. It does feel like the sort of film that improves on repeat viewings, so maybe it's too early for me to give cohesive view on it. 7/10

Boogie Nights (1997)

It's a really fun film, until it stops being quite so fun. Anderson really proves himself as a master of the craft with his use of long shots and soundtrack to establish a mood with perfection. The beginning scene in the night club with its establishment of characters, the party at Jack's house where we're familiarised with the rest of the cast, and the murder-suicide scene at the New Year's party all demonstrate excellent uses of long shots to establish the mood, vibe and atmosphere of the 70s, without ever sacrificing on plot progression. For the first half of the film it feels like it never misses a beat.

Then it turns to the 80s, which mainly focuses on the downfall of the cast of characters. This is where the film starts to feel like it's no longer playing to its strength. Perhaps it was inevitable for the sake of the plot, but the vibe that drove the first half of the film goes largely missing, replaced by the depictions of the characters hitting rock bottom. It's all still very well made, but a part of me feels like it wasn't necessary for the film to take that route. 9/10

Punch-Drunk Love (2002)

It's an Adam Sandler film that wasn't made by Adam Sandler. It's lightly comedic, lightly romantic, and it features Adam Sandler. There's a strange, off-putting atmosphere to it, with its clinical aesthetics punctuated by bright spotlights and lens flares, as well as the ”experimental” sounding soundtrack, that makes everything feel like it's in a dream-like state.

Despite being characterized as a romantic film (I guess?), I found it difficult to see it as that. I was so lightly invested in the romantic interest character that it felt more like a way to motivate Sandler's character's actions than serve the purpose for an actual romantic plot. Hoffman makes an appearance as the ”antagonist” of the film, and his performance is my favourite thing in it, so it's a shame we don't see more of him. Other than that, I didn't really think much of this film. It's just things happening, and me not being all that invested in the characters. 6/10

Hard Eight (1996)

Not much to say about this one. It feels like exactly what it is, a debut feature film from a young filmmaker. There's some high notes in here, but most of them happen in the establishment of the story. The story itself, concerning a hostage situation, is poorly played out and feels unnecessary. The film works at its best when it's about gambling, so it really should have just stuck to being about gambling. Given how amateurish this film feels, it's really quite remarkable how Boogie Nights, which was released only a year later, feels like it's made by an extremely talented and experienced filmmaker. 5/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 25, 2014, 01:48:48 AM
I just got back from watching the last Hobbit movie.  It's about as bad as you've heard, and the reasons why should be obvious.  What's left of the story is basically split into two subplots; one in which Thorin turns paranoid and possessive due to something they call "dragon fever," and the other being the big battle referenced in the title.  The first one is stupid, boring, and doesn't have a very good payoff.  The second one is even more stupid, but at least it looks cool, and fortunately that's where the bulk of the film is spent.  As far as garish, over-the-top, spectacular, CGI-fest battle scenes go, this movie does them very well.  If you can watch a movie and be satisfied with seeing that and little else, it's safe to say you'll like this one.

Considering how much filler and extraneous material - for lack of a better word, fanfiction - that they added, it's interesting that I really only actively disliked a couple of them.  One of them was the character Alfred, whom you might remember as being the Master's toady in the last movie.  He's basically a ripoff of Wormtongue from LotR, and he keeps constantly showing up just to remind everyone what a slimy douchebag he is.  There's literally no point to his frequent appearances.  He's not funny, he's not a foil to anyone, he's just...there.  The movie doesn't even show him getting killed or anything.  My other main issue is the same one that I had with the last film, all the foreshadowing of LotR.  The story of LotR has already been told.  It took three very long movies to do it, but now it's complete.  It does not need to be told some more.  And yet this movie continues to flash Sauron's fiery eye, play ominous music whenever the camera is on the Ring, and have characters drop vague hints about the dark power that is rising or whatever.  For fuck's sake, Jackson, the film is called The Hobbit.  The story you're telling should be the story of The Hobbit.  Why can't you fuck off with the LotR shit already?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 26, 2014, 02:36:46 AM
Just watched Big.

Still a fantastic movie after all these years. Really great.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 26, 2014, 10:15:24 PM
The Great McGinty (Preston Sturges)

While funny in spots (possibly three), it's not all that great. It's too flimsy to be a good satire, too serious to be a good comedy, and too silly to be a good drama. The best parts of the film may be Brian Donlevy's snappy dress sense, and the tropical bar scenes, which are too few and too far between. In fact, had the screenplay gone a different way, the "banana republic" setting could have made for a fine noir mystery as McGinty's past catches up with him, but the backstory itself is not very interesting.

JFK (Oliver Stone)

It's hard to be an Oliver Stone fan, mainly because he's nuts and the films he makes are often pure distillations of that, full of street preacher intensity and a dogmatic pressing for "the truth", whatever that may be. JFK is one such film, taking the Jim Garrison inquiry into the Kennedy assassination as the absolute truth on the matter and pulling pretty much everyone in the world except Lee Harvey Oswald into a massive conspiracy. The first half is definitely the strongest, as a series of bizarre characters played by such actors as Joe Pesci, John Candy, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland, and Kevin Bacon are introduced and connected to the madness, with some great eccentric performances being delivered in the process. Kevin Costner is a good fit for the lead, whose lines, delivered in what I assume to be Yat dialect, start off hammy ("I'm ashamed to be an American today.") veer into Alex Jones "wake up sheeple" territory, but with at least some semblance of sanity beneath them, and by the end of the film I did come to sympathise with him and his cause, even if in reality the whole thing may be nonsense — but isn't that the joy of a good conspiracy theory, that the crazier it gets the more enticing it becomes? I saw the directors cut, which comes in at a whopping 3hr20m duration, but it never really felt like it was dragging, and that's no mean feat. It's definitely an entertaining film, and while craziness abound from very early on it is never so dense as to require a huge amount of effort to follow.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 27, 2014, 02:57:31 AM
JFK is a well-put together film, but as a true historical account, it's crap, and both it and Garrison's original, ahem, "investigation" have been very extensively debunked over the years.  If anyone's interested in learning more, here's a great website that goes into a lot of detail about it:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jfkmovie.htm

Here's my favorite article from the site:

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/jimloon5.htm

Quote
In an effort to get Garrison's story into focus, I asked him the motive of the Kennedy conspirators. He told me that the murder at Dallas had been a homosexual plot.

"They had the same motive as Loeb and Leopold, when they murdered Bobbie Franks in Chicago back in the twenties," Garrison said. "It was a homosexual thrill-killing, plus the excitement of getting away with a perfect crime. John Kennedy was everything that Dave Ferrie was not — a successful, handsome, popular, wealthy, virile man. You can just picture the charge Ferrie got out of plotting his death."

I asked how he had learned that the murder was a homosexual plot.

"Look at the people involved," Garrison said. "Dave Ferrie, homosexual. Clay Shaw, homosexual. Jack Ruby, homosexual."

"Ruby was a homosexual?"

"Sure, we dug that out," Garrison said. "His homosexual nickname was Pinkie. That's three. Then there was Lee Harvey Oswald."

But Oswald was married and had two children, I pointed out.

"A switch-hitter who couldn't satisfy his wife," Garrison said. "That's all in the Warren Report." He named two more "key figures" whom he labeled homosexual.

"That's six homosexuals in the plot," Garrison said. "One or maybe two, okay. But all six homosexual? How far can you stretch the arm of coincidence?"

The homo tension.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 27, 2014, 08:00:56 AM
Quote
He told me that the murder at Dallas had been a homosexual plot.

Haha, what?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 27, 2014, 08:28:04 AM
Funny how JFK glosses right over those bits.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 29, 2014, 08:27:59 PM
The Muppets (James Bobin)

I have to admit, despite it being no secret that I love the shit out of The Muppets, I was a bit reluctant to watch this, and the opening scene did nothing to assuage my doubts and fears about a return of something that, to be fair to villain Tex Richman, does seem terribly outdated now. How stupid I was! After all this time The Muppets still have all the charm, wit, and madness that characterised the classic TV show. While the plot may give a little too much of the limelight to the human stars, the cast of classic Muppet puppets, plus some new ones, also have plenty of time to do what they do best. The voice cast is also, as expected, absolutely astounding, with some new names doing spot-on imitations of the original cast.

The film isn't perfect. Ill-executed musical numbers such as the Amy Adams disco bit and Chris Cooper's money rap, no matter how clever I can believe they looked on paper, came out of left field and not in a good way, but these parts are few and far between. Then again, that may be the point; after all, a large chunk of the film revolves around satirising the idea that family entertainment in the tradition of old-timey variety shows is a thing of the past, yet when they try to change that at all the film is poorer for it. The show (and I call it that because really it really is so close to the variety show feel of the original Muppet Show, rather than most of the Muppet feature films of the past) has some great numbers too, such as Am I a Man, or a Muppet?, and a finale that subverts so many expectations as to redeem any problems encountered earlier in the film.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on December 29, 2014, 08:39:30 PM
"Man or Muppet" was written by Bret McKenzie (Flight of the Conchords) and won an Oscar, I believe.

Great song.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on December 30, 2014, 06:41:14 AM
Anyone
I just got back from watching the last Hobbit movie.  It's about as bad as you've heard, and the reasons why should be obvious.  What's left of the story is basically split into two subplots; one in which Thorin turns paranoid and possessive due to something they call "dragon fever," and the other being the big battle referenced in the title.  The first one is stupid, boring, and doesn't have a very good payoff.  The second one is even more stupid, but at least it looks cool, and fortunately that's where the bulk of the film is spent.  As far as garish, over-the-top, spectacular, CGI-fest battle scenes go, this movie does them very well.  If you can watch a movie and be satisfied with seeing that and little else, it's safe to say you'll like this one.

Considering how much filler and extraneous material - for lack of a better word, fanfiction - that they added, it's interesting that I really only actively disliked a couple of them.  One of them was the character Alfred, whom you might remember as being the Master's toady in the last movie.  He's basically a ripoff of Wormtongue from LotR, and he keeps constantly showing up just to remind everyone what a slimy douchebag he is.  There's literally no point to his frequent appearances.  He's not funny, he's not a foil to anyone, he's just...there.  The movie doesn't even show him getting killed or anything.  My other main issue is the same one that I had with the last film, all the foreshadowing of LotR.  The story of LotR has already been told.  It took three very long movies to do it, but now it's complete.  It does not need to be told some more.  And yet this movie continues to flash Sauron's fiery eye, play ominous music whenever the camera is on the Ring, and have characters drop vague hints about the dark power that is rising or whatever.  For fuck's sake, Jackson, the film is called The Hobbit.  The story you're telling should be the story of The Hobbit.  Why can't you fuck off with the LotR shit already?

There's a lot of additions to these films that are really weird, and I can't help but wonder why Jackson decided to include some of them. Is he just a shit editor? Are the studios breathing down his neck? Does he just want to make money? It's pretty obvious he still cares, because the movies are crafted well and many small details (like Bilbo seeing elf spirits when he puts the ring on) are included. But there's so much crap that just didn't need to be there at all.

In any case, I found myself agreeing with the RLM guys once again on this movie. It's probably the best of the bunch, but while the third LOTR movie had me on an emotional rollercoaster, this one failed to make me feel anything outside of very fleeting moments in the final battle. I just didn't care about any of the characters.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on December 31, 2014, 04:25:47 AM
I have a different issue, though, and maybe the comparison to that issue is why I don't really mind all the additions to the story they've done.  To me, the action scenes have been the big weakness of this series, in all three films.  I said that they were done well earlier, but that needs some qualifying.  They're done well in a technical sense, in the sense of visual spectacle, and sometimes they're even pretty creative.  But they're not done well from a storytelling perspective.  In the LotR movies, the battles felt so much more real.  It was probably due to lots of subtle details like the lighting and makeup as well as the directing, but there was a lot more connection to the characters.  You could tell when they were supposed to be injured, when they were tired, when they were desperate, etc.  They may not have been "realistic," per se, but there was always at least one foot firmly planted in reality.

Needless to say, there's none of that in the Hobbit movies.  I was going to call the battle scenes cartoony, but that's not fair to cartoons.  They're more like video games than anything else.  They're bombastic, they're over-the-top, and it's impossible to maintain even a shred of suspension of disbelief for them.  And because they're so silly and so detached from the story, they get old very quickly, and then they just drag.  Compare that to watching a few talented actors have a dialogue about some event that happened long ago to provide background.  Both scenes are technically padding, but one of them is much more bearable than the other.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on December 31, 2014, 09:47:51 PM
Maps to the Stars (David Cronenberg)

Is it great, stupid, both? I don't know, man. It has some great and terribly powerful moments, then seems to shift around oddly, as if it's hiding something. I don't doubt that it is good, after all Cronenberg has built the latter half of his career on films that are difficult and challenging in ways that make them easy to dismiss as misfires, but then you think about them the next day, as I did with his previous film Cosmopolis, and a whole other dimension becomes apparent. This is one I have to see again, because there's something else there that I'm just not getting. On the absolute downside, I never thought I'd be criticising a Cronenberg movie for bad special effects, but there's one CGI shot in this movie and it stinks! Cronenberg... bad effects... how?!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 01, 2015, 12:43:39 AM
Snake Eyes (Brian de Palma)

I'm pretty much sold on any Nicolas Cage movie by virtue of it having Nicolas Cage in it, he is my favourite actor, hands down. And this is a really fun little movie, with slick camera work and great pacing (Gaspar Noé take note, you can have both) that makes the 90 minute runtime breeze by in what felt like 30. The plot, once laid bare, is pretty silly, but Cage delivers a great high energy performance typical of his '90s era work and Gary Sinise provides good counterplay.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 03, 2015, 01:29:04 AM
Burn After Reading (Ethan and Joel Coen)

This comedy of extreme errors takes a little while to get going, but once the ridiculously deluded characters begin to weave around each other the film becomes rather enjoyable. It's not first-rate Coen Brothers material, and a lot of the gags, especially early on, feel like a case of going through the motions. I did find myself laughing a lot more during the second half of the film, as the actions of the characters start to veer towards Fargo territory in their insanity, but the real let-down in terms of comedy is the under use of J.K. Simmons, who really nails every line with excellent timing and delivery but only has two brief scenes. It's a decent film that kept me reasonably entertained, I won't deny I expect more and better from the Coens, but it's a well made, well acted piece with plenty of good laughs once it gets rolling.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 04, 2015, 02:40:09 AM
Iron Man (Jon Favreau)

Iron Man is a difficult film to talk about, not because it's complex or terribly unique, but because it really didn't make much of an impression on me. Things I liked included the suit assembly sequences, which were nicely detailed, and the final line transitioning into the end credits, which was the only humorous part that really worked for me. Aside from that it was pretty much things blowing up and people talking for two hours. It wasn't bad, but I can't imagine I will remember much of it when I wake up tomorrow.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 04, 2015, 03:02:07 AM
Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman, 2008)

This is a film I saw for the first time a week ago and I decided to watch it again because it begs to be seen at least twice. There's a lot of finer details in the film that I missed on my first viewing that could be analyzed to death, but Kaufman was really careful about not having analyzing be necessary for this film to be understood. It's ultimately very explicit about its central themes and my second viewing more than anything made me realize how every scene very deliberately fits in presenting those central themes and ideas. The fine subtle details this film is filled with are great for rewarding repeat viewings as well, and I'm sure I'll be seeing this one again. All in all it's a very ambitious film and Kaufman did a stellar job in executing it, with the performances from Hoffman and the other people being all-around great as well. 9/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 04, 2015, 03:17:09 PM
Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan and Joel Coen)

If Iron Man left almost no impression on me, Inside Llewyn Davis left an impression, but I'm not sure what it was. I really like the film, it has a typically bizarre Coen sense of humour, but it is also heartfelt in a way I'm not sure I've seen them do before. That's not to say it's sentimental, it has a kind of neutrality about it, almost like a Todd Solondz film, and never really tells you what to feel about the lead. I will have to see it again, as it does seem like there's a whole other layer to this thing that one simply cannot get on first viewing, but I'm already content to call it one of the very best recent (as in past couple of years) films that I've seen.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 05, 2015, 01:46:38 AM
<Crudblud> I might watch more Marvel movies in future to see if they get better
<beerdo> just watch them in the right order
<Crudblud> I've got them ordered by release date
<beerdo> Yes
<Crudblud> Which means if I want to do a capeshit odyssey my next film is The Incredible Hulk

No, Crudblud, no!  Don't watch that one.  It's entirely skippable.  I mean, you might want to watch it if you're a huge fan and want to see them all, but it's probably the worst of the MCU so far.  Or maybe the one that follows that one, Iron Man 2, is the worst.  It's hard to choose between them.  Anyway, for a newbie taking their baby steps in the vast world of capeshit, you don't need to start off on such a mediocre note.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on January 05, 2015, 01:53:07 AM
Shut up, sadaam
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 05, 2015, 01:56:22 AM
beardo is the true king of capeshit
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on January 05, 2015, 05:23:38 AM
I'm Batman.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on January 05, 2015, 02:36:29 PM
Inside Llewyn Davis (Ethan and Joel Coen)

If Iron Man left almost no impression on me, Inside Llewyn Davis left an impression, but I'm not sure what it was. I really like the film, it has a typically bizarre Coen sense of humour, but it is also heartfelt in a way I'm not sure I've seen them do before. That's not to say it's sentimental, it has a kind of neutrality about it, almost like a Todd Solondz film, and never really tells you what to feel about the lead. I will have to see it again, as it does seem like there's a whole other layer to this thing that one simply cannot get on first viewing, but I'm already content to call it one of the very best recent (as in past couple of years) films that I've seen.

I loved ILD, the soundtrack is one of the very few movie soundtracks that I've bought
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 05, 2015, 03:48:40 PM
I agree, it's a great film. The music is very good, and I was especially impressed, as so many have been, by the fact that Oscar Isaac and others actually play and sing the music live instead of having a pre-recorded take added in post-production.

Blow Out (Brian de Palma)

Typical de Palma: stylish as fuck with little to offer in the way of script and performance. It's a shame, too, as the idea of having to reconstruct an assassination from recorded sound alone is pretty interesting, but the plot just doesn't lead up to much. Some scenes display a good sense of humour, but often it takes itself too seriously for its own good, and the cheesy music more clashes with than counterbalances this so that there is an uncomfortable tonal imbalance that is distancing and distracting in a clumsy way. John Lithgow gives the best performance in the film, putting on a variety of voices and acting creepy, but there is little suspense in his scenes, and the great visuals can only do so much to make up for the "why am I bored?" factor in the final act.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on January 05, 2015, 08:53:16 PM
Altered States (Ken Russell)

Creepy, I loved it. The ending sequence was the best made part.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 07, 2015, 03:54:07 PM
I watched the premiere of Agent Carter, and it was great.  The 1940s setting is realized very well, the characters are fun and distinctive, and Hayley Atwell in particular is excellent as the lead.  And even though there is a fun, lighthearted feel to the show, it's definitely not as goofy as something like the first Captain America.  All in all, it's a great start for Marvel's first female-led adaptation.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 08, 2015, 12:38:26 AM
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

Finally, a Scorsese picture about assholes that I actually enjoyed watching. It is a film that, with its 180 minute runtime and relentless nature, totally embodies the excess of the characters, their giant houses, yachts, private planes, quaalude and cocaine fuelled parties, and their belief in their own infallibility, their own immortality. Having said that, it is a remarkably easy film to watch, although DiCaprio's smug face and thousand-dollar suits are on display in almost every shot, there is a sense of being removed from the madness ever so slightly so that one sees it for the ludicrous comedy that it is. It is excessive, but it is also controlled, never chaotic. I don't think it's the great film I heard about when it was released, but it is good, and a good three-hour film is no mean feat.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 08, 2015, 09:20:13 PM
I've been rewatching Twin Peaks. Just got to the Season 2 episode "Lonely Souls". It's a really great episode, and probably my favorite after rewatching it. The scene where BOB murders someone (name not added in case of spoilers) is really well done and chilling to watch. I am not easily unnverved, but that scene freaks me out a bit which immediately earns it my respect. I feel like this was a turning point for the series, in that it actually starts to pick up and become engrossing to watch. Whereas before, the show was interesting and fun enough to watch due to the humor and weird elements, but the story was somewhat lacking and boring in some respects. It's weird that the ratings started to decline at this point because in my opinion, after "Lonely Souls", the show goes nowhere but up.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 08, 2015, 09:34:33 PM
I've been rewatching Twin Peaks. Just got to the Season 2 episode "Lonely Souls". It's a really great episode, and probably my favorite after rewatching it. The scene where BOB murders someone (name not added in case of spoilers) is really well done and chilling to watch. I am not easily unnverved, but that scene freaks me out a bit which immediately earns it my respect. I feel like this was a turning point for the series, in that it actually starts to pick up and become engrossing to watch. Whereas before, the show was interesting and fun enough to watch due to the humor and weird elements, but the story was somewhat lacking and boring in some respects. It's weird that the ratings started to decline at this point because in my opinion, after "Lonely Souls", the show goes nowhere but up.

That's funny, because that's virtually the opposite of my opinion. Lonely Souls is my least favourite episode because it's where the show jumps the shark and completely ruins the feeling of mystery for the rest of the show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 08, 2015, 09:38:34 PM
I've been rewatching Twin Peaks. Just got to the Season 2 episode "Lonely Souls". It's a really great episode, and probably my favorite after rewatching it. The scene where BOB murders someone (name not added in case of spoilers) is really well done and chilling to watch. I am not easily unnverved, but that scene freaks me out a bit which immediately earns it my respect. I feel like this was a turning point for the series, in that it actually starts to pick up and become engrossing to watch. Whereas before, the show was interesting and fun enough to watch due to the humor and weird elements, but the story was somewhat lacking and boring in some respects. It's weird that the ratings started to decline at this point because in my opinion, after "Lonely Souls", the show goes nowhere but up.

That's funny, because that's virtually the opposite of my opinion. Lonely Souls is my least favourite episode because it's where the show jumps the shark and completely ruins the feeling of mystery for the rest of the show.

How does revealing the identity of the killer equal jumping the shark? Is it because the murders are now associated with supernatural entities? That is hinted at throughout the entire series starting from season 1 episode 1. I feel like it adds even more mystery to the show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 08, 2015, 09:52:52 PM
I've been rewatching Twin Peaks. Just got to the Season 2 episode "Lonely Souls". It's a really great episode, and probably my favorite after rewatching it. The scene where BOB murders someone (name not added in case of spoilers) is really well done and chilling to watch. I am not easily unnverved, but that scene freaks me out a bit which immediately earns it my respect. I feel like this was a turning point for the series, in that it actually starts to pick up and become engrossing to watch. Whereas before, the show was interesting and fun enough to watch due to the humor and weird elements, but the story was somewhat lacking and boring in some respects. It's weird that the ratings started to decline at this point because in my opinion, after "Lonely Souls", the show goes nowhere but up.

That's funny, because that's virtually the opposite of my opinion. Lonely Souls is my least favourite episode because it's where the show jumps the shark and completely ruins the feeling of mystery for the rest of the show.

How does revealing the identity of the killer equal jumping the shark? Is it because the murders are now associated with supernatural entities? That is hinted at throughout the entire series starting from season 1 episode 1. I feel like it adds even more mystery to the show.

No, it was because it was very premature and done purely in attempt to save the ratings, which didn't work out. The issues with season 2 run much deeper than that though, so it's not entirely to blame, but to me Lonely Souls seemed like the point where they were clearly desperate to get some direction back to the show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 08, 2015, 10:06:27 PM
No, it was because it was very premature and done purely in attempt to save the ratings, which didn't work out. The issues with season 2 run much deeper than that though, so it's not entirely to blame, but to me Lonely Souls seemed like the point where they were clearly desperate to get some direction back to the show.

Jumping the shark usually refers to a show that has added ridiculous plot elements or weird twists (in an attempt to save ratings), but ultimately fails the show. Now, I know this sounds almost exactly like what Twin Peaks did, but I don't think that's the case. Revealing Laura Palmer's murderer doesn't really fit this description. There was pressure to reveal the killer from everyone, which is what prompted it. But really, Laura Palmer's murderer had to be revealed at some point. It's not really jumping the shark when the entire series sort of hints that the killer is BOB, so the supernatural/ridiculous elements were already there the whole time.

I agree that some people might find the reveal to be anti-climatic, or that it kills their desire to keep watching the show. But that is not jumping the shark. Jumping the shark would be revealing that Laura Palmer's killer was Agent Cooper or something equally ridiculous.

I like the show enough to look past most of the shortcomings in season 2, like the dragged out plot points and new tacked on story elements. Windom, for one, who I feel like was added just to add more intrigue to the show after the big reveal. Regardless, I enjoy watching the show because of the characters and the setting, and of course the supernatural elements, which still manage to intrigue me.

Regarding direction, it seems like the show never had much direction to begin with. Most people watched to find out who Laura Palmer's murderer was, which was the main driving force of the first season. But outside of that the plot points and general direction of the show was all over the place.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 08, 2015, 10:47:09 PM
As someone who is currently watching the show, I appreciate the lack of spoilers.  Please continue to not spoil things, or if you feel that you absolutely must, use the tags.  Anyway, I enjoy the show, but it's mainly the characters I'm watching it for, not the story.  It's certainly not just so I can find out who the murderer was.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 09, 2015, 01:47:38 AM
As someone who is currently watching the show, I appreciate the lack of spoilers.  Please continue to not spoil things, or if you feel that you absolutely must, use the tags.  Anyway, I enjoy the show, but it's mainly the characters I'm watching it for, not the story.  It's certainly not just so I can find out who the murderer was.

I will stop writing about it for now to avoid spoiling anything else for you. Let us know when you are finished so that we can have a discussion about it. The ending certainly lends itself well to fan theories.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 09, 2015, 05:54:24 PM
Season 2 is the same show with the surface stripped away — if anything, Laura Palmer served as a way in to the setting, not the point. The reveal, while it wasn't the best possible outcome, and indeed Lynch and Frost intended for it to never happen, allowed for a greater exploration of the central idea, which is basically parody and deconstruction of the soap opera format. I get why people so strongly dislike the second season, but I think the truth is that they liked the surface elements more than the actual purpose of the show.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 09, 2015, 07:59:26 PM
it's where the show jumps the shark

I think the real moment the show jumps the shark is when Nadine throws a man about 50ft without breaking a sweat. I just watched the episode where this happens, and I can't get over how fucking stupid it is.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on January 10, 2015, 12:46:43 AM
Watched the South Korean film Snowpiercer last night. A bit heavy handed with the socio-political themes and the CGI was a tad cheap looking, but besides that a very fun film. Chris Evans did well despite not deviating too far from the Cpt. America character, and so did a few of the other lesser known actors. Not sure how they could afford the big actors like John Hurt, Ed Harris and Tilda Swinton, but I definitely appreciated their presence. The costume and set designers did a damn good job.

Definitely recommend it if you're looking for a smart action movie, and violence/light gore doesn't turn you off.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 10, 2015, 01:17:09 AM
Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)

It's a three-hour long glimpse into the lives of a middle-class Taiwanese family without a central plot to speak of. That premise alone might scare people off, but this film is filled to the brim with genuine observations of humanity that don't fail to evoke emotion. Yang's cinematography is particularly impressive: this is the sort of film where virtually every shot is aesthetically striking in some way. It's definitely not a film for everyone, but in my books it's a near-masterpiece. 9/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 11, 2015, 12:21:04 AM
The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam)

Essentially operating under the guise of a lesser Brazil, Gilliam's latest takes on the paradox of isolation in a world connected by fibre optics, the atomisation of society, the transcendence of faceless corporations from the geographic to the facets of our personal lives. This is combined with classic Gilliam themes: an oddball protagonist, a dreamer of dark things, subservient to a purposely generic higher power, and longing for escape; the question of whether what is real is what's out there or what's inside oneself; omnipresent Big Brother style surveillance. Indeed, much has been made of the script's apparent fecklessness in rehashing old stuff, and yet none of it really feels old, is that because it's timeless or rather because this film is genuinely new? Am I just happy that one of my favourite directors is still somehow able to obtain funding for projects probably no one else would touch? It's true, no one makes films like Gilliam, no one has the same perspective as Gilliam, and while he may not always make masterpieces he always offers something that no one else could provide. Well, here, I say, he has not remade but rethought the concepts of Brazil for another time and place, not an imagined future but the present, its digital clockwork externalised and pervasive, a vortex of information controlled by unseen hands. In The Zero Theorem Gilliam reaches for the heights of his greatest work, and almost makes it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 12, 2015, 03:31:25 AM
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé, 2010)

It's visually stimulating and technically impressive for sure, but the script is dumb and the story goes absolutely nowhere. Everything that happens seems to only happen for the purpose of showcasing the film's visuals, which would actually be quite fine - but with a running time of a staggering 2 hours and 40 minutes, it's already exhausted its potential halfway through. It may have worked with a more significant story or more varied use of visuals, but as it is, the swoops into light sources and shots of going through walls repeated ad nauseum lose their effectiveness much too quickly to withstand the film's length. It's worth seeing for the sheer uniqueness, amazing camerawork and great audiovisual design, but you may as well stop watching at the 90-minute mark before its strengths start becoming tedious. 5/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 15, 2015, 04:43:31 AM
http://redlettermedia.com/best-of-the-worst-supergirl-captain-america-1990-and-roger-cormans-fantastic-four/

Funny.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on January 15, 2015, 04:58:40 AM
All of their BotW are funny :)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on January 15, 2015, 07:01:45 AM
Essentially operating under the guise of a lesser Brazil, Gilliam's latest takes on the paradox of isolation in a world connected by fibre optics, the atomisation of society, the transcendence of faceless corporations from the geographic to the facets of our personal lives.

I just watched Brazil! Great stuff.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on January 15, 2015, 09:01:16 AM
Essentially operating under the guise of a lesser Brazil, Gilliam's latest takes on the paradox of isolation in a world connected by fibre optics, the atomisation of society, the transcendence of faceless corporations from the geographic to the facets of our personal lives.

I just watched Brazil! Great stuff.

Brazil is one of my favourite films.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 15, 2015, 06:27:57 PM
Essentially operating under the guise of a lesser Brazil, Gilliam's latest takes on the paradox of isolation in a world connected by fibre optics, the atomisation of society, the transcendence of faceless corporations from the geographic to the facets of our personal lives.

I just watched Brazil! Great stuff.

Brazil is one of my favourite films.

In total agreement with you fine fellows.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost Spaghetti on January 17, 2015, 11:14:11 AM
I still need to see Twelve Monkeys (which is on my shelf), and Time Bandits.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 19, 2015, 07:21:29 AM
Catching up on what 2014 had to offer.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro González Iñárritu)

I had high expectations and I was kinda let down by it. It shares similarities with the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki's previous film Gravity in that it has little substance beyond its neat camera work. The psychological struggles of a superhero icon of the past trying to stay relevant in Broadway seem to be buried somewhere in this film, but because of the film's obsession with the illusion of seamlessness has it zipping around and catching up on everyone, the end result feels more like a disjointed sequence of independent scenes that show what the characters are like but the viewer doesn't get to really know them. There are plenty of "great moments", but it felt like there was more to it than what was ultimately delivered. 7/10

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)

This was really good. It doesn't miss a beat (sorry) and it's packed with intensity, but it also shows just enough restraint that it doesn't come across as hammy. Miles Teller's character shows genuine development and J.K. Simmons delivers some of the best verbal abuse since There Will Be Blood. The music itself is beautifully used as a storytelling device, and it speaks volumes about character relations and at times creates bigger emotional investment than the script itself does. 9/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on January 19, 2015, 07:36:12 AM
Master of the Flying Guillotine (Jimmy Wang)

Rewatching one of my favorite grindhouse films.

Physics-defying martial arts, flying guillotines, poorly translated English subtitles, all clearly on the lowest of low budgets makes for an excellent viewing experience.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 21, 2015, 11:31:30 PM
The Story of Film: An Odyssey (Mark Cousins)

15 hour documentary covering cinema from the 1890s to the 2000s, described by the director as a tasting menu of world cinema. It's pretty exhaustive in its attempt to cover the history of film from a global perspective, and introduced me to cinematic traditions I had no idea existed, such as those of Iran and Egypt, and the cinema of India beyond cheesy Bollywood musicals, not to mention a shitload of Japanese cinema that I'm excited to see for myself, in addition to the often untold story of women working behind the camera as screenwriters and directors. It's really good, and if you're looking for an introduction to a wider world of cinema beyond Hollywood it should be just the thing for you. Some people find Cousins' distinctive enunciation and writing style off-putting, but ultimately the man is a vault of cinema knowledge and well worth persevering with past any initial hang-ups.

Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)

It's a very funny film with a kind of bittersweet thing going on, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannsson both give really good performances, but honestly I find that's all I have to say about it: it's funny, somewhat sad, and well made. I liked it a lot while it was on the screen, but it's definitely not something I'd go out of my way to see again.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on January 21, 2015, 11:34:17 PM
Where did you watch The Story of Film?  Netflix?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on January 21, 2015, 11:43:59 PM
How do I downloaded movies??
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on January 21, 2015, 11:49:26 PM
How can I see my penis again??

Fixed.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 21, 2015, 11:50:48 PM
That's just mean.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 22, 2015, 12:13:59 AM
Where did you watch The Story of Film?  Netflix?
I found it by accident in a shop as a DVD set for £13. I don't have Netflix, so I don't know if it's on there.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on January 22, 2015, 01:23:43 AM
Rama, you are hilarious.

Thanks!

Where did you watch The Story of Film?  Netflix?
I found it by accident in a shop as a DVD set for £13. I don't have Netflix, so I don't know if it's on there.

Thanks!
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 22, 2015, 01:24:18 AM
I don't think I typ-

... Hmmm
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Foxbox on January 22, 2015, 03:58:59 PM
Where did you watch The Story of Film?  Netflix?
I found it by accident in a shop as a DVD set for £13. I don't have Netflix, so I don't know if it's on there.

It is on Netflix indeed. I have been meaning to watch it myself.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on January 22, 2015, 10:51:18 PM
Apparently the fairytale Frozen is based on actually featured a female hero trying to rescue a platonic male friend. it's a shame they went down the traditional Disney route.

I've been watching Prison break lately, while I loved the complex plan and trying to wok out what the symbols meant as they were introduced, I really wish they didn't have the ridiculous presidential conspiracy in the background - I don't care about the misadventures of the lawyers, I want to see Scofield try to avoid being shanked as he creeps into an intricately designed area of the prison.

The second series started well but the damn conspiracy is starting to take up too much screen time again. Agent mahone was a great character in his own right - and watching the cat-and-mouse between Scofield and him would have been really interesting to follow. Why did they have to over-complicate his character?

I loved that show, but alas, it succumbed to sequelitis very quickly.  They should have just kept it to two seasons and toned down the conspiracy subplot a good deal - it had to be there to a degree, of course, because you can't beat the classic story of the innocent man in jail - but it's way too complicated, and the writers just kept pulling more new dimensions and motivations for them out of their asses as the show went on.  As a result of all this stretching the plot out, the latter two seasons aren't nearly as good as the first two.  They're not all bad, admittedly - the characters are still great, the cast is still great, the directing is still great, etc. - but it's just unrecognizable as the show it was when it began.

It sounds like Lost with less seasons.

I watched Birdman and quite liked it.  They did a great job of presenting the seething egos of the characters, and the camera work to impart the feeling of being on stage was very good.  A little heavy-handed directorially, but it is nice to see something that creative on screen, and doubly nice to see Michael Keaton do his thing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on January 23, 2015, 08:19:23 AM
Do they reference Batman at all in it?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on January 23, 2015, 01:16:49 PM
Do they reference Batman at all in it?

No. 0/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 23, 2015, 06:13:44 PM
The Venture Bros.

I never really gave this show a chance when it first came out, but have been watching it on Netflix and loving it so far. Lots of cool pop culture references, and interesting characters. The Ventures Bros' naive stupidity is really the highlight of the show, I think. Their constant stupid remarks and ignorance is great. For example, Dr. Venture's skin falls off and Dean says "if you put that under your pillow the Tooth Fairy would give you a grand!", and the fact that they die a lot is also very amusing. It's a rip off of Johnny Quest and a few other older american cartoons, and as someone who grew up with that junk it's interesting to see how their satirize it. The show actually features Johnny Quest as an embittered adult junkie who scorns his parents for everything they put him through on the original show, and I think Race Bannon and a few other characters are in it as well. Totally recommend this show if you're bored and have nothing better to watch.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on January 23, 2015, 06:30:50 PM
I love Venture Brothers. I own the first two seasons on DVD.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 23, 2015, 06:32:23 PM
I love Venture Brothers. I own the first two seasons on DVD.

Netflix only has the first 2 seasons. I guess Adult Swim does this on purpose to drive sales of DVDs or raise ratings on their network... but in actuality it only promotes piracy.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on January 23, 2015, 07:54:56 PM
Netflix only has the first 2 seasons.
Yeah, I've noticed that. I still haven't seen any of the other seasons... maybe one day.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 24, 2015, 05:35:01 AM
I finished Twin Peaks.  I was going to write a few paragraphs on my overall impression of the show, but the last episode irritated me.  What the hell was up with that?  I feel like Lynch just slapped me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 24, 2015, 12:01:01 PM
I finished Twin Peaks.  I was going to write a few paragraphs on my overall impression of the show, but the last episode irritated me.  What the hell was up with that?  I feel like Lynch just slapped me.
I wonder how they're going to handle that ending in the new season. Not just because a crazy amount of stuff could happen in the 25 year gap, but also because Frank Silva is dead. They're going to have a lot of trouble getting around being unable to show BOB unless they use stock footage, which would look awfully cheap but might actually work well in a Lynchian kind of way.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 24, 2015, 05:49:58 PM
I finished Twin Peaks.  I was going to write a few paragraphs on my overall impression of the show, but the last episode irritated me.  What the hell was up with that?  I feel like Lynch just slapped me.
I wonder how they're going to handle that ending in the new season. Not just because a crazy amount of stuff could happen in the 25 year gap, but also because Frank Silva is dead. They're going to have a lot of trouble getting around being unable to show BOB unless they use stock footage, which would look awfully cheap but might actually work well in a Lynchian kind of way.

There's so much we don't know about BOB and the Black Lodge that they could get someone else entirely to represent BOB. I don't think that's completely ridiculous.

Laura Palmer's "I will see you again in 25 years" quote is interesting. I wonder if they're doing this on purpose. I've read that Kyle is back, but I hope it's just not in the form of his old Black Lodge-self. I could see Lynch pulling some crap like that.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 24, 2015, 08:30:12 PM
I finished Twin Peaks.  I was going to write a few paragraphs on my overall impression of the show, but the last episode irritated me.  What the hell was up with that?  I feel like Lynch just slapped me.
I wonder how they're going to handle that ending in the new season. Not just because a crazy amount of stuff could happen in the 25 year gap, but also because Frank Silva is dead. They're going to have a lot of trouble getting around being unable to show BOB unless they use stock footage, which would look awfully cheap but might actually work well in a Lynchian kind of way.

There's so much we don't know about BOB and the Black Lodge that they could get someone else entirely to represent BOB. I don't think that's completely ridiculous.

Laura Palmer's "I will see you again in 25 years" quote is interesting. I wonder if they're doing this on purpose. I've read that Kyle is back, but I hope it's just not in the form of his old Black Lodge-self. I could see Lynch pulling some crap like that.

I dunno, Silva's portrayal is so iconic that I don't think fans would go for someone else playing BOB, at the same time they can't really shrug their shoulders and say "oh, that guy? He just went away." It's a tricky situation. Maybe if BOB just becomes some invisible force that is suggested but never actually shown it could work, but it would be difficult to convincingly change the character from a physical being who appears to his victims to a malevolent spirit operating entirely from the shadows. Bottom line is they're going to have to pull off something amazing.

As for Cooper, I doubt they would get Kyle back just to have him sit around drinking viscous black coffee in an armchair and talk backwards. He might be introduced in the Black Lodge but find a way out, maybe 25 years is some kind of sentence he's serving there. Of course, this is all speculation and may turn out to be totally wrong, which is more than likely given that Lynch is, well... Lynch.

Also, "see you in 25 years" probably didn't mean anything at the time, but they've obviously planned the new season to play into that line. What it means and what they're going to do with it I don't know, but I'm really excited to find out.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 24, 2015, 08:45:46 PM
At first I was skeptical, but after rewatching Twin Peaks I'm very excited about the new series as well. I hope we see more of Phillip Jeffries, played by David Bowie of course. His small part in the movie is one of the most intriguing parts of the series for me. What the hell was going on there?

I agree about Silva. It's a shame that he's dead. AIDs, was it? Regardless, they're going to have to figure out a way to do something about BOB. The most likely scenario is that they will replace BOB with an equally malevolent entity.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on January 26, 2015, 03:53:18 AM
Okay, time to say some stuff.  The general consensus on the quality of Twin Peaks over time seems to be that the first season is the best, and then it steadily declines throughout the second season, especially after Laura Palmer's killer is revealed.  I agree that the first season is superior to the second, but I actually think that the show improved after they wrapped up Laura's story.  It's strange that Lynch and Frost were originally planning to never (or at least not until the final episode) reveal Laura's killer, because the fact is that the mystery surrounding her doesn't have all that much story to it.  It's fairly complex, sure, but enough to span a show's entire lifespan?  No way.  The first few episodes of the second season demonstrate how limited that plot was the most.  Like, Donna meets this weird guy who knew Laura, finds out that she left a super-secret second diary with him, and then she has to figure out how to steal it?  Come on, there's adding new dimensions to a story, and then there's just spinning your wheels.

Anyway, the best part of the show isn't the story at all, but the delightfully eccentric and colorful cast of characters.  Almost all of them, with just a few exceptions, are great, but Kyle MacLachlan as our hero, Dale Cooper, is the best.  On paper, a character like this simply shouldn't work.  An inch to the left or right, and he'd either be an implausible Mary Sue or a ridiculous clown that nobody could take seriously, but through a combination of writing and acting, they hit just the right balance with him.  His quirky personality makes him genuinely likable, and his virtuosity makes him genuinely admirable.  And it's nice to know that a show doesn't actually need to have an angsty broody mcbroodwalking douchebag for a protagonist to be great.

Now I'm going to baw about a few characters.  Nadine sucked.  She was annoying and unfunny, her storyline made no sense, she took time away from better characters, and her bizarre super-strength was never once explained.  Leo was also terrible.  He goes from being a one-note douchebag to a one-note retard...and that's about it.  The Log Lady's log had more personality than him, and arguably more acting talent than the guy who played him.  Finally, Josie was a disappointment, largely because she started out being interesting, but it soon became clear that the writers had no idea what to do with her, and all the plot threads connected to her just seemed to fizzle out.  I still don't know whether she was supposed to be an antagonist or a victim, and frankly, I don't think the writers do either.

tl;dr: The show was great, my nitpicks aside.  If you haven't already, watch it.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on January 26, 2015, 05:52:08 AM
You mentioned terrible characters. I thought Nadine was pretty terrible but also endearing. James, on the other hand, was awful. At least to me. I feel like they tried too hard to keep him relevant. The whole side story about him getting roped into a murderous love triangle was completely unnecessary and didn't tie into the plot in any way whatsoever. Maybe I just hated the actor, but I feel like the show could have been better if they phased him out completely after the reveal of Laura Palmer's killer.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Blanko on January 29, 2015, 03:43:33 AM
I haven't been writing reviews for a while so I'll just recap with r8s on films I've seen since probably my last review, excluding the two 2014 ones.

Wild Strawberries (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)

A fun road trip film with great dialogue. It just werks. 8/10

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, 1966)

It's a great psychological drama with a stunning performance from Bibi Andersson. I really have to see it again before tackling any actual interpretation of it. 9/10

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)

It's just a well made film with compelling characters and performances, and its last 30 or so minutes are really engaging despite its disregard of the typical preach of "show, don't tell". 8/10

12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam, 1995)

Gilliam's direction has a quality to it that's hard not to appreciate, and it's refreshing to see a time travel film that keeps it relatively straightforward. 8/10

The Holy Mountain (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1973)

All of this symbolism, oh god. It's a really nice film visually and I enjoyed watching it, but I didn't get much else out of it. Another one I should probably see again. 7/10

The Big Lebowski (Ethan and Joel Coen, 1998)

Pretty funny and surprisingly clever, but not really impressive. 7/10

Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai, 1994)

Endearing little slice-of-life with two separate stories set in Hong Kong. It just werks. 9/10

Fallen Angels (Wong Kar-wai, 1995)

Essentially a companion piece to Chungking Express. Follows a very cimilar concept, but it's a bit more hit or miss. I didn't find it to be quite as realized as its predecessor, but if you enjoyed Chungking Express, then this is worth checking out as well. 7/10

Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999), Adaptation. (Spike Jonze, 2002), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)

I'm rating these ones together because they're all written by Charlie Kaufman, who wrote and directed Synecdoche, New York which I watched and reviewed earlier and loved the shit out of. These are all stellar films and deserve a solid 9/10, and the directors Kaufman chose to collaborate with did a great job with executing his vision. I think Synecdoche is still the most realized of Kaufman's works and my personal favourite, but it's safe to say that Kaufman has proven to be one of my favourite screenwriters. Since I gave them all the same rating, I'll just recap the films in order of personal preference: Synecdoche > Eternal Sunshine > Adaptation > Being John Malkovich

The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)

It's Enter the Void all over again. Really, almost all of my criticisms of it are applicable to this one as well. Great cinematography, but the story is just as obnoxiously self-indulgent and just about as non-existent. It's just two hours of shots of suburban life in the 50s mixed with some nice but unnecessary visuals of the evolution of life and the universe. 5/10

A Serious Man (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2009)

Despite its dark subject matters, this film still managed to be really funny. The Coen bros did a mighty fine job of extracting humor from tragic situations, just carefully enough to never cross over to tonally inappropriate. It's also worth noting that this film looks really good visually, which was an unexpected but pleasant surprise. 9/10
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: spoon on January 29, 2015, 07:01:51 AM
I watched the first episode of Twin Peaks the other day. I can't get over the soundtrack.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on January 30, 2015, 07:29:44 PM
Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

I have to say I'm disappointed to see just how much of the source material isn't in here. It really affects the pacing, and the story isn't helped much by it either, especially not when the characters have a tendency to mumble their way through their lines. I understand budgetary constraints will have affected Anderson's choices in terms of what had to be cut, but it seems like most of my favourite parts aren't in there. Of course this is all from one viewing (in the cinema, which I find distracting), and I do intend to see it a bunch of times before making my mind up, but right now it's a middling film for me. There is the possibility that Pynchon, as many have long thought, doesn't translate well to film, or maybe Anderson has just bitten off more than he can chew here.

Also a couple of people walked out halfway through, which I've never seen before, so that was kind of amusing.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on February 01, 2015, 03:22:58 PM
Apocalypse Now Redux (Francis Ford Coppola)

I watched this mainly because I wanted to get the jokes in the OpenBSD 5.6 release artwork, which uses this film as its theme. It was a pretty good film, though it dragged on quite a lot (I'm going to watch the original cut at some point, and hopefully that will be better paced). I didn't know what to expect, and for some reason I had gotten the impression that it would be more action-oriented, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I'll definitely be watching it again at some point, as I'm sure there are lots of things I didn't pick up on the first time (partly because I started watching it quite late, so I was pretty tired by the end).
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Crudblud on February 02, 2015, 12:25:38 AM
Human Nature (Michel Gondry)

An often overlooked Charlie Kaufman-penned behavioural comedy which is certainly original, but not among his strongest work. Or, to clarify, it's great for the first 70 minutes or so, then it starts to double back on itself a few too many times and just tips the balance in the wrong direction. It does have many moments of the Kaufman-esque wonder that anyone who is familiar with his writing will recognise instantly, and it is as imaginative as anything else he's done, but it seems to me that it outsmarts even itself in the end and cannot quite hold the delicate tonal balance it reaches for. Whether this is down to Kaufman's script or Gondry's direction is debatable, it could be said that the latter is to blame for the endgame tonal issues, or that the former at the last moment becomes constricted by attempting to reach the logical conclusion after perhaps making too many passes beforehand, but I think in essence it is earnest in its intentions and overall a fine and inventive piece of filmmaking.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on February 02, 2015, 12:04:36 PM
Seinfeld

Watched all nine seasons back-to-back. When it's good, it's really good, but there are also lengthy runs of a dozen bad episodes where it just did nothing for me (I recall the first half of season 5 being a bit of a snooze). Overall, I enjoyed it more than most sitcoms, primarily because it doesn't take itself too seriously. In fact, it quite often makes fun of itself, especially with regard to the in-universe sitcom Jerry (a parody of itself, where the fictional Jerry character in the show makes a show about himself).

It ended just at the right moment, at least; I found that season 9 was substantially weaker than any previous ones, and the subtlety that made the early seasons so great had all but evaporated.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: xasop on February 08, 2015, 12:54:21 PM
12 Monkeys (Terry Gilliam)

Caution: Spoilers!

This is the second Gilliam film I've watched (after Brazil), and while it doesn't quite capture the same exquisite oxymoron of humour and tragedy that made its elder brother so memorable, it stands quite well on its own. Unmistakeably a Gilliam, it is driven by a harsh contrast between two realities very similar to that found in Brazil, albeit this time coming closer to sci-fi and farther from dystopic satire. Indeed, the majority of the film is set in what was its own contemporary period (the 1990s), and while the dystopic future in which the framing narrative is set is a major driving force for the plot, very little is actually shown of that world.

Ultimately, and what makes this and Brazil both masterpieces in my opinion, Gilliam keeps the film interesting by his use of constant ambiguity. Right from the beginning, not enough information can be discerned in order to provide a firm sense of narrative. As the film progresses, conflicting pieces of information are given to the viewer; is the protagonist really a time traveller, or is he simply insane? This ambiguity is enhanced later in the film, when Cole himself appears to finally believe that he is insane, just as his psychiatrist (and, later, lover) begins to believe his story.

The film ends on a somewhat less ambiguous note than Brazil, with the most obvious conclusion being that Cole is indeed from the future, but there is still sufficient uncertainty to provoke speculation after viewing. And that's really the best I could hope for.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Pete Svarrior on February 08, 2015, 02:36:52 PM
Caution: Spoilers!
>not using the spoiler tag
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on February 09, 2015, 10:40:05 AM
>spoiling a movie nearly older than me
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: juner on February 09, 2015, 04:36:43 PM
Jupiter Ascending

It wasn't good. I think that about sums it up.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on February 09, 2015, 05:07:48 PM
Jupiter Ascending

It wasn't good. I think that about sums it up.
Yes, but did Sean Bean die?
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Rama Set on February 09, 2015, 05:54:58 PM
Jupiter Ascending

It wasn't good. I think that about sums it up.
Yes, but did Sean Bean die?

Of course he did.  It is built in to his contracts now.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on February 10, 2015, 07:25:13 AM
I've been binge watching History Channel's Ancient Aliens series. Really brilliant stuff. Watching them leap through hoops and play mental gymnastics with literal strawmen is quality entertainment.

I feel like this show will become a cult classic in time.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: beardo on February 10, 2015, 07:38:19 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/tft4bWb.jpg)
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: juner on February 10, 2015, 07:31:00 PM
Jupiter Ascending

It wasn't good. I think that about sums it up.
Yes, but did Sean Bean die?

no
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on February 13, 2015, 01:02:33 AM
Has anyone watched this show called The Slap? It's literally about someone slapping someone else's child and the fallout that occurs because of it. I couldn't help but laugh every time I saw a commercial for this piece of crap on television. Apparently it's a remake of an Australian television series based on a book with the same premise. I guess we can blame Vindictus for this god awful stain on our pop culture collective.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on February 13, 2015, 01:45:36 AM
Has anyone watched this show called The Slap? It's literally about someone slapping someone else's child and the fallout that occurs because of it. I couldn't help but laugh every time I saw a commercial for this piece of crap on television. Apparently it's a remake of an Australian television series based on a book with the same premise. I guess we can blame Vindictus for this god awful stain on our pop culture collective.

It aired on the ABC so I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. What retarded US producers do with it, I couldn't care less.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Saddam Hussein on February 13, 2015, 01:57:43 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1YlTPlW_8

It looks awful.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Ghost of V on February 13, 2015, 02:03:59 AM
Syler: I just slapped your kid

Mom: I can't believe you just slapped my kid

The Slap

*fade to black*
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Shane on February 13, 2015, 02:06:08 AM
I like Zachary Quintas, but will not watch that show
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Particle Person on February 13, 2015, 02:07:20 AM
I hope it carries on for 15 seasons and becomes increasingly retarded. Through a complicated series of events, a powerful drug cartel sides with the pro-slappers and and ancient guild of assassins sides with the anti-slappers, or something.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Roundy on February 13, 2015, 02:55:37 AM
I don't know, looks like compelling must-see appointment television to me.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: Vindictus on February 14, 2015, 02:13:27 AM
Trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3_gvBTjUhY) for Guillermo Del Toro's new movie, Crimson Peak, just came out. Looks cool so far.
Title: Re: Just Watched
Post by: rooster on February 14, 2015, 05:48:45 PM
I'm definitely going to be seeing it. I love del Toro and Hiddleston.
Title: Re: Just Watched
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