It's been a poor month for me to even have time to see anything. Retail's busy, and I've put in a lot of overtime.
59 thoughts on “Third Monday Movie Day”
This post is here, just in case nobody's noticed.
The Boy is home from college, so I've seen movies. Saw Skyfall (a fun ride; great denouement for the Dame; but ultimately about as silly as every other Bond flick) and Lincoln (Oscar grab!).
It's hard to believe that the same actor played both Daniel Plainview and Lincoln. Wow. Daniel Day-Lewis is The Man. Tommy Lee Jones was great; David Straithairn was excellent (although I kept looking for Bourne); Spader is a personal favorite; Holbrook was appropriately crotchety; and, of course, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was involved.
The best movie ever made about lame-duck legislative intrigue.
also, I'm going to the Intergalactic Premier of The Constant friday night here in the City o' Trees. Assuming The Boy can get the whole thing to render in time.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51tQgkUlrjs
Ooh, I'll have to get in on this later. Someone made a couple of podcasts I'm trying to listen to, I've got a terrible story I'm just beginning to write, and I'm about to be late for work.
[Dido]...well, that first sentence anyway.
Get on 'em! They're a blast. I've listened to all of them (including nib's unreleased one) multiple times.
that's only because you like listening to yourself talk...
HI-YOOOO!!
I'm through the first two, now. Listening to podcasts is about the only good thing about a 45 minute commute.
But now I have to go back through the archives so I can figure out what the hell Brooks and Will were referring to in some of the games I wasn't in or paying attention to. And yes, in some cases, refresh my memory on what happened in the games I was in.
Too busy here at The Mothership to go into detail now, but I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and unfortunately haven't gotten the chance to watch the library DVD of The Cabin in the Woods quite yet.
Also watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I'm curious what you (and any others) think about it. I'm not sure how they're going to split the book into three movies, especially if each averages over two and a half hours.
For me, it's been long enough that I can only barely remember what happened in the book. About all I remembered were dwarves, the trolls, Rivendell, Gollum/ring, and Battle of the Five Armies. Vaguely recalled something about spiders and Mirkwood after seeing them in the film.
I haven't seen it yet (may go tomorrow for my birthday.), but the plan is to include material from the Appendices/Silmarillion/etc. to flesh out to three movies.
Seems like a terrible way to flesh something out into 3 movies. Usually in the book to movie conversion you think "what a shame that they cut so much from this book to make it into a movie." This is the exact opposite...
The Boy and The Girl saw it friday night. somewhat divergent opinions. The Girl thought that some of the characters were pretty one-dimensional and disliked some of the CGI. She complained in particular about the portrayal of Thorin and the presentation of the Goblin King/Great Goblin.
The Boy was more complimentary. Both enjoyed it, and both were highly complimentary of Radagast's role and appearance.
and both were highly complimentary of Radagast's role and appearance.
They may be the first two people that I've heard of that hold that opinion.
they found him amusing, and admired his ride.
My understanding was that they do not have rights to The Silmarillion, meaning they have to flesh out the movies from the appendices. LotR has abundant appendices, but they aren't that detailed.
I'm not going to spoil anything by saying any of this, but I found the movie had too much special effects, and the action got...well...silly at times. A (small) example re: special effects -- there is an appearance by a phasmid (ie: walkingstick insect), and of course there is the requisite chirpitty sounds. Why?! Phasmids are silent -- just sit on your hands, sound effects guys! And silly action? Well, sure the dwarven party all survive against huge odds, but the underground battle/escape from the goblins was just too fantastical with all the falls/crashes/tumbles that they survive. Think Indiana Jones and the mine cart (or refridgerator for that matter).
Yes, I liked the movie, but let's just say that less is better a lot of the time.
(btw, Benedict Cumberbatch is also in the movie (sort of), meaning Sherlock and Watson both appear in the Hobbit movies)
Yes, the Girl shared your opinion on the special effects. And both yucked it up on Sherlock vs. Watson.
did any of you see it in 48 FPS? if so, how was it?
I meant to, but I think the 48 FPS version is only available in 3D, which I opted to not see. I'll try again I think by myself in a few weeks.
I think it's only in the IMAX setting, isn't it? I think after reviews were so mixed, Jackson released it to a much fewer percent of showings.
Let's see...
On the TV front, Sheenie and I finished up season 1 of The Shield, and a re-watching of season 2 of Deadwood. We've also moved into season 5 of Cheers and season 3 of Veronica Mars.
For movies, I recently saw Up in the Air. Clooney was perfectly smug, but it felt fairly hollow and really dragged in the second half.
I remember feeling similarly about Up In The Air. Understood the praise but didn't agree that it was entirely brilliant. I do love watching Clooney though.
Yeah the end of the movie just... didn't do it for me. It was a decently enough made movie but overall I was left pretty underwhelmed. I actually feel this way about Juno and Young Adult so I wonder if it isn't just something with Jason Reitman.
I was the most sad about Young Adult. There was a ton of potential in it, but the ending really, really sucked. They did so much right and crapped it all away with the final 20 minutes.
one could argue that the ending was hollow because that's what he was left as. i think it was the boss that mentioned here's a guy that for the first time in his life leaves the apathetic, solitary shell he's created for himself, takes a chance, and gets crushed for it, leading him to return to his hollow, little life. i dunno, wasn't an awesome movie, but i enjoyed the whole thing.
Men In Black 3 and The Avengers. I'm playing catch-up. Both were appropriately enjoyable. Nothing more to say about either.
Oh, and I saw The Campaign, which had 2 or 3 funny moments and a lot of "meh."
The last couple weeks have had Christmas movies here and there. I've been really wanting to see Home Alone again for some odd reason.
Watched that with the older two on Sunday night. They enjoyed it, and I noticed a bunch of little things I hadn't during the five times I saw it in the theater during its original run (and none since).
Oh lets see here. I haven't really watched a ton of new stuff since last time.
For tv, I had to take a break from Homeland to watch Downton Abbey and found myself enjoying it.
I started watching The Walking Dead again, picking it back up around the middle of season 2, just after they get to the farm.
I just watched the episode where Shane busts open the barn door to let all the walkers out and everyone in Rick's group starts wailing away. That was a good episode (and I'm extremely glad they finally tied up the "kid missing" plot line, ugh.) with an emotional final scene, but man, I hate that it took one whole episode (or was it two) after Glen discovered the barn to get to that point. Then it seemed like the following episode was more nothing, when it should have been them getting the official boot and being back on the road. Ugh, I hope the pacing issues improve in season 3.
I've watched a load of Seasame Street from season 37 through 42. I hate, just absolutely hate, the fact that most of the muppeting was replaced with frickin CGI segments somewhere around 2009/10.
For movies, I watched Rango the other day and thought it was great. Humorous riff on Western tropes, and Johnny Depp's voice work was excellent.
wait, what? CGI instead of real Muppets? I am outraged, and now want Congress to cut off Big Bird after all. That is just wrong.
Downton is great.
Boogie Nights - Really enjoyed it. The New Year's party in the middle is a great scene all around.
The Usual Suspects - Hadn't seen it in a long time. I obviously remembered the end, and filtered through that, the rest of the movie was actually even better than I remembered.
Linds and I watched a couple episodes of Workaholics on Netflix. I laughed, even if it's insanely stupid.
I forgot to mention that I saw Life of Pi, as well. Almost all visual spectacle, but I was cool with it.
I love "Workaholics". mc...not so much.
mc?
mo chailín
Oh, for dumb. I should've known that.
Linds actually gets a kick out of the show. She's the one who recommended that we watch it. They only have the ten episodes from the first season on instant stream, and we burned through those pretty quickly.
You ever finish AD? Or BSG?
I have been bedridden most of the day with an awful cold but I wanted to share that Homeland totally redeemed itself.
Hitman, I'm not going to say it's totally redeemed for me, but it went a good ways towards it.
Watched the full LofR Trilogy in anticipation of The Hobbit...what can I say other than, "Frodo Lives!" Great trilogy and still amazing after a decade on the shelf.
Watched the first half of Mesrine: Killer Instinct about the French gangster Jacques Mesrine. I'm a big fan of Vincent Cassel and this one didn't let me down. Interesting story, some great character development and I even enjoyed the "action" scenes. Looking forward to installment #2.
The American Experience: Truman: Part 1. I never realized how little I knew about the man who gave the order to drop the atomic bomb...equal parts biography and world history lesson, this PBS series has yet to disappoint me.
Bought the Bluray of The Dark Knight Rises. I actually thought it was pretty awesome and hey, more JGL is always a good thing, right?
The wife and I watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. She's already seen the third and I read an article today about AMC and their highly disliked wives. I really wish that they would have given me a warning before printing the first f*cking sentence:
Even by the gruesome standards of AMC's zombie megahit "The Walking Dead," the death of Lori Grimes, the heavily pregnant wife of protagonist Rick Grimes, was unusually brutal: a crude prison-floor C-section followed by a bullet to the head dispatched by her young son, Carl.
Yeah...now I can't wait to watch the full season. Assholes.
Well, I opened the spoiler for no reason. Ah well, I'm glad I did because...
...it gives me hope knowing that she won't be on the show anymore. Terrible actress and a terrible character.
Of these, I've only seen Midnight Cowboy and Blue Valentine. Call me jaundiced, but my first response was that I didn't think either of those deserved an NC-17/X rating...do parents* rely on ratings anymore? For instance, The Walking Dead isn't something I'd let any child watch and it is on television (alright, cable...but still).
*what I'm asking is, do those of you who are parents? Mine's not old enough yet for that to be an issue.
ratings are only a guideline -- you're always better off checking Teh Google if your kid(s) are at an age where you might have a concern.
http://Www.commonsensemedia.org is great. The only problem is if it is a movie you also want to see. It is full of spoilers.
We use the site for both movies and video games.
Thanks guys.
If you suck on a tit, it's rated X. If you chop off a tit with an axe, it's PG-13.
Sad but true.
despite it's limitations (which have been discussed here before, and are numerous), this film is not yet rated shows some interesting insight into the logic of the ratings process, if any.
That looks like a request for a Metallica youtube embed. But I'll hold back for now.
Yep. We have some pretty poor priorities sometimes. That there are multiple movies that received an X/NC-17 rating for oral sex scenes that were too long, while a steady stream of torture porn hits the theatre with R ratings is just... not right.
this is a consequence of having a unidimensional rating system, but multidimensional concerns. And a "self-regulating" industry. And a nation of publicly prudish, privately salacious individuals regarding sex.
You mean people have sex for reasons other than procreation? How naughty.
The best I can tell, some married people used to have sex.
*DOH!! I keed, honey, I keed.
I watched the edited for tv version of Forrest Gump with my kids. The only editting was to bleep out d@mn. War violence, drug use, sex scene, and domestic abuse were left in.
Iron Giant Saw it at Toys R Us for $5 when shopping for my kids.
It's as awesome as I'd hoped. I feel good putting it on my Ghibli/Pixar/Snow White shelf.
Vin Diesel needs more voice acting roles, Brad Bird more cartoons.
Watching the extras, I realized that Brad Bird is Syndrome with a haircut and office job.
wait, what? Brad Bird doesn't look like Edna Mode?
This on Iron Giant.
Oh yeah, Brad Bird is definitely the inspiration for Syndrome
I saw some interview with him somewhere and it was all so clear.
Also, speaking of Syndrome, I think that Jason Lee does an absurdly good job with that voice.
Not a big month over here.
Taken: I love Liam Neeson. Pretty solid action flick, though a little herky-jerky at times when it wasn't necessary. I also felt the denouement was really week.
The Fox and the Hound: Yeah. Still cute, but pretty empty thematically. There's a hilarious song when Tod meets his mate that has obvious sexual undertones.
Started watching the X-Files with my wife, which she loves. Duchovny is hilariously bad and the first-season episodes so far are obvious and manipulative. But I trust from many people I know that the plots will start to get awesome soon enough.
This post is here, just in case nobody's noticed.
The Boy is home from college, so I've seen movies. Saw Skyfall (a fun ride; great denouement for the Dame; but ultimately about as silly as every other Bond flick) and Lincoln (Oscar grab!).
It's hard to believe that the same actor played both Daniel Plainview and Lincoln. Wow. Daniel Day-Lewis is The Man. Tommy Lee Jones was great; David Straithairn was excellent (although I kept looking for Bourne); Spader is a personal favorite; Holbrook was appropriately crotchety; and, of course, Joseph Gordon-Levitt was involved.
The best movie ever made about lame-duck legislative intrigue.
also, I'm going to the Intergalactic Premier of The Constant friday night here in the City o' Trees. Assuming The Boy can get the whole thing to render in time.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51tQgkUlrjs
Ooh, I'll have to get in on this later. Someone made a couple of podcasts I'm trying to listen to, I've got a terrible story I'm just beginning to write, and I'm about to be late for work.
[Dido]...well, that first sentence anyway.
Get on 'em! They're a blast. I've listened to all of them (including nib's unreleased one) multiple times.
that's only because you like listening to yourself talk...
HI-YOOOO!!
I'm through the first two, now. Listening to podcasts is about the only good thing about a 45 minute commute.
But now I have to go back through the archives so I can figure out what the hell Brooks and Will were referring to in some of the games I wasn't in or paying attention to. And yes, in some cases, refresh my memory on what happened in the games I was in.
Too busy here at The Mothership to go into detail now, but I watched Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and unfortunately haven't gotten the chance to watch the library DVD of The Cabin in the Woods quite yet.
Also watched The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I'm curious what you (and any others) think about it. I'm not sure how they're going to split the book into three movies, especially if each averages over two and a half hours.
I haven't seen it yet (may go tomorrow for my birthday.), but the plan is to include material from the Appendices/Silmarillion/etc. to flesh out to three movies.
Seems like a terrible way to flesh something out into 3 movies. Usually in the book to movie conversion you think "what a shame that they cut so much from this book to make it into a movie." This is the exact opposite...
The Boy and The Girl saw it friday night. somewhat divergent opinions. The Girl thought that some of the characters were pretty one-dimensional and disliked some of the CGI. She complained in particular about the portrayal of Thorin and the presentation of the Goblin King/Great Goblin.
The Boy was more complimentary. Both enjoyed it, and both were highly complimentary of Radagast's role and appearance.
and both were highly complimentary of Radagast's role and appearance.
They may be the first two people that I've heard of that hold that opinion.
they found him amusing, and admired his ride.
My understanding was that they do not have rights to The Silmarillion, meaning they have to flesh out the movies from the appendices. LotR has abundant appendices, but they aren't that detailed.
I'm not going to spoil anything by saying any of this, but I found the movie had too much special effects, and the action got...well...silly at times. A (small) example re: special effects -- there is an appearance by a phasmid (ie: walkingstick insect), and of course there is the requisite chirpitty sounds. Why?! Phasmids are silent -- just sit on your hands, sound effects guys! And silly action? Well, sure the dwarven party all survive against huge odds, but the underground battle/escape from the goblins was just too fantastical with all the falls/crashes/tumbles that they survive. Think Indiana Jones and the mine cart (or refridgerator for that matter).
Yes, I liked the movie, but let's just say that less is better a lot of the time.
(btw, Benedict Cumberbatch is also in the movie (sort of), meaning Sherlock and Watson both appear in the Hobbit movies)
Yes, the Girl shared your opinion on the special effects. And both yucked it up on Sherlock vs. Watson.
did any of you see it in 48 FPS? if so, how was it?
I meant to, but I think the 48 FPS version is only available in 3D, which I opted to not see. I'll try again I think by myself in a few weeks.
I think it's only in the IMAX setting, isn't it? I think after reviews were so mixed, Jackson released it to a much fewer percent of showings.
Let's see...
On the TV front, Sheenie and I finished up season 1 of The Shield, and a re-watching of season 2 of Deadwood. We've also moved into season 5 of Cheers and season 3 of Veronica Mars.
For movies, I recently saw Up in the Air. Clooney was perfectly smug, but it felt fairly hollow and really dragged in the second half.
I remember feeling similarly about Up In The Air. Understood the praise but didn't agree that it was entirely brilliant. I do love watching Clooney though.
Yeah the end of the movie just... didn't do it for me. It was a decently enough made movie but overall I was left pretty underwhelmed. I actually feel this way about Juno and Young Adult so I wonder if it isn't just something with Jason Reitman.
I was the most sad about Young Adult. There was a ton of potential in it, but the ending really, really sucked. They did so much right and crapped it all away with the final 20 minutes.
one could argue that the ending was hollow because that's what he was left as. i think it was the boss that mentioned here's a guy that for the first time in his life leaves the apathetic, solitary shell he's created for himself, takes a chance, and gets crushed for it, leading him to return to his hollow, little life. i dunno, wasn't an awesome movie, but i enjoyed the whole thing.
Men In Black 3 and The Avengers. I'm playing catch-up. Both were appropriately enjoyable. Nothing more to say about either.
Oh, and I saw The Campaign, which had 2 or 3 funny moments and a lot of "meh."
The last couple weeks have had Christmas movies here and there. I've been really wanting to see Home Alone again for some odd reason.
Watched that with the older two on Sunday night. They enjoyed it, and I noticed a bunch of little things I hadn't during the five times I saw it in the theater during its original run (and none since).
Oh lets see here. I haven't really watched a ton of new stuff since last time.
For tv, I had to take a break from Homeland to watch Downton Abbey and found myself enjoying it.
I started watching The Walking Dead again, picking it back up around the middle of season 2, just after they get to the farm.
I've watched a load of Seasame Street from season 37 through 42. I hate, just absolutely hate, the fact that most of the muppeting was replaced with frickin CGI segments somewhere around 2009/10.
For movies, I watched Rango the other day and thought it was great. Humorous riff on Western tropes, and Johnny Depp's voice work was excellent.
wait, what? CGI instead of real Muppets? I am outraged, and now want Congress to cut off Big Bird after all. That is just wrong.
Downton is great.
Boogie Nights - Really enjoyed it. The New Year's party in the middle is a great scene all around.
The Usual Suspects - Hadn't seen it in a long time. I obviously remembered the end, and filtered through that, the rest of the movie was actually even better than I remembered.
Linds and I watched a couple episodes of Workaholics on Netflix. I laughed, even if it's insanely stupid.
I forgot to mention that I saw Life of Pi, as well. Almost all visual spectacle, but I was cool with it.
I love "Workaholics". mc...not so much.
mc?
mo chailín
Oh, for dumb. I should've known that.
Linds actually gets a kick out of the show. She's the one who recommended that we watch it. They only have the ten episodes from the first season on instant stream, and we burned through those pretty quickly.
You ever finish AD? Or BSG?
I have been bedridden most of the day with an awful cold but I wanted to share that Homeland totally redeemed itself.
Hitman, I'm not going to say it's totally redeemed for me, but it went a good ways towards it.
Watched the full LofR Trilogy in anticipation of The Hobbit...what can I say other than, "Frodo Lives!" Great trilogy and still amazing after a decade on the shelf.
Watched the first half of Mesrine: Killer Instinct about the French gangster Jacques Mesrine. I'm a big fan of Vincent Cassel and this one didn't let me down. Interesting story, some great character development and I even enjoyed the "action" scenes. Looking forward to installment #2.
How Beer Saved the World. Fun, if a little thin.
The American Experience: Truman: Part 1. I never realized how little I knew about the man who gave the order to drop the atomic bomb...equal parts biography and world history lesson, this PBS series has yet to disappoint me.
Bought the Bluray of The Dark Knight Rises. I actually thought it was pretty awesome and hey, more JGL is always a good thing, right?
The wife and I watched the first two seasons of The Walking Dead. She's already seen the third and I read an article today about AMC and their highly disliked wives. I really wish that they would have given me a warning before printing the first f*cking sentence:
Yeah...now I can't wait to watch the full season. Assholes.
Well, I opened the spoiler for no reason. Ah well, I'm glad I did because...
Of these, I've only seen Midnight Cowboy and Blue Valentine. Call me jaundiced, but my first response was that I didn't think either of those deserved an NC-17/X rating...do parents* rely on ratings anymore? For instance, The Walking Dead isn't something I'd let any child watch and it is on television (alright, cable...but still).
*what I'm asking is, do those of you who are parents? Mine's not old enough yet for that to be an issue.
ratings are only a guideline -- you're always better off checking Teh Google if your kid(s) are at an age where you might have a concern.
http://Www.commonsensemedia.org is great. The only problem is if it is a movie you also want to see. It is full of spoilers.
We use the site for both movies and video games.
Thanks guys.
If you suck on a tit, it's rated X. If you chop off a tit with an axe, it's PG-13.
Sad but true.
despite it's limitations (which have been discussed here before, and are numerous), this film is not yet rated shows some interesting insight into the logic of the ratings process, if any.
That looks like a request for a Metallica youtube embed. But I'll hold back for now.
Yep. We have some pretty poor priorities sometimes. That there are multiple movies that received an X/NC-17 rating for oral sex scenes that were too long, while a steady stream of torture porn hits the theatre with R ratings is just... not right.
this is a consequence of having a unidimensional rating system, but multidimensional concerns. And a "self-regulating" industry. And a nation of publicly prudish, privately salacious individuals regarding sex.
You mean people have sex for reasons other than procreation? How naughty.
The best I can tell, some married people used to have sex.
*DOH!! I keed, honey, I keed.
I watched the edited for tv version of Forrest Gump with my kids. The only editting was to bleep out d@mn. War violence, drug use, sex scene, and domestic abuse were left in.
Iron Giant Saw it at Toys R Us for $5 when shopping for my kids.
It's as awesome as I'd hoped. I feel good putting it on my Ghibli/Pixar/Snow White shelf.
Vin Diesel needs more voice acting roles, Brad Bird more cartoons.
Watching the extras, I realized that Brad Bird is Syndrome with a haircut and office job.
wait, what? Brad Bird doesn't look like Edna Mode?
This on Iron Giant.
Oh yeah, Brad Bird is definitely the inspiration for Syndrome
I saw some interview with him somewhere and it was all so clear.
Also, speaking of Syndrome, I think that Jason Lee does an absurdly good job with that voice.
Not a big month over here.
Taken: I love Liam Neeson. Pretty solid action flick, though a little herky-jerky at times when it wasn't necessary. I also felt the denouement was really week.
The Fox and the Hound: Yeah. Still cute, but pretty empty thematically. There's a hilarious song when Tod meets his mate that has obvious sexual undertones.
Started watching the X-Files with my wife, which she loves. Duchovny is hilariously bad and the first-season episodes so far are obvious and manipulative. But I trust from many people I know that the plots will start to get awesome soon enough.