I actively avoided plot details and read nothing at all about the movie (I don't even think I watched more than the one trailer for it), and I still saw that coming a mile off.
Same. Still haven't seen it, hope to this week sometime (maybe?). Would have been disappointed if this wasn't the case.
I saw Star Trek Into Darkness on Saturday. It's a bit more action oriented than exploration oriented, but I thought it was just about the perfect summer movie. Cumberbatch and Quinto are excellent, and Simon Pegg is awesome as Scotty.
Regarding the 'Khan' thing, I loved it. I wasn't a huge fan of the switched death in the callback, but what are you going to do? Besides, they foreshadowed enough to where you knew it wasn't going to stick even until the end credits.
Linds and I watched the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was... brutal. I liked it, and I can understand the grittiness of it, but it does contain a huge pet peeve of mine.
If a cat is shown on screen and paid any attention at all, that cat will not survive the movie. I mean, the instant you saw the cat, you knew it was going to be dead by credits. It probably says something about me that I'm concerned with cats when unspeakable things are happening to the humans in the movie, but I don't care. Stop murderizing cats.
I also saw Death Race 3. I really don't know why. It's dumb - like reeeaaallly dumb.
I also saw Iron Man 3. I liked that one a lot, too. Guy Pearce can be such an enjoyable actor.
Well, yeah, I was pretty sure that was the case. I guess my pet peeve isn't movie-centric.
Yeah, I do sort of find that pet peeve weird. Like, on Mad Men when Duck deserts his dog and that's all anyone complained about on an episode full of cheating, lying and deception.
mrsS, who isn't a fanboy, at least on my level, declared ST:ID to be one of the Best Movies Evah. It was highly entertaining. The callbacks were great, cumberbatch was great, good ensemble interaction. The franchise is in good hands in terms of cast.
Plot holes were large enough to drive a starship through, but we dis not care.
My 17 year old son said that ST:ID was the greatest movie ever too.
Mrs. Runner was peeved with my laughing, but dammit they kept reprising lines/scenes from the first go around in entertaining ways.
I was a bit taken aback when Kirk pulls out his communicator and talks to Scotty in a bar on Earth -- that's really good cell coverage! The more we thought about it though, if the Enterprise can communicate long distances, why can't any communicator, assuming it would use the ship as a carrier, so to speak?
And one more Star Fleet Admiral to add to the long list of corruption. Also, I had to remind Mrs. Runner the significance of Carol Marcus. Can she cook, or can she cook?
If there is one thing that bothers me about the movie, is that it (like all ST movies) is sooo Enterprise-centric.
You can't tell me that no ships noticed two disable vessels falling to Earth, and didn't attempt to help transport an evacuation or issue warnings to the San Fran area.
I don't know what mental illness Lawrence's character was supposed to have. She mentioned a generalized anxiety disorder, but she mostly just seemed quirky. Maybe a little Asperger's. Either way, she didn't appear to be suffering nearly as much as Cooper.
Cooper's portrayal of someone with bipolar was awesome at the beginning of the movie. He was acting just like a client of mine with the same illness, and I was feeling the pain. But then...
He starts getting better because he's dancing and is motivated to take his meds. He goes from nearly psychotic to almost a perfect guy by movie's end. Perhaps he could have had a few good weeks, but it felt too clean to me.
Also, the psychiatrist should lose his license. What an inappropriate douche.
What I'm curious is what happens to these two people with mental illness after the movie ends. People with bipolar can fall in love just as easily, if not more often, than the average person. I imagine he's going to have similar problems he had with his first wife with his new girlfriend. How do they deal with that? Guess we'll never know.
To me this is high-class romantic comedy that exploits mental illness for ratings. Hats off, though, to Robert DeNiro, who put in an awesome performance. I'm sure it helped he also has a kid with bipolar. Pitch perfect performance there.
Otherwise, we've just been watching Lost. Onto season 6 now, 14 episodes left.
I'm really hoping this ends well, because I've been mostly whatever since half-way through season two. It's fun for sure, but I've seen nearly every plot twist coming way ahead of time. Jeremy Bentham is John Locke? Come on. REAL subtle with the clues there.
Yeah, I saw a lot of things coming, too. I still liked most of it, sans season two, and when I think of the show as a whole, it's somehow less than the sum of its parts...probably because it pretends to say so much, but doesn't. I know Phyllo praises the philosophy, but I found the philosophy of the show to be tedious and simplistic. "There are dark and light sides to everything." Wooooow, man. That's, like, SO TRUE.
Agreed. LOST was very zen to me; it's not the destination, it's the journey. There were a lot of fun moments in that series.
Watched Oblivion. Wholly predictable, especially since the trailers had already revealed the "big" twist. The most interesting part to me were the visuals and representations of interfaces in the future.
I saw Rock of Ages. The hair band music was awesome!!!! The movie was Laaaame.
Saw Jack Reacher. Reminded me of the Lethal Weapon movies in some respects. Enjoyable enough.
Rewatched some 30 Rock and have started in on Parks And Rec season 2 (birthday gift!). Oh, that show is good.
Had you not seen Parks and Rec's later seasons? I thought you were one of the people that made me figure the show was worth a shot.
I've seen 'em all up until about half way through this season. Just rewatching.
Ann-danawicz!
I imagine there are people on the internet that are much more riled up about this stuff than I am, since my strongest emotion is probably "meh", so this'll probably be the only time I complain about this anywhere, but, on Star Trek:
I guess it's fine as a movie, but I realized awhile ago (and in retrospect I like the 2009 reboot a lot less than I did at the time) that the Abrams-Trek just has very little in it of the essence I like about Trek the most - although I also admit I've never liked TOS as much as DS9 or TNG, and many of the movies haven't had that kind of essence in them, although I think several of the TOS movies, including II, have something of it in there.
The Khan thing mostly made me roll my eyes, since it was so obvious and yet treated like such a big reveal - and only for the audience, since why would the characters care about Cumberbatch ominously saying his true name that they've never heard of? - and it's a little disappointing to me that the whole "We can do whatever we want since it's an alternate timeline" turns into "We can do whatever we want with the same ideas that were used thirty years ago".
I re-watched Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds. I think it's my favorite Austen so far.
After watching Hinds in Ms. Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I like Persuasion even more, because it could almost be the same character, but you get to see how smoothly Hinds ages. You want Anne to end up with him even more because he's great as an older gent as well.
The 2009 movie has been on TV lately, and I also like it way less now than I did at the time. I agree with all your sentiments, of course.
Response to DK
Red Matter? Oy.
my more general response to DK: My feeling is that both of these Abrams-Trek movies have more of the TOS feel than the TNG feel, which definitely moved in a more philosophical bend.* But, across the board, the films have tended toward spectacle and action, and away from the "harder" issues.
*Yes, yes, TOS had some philosophically-inclined episodes. But a lot more of Alexander Courage-fueled fight scenes between The Shat and Some Alien, with Kirk's shirt inevitably being torn (but not so much as to reveal his corset). And Kirk didn't go around surrendering the Enterprise every other week like Picard 😉
for my money, I really wish that the TNG films had been able to maintain the sense and sensibility of the last few seasons of the series, which tended toward greatness. And I wish that the franchise had moved forward with a new Enterprise crew rather than rebooting.
I particularly loved the long distance shot from San Fran of the smoking dreadnaught barrelling at them from the sky -- very reminiscent of the reaver ship filmwork from Serenity
Good Serenity nod, Rhu.
I've only seen the 2009 version once since the movie theater. I'm curious what I would think, but given that I wholeheartedly enjoyed the new one, I'd probably still like it just fine.
I didn't read DK's spoiler, but I still enjoy the heck out of the first one.
Killing Them Softly - For some reason, I was expecting Payback or Heat.* It wasn't really either of those, but still, I enjoyed the movie and performances a ton. My wife...not so much. It was a bit gruesome.
Skyfall - I'm sure it's been thoroughly discussed here, but I finally got around to this one. It did not disappoint.
Les Miserables** - I know I bring home a lot of action movies, so in a nod to "fairness" (and Mothers Day), I brought this one home. Good, not amazing and I don't know why that performance by Anne was Oscar-worthy, but enjoyable.
Dirty Dancing - It was on in the background while packing and I have to admit, I watched enough of it to include it in my monthly viewing.
*not sure why
**may have watched last month...don't recall
I don’t know why that performance by Anne was Oscar-worthy, but enjoyable.
Dude! She just nailed her big song!! Plus she did it one take!!! What else do you want.?!?!?!
Les Mis wasn't amazing? I find that hard to believe, given the material, but I haven't seen the movie version yet. But yeah, I don't see how it can match the performance I saw on Broadway.
Yeah...I don't know. I can enjoy musicals and I thought the casting was outstanding, but I didn't come away as moved as I'd hoped. I would love to see it on the stage.
It's coming next year, so you have your chance. I saw it at the Ordway in 2007ish and it was incredible.
If I had lots of money, I would totally buy Dancing Bear.
International flights allowed a bit more movie watching that normal for me.
On the way over, I watched Premium Rush, which was a lot of fun and didn't take itself seriously, although I'm not sure about the glorification of "fixies". I imagine the whole of Portland got a boner watching it.
I watched Skyfall on the way back. Not as good as Casino Royale, but very entertaining. I haven't seen Quantam of Solace though, so I can't compare it to there. I didn't like Moneypenny at all, though. Her lines all felt forced and crappy.
I was pumped to find that the in plane entertainment system had the first few episodes of season 4 of Justified. I watched the first three before I fell asleep, but Patton Oswalt is the best.
Other than that, I watched the Paradise Lost documentaries and vowed never to travel to Arkansas.
Oswalt also had a pretty good turn as Calvin Schmidt in Burn Notice.
Not as good as Casino Royale
Huh. I've read everywhere that Skyfall is an all-time great. Casino Royale is probably my favorite I've seen, though. I have to get that movie.
Skyfall was pretty decent; not an all-time great. I did enjoy Casino Royale as well. Craig is a fine Bond.
Craig is already my second favorite incarnation of Bond.
He's easily my first.
I think I agree. I think.
So, I guess I don't agree with the "easily" part.
Connery>Craig>>>>Moore>>>>>Old Moore>>>>>who the hell cares
I guess I don't hate Dalton, but that's mostly because I like him in other stuff. If I had to rank
Craig = Connery >> Moore >> Old Moore >> Dalton >>>> Lazenby
Okay, so maybe Dalton fare that well...
I love how we both left out any mention of Brosnan, who I really didn't dislike that much- he just wasn't that great as Bond.
I thought he was fine as Bond, they were just going all-in on camp in those movies.
all-in on camp...
Took the words right out of my now-deleted LTE.
I absolutely loved Brosnan as a kid (Goldeneye was the second Bond movie I saw, behind Goldfinger*), but I find most of his pretty diffcult to watch now. I still like Goldeneye a fair bit, but as Bond, I'd put him behind the others.
* My dad wasn't a big Bond fan, so until the marathon ABC ran that one summer, there very, very few Bond movies I had seen.
Connery > Craig > Lazenby > the rest.
But let's not forget to give proper respect to David Niven's turn.
QoS, on the other hand, was mostly stupid.
Sheenie is finally watching all of Arrested Development to be ready for next week (she had seen most episodes, out of order, through the osmosis of living with me). We only have Season 3 left.
Your wife is becoming a better person.
I'm rewatching the series again as well. Only 7 episodes left. My favorite part has been picking up all the references I missed from Motherboy Werewolf XXX.
After obvious ones like "Spookymilk," "Spookymilk Survivor" and "Casa de Leche," the top search that lands people at CdL is "Werewolf XXX."
What can I say? I'm good at driving traffic.
I might just have to go back and re-read that now. I'm just glad that I got to skew younger.
I reread it last week. It had its moments. You guys brought the funny on the first day.
And done. That was fun. I forgot how quickly I found DG only to have no one believe me. Oh, and I forgot how fun it was to be religious George, Sr. We need another game soon!
Another game where you get to play a character. That's the best.
as mentioned in th egame log a few days ago, I saw Iron Man 3. I was entertain because there was lots of action. But some of the 'why is this happening' left me scratching my head. The local theater seems to have upgraded its sound system, so that great. Now if only some stadium seating wold replace the current chairs.
Before the movie a preview for Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger showed. Yeah, I probably will skip that one.
as for TV, Ive been watching the old X-Men animated series that I watched when I was growing up.
I have very fond memories of the original Fantastic Four series and of the Marvel Super Heroes bits, including the X-Men (slumming as "Allies For Peace")
I didn't see much new stuff this month. I keep meaning to have a movie-centric month to have a lot of ammo for these days, but it didn't happen this month.
If you can't manage something for next month, well, you just aren't trying.
Haven't seen this week's Game of Thrones yet, but it's starting to feel like the episodes are padded a bit to stretch the book into 20 episodes. I wonder if it's due to wanting certain plot points to end the season.
It's up now.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!
I actively avoided plot details and read nothing at all about the movie (I don't even think I watched more than the one trailer for it), and I still saw that coming a mile off.
Same. Still haven't seen it, hope to this week sometime (maybe?). Would have been disappointed if this wasn't the case.
I saw Star Trek Into Darkness on Saturday. It's a bit more action oriented than exploration oriented, but I thought it was just about the perfect summer movie. Cumberbatch and Quinto are excellent, and Simon Pegg is awesome as Scotty.
Linds and I watched the American version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It was... brutal. I liked it, and I can understand the grittiness of it, but it does contain a huge pet peeve of mine.
I also saw Death Race 3. I really don't know why. It's dumb - like reeeaaallly dumb.
I also saw Iron Man 3. I liked that one a lot, too. Guy Pearce can be such an enjoyable actor.
Re: second spoiler
Well, yeah, I was pretty sure that was the case. I guess my pet peeve isn't movie-centric.
Yeah, I do sort of find that pet peeve weird. Like, on Mad Men when Duck deserts his dog and that's all anyone complained about on an episode full of cheating, lying and deception.
mrsS, who isn't a fanboy, at least on my level, declared ST:ID to be one of the Best Movies Evah. It was highly entertaining. The callbacks were great, cumberbatch was great, good ensemble interaction. The franchise is in good hands in terms of cast.
Plot holes were large enough to drive a starship through, but we dis not care.
My 17 year old son said that ST:ID was the greatest movie ever too.
Mrs. Runner was peeved with my laughing, but dammit they kept reprising lines/scenes from the first go around in entertaining ways.
I was a bit taken aback when Kirk pulls out his communicator and talks to Scotty in a bar on Earth -- that's really good cell coverage! The more we thought about it though, if the Enterprise can communicate long distances, why can't any communicator, assuming it would use the ship as a carrier, so to speak?
If there is one thing that bothers me about the movie, is that it (like all ST movies) is sooo Enterprise-centric.
As for your second spoiler, dude, PLOT HOLES WIDE ENOUGH TO DRIVE A STARSHIP THROUGH! Ignore them! Enjoy the ride! 🙂
Only saw one movie this past month, Silver Linings Playbook. Incredibly insulting to mental illness as a whole.
Cooper's portrayal of someone with bipolar was awesome at the beginning of the movie. He was acting just like a client of mine with the same illness, and I was feeling the pain. But then...
To me this is high-class romantic comedy that exploits mental illness for ratings. Hats off, though, to Robert DeNiro, who put in an awesome performance. I'm sure it helped he also has a kid with bipolar. Pitch perfect performance there.
Otherwise, we've just been watching Lost. Onto season 6 now, 14 episodes left.
On LOST.
Watched Oblivion. Wholly predictable, especially since the trailers had already revealed the "big" twist. The most interesting part to me were the visuals and representations of interfaces in the future.
I saw Rock of Ages. The hair band music was awesome!!!! The movie was Laaaame.
Saw Jack Reacher. Reminded me of the Lethal Weapon movies in some respects. Enjoyable enough.
Rewatched some 30 Rock and have started in on Parks And Rec season 2 (birthday gift!). Oh, that show is good.
Had you not seen Parks and Rec's later seasons? I thought you were one of the people that made me figure the show was worth a shot.
I've seen 'em all up until about half way through this season. Just rewatching.
Ann-danawicz!
I imagine there are people on the internet that are much more riled up about this stuff than I am, since my strongest emotion is probably "meh", so this'll probably be the only time I complain about this anywhere, but, on Star Trek:
I re-watched Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds. I think it's my favorite Austen so far.
After watching Hinds in Ms. Pettigrew Lives for a Day, I like Persuasion even more, because it could almost be the same character, but you get to see how smoothly Hinds ages. You want Anne to end up with him even more because he's great as an older gent as well.
The 2009 movie has been on TV lately, and I also like it way less now than I did at the time. I agree with all your sentiments, of course.
Response to DK
Red Matter? Oy.
my more general response to DK: My feeling is that both of these Abrams-Trek movies have more of the TOS feel than the TNG feel, which definitely moved in a more philosophical bend.* But, across the board, the films have tended toward spectacle and action, and away from the "harder" issues.
*Yes, yes, TOS had some philosophically-inclined episodes. But a lot more of Alexander Courage-fueled fight scenes between The Shat and Some Alien, with Kirk's shirt inevitably being torn (but not so much as to reveal his corset). And Kirk didn't go around surrendering the Enterprise every other week like Picard 😉
for my money, I really wish that the TNG films had been able to maintain the sense and sensibility of the last few seasons of the series, which tended toward greatness. And I wish that the franchise had moved forward with a new Enterprise crew rather than rebooting.
that said, I think these guys are a lot of fun.
Good Serenity nod, Rhu.
I've only seen the 2009 version once since the movie theater. I'm curious what I would think, but given that I wholeheartedly enjoyed the new one, I'd probably still like it just fine.
I didn't read DK's spoiler, but I still enjoy the heck out of the first one.
Killing Them Softly - For some reason, I was expecting Payback or Heat.* It wasn't really either of those, but still, I enjoyed the movie and performances a ton. My wife...not so much. It was a bit gruesome.
Skyfall - I'm sure it's been thoroughly discussed here, but I finally got around to this one. It did not disappoint.
Les Miserables** - I know I bring home a lot of action movies, so in a nod to "fairness" (and Mothers Day), I brought this one home. Good, not amazing and I don't know why that performance by Anne was Oscar-worthy, but enjoyable.
Dirty Dancing - It was on in the background while packing and I have to admit, I watched enough of it to include it in my monthly viewing.
*not sure why
**may have watched last month...don't recall
I don’t know why that performance by Anne was Oscar-worthy, but enjoyable.
Dude! She just nailed her big song!! Plus she did it one take!!! What else do you want.?!?!?!
Les Mis wasn't amazing? I find that hard to believe, given the material, but I haven't seen the movie version yet. But yeah, I don't see how it can match the performance I saw on Broadway.
Yeah...I don't know. I can enjoy musicals and I thought the casting was outstanding, but I didn't come away as moved as I'd hoped. I would love to see it on the stage.
It's coming next year, so you have your chance. I saw it at the Ordway in 2007ish and it was incredible.
so, get your credit cards ready. You can soon be the proud owner of Mr. Green Jeans's overalls or Dancing Bear.
If I had lots of money, I would totally buy Dancing Bear.
International flights allowed a bit more movie watching that normal for me.
On the way over, I watched Premium Rush, which was a lot of fun and didn't take itself seriously, although I'm not sure about the glorification of "fixies". I imagine the whole of Portland got a boner watching it.
I watched Skyfall on the way back. Not as good as Casino Royale, but very entertaining. I haven't seen Quantam of Solace though, so I can't compare it to there. I didn't like Moneypenny at all, though. Her lines all felt forced and crappy.
I was pumped to find that the in plane entertainment system had the first few episodes of season 4 of Justified. I watched the first three before I fell asleep, but Patton Oswalt is the best.
Other than that, I watched the Paradise Lost documentaries and vowed never to travel to Arkansas.
Oswalt also had a pretty good turn as Calvin Schmidt in Burn Notice.
Not as good as Casino Royale
Huh. I've read everywhere that Skyfall is an all-time great. Casino Royale is probably my favorite I've seen, though. I have to get that movie.
Skyfall was pretty decent; not an all-time great. I did enjoy Casino Royale as well. Craig is a fine Bond.
Craig is already my second favorite incarnation of Bond.
He's easily my first.
I think I agree. I think.
So, I guess I don't agree with the "easily" part.
Connery>Craig>>>>Moore>>>>>Old Moore>>>>>who the hell cares
I guess I don't hate Dalton, but that's mostly because I like him in other stuff. If I had to rank
Craig = Connery >> Moore >> Old Moore >> Dalton >>>> Lazenby
Okay, so maybe Dalton fare that well...
I love how we both left out any mention of Brosnan, who I really didn't dislike that much- he just wasn't that great as Bond.
I thought he was fine as Bond, they were just going all-in on camp in those movies.
all-in on camp...
Took the words right out of my now-deleted LTE.
I absolutely loved Brosnan as a kid (Goldeneye was the second Bond movie I saw, behind Goldfinger*), but I find most of his pretty diffcult to watch now. I still like Goldeneye a fair bit, but as Bond, I'd put him behind the others.
* My dad wasn't a big Bond fan, so until the marathon ABC ran that one summer, there very, very few Bond movies I had seen.
Connery > Craig > Lazenby > the rest.
But let's not forget to give proper respect to David Niven's turn.
QoS, on the other hand, was mostly stupid.
Sheenie is finally watching all of Arrested Development to be ready for next week (she had seen most episodes, out of order, through the osmosis of living with me). We only have Season 3 left.
Your wife is becoming a better person.
I'm rewatching the series again as well. Only 7 episodes left. My favorite part has been picking up all the references I missed from
MotherboyWerewolf XXX.After obvious ones like "Spookymilk," "Spookymilk Survivor" and "Casa de Leche," the top search that lands people at CdL is "Werewolf XXX."
What can I say? I'm good at driving traffic.
I might just have to go back and re-read that now. I'm just glad that I got to skew younger.
I reread it last week. It had its moments. You guys brought the funny on the first day.
And done. That was fun. I forgot how quickly I found DG only to have no one believe me. Oh, and I forgot how fun it was to be religious George, Sr. We need another game soon!
Another game where you get to play a character. That's the best.
I certainly have a type.
An interesting Khanversation with Damon Lindelof
Forgot to mention this about Into Darkness:
Also this is not the first time that Peter Weller has played a role in Star Trek
as mentioned in th egame log a few days ago, I saw Iron Man 3. I was entertain because there was lots of action. But some of the 'why is this happening' left me scratching my head. The local theater seems to have upgraded its sound system, so that great. Now if only some stadium seating wold replace the current chairs.
Before the movie a preview for Johnny Depp's Lone Ranger showed. Yeah, I probably will skip that one.
as for TV, Ive been watching the old X-Men animated series that I watched when I was growing up.
I have very fond memories of the original Fantastic Four series and of the Marvel Super Heroes bits, including the X-Men (slumming as "Allies For Peace")
the Thor title card is awesome
I didn't see much new stuff this month. I keep meaning to have a movie-centric month to have a lot of ammo for these days, but it didn't happen this month.
If you can't manage something for next month, well, you just aren't trying.
Haven't seen this week's Game of Thrones yet, but it's starting to feel like the episodes are padded a bit to stretch the book into 20 episodes. I wonder if it's due to wanting certain plot points to end the season.