At The Movies

Monday Movie Day

84 Comments

...not so much "Third."

I saw a few excellent episodes of Game of Thrones and some average episodes of sitcoms. I don't think I've seen any movies in the last month, though I did see the first 20 excellent minutes of Skyfall, which had the proper lack of believability. Maybe I'll see the rest today.

84 thoughts on “Monday Movie Day”

  2. TV and movie watching has gotten a lot harder lately. One show we did specifically carve out time for was Almost Human.

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    1. I've seen the first two episodes of AM as well. I am also

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      Other new show I'm watching is Brooklyn Nine-nine My feelings mirror those for AM

      I also watched Quantum of Solace and Skyfall. My library system doesn't have Casino Royale on DVD at all, only BluRay, so I couldn't do the full David Craig trifecta.

      1. Ooh, my first try with the new spoiler tab- let's see how bad I can eff it up! About Almost Human:

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      2. Casino Royale is easily the best of the three (so far), but Skyfall was waaaay, waaaay better than QoS, which suh-hucked. They could have just plugged Roger Moore in as Bond and called that one a day.

        1. I absolutely loved Casino Royale. Skyfall was the best reviewed, as I remember, so I'm looking forward to seeing it. This is only based on a couple of reviews I heard, though, so it might not be accurate.

          1. I never watched QoS because it was so resoundingly trashed, but otherwise I will echo bS's thoughts.

            1. Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.

              I remember when the title track for "Skyfall" was released I emailed the GF about it and she asked how it it sounded. All I could come up with was "very Bond-y", which I think is very accurate.

        4. QoS was worse than how I imagine Hope Floats to be because a) I already expect Hope Floats to suck, and b) Casino Royale was so good that it set the bar really high for Mr. Craig.

    2. There is a nice bit of wry humor in the show that is entertaining. It's a blatant rip-off of I, Robot, but I'm not sure that they're hiding that fact. The criminal environment of Chicago (? it looked like Navy Pier in one nighttime overhead shot) reminds me more of Robocop, though, so far.

      This isn't the first buddy robot police team TV show.

    1. I discovered a lot of episodes of TNG and other Star Trek series are free on the CBS website.

  4. sloowly working through breaking bad again. catching up on S05 part 1. oh man,

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    also about 2 episodes behind on P&R. starting to lose some steam, i think.

    1. i should also quickly add that this episode, along with jesse's line in the desert had one of my favorite "little" BB moments:

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  5. .
    .
    Ender's Game - I liked it. Was it rushed? Yeah, pretty much had to be to fit into the movie length. Were important pieces missing? No, not in my opinion. Could it have been longer? Well, sure.

    Archer (series 1-3) - I'm finding that I'm not the only one who likes Pam the best.

    Game of Thrones (season 3) - half way through, although much of it I'd seen parts of while sitting in the hotel room in Omaha this past year.

    Almost Human - we're liking it. Good acting, good effects, interesting story; looks like a good Fringe replacement. Hopefully they start working on a longer story arch.

    Runner daughter and I continue to enjoy Sleepy Hollow; Marvel Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the other hand is losing me. The latest ep looks like it might be better, but the series is on probation.

    1. Ranking my Archer characters would be difficult. Of the main ISIS characters, I think it goes something like:

      Krieger
      Pam
      Archer
      Woodhouse
      Lana
      Ray
      Cyril
      Mallory
      Cheryl/Carol

      My absolute favorite tertiary character is Jakov's aide Boris

    2. I haven't watched a network drama since LOST. I'm open to suggestion although I've developed a real annoyance for their lack of teeth. I may give Almost Human a shot, based on recommendations here, cautious though they are.

    3. Sleepy Hollow has been reasonably enjoyable for me. It does have the feel of a show that might not have many seasons in it though, since everything is tied into the main storyline so tightly.

      1. I forgot to mention earlier, but I'm pleased with the diversity of the Sleepy Hollow cast: of the main characters, three are female, three are black, one is Asian (John Cho), and one Hispanic (born in TX, but still). And one has no head.

        1. so, you are telling me to start watching/recording Sleepy Hollow? I'm recording Almost Human, and about ready to give up on Agents of SHIELD.

      2. Oh. And as stated above, yeah, you should probably watch Fringe.

        I need to start both Sleepy Hollow and Almost Human. I have had no time though.

  6. Moved this down, since I was sort of hijacking Rhu-ru's thread-

    I watched the first season of Venture Brothers on Netflix, not sure why there's only the first season on there but I'm hoping they get some more on soon.

    Also going through Supernatural (watched most of seasons 1,2 and 4 while it was running on TV, so a bunch of the episodes are new to me). The first few seasons are done well enough that I don't mind the serious slump that I know is coming after season 5. Also, Grimm wishes it was anywhere near this good- I've pretty much given up on that show.

    And I just watched In Bruges this morning! Hell of a cast, and a twisty little story that ended up not going much of anywhere but was entertaining to watch.

    1. Cartoon Network seems to have put up nothing but the first season of several shows; I figure it's an attempt to sell DVDs. I'm hoping for more as well.

      Venture Bros. gets better and better, in general. The story grows and changes, there are major plot twists, and it's often awesome even when it's not being funny at all.

      1. Venture Bros. is one of my absolute favorites. I was a huge Jonny Quest fan, and it is parodied to a tee.

        Love this scene:
        httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pJnZaA_lCc

    2. I've persisted on Supernatural and continue to enjoy it. Yes, there were some rough patches

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      but the humor-infused episodes are almost Buffy-like in their qualities. (the lows are Buffy-like too, unfortunately, albeit without the gratuitous softcore).

    3. Quite a coincidence. I started back up with watching Supernatural after having drifted away from it sometime during season two. I'm surprised how much I enjoy it still. I'm going to keep up with it this time.

      1. Yeah, I've been tearing through it. There's some rough spots and it takes a while to get up to speed and then goes overboard on angst and drama for a while, but for the most part the writing, special effects and action scenes are pretty darn good for a network TV show.

  7. There's lots of time to watch movies on long flights. I fit in four:

    Wreck-It Ralph was fun, especially with all the video game nods (I loved Zangief). Nothing too spectacular, but I enjoyed it.

    Iron Man 3 was a stinker for me. I was really bored with it, although the last action scene was at least good. One thing bothered me, although I don't know if it was the case in the comics, or whatever, as well:

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    Star Trek: Into Darkness I liked a lot. Simon Pegg is always entertaining and Benedict Cumberbatch was great. The only thing that bothered me was:

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    My favorite movie of the four I watched, though, was Pacific Rim. Holy crap was that fun to watch. I definitely need to watch it again on a bigger screen, but all of the fight scenes were entertaining (two hours of boss battles? Yes, Please.) and Charlie was great. This probably had the most likeable cast in a movie ever and I loved every scene with Charlie and Ron Perlman, for some reason. But yeah, the monsters and robots were fantastic.

    1. Oh yeah, I saw Iron Man 3. My reaction was pretty much the exact opposite of Cheap. I loved seeing Tony back to basics, working with what he had. I thought the extremity of the villainous powers was a bit, well, extreme. But it was waaaay better than #2, and I liked the humanity of the character, especially post-Avengers, which seemed to lack some of the emotional touches that the individual movies have.

      I don't remember if I comments on ST:Into Darkness here last month, but... meh. Some of the individual characters were fun, but mostly it left me unimpressed.

      1. especially post-Avengers, which seemed to lack some of the emotional touches that the individual movies have.

        Very far be it from me to defend a movie with very little emotional touch, but I sort of forgave The Avengers because of the need to fit everything into 2.5 hours. With the number of characters necessary, I wasn't totally upset that it was mainly about fan service.

        Usually, "fan service" movies suck, though, so if you'd told me going in that this is what The Avengers is, it possibly would have scared me off.

        1. I don't disagree at all. I was totally willing to forgive Avengers. I wouldn't have been similarly forgiving for the single hero franchises though.

    2. Pacific Rim was so fun. I went to it twice in the theater. If more summer "blockbusters" were like it, I'd probably enjoy a hell of a lot more of them.

  8. We saw that James Galdofini/Julia Louis-Dreyfus movie Enough Said. Nice little adult (not p0rno) film. Real situations, dialogue, sets. Also JL-D is quite fetching, given her age (52).

    Also finally saw the last episode of Sherlock. Question for the crowd:

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    .

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        1. Archer: No, do not say the Chekhov Gun, Cyril. That, sir, is a facile argument.
          Woodhouse: And also, woefully esoteric.
          Archer: Woodhouse...
          Woodhouse: Fetching a rug, sir.

            1. Believe it or not, I've seen that series in its entirety. A close friend in college had all of them on VHS, and I'd hang out with them and we'd marathon through. I never saw any of them more than once, but I saw them all.

              1. I've seen every episode at least a couple times, and some probably dozens of times. I used to watch it almost daily up in one of the bedrooms at my grandparents' house when we'd go for holiday or summer visits in the early 1970s.

                The fight music was the awesomist.

    2. From the Repository on "Sherlock"

      On 1 September 2013, the BBC announced that filming on series 3 had been completed.[73] Although the BBC has not announced the UK broadcast dates, the new series will premiere on PBS in the U.S. on 19 January 2014, as part of its Masterpiece anthology series. Masterpiece executive producer Rebecca Eaton notes the BBC has "first window" rights, indicating the programme may premiere on the BBC no later than its American debut.[74]

      Less than 2 months at the most to the next episode.

  9. I have seen a bunch of movies in the past 5 weeks!

    Star Trek: Into Darkness – finally. I think I commented on it before, but wanted to say that I really, really enjoyed this.

    End of Watch – basically Training Day without Denzel & Ethan Hawke…still a decent flick.

    Dead Man Down – A great cast with a kind-of “meh” story. Everyone played their roles well, but I didn’t love it.

    13 Assassins – Awesome “Man’s Night” at home. This was pretty epic.

    Safe Haven - Better than expected; I’m a fan of Josh Duhamel when he doesn’t have to do much.

    Blitz – See immediately above and substitute “Jason Statham” for “Josh Duhamel.”

    Polar Express – Kernel loves the train scenes so this has been on repeat at my house for about a week. I find the animation of the people kind-of creepy myself.

    This Is The End – Much funnier than I thought it would be. Enough people told me to check it out that my wife and I finally did. It was entertaining.

    The Hunger Games: Catching Fire – This was a 2 hour 30 min movie that flew by. Well-paced, great story, and I think Jennifer Lawrence is amazing. I still don’t care for Josh Hutcherson as this character, but this movie was really well done.

    Up – this is still awesome and probably the first movie my kid has sat through in it’s entirety.

    Walking Dead - 3 recent episodes, but not last night’s.

    1. 13 Assassins was truly great. It scratched the exact itch that I was hoping it would. Much like Seven Samurai*, it takes its time setting up its endgame, then takes relishes unleashing it (and "unleashing" is definitely the right word, that last fortyfive minute or so is a hell of a thing). Loved the whole thing.

      * Which is not really to compare the two, tone-wise, since the way they execute their endings is much different, there are simply fairly obvious parallels to be drawn.

  10. Mama--Mexican horror ghost story. The story itself is one you've heard a thousand times, and it's been panned quite a bit. But I really liked it. Very stylish, and superb camerawork. Several times I was on the edge of my seat, and I typically don't like ghost stories. Jessica Chastain is pretty good and I liked the little girls as well.

    Promised Land--Matt Damon vehicle about fracking in Nebraska. Tries to be neutral on the subject and fails miserably. Very manipulative. Charming at times. Damon is very good as usual.

  11. Moonrise Kingdom - Shocked that Linds picked this out. I don't think she had any idea what the movie was going to be about, since she's not usually the one who will pick out the twee indie stuff. This was a lot more fun than I was expecting, and we both enjoyed it quite a bit. Absolutely a Wes Anderson flick, though - sometimes that irritates me, but the performances were solid enough here that it didn't bug me.

    The young female lead reminded me of Lana Del Rey in an unshakeable way. That's not really important, but it was in my head just about the entire time.

    World War Z - The Walking Dead has spoiled me in one way - I need violence in my zombie movies. There is no other genre of movie where I need it. I don't *really* mind cutaways in action movies and the like, but for some reason, every time the camera winced away, I became annoyed. Other than that, WWZ is... acceptable. It does almost have the feel of a pilot episode to a series at times. I guess I would watch that series based on this pilot, so... weak praise?

    This Is the End - Obscene. Sacreligious. Hilarious. Cheaptoy's hatred of Seth Rogan be damned, this is the funniest movie I've seen in a while.

    Young Adult - Decent enough. Set in Minnesota. Strong performances by Charlize Theron and Patton Oswalt. Very damning to anyone with extreme nostalgia-tinted glasses.

    1. On This is the End being "sacrilege":

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    2. There was a story going around this summer about Rihanna in This Is The End

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  12. I actually watched a lot of movies this month for a change.

    I saw About Time and it really, really hit me hard. Like really hard because of some personal stuff I've been going through. I probably had a different reaction than intended, but I thought it was excellent (of course, I'm not super into scifi, so any unexplained and unexplored loopholes didn't affect my enjoyment), and powerful, and humorous, and emotional.

    I finally watched Moneyball and thought it was pretty good given the limitations of me already knowing almost the entire story. I was very impressed that they could capture so many things, and I was not too perturbed by the things they glossed over or dumbed down.

    The first 25 minutes of Anna Karenina were incredibly visually stimulating. The book is so great and all-encompassing that pretty much any adaption will pale in comparison, but I still thought they could have done a better job tracking her devolution in society.

    Beasts of the Southern Wild was enjoyable and unique, but nothing much else to me.

  13. I watched Bridegroom. Documentary about a young homosexual couple. Pretty painful to watc the actions of one man's family.

    I took the boy to Free Bird. It was ok.

  14. I have been watching Andy Ritcher Controls the Universe. I thought it would be funnier, maybe the back half of the show will pick up.
    I have all but given up on Agents of SHIELD

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    1. I remember really enjoying Andy Richter..., but it had me at the pilot, so whatever.
      Have you gotten to the longing for a second TV yet?

  15. I actually sort of saw a movie this month, since the Doctor Who 50th anniversary was shown in some theaters. I watched in on TV, of course. It wasn't perfect, but I was pretty well satisfied. My biggest fear was that they would try to do too much, and they didn't, but they still did enough. Without having to spoiler anything, I'll just say that I especially liked the bit at the end.

    1. My aunt is a big Doctor Who fan. I've seen most of the Torchwood Miracle Day series since I moved in. We watched the 50th anniversary special too. I'd never seen even 2 minutes of Doctor Who proper, but I have a passing familiarity with it due to the buzz on the internet. As a nearly complete outsider, I found it entertaining and enjoyable. I had to ask a question or two here and there, but nothing crazy.

      1. I recommend the current series heartily, and I'm definitely not a sci-fi guy by birth. I don't have enough information to comment on the older ones, though as a youth I remember liking Tom Baker quite a bit (and reviews I've read suggest that this is a common feeling).

        1. I've been intrigued enough to think I'll start watching the new episodes with Chris Eccelston.

          1. Yeah, I'd definitely start with the new series. I enjoy the classic series a lot, but I suspect it'd seem awfully dated to someone who had no experience with the show.

  16. Oh shoot there was one.
    1. Spring Breakers
    2. Great Gatsby
    3. ???
    4. Jack the Giant Killer
    Wonder if I'll get around to saying something about these...

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