I haven't been this busy in a while. I feel like I'll never see another movie.
52 thoughts on “Third Monday Movie Day”
Go for it, dudes.
(Please?)
I saw a few more episodes of Game of Thrones and the first half of Skyfall. I finally have some days off and nobody cramping my style, so I have a chance to see some stuff here.
I would like the season 3 dvd's to come out on the Netflix for Game of Thrones, please. I was trying to keep up with them in, uhhhh, less than reputable ways, but I decided I'd rather watch with a good picture.
Otherwise, not a lot of movies lately. The trinket has been watching Elf about twenty times a day. I started Burn Notice and Fringe (I love the production of this show, but I've only watched the pilot so far, so more opinion to come later.) and I'm working on finishing up the first season of House of Cards before the second drops.
i finally finished up house of cards not too long ago. pretty much agree with everything in sepinwall's review: good, but not great (lots of spoilers).
I think it's just that Season 3 of Game of Thrones hasn't been released yet in any format. Looks like Feb 18th is the release date. (I think digital and DVD/Blu-Ray.)
Yeah, I know, I just like to blame Netflix at times for things that are neither their fault nor in their control.
I succombed and watched season 3 via sketchy website, so I'm ready for the new season. Working off the latest Dr. Who season now.
On the fall season continuation, Almost Human has been entertaining, Sleepy Hollow hasn't fallen off any cliff yet, and MARVEL Agents of Shield still does not impress. Intelligence is waiting in the wings next month.
Watched a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, and just saw Argo for the first time. Liked them both.
Knock knock
Who's there?
Argo
Oh! And also saw Moonrise Kingdom -- two thumbs up.
Mostly been catching up on current TV shows, not much for movies.
Was going to give up on Grimm, but it was on the DVR and it's been interesting enough after the first episode of the season that I'm giving it another shot.
A couple movies and some TV...
* Saw Frozen on Saturday. It was a fun, very pretty movie that felt very mid-90's Disney in tone and whatnot. Also, very very musical.
* The new Hunger Games movie was just like the first, only slightly better (they got rid of shaky-cam, for one). Peeta is still played by the wrong actor, but they can't fix that now, can they?
* Young Adult was notable in that one of the scenes took place in the diner in Rogers. I liked it for the most part. It was darkly humorous in the parts that need it, and the idea of people being incorrectly nostalgic for long past periods of their lives felt timely (a friend of mine has been all about that lately). Patton Oswalt does a solid job.
And TV...
* Linds and I finally started Lost. She's hooked. I'm cautiously hooked (one of the true downfalls of watching a show you've heard people talk about for years).
* Revenge, Walking Dead, and Scandal have all gone on mid-season break. All three shows spun their wheels a little bit this year.
* I'd include Parks and Rec in that list, but I honestly have no idea whether it's on hiatus or whether they're going to release a new episode every four or five weeks, or what.
Strange pacing. They spend two whole episodes trying to get us invested in the Governer character, only to basically nullify any character development and kill him off the very next episode. They may have thought they were deepening his character by trying to attatch it to some sort of "reason", but I never ended up buying the reason, and therefore, it was just two wasted hours. Once you've seen a guy go crazy and mow down a truckload of his own people, he's sort of past the "sympathy/character development" line. The show needed a human monster, and I thought he was fine as that, but they spent a lot of time in a failed experiment to give him any depth.
How far are you on Lost? I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
The others just kidnapped the pregnant girl and Charlie (that scene was spine-tingling, even though I saw it coming - always a nice surprise). I'm definitely hooked, I like the way they're taking their time building each character into a living, breathing person with motivations and giving most of them something to do besides perform as props for plots. I'm genuinely interested in seeing where they go with a lot of this, and there isn't any particular thing so far that feels extraneous.
The only reason I say that I'm "cautiously" hooked is that I've heard that a lot of the things that I've brought up aren't of uniformly good quality throughout the length of the series.
Yes, there are some problems along the way. But mostly, enjoy the characters and the ride.
The only new movie I've seen is Identity Thief. I wanted a brainless movie and I got one in spades. I thought I might get some funny with Bateman and McCarthy, but my word is that script terrible.
Second worst movie I've seen all year, I think. Linds and I got dragged to it by some friends. After the movie was over, they noted that we hadn't laughed very much.
What was the worst? If your answer isn't Movie 43, I'm going to suggest you can find one worse!
I didn't see Movie 43, though Netflix figured we'd give that one 1-star (while also putting it on the "movies you'll like!" playlist). The only one I saw that was worse was Twentynine Palms, which was boring, then pretentious, then exploitative, then pointless.
I should note that I haven't seen more than three or four movies that I really disliked this year. I'm either getting much kinder to movies as the years pass, or I'm getting better at avoiding what I know I'll dislike.
I couldn't get through three minutes of Movie 43 on Netflix. Tomato tomato rotten tomato.
My friend and I set a timer when the movie started to see how long we could last. One hour, seven minutes, fifty five point eight seconds.
Yahoo says it was only the second worst of the year.
In the spirit of this "comedy" anthology featuring an ensemble of embarrassed actors, we'll turn to an ensemble of critics (we couldn't possibly top these respones): "Utterly disgusting" (Entertainment Weekly); "'Movie 43' is the 'Citizen Kane' of awful (Richard Roeper); "Deadly dull, unfunny, offensive" (The New Yorker); "The ugly stinking maw of a Hollywood system that thinks you're an idiot" (Film.com); "As a film critic, I've seen nearly 4,000 movies over the last 15 years. Right now, I can't think of one worse than 'Movie 43'" (New York Daily News). —K.P.
Watched quite a few movies over Thanksgiving.
Frances Ha. I'd been wanting to watch this for a very long time, and we finally had the chance to sit down and watch it. I absolutely adored it. It reminded me a lot of my favorite moments of the series Girls, except the characters weren't all insufferable. It was sweet without being cloying, and Greta Gertwig's performance as Frances was stellar. Barring a late surprise (I have a few things to watch before I finalize my list), this will probably be in my top 3 movies of the year. Loved it. It's on Netflix, so you should watch it.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Definitely better than the first film. I still feel like if I hadn't read the books I wouldn't have gotten so much out of it. It was good, not great. I'm glad I went to it, though.
Wolf Children. Watched this again now that it's out on Blu-ray. It's still really wonderful. At least this time I didn't fall asleep for 15 minutes during it. On the other hand I wasn't in LA when I watched it this time.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part III: The Rebellion Story. Groan. It was decent up until the final act which pissed all over everything the series had done. All in the name of, seemingly, making another TV series. I hate you, Gen Urobochi.
J and I also continued our now second annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition of staying awake until 6 am powering through a TV series. This year it was The Fall. It's a BBC show about a serial killer and the woman heading the case to catch him. Gillian Anderson is the woman heading the case and she's absolutely wonderful in the role. We were unaware there was a second series, so we were a bit taken aback by the ending. We are really excited for it to continue, though.
Oh, yeah, The Fall- watched the first episode, but the wife gave up about halfway through, so I'll be on my own for the rest. I'm hoping it picks up the pace a bit, more like Luther and Wallander, but it has my attention for now.
It picks up a fair bit. There was something really unexpected that happened in episode 2 I think? From that point on the pace of the show got much, much better.
I figured it almost had to speed up some- after all the set-up got done in the first episode- but it's nice to know for sure.
With the money it made, I'm surprised it took this long.
Well, so much for another Cameron movie I'll actually want to see anytime soon.
will one be a musical?
They'll save that for the re-boot.
Broadway!
And then a film version of the musical.
With one new song so it's Oscar-eligible!
4 ???
5 Profit!
I just wish NewsRadio was still going so it could do an Avatar-themed episode.
Christmas movies and the final season of 30 Rock. That's about it.
I tried watching The Kids are Alright over the weekend but ended up falling asleep 20 minutes into it.
There are about 15 movies that I have seen commercials for that come out between now and the end of the year. I'll probably end up seeing zero at the theater and forgetting to catch them when they are on DVD, but I really want to catch American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street.
I loved The Kids Are Alright.
I want to see both of those as well as Nebraska and Her. I'm also hoping Inside Llwelyn Davis opens up nearby sometime soon, too.
looking forward to seeing ILD as well. also, slightly related, as the pirate noted in the CoC, i'm happy to see the hail, caesar should be going forward, but it's looking more and more like the bros. aren't ever going to do the yiddish policemen's union.
grampaS has announced that he wants me to take him to see Nebraska and Desolation of Smaug when he gets out here in January. Hopefully the former will still be around (I have no doubt that the latter will, even if it's less than stellar, which is what I'm hearing).
no movies to report here. Although I did record Deathly Hallows I and II during the free movie weekend recently. Watched the first half (so-so). Wanting to see the second half this week, hoping for various loose threads to be tied together semi-satisfactorily.
hoping for various loose threads to be tied together semi-satisfactorily
I thought the ending was fairly true to the books, so semi-satisfactorily is probably a decent descriptor. Probably would be unfair to expect it to be better than the books, but there was definitely room for improvement, IMO.
I thought the ending was fairly true to the books, so semi-satisfactorily is probably a decent descriptor.
Honestly, why does one have anything to do with the other? If the movie is slavish to the source material, is there any reason to watch in the first place? Even if so, not every book has an ending worthy of finishing a film. This one does, but I would still love to understand why "similarity to book" has anything to do with how good a movie is.
I think Higgs was implying that the ending to the movie was much like the ending to the book series, which he thought was decent. I didn't read any "it would have been a tragedy if they had altered anything" into his comment.
Yep, nibbish caught what I was saying. If you were happy with how the books ended, the movie ending should be satisfactory.
The funny thing is that Kelly is arguing my point, poorly parsed though my comment may have been. My "room for improvement" was because I personally thought that the last couple of books weren't the best source material and I wished that the movies could have deviated a bit more from the books, though I'm not surprised it didn't happen in this instance.
My wife has been hooked on Scandal, and while I find some of the plot elements interesting, in general I am not a fan. Too many characters I don't care about. I've started Long Way Round on Netflix streaming, and I like it because they're traveling through fascinating places, but it's certainly no Top Gear.
I also watched Persona a couple weeks ago. It wasn't really what I expected, but it was well done. Wild Strawberries is on deck.
Persona as in the Bergman film?
Yep
Excellent. Yeah, it's...like nothing else. I love Bergman's work, though it's very difficult for modern audiences to sit through. The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite movies, though much of the humor doesn't translate very well.
I enjoy watching foreign movies, but I often feel that a lot of emotion gets lost in translation, and that reading the subtitles distracts from being able to observe the picture. I don't really have any way to fix that outside of learning more languages, but I enjoy many of the movies anyway. (Some of the Italian films I have seen have just been too far over the top for my Northern European sensibilities.) I have something of a Bergman bender lined up in my DVD queue, but it's hard to find time to watch them since my wife generally doesn't want to watch anything "serious" or with subtitles.
The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite movies, though much of the humor doesn't translate very well.
I like that one a lot, too, it actually struck me as pretty accessible the last time I watched it.
I saw Nebraska down in Omaha at a theater owned by Alexander Payne and really enjoyed it. My brothers were struggling to stay away, but it was a great take on lying to ourselves and midwestern passive aggressiveness. It could easily have been called Fargo and been set to follow a person down from North Dakota into the Twin Cities. My favorite Alexander Payne movie since Election.
I watched 2001: A Space Oddity recently. It was absolutely hilarious watching my dog respond to all the electronic sounds.
My favorite Alexander Payne movie since Election.
I mean I was sold before but SOOOOLLLLLLD.
At Film Streams? I see it there now when the hotel shuttle drove by.
Yes, that's the place. My cousin works there part-time, so she got us the hookup.
It could easily have been called Fargo and been set to follow a person down from North Dakota into the Twin Cities.
Go for it, dudes.
(Please?)
I saw a few more episodes of Game of Thrones and the first half of Skyfall. I finally have some days off and nobody cramping my style, so I have a chance to see some stuff here.
I would like the season 3 dvd's to come out on the Netflix for Game of Thrones, please. I was trying to keep up with them in, uhhhh, less than reputable ways, but I decided I'd rather watch with a good picture.
Otherwise, not a lot of movies lately. The trinket has been watching Elf about twenty times a day. I started Burn Notice and Fringe (I love the production of this show, but I've only watched the pilot so far, so more opinion to come later.) and I'm working on finishing up the first season of House of Cards before the second drops.
i finally finished up house of cards not too long ago. pretty much agree with everything in sepinwall's review: good, but not great (lots of spoilers).
I think it's just that Season 3 of Game of Thrones hasn't been released yet in any format. Looks like Feb 18th is the release date. (I think digital and DVD/Blu-Ray.)
Yeah, I know, I just like to blame Netflix at times for things that are neither their fault nor in their control.
I succombed and watched season 3 via sketchy website, so I'm ready for the new season. Working off the latest Dr. Who season now.
On the fall season continuation, Almost Human has been entertaining, Sleepy Hollow hasn't fallen off any cliff yet, and MARVEL Agents of Shield still does not impress. Intelligence is waiting in the wings next month.
Watched a documentary on Hunter S. Thompson, and just saw Argo for the first time. Liked them both.
Knock knock
Who's there?
Argo
Oh! And also saw Moonrise Kingdom -- two thumbs up.
Mostly been catching up on current TV shows, not much for movies.
Was going to give up on Grimm, but it was on the DVR and it's been interesting enough after the first episode of the season that I'm giving it another shot.
A couple movies and some TV...
* Saw Frozen on Saturday. It was a fun, very pretty movie that felt very mid-90's Disney in tone and whatnot. Also, very very musical.
* The new Hunger Games movie was just like the first, only slightly better (they got rid of shaky-cam, for one). Peeta is still played by the wrong actor, but they can't fix that now, can they?
* Young Adult was notable in that one of the scenes took place in the diner in Rogers. I liked it for the most part. It was darkly humorous in the parts that need it, and the idea of people being incorrectly nostalgic for long past periods of their lives felt timely (a friend of mine has been all about that lately). Patton Oswalt does a solid job.
And TV...
* Linds and I finally started Lost. She's hooked. I'm cautiously hooked (one of the true downfalls of watching a show you've heard people talk about for years).
* Revenge, Walking Dead, and Scandal have all gone on mid-season break. All three shows spun their wheels a little bit this year.
* I'd include Parks and Rec in that list, but I honestly have no idea whether it's on hiatus or whether they're going to release a new episode every four or five weeks, or what.
* Re: Walking Dead...
How far are you on Lost? I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.
We're eleven episodes in...
The only new movie I've seen is Identity Thief. I wanted a brainless movie and I got one in spades. I thought I might get some funny with Bateman and McCarthy, but my word is that script terrible.
Second worst movie I've seen all year, I think. Linds and I got dragged to it by some friends. After the movie was over, they noted that we hadn't laughed very much.
What was the worst? If your answer isn't Movie 43, I'm going to suggest you can find one worse!
I didn't see Movie 43, though Netflix figured we'd give that one 1-star (while also putting it on the "movies you'll like!" playlist). The only one I saw that was worse was Twentynine Palms, which was boring, then pretentious, then exploitative, then pointless.
I should note that I haven't seen more than three or four movies that I really disliked this year. I'm either getting much kinder to movies as the years pass, or I'm getting better at avoiding what I know I'll dislike.
I couldn't get through three minutes of Movie 43 on Netflix. Tomato tomato rotten tomato.
My friend and I set a timer when the movie started to see how long we could last. One hour, seven minutes, fifty five point eight seconds.
Yahoo says it was only the second worst of the year.
Watched quite a few movies over Thanksgiving.
Frances Ha. I'd been wanting to watch this for a very long time, and we finally had the chance to sit down and watch it. I absolutely adored it. It reminded me a lot of my favorite moments of the series Girls, except the characters weren't all insufferable. It was sweet without being cloying, and Greta Gertwig's performance as Frances was stellar. Barring a late surprise (I have a few things to watch before I finalize my list), this will probably be in my top 3 movies of the year. Loved it. It's on Netflix, so you should watch it.
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Definitely better than the first film. I still feel like if I hadn't read the books I wouldn't have gotten so much out of it. It was good, not great. I'm glad I went to it, though.
Wolf Children. Watched this again now that it's out on Blu-ray. It's still really wonderful. At least this time I didn't fall asleep for 15 minutes during it. On the other hand I wasn't in LA when I watched it this time.
Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part III: The Rebellion Story. Groan. It was decent up until the final act which pissed all over everything the series had done. All in the name of, seemingly, making another TV series. I hate you, Gen Urobochi.
J and I also continued our now second annual Thanksgiving weekend tradition of staying awake until 6 am powering through a TV series. This year it was The Fall. It's a BBC show about a serial killer and the woman heading the case to catch him. Gillian Anderson is the woman heading the case and she's absolutely wonderful in the role. We were unaware there was a second series, so we were a bit taken aback by the ending. We are really excited for it to continue, though.
Oh, yeah, The Fall- watched the first episode, but the wife gave up about halfway through, so I'll be on my own for the rest. I'm hoping it picks up the pace a bit, more like Luther and Wallander, but it has my attention for now.
It picks up a fair bit. There was something really unexpected that happened in episode 2 I think? From that point on the pace of the show got much, much better.
I figured it almost had to speed up some- after all the set-up got done in the first episode- but it's nice to know for sure.
Everyone's favorite blockbuster film is going to have not one but three sequels.
With the money it made, I'm surprised it took this long.
Well, so much for another Cameron movie I'll actually want to see anytime soon.
will one be a musical?
They'll save that for the re-boot.
Broadway!
And then a film version of the musical.
With one new song so it's Oscar-eligible!
4 ???
5 Profit!
I just wish NewsRadio was still going so it could do an Avatar-themed episode.
Christmas movies and the final season of 30 Rock. That's about it.
I tried watching The Kids are Alright over the weekend but ended up falling asleep 20 minutes into it.
There are about 15 movies that I have seen commercials for that come out between now and the end of the year. I'll probably end up seeing zero at the theater and forgetting to catch them when they are on DVD, but I really want to catch American Hustle and The Wolf of Wall Street.
I loved The Kids Are Alright.
I want to see both of those as well as Nebraska and Her. I'm also hoping Inside Llwelyn Davis opens up nearby sometime soon, too.
looking forward to seeing ILD as well. also, slightly related, as the pirate noted in the CoC, i'm happy to see the hail, caesar should be going forward, but it's looking more and more like the bros. aren't ever going to do the yiddish policemen's union.
grampaS has announced that he wants me to take him to see Nebraska and Desolation of Smaug when he gets out here in January. Hopefully the former will still be around (I have no doubt that the latter will, even if it's less than stellar, which is what I'm hearing).
no movies to report here. Although I did record Deathly Hallows I and II during the free movie weekend recently. Watched the first half (so-so). Wanting to see the second half this week, hoping for various loose threads to be tied together semi-satisfactorily.
I thought the ending was fairly true to the books, so semi-satisfactorily is probably a decent descriptor. Probably would be unfair to expect it to be better than the books, but there was definitely room for improvement, IMO.
Honestly, why does one have anything to do with the other? If the movie is slavish to the source material, is there any reason to watch in the first place? Even if so, not every book has an ending worthy of finishing a film. This one does, but I would still love to understand why "similarity to book" has anything to do with how good a movie is.
I think Higgs was implying that the ending to the movie was much like the ending to the book series, which he thought was decent. I didn't read any "it would have been a tragedy if they had altered anything" into his comment.
Yep, nibbish caught what I was saying. If you were happy with how the books ended, the movie ending should be satisfactory.
The funny thing is that Kelly is arguing my point, poorly parsed though my comment may have been. My "room for improvement" was because I personally thought that the last couple of books weren't the best source material and I wished that the movies could have deviated a bit more from the books, though I'm not surprised it didn't happen in this instance.
My wife has been hooked on Scandal, and while I find some of the plot elements interesting, in general I am not a fan. Too many characters I don't care about. I've started Long Way Round on Netflix streaming, and I like it because they're traveling through fascinating places, but it's certainly no Top Gear.
I also watched Persona a couple weeks ago. It wasn't really what I expected, but it was well done. Wild Strawberries is on deck.
Persona as in the Bergman film?
Yep
Excellent. Yeah, it's...like nothing else. I love Bergman's work, though it's very difficult for modern audiences to sit through. The Seventh Seal is one of my favorite movies, though much of the humor doesn't translate very well.
I enjoy watching foreign movies, but I often feel that a lot of emotion gets lost in translation, and that reading the subtitles distracts from being able to observe the picture. I don't really have any way to fix that outside of learning more languages, but I enjoy many of the movies anyway. (Some of the Italian films I have seen have just been too far over the top for my Northern European sensibilities.) I have something of a Bergman bender lined up in my DVD queue, but it's hard to find time to watch them since my wife generally doesn't want to watch anything "serious" or with subtitles.
I like that one a lot, too, it actually struck me as pretty accessible the last time I watched it.
I saw Nebraska down in Omaha at a theater owned by Alexander Payne and really enjoyed it. My brothers were struggling to stay away, but it was a great take on lying to ourselves and midwestern passive aggressiveness. It could easily have been called Fargo and been set to follow a person down from North Dakota into the Twin Cities. My favorite Alexander Payne movie since Election.
I watched 2001: A Space Oddity recently. It was absolutely hilarious watching my dog respond to all the electronic sounds.
I mean I was sold before but SOOOOLLLLLLD.
At Film Streams? I see it there now when the hotel shuttle drove by.
Yes, that's the place. My cousin works there part-time, so she got us the hookup.
What would be the point of that?