TheLastBaron

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Posts posted by TheLastBaron

  1. Posted

    I just realized I forgot to type something here about Curse of the Jade Scorpion right after I watched it a week ago. Basically it's ridiculous, but not unenjoyable. There are Woody Allen movies that I think are good, and there are Woody Allen movies that I think are bad, and then there are Woody Allen movies that I think are bad but enjoy. This was very firmly in the last category. Like what the fuck was this movie? 

  3. Posted

    Really good point about the fight being a repeat of RotJ, it was something I thought of too while watching it.  I also agree about Tarkin's voice.  It seemed like the main part of Peter Cushing's performance they tried to mimic was the fact that he rolled his r's, but I didn't really think the cadence of how Tarkin talked was the same at all.  Like I said before though, he's dead, there's only so much you can do I guess.

  5. Posted

    So I'm assuming that this thread is in spoiler territory so I'm not going to use tags, but just in case THERE ARE GOING TO BE SPOILERS IN MY POST.

     

     

    I'm going to expand on this, but for the mean time I'll throw some random thoughts down just to see how it compares to other peoples' experiences and maybe also help me process my reaction to this movie. 

     

     Looking at the movie from a big picture view the third act was the only one I really liked at all.  I thought the first and second acts were somewhere between weak and just bad.  There was so much stuff that just didn't need to be there that could have been cut.  The thing with the pilot getting the tentacle thing?  What purpose did that serve?  It'd be one thing if he wasn't totally fine a little later, but he was.  The first act really did nothing to build any sort of emotional connection to the characters, which brings me to my next point, I had a big problem with most of the characters.  I liked Donnie Yen and the droid, but other than them I didn't enjoy being around any of the other characters.  Also coming out of the film I totally don't remember anyone's name like I did with The Force Awakens.  Also Forest Whitaker totally had a shitty role that served no purpose other than to give the main girl a hologram or whatever and that makes me sad.

     

    I hope the other "spin-off" movies don't all do this (and I have my suspicions that they will), but for me the movie got incredibly close to prequel territory.  By that I mean It felt way to interested in explaining something specifically briefly mentioned in the original films for pedantic, detail oriented, nerds of Star Wars canon.  This is totally in the realm of "this just isn't for me" rather than an actual criticism, but this basically just felt like watching an 

     

    The movie was basically something for me to add to the list of things that I think I totally want, but in the end don't.  On paper if you were to propose the idea of a Star Wars movie that's a straight up war movie (especially if it were presented as "The Dirty Dozen, but it's Star Wars") I'd be all for it.  I like intelligent and morally ambiguous characters for sure, but either the execution in this movie or maybe just when put in the 1977 Star Wars world where everything is black and white did not work for me.

     

    Also as far as the whole CG Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher, I was totally taken out of the movie by the levels of uncanny valley going on.  I watched The Polar Express less than a week ago and I'd go as far as to say that bothered me less (I'm probably being overly dramatic) because Tom Hanks wasn't standing right next to a bunch of real people so it didn't stand out as much as Tarkin did.  I get that Peter Cushing died 22 years ago so there aren't a lot of options, but it distracted me a ton and I just wish they had just made him face away more of the time or something.  Maybe if he was a hologram?  Honestly they could have just downplayed or removed his role entirely because he was a very minor character in the movie.  Also Carrie Fisher in the movie could have totally just never turned around and faced the camera so the fact that she did means it was 100% just a "look what we can do" kind of thing.

     

    As far as totally stupid on my part nit picks, for me not having an opening crawl, not having a John Williams score (I normally love Michael Giacchino, the score to Up is probably my favorite score of the last decade, but I found the movie in Rogue One distracting), and things like the lower third location indicators really took away from any sort of "man I'm totally watching a Star Wars movie!" feeling for me.  I know the music thing especially is a super unfair criticism, John Williams can't and won't do every Star Wars movie (and some day he'll be dead and Disney will still be pumping these out) and I get that, but I'm just giving my experience and these things stood out to me.

     

    For what it's worth I had absolutely no expectations going into this movie.  I saw the very first teaser when it came out and nothing else after.  I went in knowing nothing.  I didn't know Darth Vader was going to be in it, I just knew the basic premise and that there had been some reshoots and that's pretty much it.

     

    I'll try to end this positive.  Things I liked:  the actual 1977 film footage from Star Wars (Red Leader and Gold Leader).  Loved it.  I like Ben Mendlesohn as an actor so that's a plus, and I guess I actually would add him to the list of characters I liked, or at least his cape.  I could have done without Darth Vader being in this movie, but accepting that he's in it it was cool to actually get to see him so something cool since previously it was just a couple of awkward light saber fights which is all you actually get in the original trilogy.  I liked that there were lot's of little girls in the theater even if this movie wasn't made for them and they probably were kind of freaked out by it.

  7. Posted

    It's pretty crazy how far Scully can get just telling people "I'm a medical doctor" and what they'll let her do. Like in the episode with the gorilla she's at the zoo and tells them she's a doctor so they let her start performing an autopsy/dissecting their animals. Now in this episode I just started watching (F. Emasculata) there's a CDC quarantine and she tells the guy there who says he has strict orders that she's a doctor and he lets her in. Now she's inside the area, they've told her everything even though I guess they're keeping the quarantine a secret and while everyone else is in a hazmat suit she's just walking around in her normal jacket and such.

  8. Posted

    So after getting a little negative on X Files I saw the episode Humbug (the one with all the sideshow freaks living in a town) and I really liked it.  I don't know if it was because it was less serious (or specifically less self-serious) than previous episodes, or if I just like Michael J Anderson in anything.

  9. Posted

    I don't have a problem with the monster of the week episodes, like I said I like the one with the psychic in season one.  My disinterest mostly comes from originally I liked that I was ostensibly watching a science fiction show about whether or not there was extraterrestrial life and if there was a government conspiracy trying to cover it up, but then now that isn't the show I'm watching, I'm just watching a show about bad guys with super powers.  I don't even have a problem with that, I liked Smallville when I watched the first few seasons, but it's just that I I was excited to be watching a show that wasn't that and now that show doesn't seem like it actually exists any further than what I've seen.  I liked that there was this dichotomy between Mulder wanting to believe and Scully being the skeptic and I thought in season one they did interesting stuff with making those characters have self doubt (like in Beyond the Sea), but now it seems like instead of there being any questions it's just "Mulder immediately jumps to conclusions, but he's always right and Scully is an idiot for trying to say there's a scientific explanation for the phenomenon they encounter.  Aliens are just totally real, everything is real, magic is real". Also the episodes I'm having a problem with are for sure well made and I have no problem being in the minority, I just think are more on the side of "exciting" rather than "interesting" for my personal tastes.  

     

    Also after my last post I still ended up watching three more episodes last night so there's that.

  10. Posted

    So I've Started watched X Files. I'm towards the end of season 2 and kind of confused. I absolutely loved the first season, but I just watched two episodes in a row, one about a dude that is into stealing the hair from dead girls and one that's about a school where the teachers are into the occult. I was not into either episode at all, and the same goes for a lot of episodes this season. Looking up reviews however, I saw that those two episodes got really positive reviews that pointed out that the show was "pushing in a new direction". Is this the direction that the show goes in? I loved the extraterrestrial stuff and the government conspiracy stuff, but these supernatural thriller episodes do absolutely nothing for me. I get that not every episode is going to be about aliens or even explaining any of the questions they've raised, and that's cool, but I feel like I'm starting to watch Supernatural (or at least what I imagine Supernatural is like since I've never watched it). I did like the episode in season 1 with the psychic inmate and Scully,for what it's worth. 

  11. Posted

    Man, what-cd shut down and I'm super bummed. There were so many albums I got from there that I literally couldn't find anywhere else including ebay/discogs/emailing the labels. I don't see anything replacing it either since now the majority of people can get the music they want through streaming so there's not as many people willing to put in the massive amount of work that what-cd took to build after oink this time around. 

  12. Posted

    On 11/15/2016 at 9:44 AM, Cordeos said:

    The Atlantic has posted a great series of WWI photos:
    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-introduction/507185/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-the-western-front-part-i/507197/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-the-western-front-part-ii-and-armistice/507338/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-global-conflict/507335/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-war-at-sea/507332/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-soldiers-and-civilians/507329/
    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-aerial-warfare/507326/
    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-animals-at-war/507320/

    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-technology/507305/
    http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2016/11/world-war-i-in-photos-a-century-later/507341/

     

    Oh man, those are great.

     

    So a book by a photographer I really like (Fan Ho) is about to get a new printing.  The previous edition has been out of print for a while and goes for around $400 used so getting a new printing that's $65is pretty awesome/exciting.

     

    Here

    are

    some

    cool

    photos

    of

    his.

     

  13. Posted

    Watched River's Edge the other night and thought it was really good. I'm kind of split on how much I like or dislike Crispin Glover in the movie, I definitely think most people who watch the movie will probably hate his performance, but as much as I found it annoying I also knew a couple people like him and that combined with him being Crispin Glover led to me finding it slightly endearing. Other than that I dug everything else in the movie. 

  15. Posted

    Anyone trying out FilmStruck (new streaming service from Turner and Criterion)?  I started a trial and then found out that there aren't any apps for Roku or Apple TV and the Android app doesn't have the ability to cast to a smart device so the only way for me to get the movies on my tv is hdmi out from my PC.  As a result I haven't watched anything yet and I'm going to cancel as soon as the trial ends, but the selection is alright I guess?  It's kind of like a slightly worse Hulu Criterion selection with the added TCM stuff which has a fair amount of movies too.  It doesn't have a lot of the Criterion movies I'd want to watch, but neither did Hulu either.  If the selection rotates frequently though I could see using it once they have Roku/Google Cast support.

     

    Edit: Oh also the bi-annual Criterion sale is going on at Barnes & Noble.

  16. Posted

    So my friend goes to Berklee College of Music and is going to be doing all Simpsons music for his recital next year. He needs help coming up with a name for it and asked me for ideas. Unfortunately I'm not very clever so I figured I'd ask here if anyone could come up with something good. Btw in case anyone is wondering he's performing on bari sax and keytar. 

  17. Posted

    I'm watching Dr. Katz for the first time ever and holy shit this show is amazing. I think I saw a few episodes of it back when it was originally on and being put off because of the animation, but now I look at it and it reminds me of a super shitty 90's adventure game in all the right ways. 

  18. Posted

    Oh wow thanks! A podcast I listen to is recorded each week's as a YouTube stream, but the new episodes haven't been getting posted into the podcast feed since March so I end up having to listen to the episodes on YouTube. This is super handy. 

  19. Posted

    I just started watching the show because all my friends are talking about it. First episode (pig one) I didn't like at all (agree totally with what brkl said), but the second episode I liked. Third episode I started but didn't finish, but I was at least interested in the premise. 

  20. Posted

    As a Leafs fan: Take that, Bruins.

    Yeah that was a disappointing game for sure, hopefully tonight they do better. The good thing about it being the beginning of the season is I don't have to get worked up over a bad loss. As opposed to baseball which is still stressing me out to no end despite my team having already been swept and eliminated.

  21. Posted

    I'm pretty excited for hockey season. I ended up not doing fantasy football this season so I'm doing fantasy hockey and it's already making the season way more fun to watch. Also Bruins are starting strong so I'm happy, we'll see how long that lasts though.

  22. Posted

    As a Red Sox fan I'm not at all surprised. I have a really hard time not being happy for Terry Francona, I didn't want the Sox to lose, but I wish Cleveland all the best.

  23. Posted

    So, post-season baseball is here. I'm still trying to get over the game last night, as a Red Sox fan I was expecting it to be crazy because it's been a crazy division, but still that was nuts.

    Edit: but not as crazy as the NL game, man what great fucking game.