ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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I just watched Ketch! And HIRO-PON Get It On and it was stunning. It's a BBC3 show starring two fantastically good physical comedians with a surreal, twisted sense of humour. UK folks can catch it on the iplayer.

It's kind of like a Blue Jam sketch performed by the Chuckle Brothers :tup:

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It's kind of like a Blue Jam sketch performed by the Chuckle Brothers :tup:

Magic, mimes, postmodernism and Blue Peter badges.

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That was great! The chavs hammed it up a bit though. And the blonde one credited herself as 'lead chav' on her online resume, the cheeky cow.

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Here's a neat clip on youtube from the start of the show on for those not in the UK.

Whoa, that looks like the Brighton Marina. Maybe it is!

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Brighton confirmed! When they're fighting on the beach in the full episode, and in that cafeteria etc. that's like a 5 min walk from where I live. In fact, I was just there an hour ago. Sweet.

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Yeah, I thought it looked like Brighton.

And the blonde one credited herself as 'lead chav' on her online resume, the cheeky cow.

I'm casting no accusations here, but what lead you to discover this?

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Just watcehd Coraline in 3-D, it hurt my eyes.

It is actually quite a nice adaptation of Neil Gaiman's original piece I walked away sort of liking it. They changeed a lot of things in it and I can't help but feel that they changed too much to make it a kiddie film.

Maybe I'm not outraged by this because I'm not too attached to the book...

Anyways, the visuals are nice and if wearing 3-D glasses doesn't fuck you up too much the 3-D is really well handled.

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I saw Coraline as well, and thought it was a well made movie if not for moving too slow in some parts and having Dakota Fanning overact the main character. I also didn't have to suffer watching it in 3D, so I was good. I guess I never will fully understand the return of this particular movie gimmick.

James Cameron will bring 3D back full force with no need for glasses in his Avatar movie. Everything about that sentence makes me shudder. :fart:

On the current standards of the American animated movie, Coraline is probably the best one this country has come up with for the new millennium so far. It's a very pleasant surprise among all the animated movies with nonstop pop culture jokes, a multitude of characters with saracastic attitudes, Disney cliches, and the ol' Pixar formula.

I've never gotten around to reading the original book, which is odd since I'm sort of a Dave McKean dork, but not so much a Neil Gaiman dork. I've been meaning to read Signal to Noise next actually. I have no idea how the book compares, although I've read some interviews with Henry Selick saying the book wasn't adaptable to an enjoyable movie. I always feel like when someone says that they are taking the easy way out. But a movie that looks exactly like Dave McKean's art work, working on a large budget, is just not going to make a return in box office money (see Mirrormask).

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Well series' 3 and 4 of 'The Wire have just arrived. I will be inspecting Generation Kill as well.

A nice book by George R. R. Martin ('A game of thrones) is being made into a series by HBO- one to look forward to.

Browsing his blog, however, he chooses to announce how he feels about the death of a daughter of a friend by using a crying Schwa. That makes me laugh at his schmuckidity. That a word? I invoke Nachimir's thread of etymological outrage.

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On the current standards of the American animated movie, Coraline is probably the best one this country has come up with for the new millennium so far. It's a very pleasant surprise among all the animated movies with nonstop pop culture jokes, a multitude of characters with saracastic attitudes, Disney cliches, and the ol' Pixar formula.

Yeah, a non-CG animated film will be up for the Academy Award :tup:

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Generation Kill? Is it any good? I've not watched it yet, but I've started taping it.

As a piece of drama, or a great work of art, people seem disappointed. They're all like, "This is cliched and not very dramatic. It's the same as every war movie, but less awesome." Even the TV critic from the New Yorker said something like that.

But my friend who served over there, and had read and enjoyed the book already, said it was pretty accurate to his experience, and he liked it.

I think it's worthwhile if you want to see what it was/is like for people on the ground. If you want to be "blown away" (ign.com), well, you won't be.

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JamesM said:

I'm casting no accusations here, but what lead you to discover this?

I was googling all of the chav actresses because I thought the brunette who pops up dancing a little later on was quite hot and wanted to see if she'd been in anything else or was just a production runner they dressed up.

I've almost finished watching the first season of Damages - all quite slick and enjoyable, but a bit repetitive. I don't know if I'll bother watching the second season.

The Friday 13th reboot is dreadful and boring. A shame, as I enjoyed the writers' previous efforts on Freddy Vs Jason and thought they might show similar imagination on this one. No such luck.

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I've not been enjoying the latest series of Flight of the Conchords as much as the first, but I thought the latest one was hilarious. Jemaine picks up an Australian girlfriend and they go all out with the offensive stereotypes:

"You couldn't get more Australian than me. My mum's a panel beater and my dad's in jail. And my grandad was a famous rapist".

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I thoroughly enjoyed Appaloosa recently. It's a Western less concerned with an epic Good vs. Evil struggle (although, that is essentially the plot), and more with the characters and their interactions. All the main actors inhabit believable, fleshed-out characters.

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Mrs V and I watched the first two episodes of Dollhouse this weekend. It seems merely good, rather than an instant must-watch, but we'll stick with it. The writing's good - as is the direction - but it hasn't grabbed us as yet.

The premise strikes me as some sort of bizarre cross between Alias and Macguyver -- but with Echo (lead character) absorbing and utilising different people's skills and personality traits, instead of making episode-resolving gadgets out of bits of junk.

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Hah, why is it that Galactica actors seem to appear in other series in groups? I kinda sorta liked the first two episodes of Dollhouse. It could turn out to be really good, but so far it's been merely watchable.

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Dollhouse has been kinda :tmeh: so far, but I'm more than willing to stick with for a while yet. Also, I don't know if it's just me getting older but, I'm finding the buffyspeak type stuff forced and grating rather than cool.

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I've watched the first three episodes of Dollhouse. Yeah, it's pretty mixed. The basic premise and the HQ setup seems a bit dated now, like something that would appear in the 90's (like Alias and all that crap).

The weekly storylines are done pretty well though, with interesting plot twists and fairly subtle themes. The obvious problem is that just as you get to know those characters, they get taken away and Echo is wiped for another week.

In fact the concept has inherent problems. How can you get involved with a main character who has no personality? I'm identifying a lot more strongly with Boid so far, to the point where he and [Helo from BSG] seem like the main characters. Echo is just a device... like KIT from Knight Rider or something.

The concept would have worked much better in a novel or comic or some other format that has more scope for experiments in narrative and character. I don't think it is a natural good fit for TV.

I will continue watching though. It is easily watchable if nothing else, and season-story ark of Echo's growing independence may become interesting.

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Echo is just a device... like KIT from Knight Rider or something.

That's a bloody good analogy, Dan, now you mention it. For some stupid reason, I hadn't considered Echo as merely a vessel.

I'm sure it won't remain this mechanical though. I've yet to watch the 3rd episode, but we've already had clear allusions to Echo's past breaking through. The escaped lunatic (Alpha?) could also make things interesting, although this smacks of the cheap and self-perpetuating "now you see him, now you don't" shtick I hated about early Heroes.

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