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Movie/TV recommendations

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One of my friends told me that Burn Notice is a good show. Has anybody watched it before?

I've been meaning to watch the first season at some point, I think they've made three seasons so far.

One interesting actor in the series is Bruce Campbell.

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Burn Notice is fun, but nothing more than that. It's got a nice premise. I always watch it 'in between' my real favorite shows.

Campbell is a delight to see, as always. Easily the best thing from the show!

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Burn Notice is definitely my favorite "popcorn" TV show. Nothing totally high concept, but it's definitely entertaining.

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I've been watching Warehouse 13. A number of people were hoping that it would essentially amount to SCP: the series (The SCP Foundation AKA the scariest fiction on the internet).

It's not that. The artefacts in Warehouse 13 are not nearly as imaginative, brilliant or as worrying as those in the SCP and instead the writers mainly rely on objects supposedly belonging to famous historical figures, an approach that quickly becomes both predictable and difficult to believe. Add to that a lazy visual style (the tesla punk is nice enough, everything else meh) and worst of all massive, gaping plot holes... the writers just aren't going that extra mile.

For a show that openly courts geeks - what with the subject matter and references to 'redshirts', internet acronyms and guest appearences from BSG cast - the writers fail to show the attention to detail that would actually please their target demographic. If the warehouse is meant to have lots of safety protocols... show us some actual intelligent protocols, not just ones that serve as lame mcguffins. Same goes for the artefacts themselves.

Which is a shame, since the show is actually OK. Yeah it can be described as 'X-Files without the Angst', but it is a lot better than most other sub-X-files type paranormal investigation shows of recent years; the characters are all likeable, dialogue is fine and everything is fun enough and all together it is very watchable. But it is just OK, when with a bit more effort it could have been something great and very interesting, really catching the crest of the current 'secret history' wave.

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I've been catching up on recorded episodes of Wallander (pronounce: "val-ander" (we've also got the British ones recorded to watch after too, which should be fun also).

Quite a good detective/cop thing (fun to watch, which is what counts, especially since it is 1:30 or so, for a 2 hour time slot, so proper film length. No CSI bullshit either, proper detective work! Not always perfect cases and technology doesn't solve everything, hooray!). Good cast, with some really dark cases in places. Sweden will never be the same in my eyes. Poor police are understaffed, overworked and never get a break! Poor guys, especially the lead who just never seems to nail a relationship.

Worth a view if it's ever aired near you.

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I like Burn Notice too, like the others say, it's a great way to just kick back and have some nonsense fun. ^^ Also Bruce Campell is The Best. If you watch Burn Notice: Notice how many variations they try to make on the opening line, "When you're a spy..."

Wallander is good, I've read a couple of the books, but I haven't seen any of the TV movies yet. :3

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I'm pretty much with you there, but from what I can tell the rest of the world disagrees.

You got that right. Maybe you had to be there, though. The dialogue, (most of) the characters and that pesky kid, all are very annoying... but it's also a brilliant action film that was quite unlike anything before it. But maybe if you saw it after hearing how everyone loves it, it wouldn't be so good.

I watched it when I was 11 or 12 and completely unaware of what it was... It blew me away. When I watch it again now, I still get the same moments, plus I love the overall mythology.

Still, Cameron's dialogue and characterisation (at least with minor characters) is dire.

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I've been catching up on recorded episodes of Wallander (pronounce: "val-ander" (we've also got the British ones recorded to watch after too, which should be fun also).

My mum's Swedish, so she finds it amusing and peculiar how the English cast pronounce all the Swedish place names in British version (Norrköping as "nor coping" rather than something closer to "norsherping", for example, although my Swedish is near non-existent, so excuse me if I'm embarrassingly wrong). I've been meaning to give either version a proper watch, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

I watched it when I was 11 or 12 and completely unaware of what it was... It blew me away.

I saw part or maybe all of it when I was a little younger than that (in primary school, certainly), and it scared the shit out of me. I'm not sure exactly how much I saw in that first viewing, but I'm pretty sure it included a chest-burster, the scene when they can't work the sensor out because the aliens are in the vents, and Bishop getting so rudely bisected at the end. Oh, and someone in a vehicle being destroyed. As well as being terrified, I thought bits of it were pretty cool at the time, but I never watched it again until I got the quadrilogy box set on DVD, by which point the original was firmly established as my prototypical Alien film. I just couldn't take Aliens seriously. It didn't have any of the restraint of the original.

I think I had more to say, but then I fell asleep at my laptop just now. All I can think of is that for every thing I like about Aliens, there is another film in the series that does it better. Usually it's the original.

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You guys are fucking crazy. Aliens is a brilliant, scary, exciting, beautiful movie, and the dialogue is fantastic. You'll be telling me you don't like Terminator, next.

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If you look at Aliens as a horror movie, I agree, it's crap. As a straight-up action movie it is pretty good though. Really, which one I watch depends on my mood. Objectively, Alien is by far the better picture, but sometimes I feel more like watching the sequel. Not nearly as scary though. One damn alien can bring down the crew of the ship in the first, but in the second they're gunning them down like generic orange-suited henchmen in a Bond film. A good action movie, but nowhere near the achievement of the first film.

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I saw Clash of the Titans last night. That film didn't benefit from being in 3D at all. You'd think the spectacle would be at least a little enhanced, in as much as 3D can enhance stuff, but for most of it I forgot it was even in 3D. I'm not a huge 3D fan or anything, but I reckon the at the bare minimum you want to at least notice it's in effect. Also, it needed more titans. By my count it had one titan and a few beasts of near-titanic proportion (those beasts were all of the same variety, mind). I was certainly not expecting greatness from this movie, but I was hoping for a series of cool giant monsters. I was quite disappointed in that respect. Also, excuse my ignorance of the original, but doesn't the title suggest titans should be fighting one another in something like a Greek mythology-flavoured variation of Godzilla fighting those other huge dudes, rather than being slain by puny humans?

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I saw Clash of the Titans last night. That film didn't benefit from being in 3D at all. You'd think the spectacle would be at least a little enhanced, in as much as 3D can enhance stuff, but for most of it I forgot it was even in 3D. I'm not a huge 3D fan or anything, but I reckon the at the bare minimum you want to at least notice it's in effect. Also, it needed more titans. By my count it had one titan and a few beasts of near-titanic proportion (those beasts were all of the same variety, mind). I was certainly not expecting greatness from this movie, but I was hoping for a series of cool giant monsters. I was quite disappointed in that respect. Also, excuse my ignorance of the original, but doesn't the title suggest titans should be fighting one another in something like a Greek mythology-flavoured variation of Godzilla fighting those other huge dudes, rather than being slain by puny humans?

From what I have heard Clash of the Titans was not filmed in 3D, they did some trickery and made it 3D from the original 2D version. I could be entirely wrong though.

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From what I have heard Clash of the Titans was not filmed in 3D, they did some trickery and made it 3D from the original 2D version. I could be entirely wrong though.

Yup, they rushed it through the 3D upconversion process in 6 weeks, after seeing how well Avatar did. From what I hear, you're better off watching How To Train Your Dragon, be it in 3D or 2D.

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I saw Clash of the Titans last night. That film didn't benefit from being in 3D at all. You'd think the spectacle would be at least a little enhanced, in as much as 3D can enhance stuff, but for most of it I forgot it was even in 3D. I'm not a huge 3D fan or anything, but I reckon the at the bare minimum you want to at least notice it's in effect. Also, it needed more titans. By my count it had one titan and a few beasts of near-titanic proportion (those beasts were all of the same variety, mind). I was certainly not expecting greatness from this movie, but I was hoping for a series of cool giant monsters. I was quite disappointed in that respect. Also, excuse my ignorance of the original, but doesn't the title suggest titans should be fighting one another in something like a Greek mythology-flavoured variation of Godzilla fighting those other huge dudes, rather than being slain by puny humans?

How did it measure up to the original?

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Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised at how fantastic Matt Smith was in the role. The trailer at the end was particularly awesome.

Also, the chick was damned hot, not least for a ginger chick.

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If you look at Aliens as a horror movie, I agree, it's crap. As a straight-up action movie it is pretty good though. Really, which one I watch depends on my mood. Objectively, Alien is by far the better picture, but sometimes I feel more like watching the sequel. Not nearly as scary though. One damn alien can bring down the crew of the ship in the first, but in the second they're gunning them down like generic orange-suited henchmen in a Bond film. A good action movie, but nowhere near the achievement of the first film.

That's why I like the third one a lot, but there's a few plot hole type problems with that one. Things were sort of patched up with the director's cut, but I prefer a few alternate scenes in the theatrical version.

Anyway, I guess I can't talk about any of these films from a 12 year old viewpoint, since they were all seen in bits and pieces throughout the years (sometimes TV edit versions, yuck) before I sat down a few years and went through all 4. They all scared me though growing up.

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From what I have heard Clash of the Titans was not filmed in 3D, they did some trickery and made it 3D from the original 2D version. I could be entirely wrong though.

Yeah, we guessed something like that had happened.

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