ysbreker

Movie/TV recommendations

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The video game, based on the movie, based on the movie, based on the children's picture book about a fictional board game? (Of which there was also apparently an animated series? ...Three seasons long?)

EDIT: Wait, there was a sci-fi version of Jumanji?! http://en.wikipedia..../Zathura_(film)

Sometimes I learn things that I'm not sure I really wanted to know.

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Someone pick a Paul Thomas Anderson movie for me to watch. I kind of want to see Punch-Drunk Love because I may be in the mood to do any of the above, but I'm open to suggestions.

PS: I just got 12 Angry Men. It looks good.

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Someone pick a Paul Thomas Anderson movie for me to watch. I kind of want to see Punch-Drunk Love because I may be in the mood to do any of the above, but I'm open to suggestions.

PS: I just got 12 Angry Men. It looks good.

Punch-Drunk Love is great. If you already want to see it, go ahead. There Will Be Blood is his most different thing to that and is amazing.

12 Angry Men is also great. That was Sidney Lumet's first movie, which is ridiculous. He directed many more great films, such as Serpico, Network, and Dog Day Afternoon, which are probably what he's best known for. I think Fail-Safe is a really underappreciated one of his. One of the interesting things about Lumet (especially compared to someone like PT Anderson) is that he was a consummate working director. He directed films right up until the end of his life and until the last few years generally made at least one film per year. So of course a fair number of his movies aren't particularly remarkable. But unlike most directors who work with similar speed, he has a significant number of genuine masterpieces. Awesome guy.

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I am totally and utterly baffled by the ending to Eureka. I know tying up plots is important and all, but to open a whole set of a new ones and cancel the show? Their most popular show? Who the fuck runs that company and why haven't they been fired.

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Punch Drunk Love is the reason I can never honestly say that I hate Adam Sandler. If that isn't a recommendation, I don't know what is.

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ugh. why?! has hollywood really lost all creativity!?

I thought that was clear with teal and orange.

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Punch Drunk Love is the reason I can never honestly say that I hate Adam Sandler. If that isn't a recommendation, I don't know what is.

My god, having an Adam Sandler in my to-watch list feels wrong. Thanks!

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Batman was alright. I wasn't feeling Bane from the trailers, but he was good in the movie. Catwoman was very one-dimensional. Plot was overly complicated Nolan nonsense leaking at the seams. All quips and one-liners fell flat. But it feels more than the sum of its parts. There's a special kind of imagination to it.

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Someone pick a Paul Thomas Anderson movie for me to watch. I kind of want to see Punch-Drunk Love because I may be in the mood to do any of the above, but I'm open to suggestions.

Personally I'd go for Boogie Nights as the first PTA film to watch, it's more fun.

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I think I'm onto something, but I don't know what exactly, so I need your help.

I've watched the following movies in this order:

- Stand by me

- The Goonies

- The 'burbs

- The Freightners

Somehow they feel related. "Stand by me" is maybe a bit of a one off, but that's the movie I started with and something reminded me of The Goonies.

Anyway, what movie have I missed in that sequence, and what's the next movie that fits the sequence?

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I kind of lump The Sandlot and The Goonies into the same category. But I've never see the other three of those movies.

No, wait, apparently I have seen The 'Burbs. Sounds very familiar. Caught it on TV at some point, I imagine. I'm gonna go ahead and say The Sandlot sort of fits with that, too. U:

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I just came back from The Dark Knight Rises and THIS is what I have to say about it:

(Actually written for a blog I'm thinking of setting up, so I've already begun writing little bits about what I see. Also: SPOILER ALERT!)

---

In 2008 I called it: there was no way they’d be able to top The Dark Knight and they should leave it alone. It was a perfect storm of acting talent, writing, theme, characters and timing. After Heath Ledger’s Joker, the only way was down. My predictions proved on the ball. But The Dark Knight Rises does not merely fail to live up to its predecessor: it disappoints with a vengeance.

This movie is an exercise in testing the audience’s patience. For two-and-a-half hours it barrages us with boring characters, tedious storytelling and insulting plot twists. The back-and-forth patter, usually possessing Nolan-brand smarts, comes across as smug and clichéd. All the players have become laughable parodies of themselves. Mentor Alfred seems eternally stuck in giving solemn advice through recounting details of his life. Dr. Jackstraw Scarecrow comes up for another cameo, but has unfortunately devolved into a comedy character rather than the sinister presence he once was. His appearance in The Dark Knight was good storytelling, as the ease with which he was disposed of told how much Batman had grown. In Rises, he’s just there for a chuckle. It’s funny, no doubt, but also a depressing use of the delightful Cillian Murphy.

Everything about the way this movie works speaks of how rushed it was. The ideas that fuel it are shallow and needed a lot more maturing. The plot is an unorganized mess that smacks of reheated leftovers from the previous film. Characters are just there for god knows what reason. What exactly is Catwoman adding to the theme of the film?

Batman Begins was an investigation of fear and how it could be harnessed. The Dark Knight ingeniously explored the cutting edge between order and chaos. What exactly is this one trying to tell us? Besides which, the Joker was a truly menacing villain. His insidiousness lay in the fact that he forced Batman to make decisions that tested his morality. Contrast that to the flimsy evil of Bane, whose idea of torturing his enemy’s ‘soul’ is to put a television in front of him so he can see how he has failed. Not even Tom Hardy can make that work.

This dark knight hardly rises above the level of a Saturday morning cartoon. The fantastically dull, overlong climax centers around a ticking time bomb threatening to blow up Gotham. After Joker’s crafty mind games Nolan devised in the previous film, nothing could be more drab. The worst crime is how incredibly uninteresting it all is. I shouldn’t be this disappointed though: after all I already knew it in 2008.

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I liked it except for the stupid plot twist that literally served absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

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Armin Shimmerman was a guest star on tonights episode of TNTs new series Perception. Weird to see him outside that makeup.

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I've been avoiding this thread, but finally saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.

Is it just me, or was the ending absolutely hilarious? I kept having to stifle giggles.

The Jesus-bat implications, the ridiculous cartoony gravestone, the fake out.

I was surprised at how much of the film takes place in daylight, and with the slow-apocalypse setting, throughout the second half I was thinking "This is weird". There's lots of plot holey stuff that didn't bother me at all, and I really liked Bane. Visually, there were a couple of nice callbacks to recent games too, such as the fight where Catwoman is being surrounded by Bane's men.

I guess the point of the plot twist was attempting to show just how insidious and cunning Bane/The League of Shadows are. Batman has to become more of a political player, his brawn and gadgets aren't enough. That, and the sequence of him in prison, seemed to be about Wayne having to confront and understand his own privilege, but everything from there to the end was really clumsily told.

The Occupy Wall Street subtext seemed both uncomfortable and shallow. It was like the film wanted to say something about it, but also wanted to mitigate or make things ambiguous, and in the end used the aesthetics with no clear message or reason behind it. It was very clearly referenced in terms of Bane's men and his speech at the stadium, but simplifying a social movement to a cartoony villain in the lead is a drastic misunderstanding of how the world has ever worked, let alone how things are now.

I didn't think the film was that bad as it finished, but it's already ageing badly in my mind. Overall, it feels like Nolan working with input from Joel Schumacher and Michael Bay :/

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Yes, I totally agree, though I'm maybe slightly warming up to the movie, in the sense that I'm thinking "well, it was bad, but maybe next time it won't make me physically nauseous." That's improvement!

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I've been avoiding this thread, but finally saw The Dark Knight Rises last night.

Is it just me, or was the ending absolutely hilarious? I kept having to stifle giggles.

The Jesus-bat implications, the ridiculous cartoony gravestone, the fake out.

I almost burst out laughing in the theater during the climax because of this:

batman-bomb.gif?1320800858

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Honestly the Dark Knight Rises mostly just strengthened my belief that doing endings well (both in terms of a single film/book/game/whatever and any kind of series) is the fucking hardest thing in the world. I can't remember the last time I experienced an ending that didn't dissatisfy me in some way.

Edit: Actually, if anyone has an example or two of an ending they consider really solid, I'd like to hear it. I'm curious as to whether this is something that springs from my own perspective or just a general rule.

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Psychonauts. I have always considered that to be such an amazing ending, perfect for the tone of the story, really revving you up and at once bringing closure to the plot and opening up new possibilities for the characters' future.

But apart from that, almost nothing comes to mind of a really singularly amazing ending. Return of the Jedi ends on a fun vibe, I always thought.

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If I remember correctly Memento, The Prestige and Inception all had pretty solid, or at least non-disappointing, endings.

The ending of Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan was exceptionally well crafted and fitting, in my opinion. And then there's Dr. Strangelove.

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