Movie/TV recommendations

[Justin Leego]

ZAAAARDOZ!

[Justin Leego]

Me too! Have your guests seen it before? Do they know what they're in for?

Maybe follow it up with a bit of Highlander for some Spanish-accented Sean Connery action.

[Bjorn]

Me too! Have your guests seen it before? Do they know what they're in for?

Maybe follow it up with a bit of Highlander for some Spanish-accented Sean Connery action.

 

Sounds like we've got a dozen people coming out, and only one person has seen it (I've never seen it!).  Quite a few people had never even heard of it, just seen the Connery thong pic, but had no idea what it was from. 

[Bjorn]

Zardoz movie night was a rousing success!  That was a terrific movie, and perfect for a group watching.  It was way more entertaining than I had expected. 

[Roderick]

It is, it really is.

[BigJKO]

Well, this season's Ramsay plot is about the aftermath of the torture, not a season long torture scene, which is at least more interesting.

 

I agree that the Ramsay stuff just shouldn't be there, at all, but at least it's minimal this time around. It's not been in *every* episode has it?

[tegan]

The latest Bombcast opens with Zardoz discussion.

 

The universe is trying to tell me to watch Zardoz.

[Bjorn]

The latest Bombcast opens with Zardoz discussion.

 

The universe is trying to tell me to watch Zardoz.

 

Do it!

[Nachimir]

tegan: Zardoz. Zardoz.

 

Spoilers for that episode of GoT:

http://twitter.com/ViralNinja/status/474216018416377856

[Erkki]

I watched Zardoz after it was first mentioned here (a week ago?). I guess it's kind of funny in a way, but I didn't really love it.

[Bjorn]

I don't know how I would have felt about it watching it by myself, or just with my wife.  But with a group of a dozen friends, it was a riot.  There's honestly some good ideas going on there, surrounded by a bunch of weirdness.  The group viewing made the bad/cheesy/funny parts even funnier, while not detracting from the actual interesting parts. 

[Roderick]

[Erkki]

That was the best scene!

[feelthedarkness]

I would recommend the recently added to Netflix streaming A Pervert's Guide to Ideology. It's a funny documentary/film essay, where famed philosopher Slavoj Zizek explains why we think what we think as seen through his favorite movies, including Jaws, They Live, The Sound of Music, Taxi Driver and more! The framing is really fun, where they will show a scene from a movie, and cut to a recreation of the scene, but with Zizek in situ.

 

Towdy Roddy Piper "You put on these glasses or you'll be eating that trashcan!"

 

Zizek: "I'm already eating from this trashcan all the time, the name of this trashcan is ideology"

[Bjorn]

That sounds amazing!

[TychoCelchuuu]

Famed "philosopher."

[feelthedarkness]

Haha, are those scare quotes teasing me for word choice, or thinking little of Zizek? I don't really know much about the my epoch of philosophy outside the super basics! 

[TychoCelchuuu]

Zizek is a philosopher like the people who tell you that you can control the universe with your mind because of quantum energy are physicists. What Zizek actually does is media criticism with words that philosophers sometimes use, not actual philosophy.

[feelthedarkness]

this sounds like departmental beef, above my pay grade. 

[Ben X]

Saw Godzilla, thought it was pretty dreadful except for a twenty-minute sequence towards the very end. Pretty much zero characterisation, a plot that boils down to "army makes really stupid decisions and plans, monsters react" for the most part, and, perhaps most importantly, managing to make Gojira's appearance hugely anti-climactic.

 

Really enjoyed Edge Of Tomorrow - basically

Groundhog Day

mixed with

Starship Troopers

(spoiler tagged just in case someone manages to see it without knowing the high concept, which would be pretty fun), but doing both of those things very well. It becomes less inventive in the last twenty minutes or so, but the momentum carries it through.

 

I've got behind on Fargo (in fact, I still haven't found out if it was indeed a fake-out or not), but I don't know if I'll pick it back up. I'm having a similar problem with it as some are with GoT - it seems to have given up being funny for just being a bit nasty now (and even back when it was still a dark comedy, it didn't feel as precise as the Coens' writing). It still stands head and shoulders above the Dusk Til Dawn adap, though. That was bad. What are some good movie to tv shows? M*A*S*H*, Buffy...

[Ben X]

I'd have agreed with you about Fargo until the last ten minutes of last night's episode, but it's worth knowing that a timeskip has given the show the opportunity to double down on its better themes. It's only a few episodes left and then you can be done with it forever. I think it's worth sticking through.

 

Also, the more I'm forced to say the words "Edge of Tomorrow" the more I wish they'd left the title as All You Need Is Kill.

 

Okay, thanks, I will do. 

 

The more I'm forced to try and remember the title "Edge Of Tomorrow", the more I wish they'd left it as "All You Need Is Kill".

[Twig]

Saw Godzilla, thought it was pretty dreadful except for a twenty-minute sequence towards the very end. Pretty much zero characterisation, a plot that boils down to "army makes really stupid decisions and plans, monsters react" for the most part, and, perhaps most importantly, managing to make Gojira's appearance hugely anti-climactic.

I actually liked the beginning of the movie,

and the way the Muto was revealed and all that. I liked the crazy scientist/conspiracy-theorist angle Cranston had going for him. Then he died and we were left with fucking Joe McArmyDude and I was pissed for the rest of the movie until I got to watch Godzilla fight (which was really awesome, to be fair).

Anyway, the movie definitely sucks, but I'll admit there were some parts of it that I actually liked. If only they'd cut out all the middle stuff.

[Bjorn]

I've never even heard of Edge of Tomorrow, looks like it is currently in theaters? Maybe I'll try to catch it this weekend just to see how surprising/neat it is to go into it blind.

[Ben X]

Ooh, yeah, do! As long as you're expecting it to remind you very strongly of a handful of movies, you should enjoy it!

 

Twig: there was at least some meat to Bryan Cranston's character, even if it's rather cliched meat (to the point that they named him Brody), yeah. Personally, I didn't like the

MOTO reveal - it felt rather by-the-numbers and the monster design wasn't particularly interesting, plus it really pissed on Godzilla's introduction to have this thing get all the build-up and then show up first in a big action sequence. Though I can understand why they did it that way, it just didn't work for me.

I did like the opening titles, though, they were cool.

[Twig]

Oh I loved the opening titles! It was nice to watch and try to catch the things they were trying to hide. I saw The Illuminati in there once and laughed in a good way.

Cranston was definitely cliche, but I've got no problem with cliche when it's done well, and I think his character was done well. Fucking Generic Army Dude, though...

 

Personally I liked that the

big initial monster reveal wasn't Godzilla

. It really worked for me. And... then the movie fell apart completely for the next hour. Hard. Like they had a really solid start to Jenga and then someone kicked the tower down in a huff because they don't know how Jenga works.