TV/Movies Megathread

[Admiral Yi]

I've not seen enough of Breaking Bad to make a fully informed judgement (maybe six episodes), but I still put The Sopranos a notch above.

[Habbaku]

Breaking Bad > The Wire. No contest.

No contest?  I don't know about that.  I think Breaking Bad is the better show, on the whole, but The Wire is still in the uppermost tier.

[Habbaku]

I've not seen enough of Breaking Bad to make a fully informed judgement (maybe six episodes), but I still put The Sopranos a notch above.

Mid-to-Late Breaking Bad (post season 2) > Early Sopranos > Early Breaking Bad > Late Sopranos

[Queequeg]

IDK about that.  The Livia plotline doesn't always totally work, and I think BB's plots got a little convoluted near the end.  I lost some of my respect for the show with the flower-shot at the end of season 4.

[Berkut]

Breaking Bad > The Wire. No contest.

No contest?  I don't know about that.  I think Breaking Bad is the better show, on the whole, but The Wire is still in the uppermost tier.

The Sopranos was one of those I was thinking about when I said "great".

There are a few shows in the Sopranos realm. Breaking Bad is a cut above them, IMO.

[crazy canuck]

I finished all the Breaking Bad episodes on Netflix.  After a while I got hooked on watching the train wreck that was his life.  Now I have to wait for the final episodes to come out on Netflix.

[Malthus]

Snuck off to see Gravity on the weekend. I enjoyed it - I liked the way they stripped the plot down. One criticsm though was that the plot suffered from a certain amount of relentless cliff-hanging ... every situation the heroine was in was guaranteed to be a 'just-in-time' thing, which became almost funny by the end.

[spoiler] Even when she gets to Earth. When the capsule splashes down, she nearly drowns. I half expected her to be chased by sharks to the shore. Or when she totters to her feet, to discover some Taliban dude staring at her, and she ends up running for her life. [/spoiler]

[crazy canuck]

Snuck off to see Gravity on the weekend. I enjoyed it - I liked the way they stripped the plot down. One criticsm though was that the plot suffered from a certain amount of relentless cliff-hanging ... every situation the heroine was in was guaranteed to be a 'just-in-time' thing, which became almost funny by the end.

[spoiler] Even when she gets to Earth. When the capsule splashes down, she nearly drowns. I half expected her to be chased by sharks to the shore. Or when she totters to her feet, to discover some Taliban dude staring at her, and she ends up running for her life. [/spoiler]

Kind of like reading A Game of Thrones.  The first couple of times things go horribly wrong the reader is shocked but then it becomes obvious that everytime something could go horribly wrong it will.

[Sheilbh]

I need to watch Breaking Bad

[crazy canuck]

I need to watch Breaking Bad

That smilie doesnt look like Garbon

[Tonitrus]

This looks interesting....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Da3EgZUA0Y

If only it weren't by the same director as the horrid 9th Company, I'd be more excited.

Russian subtitles took a fair bit of liberty with the translation.

[CountDeMoney]

someone clearly hasn't watched the wire

You are UNCANNY.

[Tonitrus]

someone clearly hasn't watched the wire

You are UNCANNY.

I think at this point, he never can (even if he wanted to)...it would destroy the paradigm.

[katmai]

someone clearly hasn't watched the wire

You are UNCANNY.

I think at this point, he never can (even if he wanted to)...it would destroy the paradigm.

I know, I was trolling.

[Ideologue]

Death Race 2000 (1975).  It really makes you ask yourself, why does The Hunger Games suck so much, when thirty years ago they made this vastly superior prototype?

What really struck me is how big Woody Allen's recent slapstick must have influenced it--it's highly reminiscent of Sleeper with cars and ultraviolence instead of orgasmotrons and inept nebbishes, and features a largely identical cartoon totalitarian government.  Death Race practically recapitulates the nose joke from Sleeper (although it's a hell of a twist and a pun that would make you lot weep first with joy at its utterance, and then sadness at the knowledge that all possibility of a better pun is now lost).  Beyond that, it repurposes the Howard Cosell gag (to immense effect) from Bananas.  Also, there is a lot more nudity in this than I remember from Sleeper or Bananas.  David Carradine is, objectively, terrible, but his simple screen presence is irreplaceable and his monotone reads hilarious.  And Sly in a early role?  Excellent!  This movie's really something, a lot more fun than the movie I watched before it...

The French Connection (1971).  But that's intentional.  This is a movie about cops, drug dealers, and Heisenberg's hat, back in the days when cops could be openly racist to everybody, even other white people.  It's pretty good, but honestly it is less than I expected given its hyperbolic reputation.  That said, the sniper scene, and the storied chase it leads into, is pretty great.  I also liked, I think, the weird ending where Popeye gets sent to Vietnam and Roy Scheider becomes a Senator.  I also want to say I love the editing on this thing--it's taut as a motherfucker, but not overdone, like it would be now.  It's way better than Bullitt, D'Antoni's previous production effort.  Indeed, it's quite fine, I liked it, and even if I maybe liked D'Antoni's follow up, The Seven-Ups, a little better, I'm sure The French Connection was far more deeply influential, which as I've explained to you lunkheads about fifty times does not affect its grade, so lay the fuck off me.

B+ and B respectively.