TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

If gets such a Shitty grade from Ide, it must be good!

Be my guest.  It's on Netflix Instant.  Watch it now.  Watch it right now.

[Sheilbh]

If gets such a Shitty grade from Ide, it must be good!

I loved it

[Ideologue]

Yeah, I'm sure it's your favorite one-act screenplay.

It's anti-film: 90 minutes of the vaguest atmosphere with the thinnest characters, and the chief conflict in the narrative is whether Gilderoy's gonna get his travel expenses comped; it is never resolved.

It was riding at a C/C+ until I realized it was three minutes before the end and there was no way they were going to start doing anything now.

You know how they say you should never reference a better movie in the middle of your crappy movie?  They break that rule upfront.  I'm pretty sure The Equestrian Vortex is way better than Berberian Sound Studio.

[Zanza]

Watched the first episode of the second season of House of Cards.

Real surprise is rare in TV but that episode had one scene that was completely unexpected for me.

[crazy canuck]

Watched the first episode of the second season of House of Cards.

Real surprise is rare in TV but that episode had one scene that was completely unexpected for me.

And at the end of the eposide when he addresses the camera - wow.

[FunkMonk]

I like Robin Wright's character in this season far more than in Season One. She kicks ass in Episode 4. 

[Phillip V]

Whenever the series complete, they should do a prequel series on young Francis and Claire.

[Scipio]

It seemed really nuanced and well-observed.  Frances felt like a real person a lot more than I thought after my first, 14-minute hateviewing.  I changed my mind when she went home to Sacramento and her parent's Unitarian Church; it made complete sense, and was simultaneously very funny.  I liked how complex the relationship with Sophie was, which frequently seemed to skirt outright hatred.  Gerwig was adorable.

I went in to it initially expecting Jules et Jim 2013, which it wasn't, and actually wasn't trying to be on second viewing.

Don't take this the wrong way.  I want you to live a long and happy life, but when you do die, you should be denied a Christian burial.

Well, he's nominally Mormon, so that part's guaranteed.

[Savonarola]

The Flying Deuces (1939)

This is the first Laurel  and Hardy  film away from Roach Studios.  It's pretty much a feature length version of their 1931 short Beau Hunks (in fact the role of the commandant was played by Ming the Merciless himself, Charles Middleton, in both films).  Ollie  falls in love with a French girl who spurns his affection.  In order to forget he joins the Foreign Legion, and Stan  joins him.  Hilarity ensues.  The film drags at points and some of the gags are overly long; but there are some great moments in it.  Most notable is the boys doing a spontaneous soft shoe routine to "Shine on Harvest Moon":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuxxFG9l1Q8

At another point, as they're in jail waiting to be shot at sunrise Stan  discovers his mattress is tuned like a harp and he plays "The World Waits for Dawn."  He had Harpo Marx coach him on his performance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64o6s8PmnoE

This isn't "Big Business" or "The Music Box" but it's a worthwhile Laurel  and Hardy film.

Atoll K/Utopia (1950)

This is Laurel  and Hardy's  last film; and a notorious bomb.  The film is a French/Italian production and the film is supposed to be a pointed satire at the state of the world at the end of the 40s.  Stan  inherits money, a yacht and a south seas island, but the money is swallowed up by taxes and lawyers.  The boys travel to their island and are joined by a stateless man and a bricklayer who unsatisfied with his life.  They run aground in a storm on a deserted Atoll.  Then there's a singer (chanteuse Suzy Delair) who is fed up with her naval officer fiance, and ends up on the same south seas atoll.  The fiance comes, and uranium is discovered on the island.  In order to prevent the island from being seized by some government the castaways form a government without taxes, laws or immigration regulation.  All the world's ruffians come and hilarity ensues.

The story is convoluted, the satire is heavy handed and dated, the direction is lazy, and voice over is needed to explain what's going on.  To make matters much worse both Laurel  and Hardy  suffered medical issues on the shoot.  Stan  looks like he's about to keel over in every scene and Hardy's  weight ballooned to 330 lbs.

This sort of film might have worked better as a Chaplin movie; satire was his forte.  Laurel and Hardy serve as little more than a welcome distraction to the story.  It's a bad ending to the team's wonderful career.

[Ed Anger]

I caught the last bit of Sin city this morning. Jessica Alba getting whipped: A+

[Queequeg]

There is no way I am being buried Mormon.

[Eddie Teach]

Netflix House of Cards S2 episode 1 has the FunkMonk Seal of Approval.

Gave me a good surprise.

One of those things you kinda see coming but still startles when it happens.

[Ed Anger]

There is no way I am being buried Mormon.

I'll pay to have you dug up and put in magic Mormon underpants.

[Scipio]

There is no way I am being buried Mormon.

I'm sure the Armenian Catholicos will accept your deathbed conversion.

[Ideologue]

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011).  The coolest thing about the M:I franchise is how different each installment is from the other: the first was a Brian De Palma super-thriller, the second a John Woo 90s action paragon, the third a JJ Abrams TV movie, and all were tied together by guys ripping their fake faces off left, right, and center.  The fourth doesn't have nearly enough face-tearing magic, but makes up for it by being the first M:I to wallow so enthusiastically in the Bondian super-spy genre that it always seemed a little estranged from.  It's James Bond all right, transplanted into the M:I team dynamic, and don't you just wish this were Skyfall instead?  For even the Goddamned name makes more sense.

Scoring high marks in everything from elegant lifestyle porn to the scientifically retarded gadgets, the only thing missing to make this the perfect Bond homage is a villain's lair rendered in hypermodernist production design, and with the Burj Khalifa being what it is, not to mention the lavish sets representing a Mumbai mansion and a presumably fanciful automated car parking building/semi-escapable death trap, it's still real damned close.  The worst thing you can say about M:I4 is a lot of dodgy CGI more at home in 2001 than 2011; but, you know?  It's all in good fun.

B+ and leaning toward an A