TV/Movies Megathread

[Beenherebefore]

http://www.nrk.no/video/gjovikbanen_minutt_for_minutt/C7456558FDB8792B/

For fahdiz, so far the only person I know about that enjoys Norwegian slow tv.

That used to be the train ride back to Oslo when I visited my parents back in the day. The most inefficient and boring trainride you can buy.

[Sheilbh]

Now, the ticket prices on the other hand...

You can get tickets to a classical concert for at least £5 in London. The prices probably go up to hundreds though

[Ideologue]

I'm 99% certain that the tickets for a concert such as seen in Grand Piano (set in Chicago) are $100+.

I mean, semi-lousy theater tickets even here are like $40.  And that's not a black tie affair.

[Sheilbh]

I've been to loads of classical concerts and even the odd opera. None has been a black tie event.

I think that sort of thing is (maybe) opening nights at very grand operas/orchestras or charity galas. Obviously in both cases you'll pay over the odds.

[Ideologue]

Maybe I don't go to enough concerts, operas, and the such.

I remember I had to wear a suit to go see George Carlin.

[The Brain]

I happen to know that premium seats for Don Giovanni at the heavily subsidized Royal Opera in Stockholm are just over $100. Ide, that's about $33/h.

[Ideologue]

Grand Piano (2013/2014)

If Eugenio Mira's murderous musical thriller is not the single best film of 2014, then it shall be a superlative year; if not amongst the ten best, then the cinema of 2014 may be so good it literally kills us.

We're all in the mood for a melody

A+

300: Rise of an Empire

Not content to be the rotest and laziest sequel to a significant film in recent memory, 300: Rise of an Empire is also the dumbest, dullest, and ugliest depiction of cool history you could imagine as well.

If Darth Vader had breasts, I guess it wouldn't actually change the story very much

D+

[garbon]

Does the sequel at least keep the objectification of bit intact?

[Ideologue]

Does the sequel at least keep the objectification of bit intact?

I'd say it's inferior in that regard viz. homoeroticism, although superior on heteroerotic terms (Eva Green's breasts).  But, to quote myself, porn exists.  This shouldn't.  It's probably the worst movie I've seen in the theater since Total Recall 2012, and for very similar reasons: it's mind-meltingly dull.

[garbon]

I think I watched the first one while packing.

[Ideologue]

Hm.

[CountDeMoney]

Hm-mmm.

[Maladict]

http://www.nrk.no/video/gjovikbanen_minutt_for_minutt/C7456558FDB8792B/

For fahdiz, so far the only person I know about that enjoys Norwegian slow tv.

That used to be the train ride back to Oslo when I visited my parents back in the day. The most inefficient and boring trainride you can buy.

Nice. Too bad they keep switching to interior shots and interviews.
It's not die schönsten Bahnstrecken Deutschlands 

[Beenherebefore]

I missed the first few seasons of "The League", but have been catching up on Netflix. That is one funny show. Bobbum Man and fear boners, Rafi and Dirty Randy.

[Savonarola]

Through the Backdoor (1921)

This comes from the very brief period in US popular culture when Belgium was cool.  Mary Pickford plays a young girl pawned off on her Belgian nurse by her wealthy mother.  Mary grows up on a Belgian farm where she engages in stereotypical Belgian behavior like...   like... actually she just clowns around.  Not even Hollywood of the 1920s could come up with a Belgian stereotype.

Mary's mother comes back to claim her five years later, but the nurse lies to the mother telling that Mary has drown.  The Germans invade and Mary is sent back to America with a sworn statement from her nurse that she's the real Mary.  She picks up two little Belgian orphans, a duck and a cat and smuggles them all into America.  When they arrive at her mother's opulent home she assumes they're beggars and pawns them off on the cook.  Mary works as a servant in her mother's house.  There's a weekend party among the idle rich, which turns out to be more successful Bolshevik propaganda than anything Eisenstein ever made; secrets are revealed and everything turns out happily. 

The film (like many of the era) comes from a more innocent time.  There's a wealthy boy who is smitten by Mary when she's a maid.  At the end of the film they meet again and she's introduced as a daughter come back from school in Belgium.  They walk off for a tête-à-tête.  As they do one of the adults asks (in title card) "Has Jack ever been in Belgium?"  And I thought, "He's working on it; give him time."

Mary's brother, Jack Pickford, is listed as co-director.  Most likely his sister just gave him a job so he'd have something to do as he was badly broken up about the death of his wife, Olive Thomas.