TV/Movies Megathread

[Savonarola]

The Indian Tomb (1921)

Maharajah Conrad Veidt wants to build a magnificent tomb for his wife.  So he sends Yogi Bernhard Goetzke to England to find a great architect to build her a tomb.  The architect, Herbert, finds the demands of the project baffling as he's unable to tell anyone, even his fiancee Irene.  He agrees, though, but upon arriving in India he discovers one little detail; the Maharajah's wife is not dead nor was she faithful to Maharajah Veidt.  Irene, upon figuring out that her fiancee went to India, tracks him down with remarkable ease but swiftly falls into the Maharaja's power.  A series of adventures follows leading, ultimately, to a tragic conclusion.

The film is very long at 3 1/2 hours, and has a lot of things which simply do not make sense.  The scenes are stunning, with mammoth Indian palaces and temples.  The set designers even went so far as to plant palm trees to create an Indian jungle in Germany.  The film works mostly based on Veidt's and Goetzke's performance.  Veidt, playing a man bent on revenge, gives him real pathos.  Goetzke's strange, otherworldly holy man also convincing.  Herbert and Irene might have worked better as a married couple.   They're both too old and too doughy to be cinematic love-birds; but as the every-westerner point of view in the mysterious east they do okay.

There is one scene where a group of lepers hobble along as they slowly chase Irene in order to (presumably) gang rape her.  A scene like that could only have come from German cinema.

[Razgovory]

HBO put a bunch of their stuff on Amazon Prime.  Been watching Band of Brothers.

[Ideologue]

Nina is my 9 year old.  This morning I was half asleep,  we are watching Empire Strikes Back,  we'll watch Return tomorrow.

Oh,  and Ide,  we already know you don't know shit about movies.

Well, I knew I was courting controversy when I said the Prequel Trilogy wasn't very good.

[lustindarkness]

The prequels are not great,  not at all.  But the originals are awesome.  Now watch your mouth.  Don't mess with my childhood.

[Ideologue]

I love the OT.  Along with the Indiana Jones movies and the TOS Star Trek movies, they're exempt from any sort of ranking, otherwise my favorite movies would just be those.

[Ideologue]

Grand Piano is so great.

[CountDeMoney]

HBO put a bunch of their stuff on Amazon Prime.  Been watching Band of Brothers.

I just noticed TiVo's carrying Xfininty "We're Still Comcast But Changed Our Name To Maybe Fool Some People Who Hate Us So Much" On Demand.  That part of the deal went down pretty quick.

We are also pleased that Comcast has committed to expanding our successful integration of Xfinity On Demand to their entire footprint. This integration on the Roamio and Premiere platforms has been an important one for us, as the robust Xfinity library, along-side traditional TV channels and web content delivers a one-stop shop for home entertainment. Market-by-market rollouts are occurring now, with full scale deployment in all U.S. markets — including Chicago, Atlanta and Houston – expected to be complete by June 30, 2014.

[garbon]

What a fun spoof as a promo for Veep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQwOTKa4wKY

[Sheilbh]

Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's spoof history of BBC2 is worth watching. Hit and miss, but generally pretty good. I particularly loved the Killing meets Pingu and Yentob as Dobby the House Elf

[Norgy]

Fargo... loving it. My kind of series.
Lots of uffda.

[Eddie Teach]

The Last of the Mohicans. A movie that overcomes major flaws to still turn out pretty great. Rarely have I spent so much time telling myself "I don't buy it" yet enjoyed the movie nonetheless.

Man on a Tightrope. I liked it.

[CountDeMoney]

The Last of the Mohicans. A movie that overcomes major flaws to still turn out pretty great. Rarely have I spent so much time telling myself "I don't buy it" yet enjoyed the movie nonetheless.

A classic.  Mandatory on any "Single Guy's Date Movie Collection Both Genders Can Enjoy" shelf.

[celedhring]

Watched Oblivion this weekend. Oh geez, what a dull movie. The premise is reasonably intriguing, but the film is really slow and yet the story isn't fleshed out at all.

[Habbaku]

What parts of the story did you feel were missing?

[celedhring]

Rather than missing, I thought that for a movie so long, it lacked a lot of detail that would have enriched the story. For example, there was a lot of potential in the story of Cruise's character and the two girls - [spoiler]it's even hinted in the flashbacks that Victoria loved him from afar, but that's never exploited and could have enriched the human element of the story.[/spoiler][spoiler] We also learn little about the rebels, or interact with them - they are just there to supply exposition and the plan to kill the alien. Same with the aforementioned alien entity. [/spoiler]Everybody in the film just behaves like automats going from one plot point to another, and yet the film isn't particularly excitingly paced. It sort of poses as a thoughtful character-driven sci-fi film without having actual characters to speak of, just Cruise travelling back and forth in that bubble ship for what seems half the film.