TV/Movies Megathread

[Savonarola]

The Hands of Orlac (1924)

Conrad Veidt is a concert pianist who survives a train wreck, but loses both of his hands.  In order to save him the doctor grafts on the hands of an executed murderer.  I'm sure you can guess what happens next.

This film has the same director as "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari," Robert Wiene.  While the film is still expressionistic, it's more natural and less stylized than Caligari; akin to the F.W. Murnau films of the same period.  He does do a good job creating atmosphere.  The principle problem of the film is that as Conrad's hands take on a life of their own it's hard not to think of "Dr. Strangelove."

In addition to inspiring one fine episode of Futurama the film was remade a couple times.  The most notable one is Peter Lorre's Hollywood debut "Mad Love."

[The Brain]

lol pianist

[Admiral Yi]

"The End of the World" by Simon Pegg and that fat dude.

Once cool kid, now burn out Simon rounds up his old mates and gets them to conduct the "Golden Mile" pub crawl, a beer at 12 pubs in Newton Haven, ending up at The End of the World."

(Something is afoot at Newton Haven.  wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

I managed to make it through to the end, but this is not a good movie.  Hopefully he will rebound on the next one, else his career will go the way of Mike Myer's after that Love Guru bomb.

[Ideologue]

The World's End.

And, yes, it is somewhat bad.

[Eddie Teach]

I managed to make it through to the end, but this is not a good movie.  Hopefully he will rebound on the next one, else his career will go the way of Mike Myer's after that Love Guru bomb.

Myers has done little besides Shrek and Austin Powers since the late 90s. And why bother, he's already rich.

[celedhring]

"The End of the World" by Simon Pegg and that fat dude.

Once cool kid, now burn out Simon rounds up his old mates and gets them to conduct the "Golden Mile" pub crawl, a beer at 12 pubs in Newton Haven, ending up at The End of the World."

(Something is afoot at Newton Haven.  wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

I managed to make it through to the end, but this is not a good movie.  Hopefully he will rebound on the next one, else his career will go the way of Mike Myer's after that Love Guru bomb.

I loved the concept of the flick, but the script was very weak.

[Caliga]

I liked it.

[Syt]

I thought it was ok if overwritten (with each pub's name tied into the plot), but nowhere near the genius that Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz were.

[Syt]

My sisters (who started with the Gabaldon books and will now read any dreck about hunky pre-industrial Scotsmen) are completely timmaying out over the Outlander series that's getting produced by Ronald D. Moore.

[crazy canuck]

I liked it.

Agreed.  I thought it was a good movie.

[Valmy]

Surprised to see people who enjoyed a post-Austin Powers Mike Myers film.

[crazy canuck]

Surprised to see people who enjoyed a post-Austin Powers Mike Myers film.

We were talking about World's End.  But to your point - You didnt like Shrek?

[Darth Wagtaros]

I thought it was ok if overwritten (with each pub's name tied into the plot), but nowhere near the genius that Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz were.

I couldn't get through it.  I wanted to like it. 

[Neil]

The Avengers - Age of Ultron poster from Comic Con. At top left, is that Vision? Hawkeye looks goofy. Apparently, Ultron gets a new origin (Hank Pym is not involved). I wonder if they'll include the incest plot between Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch.

There is no incest plot between Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.

[Syt]

Thor: The Dark World

Not one of the strongest Marvel movies, though still mindlessly entertaining. Hiddleston and Hemsworth (sounds like a Victorian law firm ) carry the movie with their complex relationship. What really dragged the movie down for me was the villain. The svartálfar were nicely designed, and even though they're basically space hipsters (we liked creation before it had stuff in it), their motivation to return the cosmos to the original state of darkness fits nicely with the mythology. But you see little of them, they just appear and disappear, and their exposition scenes are in their gibberish language (though the images speak for themselves). They seemed alien enough, but I think you could have given them more motivation by focusing on how they feel out of place in this version of creation and basically "want to go home" to the state they originated from.

Disappointed that they turned Selvig into a complete weirdo.

Overall I liked the production design of the alien worlds a lot, and the action scenes were decent. The "black hole grenades" were neat.

Thor gets a bit more character development (in the 1st movie he learned to not be a selfish oaf, now he realizes he wants to be protector of Asgard, not its ruler), and I enjoyed that there's more focus on Loki as trickster. Sif seemed surprisingly ok with Thor loving Jane Foster, though. Maybe she thinks, "It's only gonna be a couple of decades. I'll wait." And I still want to do many naughty things to Natalie Portman.

The final fight was amusing and fun ("Now you're thinking with portals!").

It was a bit too convenient, though, that Thor and Jane happened to just be in the one spot on Svartalfheim where the connection to London was. And the attack on Asgard ...
"We've come to take the thing that lets us destroy creation."
"We won't tell you where it is!"
"Guess we'll just leave then."

Of course Thor then flubs it by giving it to them anyways, in a silly plan to destroy it.

Overall I'll give this 6.75 out of 10. It's silly fun if you don't think too hard about it, but it's no Avengers or Iron Man 3.