TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

It's fine.  Sullivan's Travels is better.

[Admiral Yi]

Best part is when Clooney says MAH HAIR.

[Admiral Yi]

Is Babel supposed to be good?  Watched about half and I didn't see the point of it.

[Ideologue]

I've heard mildly complimentary things and also very condemnatory things about Babel.  I've never seen it, though I like those kind of hyperlink movies when Stephen Gaghan did them.  (Traffic is very good and, as you know, I think Syriana is fantastic.)  Babel was made by the guy who did Birdman, but I'm not familiar with any of Inarritu's other work, so... I dunno.  Wish I could be more help.

***

Watched stuff:

Life After Beth (2014).  Dane DeHaan and Aubrey Plaza star in a zombie romantic comedy that tries to rip off Shaun of the Dead and fails.  Bear in mind I don't think even Shaun of the Dead is all that great.  4/10

Communion (1989).  Goofy movie made more important than it has any right to be by being early in the cycle of alien abduction cinema, which is to say pre-X-Files, and which is also to say "not remotely important in any sense."  I only watched it for deep background on the new sleep paralysis documentary, The Nightmare.  It's not atrocious, though, and sometimes even creepy, but it's also overlong and little boring, and ends on an extremely weird and eye-rolling anticlimax.  Possibly worth watching for fans of Christopher Walken's idiosyncratic performance style, and as one of them I don't think my time was exactly wasted.  5/10

Reviewed stuff:

Magic Mike (2012).   Fine backstage melodrama and phenomenal dance sequences, all set to a restless and ruthless economic elegy (as well as, occasionally, Ginuwine's "Pony").  8/10

Magic Mike XXL (2015).   Purely a cash-in but brutally honest about it, MMXXL seemed poised to deliver on all the sexy man gyrations said by blind people to be missing from the original.  Counterintuitively, it seizes on the hang-out comedy of the first instead, delivering a basically pleasant film, with few and mostly-backloaded dancing highlights.  6/10

Room 237 (2012).  The famous horror movie about the IMDB forum that came to life.  3/10

The Nightmare (2015). This documentary about sleep paralysis (and the unfathomable hallucinations that come with it) is deeply effective at evoking the horror experienced by its sufferers, while having the certain side benefit of still not taxing its director too hard.  Hey, Rodney Ascher still needs his rest.  8/10

[celedhring]

I suffer from occasional sleep paralysis and it's fucking terrifying. I thought about making a movie about it too, dang!

[The Larch]

I managed to catch most of The Raid yesterday night at TV. Damn that's an intense movie.

[Ideologue]

I suffer from occasional sleep paralysis and it's fucking terrifying. I thought about making a movie about it too, dang!

  That really sucks, man.  Hopefully, it's not half as intense as some of the dudes in The Nightmare.

I managed to catch most of The Raid yesterday night at TV. Damn that's an intense movie.

Hell yeah.

[Duque de Bragança]

The Terminator
Cameron-approved teal version (controversy!), DCP screening on the Champs-Élysées. Last time I re-watched it, it was a 35 mmm print.
Still great, even for some, not all, stop-motion effects, but then crappy CGI has been taking its toll since that era. Schwarzenegger's diction perfect for the role, as said since 1984.

[celedhring]

I suffer from occasional sleep paralysis and it's fucking terrifying. I thought about making a movie about it too, dang!

  That really sucks, man.  Hopefully, it's not half as intense as some of the dudes in The Nightmare.

I just had an episode tonight actually, we are connected 

It happens veeery occasionally, and I don't have the "being raped by aliens" fantasies that I read some people experience, but I get very nervous when it happens. The experience of being conscious but paralyzed is terrifying.

I have sort of learnt to try to go back to sleep when it happens, instead of fighting it.

[The Brain]

The Terminator is such a great movie. Mid-80s James Cameron movies with both Michael Biehn and Bill Paxton were kind of awesome.

[Ideologue]

I suffer from occasional sleep paralysis and it's fucking terrifying. I thought about making a movie about it too, dang!

  That really sucks, man.  Hopefully, it's not half as intense as some of the dudes in The Nightmare.

I just had an episode tonight actually, we are connected 

It happens veeery occasionally, and I don't have the "being raped by aliens" fantasies that I read some people experience, but I get very nervous when it happens. The experience of being conscious but paralyzed is terrifying.

I have sort of learnt to try to go back to sleep when it happens, instead of fighting it.

That's good.  I don't think I could live like those guys.  The actual paralysis part, I could probably deal, though it still seems pretty terrifying.  (I've had bad dreams where I've been immobile, which were bad enough.)

The Terminator

I'm about to spin my blu-ray right now.  I think I've only ever seen it once, a few years ago, although I must've seen T2 ten times.

[celedhring]

I still believe The Terminator is better than the T2, FX and budget aside. And I love T2, mind. T1 manages to be much darker and scarier.

[The Brain]

T2 sucks, and it certainly sucks compared to the masterpiece that is T1.

[Duque de Bragança]

The Terminator

I'm about to spin my blu-ray right now.  I think I've only ever seen it once, a few years ago, although I must've seen T2 ten times.

We are getting Ideologue's opinion on ™The Teal version™ controversy!

I could use a new screening of Terminator 2 as well.

[Archy]

Watched "A million ways to die in the West". A rather good western comedy and spoof on the memes of the genre :-).
I would say 07/10 :-)