TV/Movies Megathread

[Sophie Scholl]

I finally watched a trailer for it. Prior to now, I've just known it was Snyder's latest and seen the posters. It... certainly looks like a peak Snyder movie. No doubt it will feature of all his trademark elements with no restraint brought down by the vague attempt to fit into an existing property. 

[Tamas]

Man you know your faction sucks when it's led by Florida.

How to say "the retarded faction" without saying "the retarded faction".

[Savonarola]

The Broadway Melody of 1940 (1940)

Like any good musical from the era there's almost no story (Fred Astaire and George Murphy are down on their luck dancers, Elanor Powell is the toast of Broadway, hilarity ensues.)  It's notable in the number of vaudeville-esque acts that are presented throughout and for Powell's tap-dancing.  This is the only Astaire musical that I can think of where the girl gets her own solo numbers. 

[Syt]

Season 14 of Archer, apparently this is still going.

Ep. 1&2 are a double episode. They seem to establish a new status quo. Lana is taking over as "new Mallory" - which kinda works, I guess? And a new character is onboarded that establishes a similar dynamic to what Archer/Lana had in early seasons. It's fine. A few laughs here and there, but nothing too "out there." Remains to be seen how this shakes out over the rest of the season.

Though I feel they're now throwing in obscure references just because. The show has always done that, but it felt more organically in the past? At any rate, I had to look up who Gertrude Ederle and Lillian Leitzel were, as well as Farrell and Balanchine. (Though I did like reading their bios on Wiki.)

[Darth Wagtaros]

Archer had its moments. 

Violent Night was good. Not amazing, but good.

Doctor Who Christmas special 2023 was enjoyable.

[viper37]

The movie looks like a trainwreck, tbf. It might be a good "watch a terrible movie with beers and friends" though.

That is stuff for Duke, along with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes  or something

I still have to drag myself through the last Fast and Furious movie.

[Josquius]

I'm looking at the user critic on Metacritic for Rebel Moon, the latest Zack Snyder movie.
Lots of 9 and 10, lots of 0 and 1.
No 4,5,6 or 7.
It's like a lot of people hate it because there's a woman kicking ass (reminds me some other ZS movies), and a lot of Zack Snyder personal friends voted for the movie.

Equally could be lots of people liking it just because it's shit goes bang and lots of people hating it just because it's shit goes bang.
That's the vibe I've been getting. Not noticed any special sexism in this case.. But then I have zero interest.  Even the title is so uninspired.

[celedhring]

We have this odd tradition of watching some dumb action movie with my brother and my dad on Boxing Day. Kind of a nostalgia thing. Gerard Butler movies, Jerry Bruckheimer movies, that kind of thing.

Anyway, we put on Ambulance by Michael Bay, and I was both surprised and horrified at how much I enjoyed it. I think it's more at how bad the "generic dumb action movie" genre has got in the recent times, I found myself realizing that I'd rather watch any Bay movie that The Gray Man, Ghosted, and similar crap. This one at least had personality, even if it's Michael Bay's personality. And fronted by Gyllenhaal delightfully chewing scenery like he's just finished his diet.

And the action is much better than in, say, the Marvel or DC movies. Bay still shoots 1990s-style, and CGI isn't overpresent, a lot of it it's still practical. I.e. he uses drones to pull off a shitload of intrincate and cool tracking shots that 90% of movies would probably do in CGI. And for all his faults, he was always been good at making scenes feel kinetic even if confusing.

Anyway, I'll go pray to Movie Jesus to absolve me of my sin.

More seriously though, depending on how you feel about Pain & Gain this is probably his best movie.

[The Brain]

Triangle of Sadness. Rambling no-focus movie, with no discernible message beyond "rich people suck" in an im14andthisisdeep sense. Garbage, avoid. I only made it roughly halfway through. The writer/director has made at least one decent movie before, but he may have forgotten how.

[Tamas]

Pain & Gain is awesome. 

[Gups]

Babylon. Way too long and disjointed but plenty of laugh out lou d moments

[Josquius]

Xmas Dr who...

So the new Dr. Never seen him before. A lot camper than I thought he'd be, and also are there hints of an African accent? I wonder how much of this is the guy just being himself vs put on for his spin on the doctor.
Seems pretty likable though.

The show itself... Wow they're really going all in for fantasy over Sci fi aren't they. It does make sense as a direction in a way but curious and it is kind of sad.

Also the song. Is this going to be a recurring thing now? Not sure what I feel there. The joke already wears thin

Overall have to say it's one of the better christmas specials we've had. Actually decent.

[Josephus]

Godzilla -1.
Meh. I wanted to see Poor Things, but my friend wanted to see this. "I heard such good things about it," she said.

It's a monster movie.

[Admiral Yi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F115HyusBc

I've watched this clip from Oppenheimer several times now and I found it absolutely electric.

My question for those who have watched the whole movie is if the rest of it matches up.  Other clips I've seen have made me think maybe this is the whole movie right here, sort of like the Cincinnati scene in the Jackie Robinson biopic.

How should I set my expectations for when it shows up on Netflix?

[The Brain]

Meltdown: Three Mile Island, S1. Documentary about the accident at TMI, with focus on a whistleblower during the cleanup operations. Lots of emotions, very little statements of fact. But among other things it suggests that the doses some local residents received were high enough to cause radiation burns and acute radiation sickness, and it also claims by implication that there has been a vast conspiracy over several decades involving numerous federal and state organizations and universities etc covering up the horrible short and long term health effects of the accident.

Out of curiosity I checked what the modern NRC take on the accident is, and this is from their Backgrounder (https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML0402/ML040280573.pdf). At the end of the documentary, where there were texts about the NRC standpoint, only the bolded parts were given. Maybe the rest didn't support the vision of the documentary makers, who can say?

Health Effects

The NRC conducted detailed studies of the accident's radiological consequences, as did the
Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now Health and
Human Services), the Department of Energy, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Several
independent groups also conducted studies. The approximately 2 million people around TMI-2 during
the accident are estimated to have received an average radiation dose of only about 1 millirem above the
usual background dose. To put this into context, exposure from a chest X-ray is about 6 millirem and the
area's natural radioactive background dose is about 100-125 millirem per year for the area. The
accident's maximum dose to a person at the site boundary would have been less than 100 millirem
above background.

In the months following the accident, although questions were raised about possible adverse
effects from radiation on human, animal, and plant life in the TMI area, none could be directly
correlated to the accident. Thousands of environmental samples of air, water, milk, vegetation, soil, and
foodstuffs were collected by various government agencies monitoring the area. Very low levels of
radionuclides could be attributed to releases from the accident. However, comprehensive investigations
and assessments by several well respected organizations, such as Columbia University and the
University of Pittsburgh, have concluded that in spite of serious damage to the reactor, the actual release
had negligible effects on the physical health of individuals or the environment.

The whistleblower made a comment towards the end that he was still in favor of nuclear power, but that it must never be run for profit. His reasoning being that profit was prioritized over safety. But what he fails to see is that there will ALWAYS be a drive to finish building and then keep operating a power plant (or anything else), regardless of the form of the enterprise. Whether you do it to increase shareholder value, or to provide electricity for society's needs, or to please your bosses in the Politburo, or whatever, if there isn't a drive then you wouldn't be building and operating the facility in the first place. There will always exist a tension between delivering product and safety, and how you manage THAT is what's important. But then he also blamed his cancer on his work in the nuclear industry while admitting that he had been a long time smoker, so maybe clear vision isn't his forte.