TV/Movies Megathread

[Queequeg]

Anybody going to see Gatsby next week when it comes out?

As a general rule I see movies with Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music on the soundtrack to support Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music awareness. 

[mongers]

Anybody going to see Gatsby next week when it comes out?

As a general rule I see movies with Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music on the soundtrack to support Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music awareness.

Damn you've tainted Phil Manzanera for me.   

[CountDeMoney]

Hey 11Bravo, here's a Jeff-Bridges-as-Rooster-Cogburn fix for ya.  Sorta. 

http://youtu.be/ibMV4ZOYHh4

[Viking]

Heh, yeah i had to give up on that show after 3 episodes.

I quit half way through episode 2.

[Sheilbh]

I liked his Kingdom miniseries and I liked Melancholia.

I like a fair few von Trier films. I think he's a generally pretty good director.

[Darth Wagtaros]

42.  Was a good feel-good style movie. 

[CountDeMoney]

I liked his Kingdom miniseries and I liked Melancholia.

I like a fair few von Trier films. I think he's a generally pretty good director.

Sicko Euro.

[Eddie Teach]

I liked his Kingdom miniseries and I liked Melancholia.

I like a fair few von Trier films. I think he's a generally pretty good director.

With reservations, I've liked all the ones I've seen except Antichrist.

[Sheilbh]

With reservations, I've liked all the ones I've seen except Antichrist.

Antichrist's one of those films I don't like to say I liked, so I say it's good

[11B4V]

Hey 11Bravo, here's a Jeff-Bridges-as-Rooster-Cogburn fix for ya.  Sorta. 

http://youtu.be/ibMV4ZOYHh4

[Queequeg]

Why would anyone enjoy Melancholia? It's a misanthropic shitty version of Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice.

[Ideologue]

Anybody going to see Gatsby next week when it comes out?

You know it, buster.

[Ideologue]

Iron Man 3 (2012).  Just like the Iron Man suits themselves, this franchise has become eminently disposable.  The Marvel movies have been extremely hit or miss for me--the first Iron Man and Thor being the two bona fide, unqualified hits--but one overriding theme seems to be that they tend to experience a smattering of anal leakage forty-five minutes to an hour before the credits roll--The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, and now very much Iron Man 3--even if they don't shit the bed entirely, like Captain America did.  Iron Man 3 is like half of a pretty rad movie, and half of a pretty lame one.  I think those who have seen it will be able to identify the turning point.  Apropos of nothing, do you remember that part in Die Hard where Hans Gruber is checking the detonators, runs smack into John McClane, and Alan Rickman puts on his awful Midwestern accent and starts screaming about how he got away from the terrorists, fooling McClane into thinking he's a regular guy?  Wasn't that part great?  Wouldn't it be really shitty if that didn't go anywhere?  Lowest C+ possible, and this is solely because Tony Stark called a latchkey kid a pussy for missing his father, which was hilarious.

Arachnophobia (1988).  There aren't a lot of movies where an animal wrangling featurette would be considered desirable on the Blu Ray release, and fewer still where you'd consider it necessary.  But then there is Arachnophobia.  I'm sure no one who watched this movie would want to know how they got thousands of spiders to hit their marks properly; that is clearly a subject without any inherent interest.  It doesn't even have any commentary tracks.  Anyway, scary-ass film, and Jeff Daniels and John Goodman are a hell of a lot of fun as their respective goofy characters.  Did you know they tried to market this as a "thrillomedy" [sic]?  That might be retarded, but the movie's a solid A.

Oz, The Great and Powerful (2012).  Finally got a chance to see this.  It's not great, but it's worth watching despite a lot of what seems like wheel-spinning, for the opening scene in Kansas, which is a lot of fun, and the occasional moment where the movie doesn't seem like it's just filling running time with vague ideas it doesn't care to explore.  Franco is excellent as he always is.  Mila Kunis is hot for most of the movie--and I did appreciate the hell out of one visual touch, where tears (water) left deep cuts on her witch face.  Nice job, there, Raimi.  For your next trick, explain how their own sweat doesn't reduce them to a pile of smoking goo within minutes.  Definitely a higher C+ than Iron Man 3, maybe a B if I were feeling generous, which I'm not.

The Crow (1994).  A man died to make this?  I dunno.  Maybe if I'd watched this at 13 like a normal person, I'd love it, but as it stands, I liked it okay.  Brandon Lee is fun as the undead Goth Spider-Man, quipping through revenge killings in a series of quasi-competently made action scenes.  Michael Wincott is also adorable as the growly villain who spends most of his time chewing through the scenery of quasi-competently designed sets.  I guess it's a C+.  It's way shorter than Iron Man 3.

[Razgovory]

Why would anyone enjoy Melancholia? It's a misanthropic shitty version of Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice.

If you are European.  Misanthropic and shitty are sort of their things.

[Ideologue]

Days of Thunder (1990).  Top Gun with cars > Top Gun with airplanes?  It may be so, as much as I hate to say it.  Thunder is less vignettish in its execution, there's a lot less distractingly reused stock footage (though there is regrettably some), and Tom Cruise's role as Tom Cruise* is meatier and his performance stronger.  Top Gun has a more nuanced message ("bend, so you do not break; work as a team and accomplish excellence; being Val Kilmer's wingman is OK as long as it's 1986") than Thunder ("drive really fast even though it's stupid, because you have nowhere else to go and nothing else to do").  But F-14s are not strategic bombers and therefore of the same inherently minimal cultural value as NASCAR anyway--so on presentation I'll give the slightest edge to Days of Thunder. A+

*Would Oblivion [spoiler]be the best movie ever, if instead Jack Harper, the alien AI sent down clones of an in-universe Tom Cruise to wipe out humanity?  Wouldn't that have been amazing?  What if it were Nicole Kidman who realized they were no longer an effective team?[/spoiler]