TV/Movies Megathread

[The Brain]

Fast zombies are best zombies.

[Barrister]

This Is The End is getting surprisingly good reviews for a movie that looked absolutely dreadful in its trailer.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Yes. Suspicious.  Gotta wonder how much is just the Hollywood influence machine threatening to cut off access to reviewers who trash it.

[Josephus]

Hannah Arendt. A German movie about the woman whose account of the Eichmann trials in The New Yorker caused much controversy for her portayal of Eichmann as a "nobody" and for blaming the Jewish leadership for cooperating with the Nazis. Pretty good movie. Excellent climax where she defends the accusations against her.

[Ideologue]

Barry Lyndon was a tough watch. Yeah, I know it's 100 year war stuff that turns a lot of us on, but overall, I find it one of the weaker of the Kubrick catalogue.

I'm finding it kind of difficult to write about, but personally I really liked it.  The upshot of any putative review would be "Despite an intimidating reputation, I found it a conventionally entertaining epic."  And to me it was.  It definitely didn't feel three hours long.

But, while the climactic duel scene is way rad, but riddle me this: why are the rules different in that duel?  More to the point, who would agree to such stupid rules?  I know old pistols are wildly inaccurate, but at ten paces, you're still like 90% certain to die based on the outcome of a coin toss--unless your opponent is a punk kid who's as likely to gum up his powder with his own puke as he is accidentally discharge it into the ground.

Also I feel it would have been stronger if Barry had just gunned Bullingdon down like a dog.

[Jacob]

I quite enjoyed Barry Lyndon back when I watched it.

[Josephus]

the dual confused me as well. I thought people shot at the same time.

[Malthus]

Saw an A&E miniseries called Longitude. I quite enjoyed it. 

It is the story of the genius carpenter-turned-clockmaker who finally solved the problem of determining longitude by making a truly accurate clock that could withstand the rigours of a sea voyage and remain accurate. He was spurred on by the promise of winning a fabulous fortune - 20,000 pounds, in the mid-18th century - which drew out all of the kooks and crankpots with various absurd and unworkable solutions.

His nemesis was the Longitude Board, which was supposed to evaluate the solutions offered and award the prize to the winner. Unfortunately for him, the Board was staffed with gentleman-scientists who had zero sympathy for a lowly mechanic, and who "knew" that the solution was to be found in astronomical observations. Much of the drama revolves around the increasingly bizzare attempts by the Board to screw our hero out of the prize, long past the point when it was obvious that his clock did in fact work.

The cycle was only broken by the direct intervention of the King - and even then, the Board refused to give him the prize! In an apparent fit of spite, the Board insisted on confiscating all of our hero's sea clocks, where they languished into decrepitude in a store-room. Our hero was finally awarded his money, but by a special act of Parliament, not by the Longitude Board.

The other part of the story, interwoven with the first, is the attempt by an obsessive British Naval officer, suffering from a nervous breakdown, to repair and refurnbish the clocks a couple of hundred years later.

It's a fine production, filled with great British actors, and well worth seeing.

[Ideologue]

the dual confused me as well. I thought people shot at the same time.

And in the previous two duels, they totally did.

Maybe upper-class twits have different dueling rules?

(I was also confused as to whether dueling was illegal.  It appears to be, since Barry had to flee Ireland in the beginning, but nothing happens to Bullingdon.  Is it just illegal for Irish scum?)

[Ideologue]

Saw an A&E miniseries called Longitude. I quite enjoyed it. 

It is the story of the genius carpenter-turned-clockmaker who finally solved the problem of determining longitude by making a truly accurate clock that could withstand the rigours of a sea voyage and remain accurate. He was spurred on by the promise of winning a fabulous fortune - 20,000 pounds, in the mid-18th century - which drew out all of the kooks and crankpots with various absurd and unworkable solutions.

That is an absurd amount of money in the 18th century.  On the minus side, you'd have to spend it in the 18th century, so you could buy nearly nothing worthwhile and what you could purchase would only modestly improve your savage lot.  Best to drown, I reckon.

Show sounds cool, tho.

[Ed Anger]

Next on A&E, duck storage shipping wars dynasty hoarders.

[mongers]

Saw an A&E miniseries called Longitude. I quite enjoyed it. 

It is the story of the genius carpenter-turned-clockmaker who finally solved the problem of determining longitude by making a truly accurate clock that could withstand the rigours of a sea voyage and remain accurate. He was spurred on by the promise of winning a fabulous fortune - 20,000 pounds, in the mid-18th century - which drew out all of the kooks and crankpots with various absurd and unworkable solutions.
.......
It's a fine production, filled with great British actors, and well worth seeing.

Saw this when it was made back in 2000, a co-production with UK channel 4. 

They're not clocks, but maritime chronometers; if you go to the Greenwich Observatory you can see all four of John Harrison's original chronometers; up close, astonishing pieces of machinery, most of which are usually running .

[Darth Wagtaros]

Next on A&E, duck storage shipping wars dynasty hoarders.

PRetty soon it'll be hard to tell HIstory Channel, TLC, and A&E apart from Fox or SPIKE TV.

[Josquius]

The film opens with the Keystone Kops that are the Main Force Patrol, engaged in a hilariously negligent hot pursuit of the vicious Night Rider, across the surprisingly well-maintained roads that exist following, we are told via title card, the end of civilization (try not to notice the busy restaurant, well-stocked auto mechanic, or most bafflingly the operational British Petroleum refinery that can be seen over the course of the film).

Mad Max 1 isn't after the end of civilization is it? Its during its rot.

[Razgovory]

Saw Zero Dark Thirty.  Didn't care for it.  Frequently characters were doing something, but I had no idea why they were doing it or who they were.