TV/Movies Megathread

[daveracher]

Anything after John Lithgows season was iffy for Dexter in my opinion... and no matter what he does, don't let him watch the series finale.

[Josephus]

^^^

This. I think John lithgow's season was 3. AFter that it started a rapid downhill descent.

[Josephus]

Anyone watching Homeland?

[Berkut]

Definitely. Season started really slow, but is getting interesting.

[Josephus]

Yeah, nice little reveal at the end of last episode.

[PRC]

This might have been brought up here in the past.

12 O'CLOCK BOYS:
Official Description: Pug, a wisecracking 13 year old living on a dangerous Westside block, has one goal in mind: to join The Twelve O'Clock Boys; the notorious urban dirt-bike gang of Baltimore. Converging from all parts of the inner city, they invade the streets and clash with police, who are forbidden to chase the bikes for fear of endangering the public. When Pug's older brother dies suddenly, he looks to the pack for mentorship, spurred by their dangerous lifestyle.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMQY6k16TU

[jimmy olsen]

Watched the 2nd season of the Legend of Korra. The first five episodes were kind of a confused, angsty mess, but episodes six to fourteen were great, with the final four being absolutely epic.

eh? have they got to 14?

aren't they still on 10?

They showed 11-12 last Friday and then released 13-14 at midnight after a successful online campaign.

[Ideologue]

After Blow Out, which also arrived, of course.

HEY EVERYBODY GUESS WHAT'S A BETTER MOVIE THAN THE CONVERSATION?

A+

[Habbaku]

Definitely. Season started really slow, but is getting interesting.

Oh, thank God.  I watched the first two episodes and couldn't muster the energy go further.  I just thought they were a bit...off.  Might have to catch up on them when Boardwalk Empire's season ends next week.

[CountDeMoney]

when Boardwalk Empire's season ends next week.

Talk about starting slow.   

[Habbaku]

I have really enjoyed this season, but man.  They need to either pick up the pace or drop some of the side-characters.  I do not really give a crap about Gillian, for example, even though I think she's the hottest woman on the show.  I do, however, give quite a many shits about Nelson van Alden and wish he were in way more episodes.

[Ideologue]

Shivers (1975).  The film chronicles an infestation of intestinal parasites that reorder the priorities of their hosts.  In the ruins of their old abdominal cavities, a new, classless sexual society is born.  In the end, the new order is spread across the face of the planet by the vanguard of erotic egalitarianism.  Hey, not every revolution can be velvet.

So, yeah: while exploitation with a genuinely thought-provoking bent, the title "Shivers" makes less sense than "Rapocalypse."  "Orgy of the Blood Parasites," "They Came From Within," and "Parasite Murders," all actually used, are also properly descriptive.  However, I think I prefer the French-Canadian title, "Frissons," the most.

Shivers does get very good toward the end, when it actually does step back and ask, however obliquely, if turning the world into a giant orgy might entail some fun, however creepy and gross as it might be in the actual execution--I think the film stacks the deck against the notion with many of its details, and forcible rape isn't even the number one there.  Though everyone winds up enjoying it, the means used to get to yes are pretty yucky.

Nonetheless, I particularly enjoyed the "even old flesh is erotic" monologue (however badly delivered), and plan on using it next time I'm at the bar.  I also liked the John Carpenter ending, if John Carpenter were simultaneously attracted and disgusted by human sexuality rather than the possibility that we're living in a fictional world.

Though Shivers' horror is often undermined--for every scene of kids infected with the rape parasite being collared and walked like dogs, there's some dumbass extra shuffling around as if it were Night of the Living Dead--it remains a very disturbing film.  Gore is present in more than a third of the frames; there's some very good prosthetic work in general.  Rape is present in at least one quarter.  And of course, as noted, the scenes with kids are challenging, to say the least.

On the minus side, it has terrible acting in general.  Shivers occupies a somewhat unsatisfying middle ground, with actors certainly no better than their pornographic counterparts, yet unable (for obvious reasons) to fully emulate that genre's heights of sleaze.

Ultimately, it's rather good, and the whole sexual violence thing serves the visceral horror angle--this movie could not be made today, nor probably in any decade but the one it was--however, I almost wonder if the discussion Shivers sort-of begins about free will, consent, and the sources of human happiness might have been more capable of nuance had the parasites been quieter, nicer, and relied quite a bit less on assault.  Indeed, a gradual takeover based upon the promise of physical pleasure, if only you agree to replace one set of biological hardwiring with another, would not only have been more interesting, but perhaps, for many, scarier.

But it's not a Michel Houllebecq novel, I guess, and you watch the Exploding Heads-era Cronenberg exploitation film you have, not the Exploding Heads-era Cronenberg exploitation film you wish you had.

B+

[Queequeg]

I think a lot of the stiffness in acting is intended.  The artificiality and stupidity of the apartment complex is compared to the ravenous singularity and unpretentiousness of the infected. 

[Queequeg]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rX2oqK5vGw

I actually really liked all his videos on early Cronenberg. 

[Admiral Yi]

Watched The Brave, the Pixar flick about the red-headed bow-shooting Scottish princess.  You could tell the hair animator was performing a labor of love.  That was great looking hair. The triplets were very funny.  The snot scene in particular was genius.  The in joke about the one suitor with the incomprehensible accent was clever.  The mother-daughter dynamic at the forefront of the story was a little too clunky and maudlin to make this a timeless classic.

Overall it's a B.