TV/Movies Megathread

[Queequeg]

Finally making the last push to finish off the X-files 9th season.  Scully uses the same internet handle as Spellus, which is kind of weird.

It's a reference to her dead dog, and Moby-Dick. I think her dad called her Starbuck.

[Razgovory]

I know that, it's still kinda weird.

[Eddie Teach]

The fact he knew it and copied her makes it weird.

[Sophie Scholl]

The Desolation of Smaug.  I'm growing to hate you, Peter Jackson.  I really am.  You nose dived in each successive Lord of the Rings movie, took another big dive in An Unexpected Journey, and now you have further fallen with this movie.  You've added your love of inane childish humor in larger and larger doses, deviated further and further from the source material, and now have decided to just create a summer popcorn flick instead of an actual effort at filming The Hobbit.  I had such incredibly high hopes after Fellowship, despite the axing of the barrow downs and Tom Bombadil, and now that hope is despair as I wait another year to see how you extricate yourself from this mess you've put onto the screen and given the name of The Hobbit to.  I will admit though, you have a fantastic eye for visually pleasing cinema and a great crew of actors and assistants who make your films fantastic eye candy at the very least.  C-

I reserve the right to amend my thoughts upon further viewings and the release of the Extended Edition.

[Sheilbh]

But Dickens somehow makes the episode.  It's set at Christmas, so subtly echoes A Christmas Carol, yet the last comment that Dickens is soon to die gives it a poignancy that was well done.

It helps that Dickens is played by Simon Callow who's been doing a Dickens one man show for years.

[CountDeMoney]

and Tom Bombadil,

Pfft, snooze.  45 pages of hanging out with Timothy Leary?  Big deal.  I didn't miss it.

[crazy canuck]

The Desolation of Smaug.  and now have decided to just create a summer popcorn flick instead of an actual effort at filming The Hobbit.

I heard a reviewer this morning say he was going back to his B movie roots with this one.

[Syt]

I would watch a Meet the Feebles version of LotR.

[Savonarola]

Lubitsch in Berlin

This documentary covers the early part of Ernst Lubitsch's career.  Lubitsch began as a stage actor and then started appearing in German silent comedies.  (A number of the pretentious film critics that are inevitably in this sort of documentary compared Lubitsch to Charlie Chaplin .  From the clips they showed he was actually a nice thick slice of kosher ham.)  His big break, strangely enough, came because World War I broke out, and Germany could no longer receive foreign movies.  His comedies were initially banned at the start of the war, due to the somber mood, but that was quickly reversed as moviegoers really needed a laugh.  So he had a captive audience and a popular genre.

He did direct in other genre when in Germany; but even in that era his best known works are his comedies.  He even has some elements of expressionism in his very last German films; but didn't carry that over in his American films.  He left for America in 1922 and returned to Germany only three times all before 1935 (after which, as a Jew, he couldn't return.)

[viper37]

I reserve the right to amend my thoughts upon further viewings and the release of the Extended Edition.

First, people complain it's too long, they can't understand how he can make 3 movies with the Hobbit, wich was basically a kid's book.
Then they complain it's childish and it's too short.

I can't understand critics

[Ed Anger]

On the DVR:

Dungeons and Dragons: Book of Vile Darkness

Tonight, I will savor every awful direct to DVD morsel of this "film".

Totally awful. I await the next one, D&D: Bag of Holding.

[Sophie Scholl]

I reserve the right to amend my thoughts upon further viewings and the release of the Extended Edition.

First, people complain it's too long, they can't understand how he can make 3 movies with the Hobbit, wich was basically a kid's book.
Then they complain it's childish and it's too short.

I can't understand critics

I don't really have a problem with the lengths of the movies, just with the increasing liberties taken with the storyline.  It's gotten to the point where it can almost be called The Desolation of Smaug: A Movie Inspired by The Hobbit.

[katmai]

Hobbit part II

I liked it, BA is just grumpy.

[Sheilbh]

The Desolation of Smaug.  and now have decided to just create a summer popcorn flick instead of an actual effort at filming The Hobbit.

I heard a reviewer this morning say he was going back to his B movie roots with this one.

I liked the first Hobbit. Like the books I think I prefer the Hobbit to Lord of the Rings precisely because it's a little less serious.

[Neil]

Ide refuses to accept that standards of beauty were different in the 1930s.  He's silly.