TV/Movies Megathread

[Ideologue]

There are a lot cooler movies on Youtube.  Last I checked Scanners was still on there.  Duel, too--Spielberg's finest picture.

[Queequeg]

Scanners. 

[MadImmortalMan]

More than Meets the Eye parts 1, 2 and 3.

Kickoff of Transformers, 1984.

Megatron wrecks an oil rig, steals approximately six barrels of oil and turns it into energon cubes before destroying the whole thing and making an oil spill. Mission accomplished.

Next up is some rubies from Burma which are apparently very rich in stored energy.

Then the Decepticons decide they need some rocket fuel and they're good to go.

Autobots were flying in the beginning.

Mrs. MIM watched too (she loved the show wtf) and said it wasn't the same without the Gummi Bears show coming up next, but that one wasn't on Instantwatch.

[Ideologue]

Scanners. 

Turns out Suspiria is also on Youtube, but I had the DVD coming to me.  Never seen it, but am very much looking forward to it.  I hear that it's got a lot of production design.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012).  Also a big fan of the color red and its allied shades is this weird movie from last year.  If you recall its premise--wherein the titular character is the villain of a Fix-It Felix arcade game, and everybody in the game is 1)aware of their own metafictional state and doesn't care and 2)still hates Ralph for being part of the game that alone ensures their existence--you also recall it makes absolutely no sense.  Indeed, there are character choices in this film that explicitly depict how every character in the movie knows that the good guy/bad guy dialectic is absolutely required for their machines to stay operational and their lives to go on; but they treat Ralph as if he is a monster whose game-dictated wrecking was a hobby.  Ralph doesn't like it so he abandons his game to go steal a golden fleece, I mean a medal, from one of their neighboring cabinet.  It's pretty dumb.

The premise also requires the film to try to match tremendously divergent aesthetics, mixing characters and design elements from Ralph's Donkey Kong-esque climbing game, a neat Mario Kart-style racing game, and what is supposed to be but never even once looks like a current-gen first person shooter, a game routinely associated with the arcades that have not been around for over a decade at this point.

But, once Ralph's quest through to become a hero rather than a bad guy finally brings him to Sugar Rush, the Mario Kart game, the look of the film settles down.  He meets a little girl who wants to be a Sugar Rush racer, but who, as a "glitch" is something akin to the Reptile if not the Ermac of her game world, currently unplayable but desiring to be so despite the opposition of King Candy and his racist racing regime.  It's pretty neat and the Candyland world looks AMAZING and it makes you hate that this is not a movie about a guy and his daughter facing fantastic bigotry in a world made of delicious sweets, instead of a movie also involving video games and self-aware video game characters for no obvious or good reason whatsoever.

Ultimately, the plot works better than the premise and the visuals trump all.  It's not a bad film at all, just one suffering from a great deal self-inflicted harm.

B

Jack the Giant Slayer (2013).  I liked it when the beanstalk grew.  I thought that was cool.  And I liked the mild little twist ending, showing us whatever happened to the mind-control crown.  And I sort of liked Jack and the Princess Isabelle, or at least I did not dislike them.  Otherwise, it's a very trifling affair, and not in a particularly good way.  It's not bad, but it's an odd combination of both cumbersome and empty.  I can't even really identify anything outrageously wrong with it, just small issues, like forcing a few jokes--but it's got at least its fair share of little problems, without its fair share of things that really recommend it.

For example, I don't know why the lead giant has two heads, or how their dumb society functions, or how they build furniture when their trees are regular sized.  I don't know how you they fail to rip off the Star Wars character dynamic between the three leads, since merely trying, and they boy do they, should bring you fully 90% of the way there.  And finally I don't know who thought it was a good idea to shelve a movie for fifteen years given the enormous technological changes that have occurred in the last decade and a half, but they really ought to--wait, this movie wasn't made in 1998?  It was made four years after Avatar?  And still cost $200 million?  Wow.

C+

[Ed Anger]

Waterloo is on Youtube.

But I secured a janky Chinese region 0 disc.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Scanners. 

Trancers.


Watched Transformers: The Movie on Youtube not too long ago.  The soundtrack is still annoying.  But I do likethe hate plague episodes. 

[The Brain]

Waterloo is on Youtube.

But I secured a janky Chinese region 0 disc.

ABBA

[Josephus]

Watched  a movie on Netflix called Into the White. Surprisingly good yarn, supposedly based on a true story, of two downed WW2 air crews --one German, one British-- in the Norwegian mountains,  who have to work together to survive. Pretty good, though the only recognizable actor is the red-haired dude from Harry Potter.

[Ed Anger]

Waterloo is on Youtube.

But I secured a janky Chinese region 0 disc.

ABBA

[jimmy olsen]

the arcades that have not been around for over a decade at this point.

Still all over Korea and Japan, multiple ones in my town of 40,000

[MadImmortalMan]

Watched  a movie on Netflix called Into the White. Surprisingly good yarn, supposedly based on a true story, of two downed WW2 air crews --one German, one British-- in the Norwegian mountains,  who have to work together to survive. Pretty good, though the only recognizable actor is the red-haired dude from Harry Potter.

This sounds interesting.

[Admiral Yi]

Watched Trainspotting again last night.  That's probably about the 8th time.  Perfect movie.

[The Brain]

Watched Trainspotting again last night.  That's probably about the 8th time.  Perfect movie.

Or perfect audience?

[Admiral Yi]

 

[The Brain]

The Siege is on TV. It's frightening to know that the military will take over New York if there is a major terrorist attack.