TV/Movies Megathread

[LaCroix]

Was surprised by Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Thought it would be inane hipster crap, and it was. However the main characters were surprisingly attaching... for hipsters, at least. Except Ramona.

Micheal Cera's voice is godawfully annoying, though.

one of the worst movies i've ever seen

[Queequeg]

Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Brie Larson 

[FunkMonk]

Started watching The Americans.

I am: intrigued.

[Grey Fox]

Started watching The Americans.

I am: intrigued.

The episode when Reagan gets shot is all kind of crazy, it's so funny.

[Ideologue]

Hey, Raz, in case you missed it, yes, they do.

[Savonarola]

The Mechanical Man (1920)

In the early years of film the Italians produced large, sweeping works filled with... exuberant actors.  This film is something of a cross between the Golem legend and a crime drama.  The first half of the film has been lost; that concerns an inventor and his giant robot.  A gang of criminals capture it, but they're captured.  The first extant scenes are of their leader, a woman, escaping by setting fire in the hospitals she's at and hiding from the fire under a pile of mattresses.  (I'm pretty sure that wouldn't have worked.)  In any event in a series of lost scenes she kidnaps the inventors daughter and forces her to reveal the secret of the mechanical man. 

There are extant scenes of the niece convalescing.  She's out of her mind until a family friend (played by the film's director) comes in and starts bounding about like a maniac.  That restores her to her right mind (take that Sigmund Freud.)

The villainess builds her own mechanical man (female engineers are always evil )  and uses it to break into homes and steal jewelry (progressive Italian cinema strikes again!)  Eventually there's a climatic battle in an Opera House (Italians ) between the mechanical man and a second mechanical man made by the inventor's brother.

[jimmy olsen]

Ide, did you review Dredd? It's the kind of movie that seems tailor made for one of your 5000 word reviews.

[Neil]

So, the Atlantic posted an article about how people complaining about how the new Fantastic Four movie cast a black guy as Johnny Storm are racist.  I argue that the film's producers are the racists.  Once they decided to cast a black guy in there, they had the opportunity to cast a black guy as Mr. Fantastic.  Clearly the leader, the smartest man in any room he's in, a gentleman.  But instead, they play into stereotypes and cast a black guy as the smart-mouthed hotshot, and then cast his sister as the lilly-white daughter of a couple of NFL owner families.

[FunkMonk]

Ide, do you do music reviews?

[The Brain]

Ide, do you do stool reviews?

[Eddie Teach]

Brain, are you sure you're not German?

[The Brain]

Brain, are you sure you're not German?

North Germanic, motherfucker.

[Josquius]

So, the Atlantic posted an article about how people complaining about how the new Fantastic Four movie cast a black guy as Johnny Storm are racist.  I argue that the film's producers are the racists.  Once they decided to cast a black guy in there, they had the opportunity to cast a black guy as Mr. Fantastic.  Clearly the leader, the smartest man in any room he's in, a gentleman.  But instead, they play into stereotypes and cast a black guy as the smart-mouthed hotshot, and then cast his sister as the lilly-white daughter of a couple of NFL owner families.

Wait, what, they did that? That's...just dumb casting.
And yes, pretty racist. The wise cracking thin sidekick (and the quiet tough beefy sidekick) are pretty standard issue black guy roles.

[celedhring]

So, the Atlantic posted an article about how people complaining about how the new Fantastic Four movie cast a black guy as Johnny Storm are racist.  I argue that the film's producers are the racists.  Once they decided to cast a black guy in there, they had the opportunity to cast a black guy as Mr. Fantastic.  Clearly the leader, the smartest man in any room he's in, a gentleman.  But instead, they play into stereotypes and cast a black guy as the smart-mouthed hotshot, and then cast his sister as the lilly-white daughter of a couple of NFL owner families.

Wait, what, they did that? That's...just dumb casting.
And yes, pretty racist. The wise cracking thin sidekick (and the quiet tough beefy sidekick) are pretty standard issue black guy roles.

Due to my newly discovered love for Alexandra Daddario I allowed myself to watch the first Percy Jackson movie, and they have a black fellow playing a satyr in order to perform this very same schtick.

[Ideologue]

Ide, did you review Dredd? It's the kind of movie that seems tailor made for one of your 5000 work reviews.

Not formally.  It's a very wonderful film which I own, however.