TV/Movies Megathread

[Norgy]

It was underwhelming.
The idea is good. The execution, not so much. And I agree with CountDeMoviereviwer, it was way too long.

[Ideologue]

I'm watching the BBC tiny-camera documentary, Life in the Undergrowth.  It's about bugs.  EWWWWW.

[Eddie Teach]

The Night of the Living Dead. They came for Barbara. 

[Razgovory]

Of that list, Frozen was the most entertaining. One of the chicks needed to piss in Olaf's mouth though to give it an A+

It's my niece's favorite movie now.  My sis went through a goth phase (or something), where she had a chip on shoulder about everything as a teenager.  She was mad that my dad used to call her princess and painted her room pink when she was really young.  Now my sis is more grown up and her daughter loves Disney princess movies and wants her parents to paint her room pink.

[Ed Anger]

I've been impressed with Disney's output lately in the animated sphere. There for awhile, I cringed at the shit they was putting out.

[Ideologue]

Holy Fuck.  This season of Hannibal is so fucking perfect.  Fuck fuck fuck.

Largely concur.

[LaCroix]

That's not a gimmick; that's "high concept."

by god, you're right

[Ideologue]

The Purge 2 is looking like it might be the movie the first one always needed to be, and never quite was.  Probably a dumb thing to get excited over, but there you go.

[Josquius]

Hannibal picks up then? I gave the first episode a shot and didn't do anything for me.

[LaCroix]

her - best movie i've seen in a long time

[Eddie Teach]

Did they have as much chemistry as Lars and the Real Girl?

[LaCroix]

Did they have as much chemistry as Lars and the Real Girl?

that movie was just OK

her is much better

[Eddie Teach]

You didn't answer the question. 

[Ideologue]

Hannibal picks up then? I gave the first episode a shot and didn't do anything for me.

It very much does, though that dumb CGI pendulum is back after being (I thought) retired with the start of the second season.

Also current in Hannibal Lecktor Lecter, I finally watched Manhunter (1986).  This story of Will Graham and the serial killer he pursues is grody and elegaic thanks to Michael Mann's often lonely and grieving widescreen compositions, and especially to the throbbing electronic score.  That is, those parts that are not off-brand 80s cheese-rock (or Steppenwolf--but that's diagetic).

It is also stylish at turns thanks to the excellent if low-key production design deployed for Dolarhyde's lair, but even more importantly the whitest fucking prison you ever saw, to which Lecter, in his white coveralls that almost hide him against the white walls, has been remanded.  But what stood out the most in Manhunter was its crazy 80s editing--especially the coked-up jump-cutting taking place within individual shots in the climactic scene.  It's great, and I wish more films would experiment like that.

And yet Manhunter, regrettably, is an amateurish production.  If a few reads by the easy-worst of the three Will Grahams to appear on our screeens suggest that extra takes and quality control weren't much in the offing, the sequence where Tom Noonan clearly swallows, almost a minute after his Dolarhyde has been shot to death, confirms it utterly.

If it pales in comparison to the novel, and the more faithful, higher-budgeted, and Hopkins-featuring Red Dragon, it does so because Ratner used the text, along with Ralph Fiennes and Emily Watson, to truly invest Francis Dolarhyde with pathos.  Dolarhyde's story, regrettably, is to be found only in summary here.  In Manhunter, our favorite interloping journalist Freddy Lounds is dutifully strapped into a wheelchair, set aflame, and launched down a hill for our immense delectation.  And, yes, it looks great; and, for my grousing about errors, the prop people coordinated it perfectly.  But, tell me, in Manhunter, why does Dolarhyde have a wheelchair again..?

Better appreciated as a companion piece to the novel rather than an adaptation thereof, it's nonetheless quite fun, and its strengths outweigh the weaknesses.

B+

[Ideologue]

her - best movie i've seen in a long time