TV/Movies Megathread

[Zoupa]

lol thanks for your input katmai.

[Ideologue]

Watched The Raid 2 today.  Full review is actually entirely finished except for pictures, but will be delayed until I can finish up the review of the first one and Dredd, which is the real sticking point because there are so many worthy elements worth discussing at too great a length, whereas The Raids, whether better or worse, are simpler.

In the meantime, I suggest you watch it, for it is really quite excellent, though my God do Gareth Evans the screenwriter and Gareth Evans the director and editor possess vastly differing levels of talent.  Yes, The Raid 2 features a fully-fledged story that is not predominately conveyed through action scenes and the quick, interstitial breathing spaces between action scenes; that story is startlingly boilerplate given how invested Evans was in making it (The Raid 2 is a modified version of Berandal, which is the movie he wanted to make instead of The Raid).

Adding insult to injury, if you were invested at all in the oddly much superior story of The Raid, the opening scene of The Raid 2 will piss you off and make you sad that they wasted all the possibilities the ending of The Raid opened up.

Nonetheless, the action is--well, obviously--it's superb.  It's not as great, but it's still pretty great.  And it beats the Goddamned pants off of Cap 2.

A

[katmai]

lol thanks for your input katmai.

I'm here for you like that Zoups.

[Ideologue]

Oh, I also got a chance to see:

Treasure Planet (2001).

Ron Clements and John Musker went from The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, and Hercules to this?

Well, at least it doesn't have Phil Collins gumming up the works.  This movie is neither bad nor really remotely interesting.  It's occasionally pretty.

C+

The Social Network (2009).

Masterfully-directed, perfectly-acted biopic about some douchebag that created a website.

B+

Lots of episodes of the first season of House, M.D. (2001).

I secretly really love this insanely repetitive program that celebrates the scummiest traits already inherent to doctors, while at the same time absolutely ignoring at every turn it can the salient fact that all these endless tests and weird treatments are going to put these poor patients into a lifetime of penury.  Anyway, don't tell the person who thinks I'm doing her a favor when I let her watch it.

A overall

[katmai]

Pacific Rim

[Norgy]

The Kroll Show, Inside Amy Schumer and Broad City must be made for a good reason. I just can't see it. Sign #678 that I am getting old: Not enjoying current comedy shows, missing "back in the day".

[garbon]

I love Broad City.

[Josephus]

So, Hannibal.
[spoiler]They killed off Dr. Chilton? That's not supposed to happen 'til Hannibal escapes from prison.[/spoiler]

I'm thinking they're diverging from the books at this point.

[Queequeg]

So, Hannibal.
[spoiler]They killed off Dr. Chilton? That's not supposed to happen 'til Hannibal escapes from prison.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]He's alive.[/spoiler]

[Ed Anger]

The Kroll Show, Inside Amy Schumer and Broad City must be made for a good reason. I just can't see it. Sign #678 that I am getting old: Not enjoying current comedy shows, missing "back in the day".

I liked the Jesselnik Offensive and it's over the top racism.

They cancelled it.

[CountDeMoney]

I liked the Jesselnik Offensive and it's over the top racism.

They cancelled it.

No shit.  That show was fucking hilarious.

[Admiral Yi]

Pacific Rim.  What a dorkfest.

[Valmy]

Edit:

Maybe he finds the notion that all Protestants are barbarians with an never-ending appetite for blood, oppression, and violence repulsive.  The rest of us just know it as a self-evident truth.

Also this.

Yep hehe.

I think it would be difficult to find sympathetic English characters in a film about the Irish war of independence and civil war without tokenistic reaching. There's probably a baker's dozen of sympathetic Englishmen (in Ireland) in the entire history of English colonialism there. It was, in my view, the first and the worst of the English empire-building. On Protestant Irish I think it would also have been difficult in a film of this type which is local and rural, obviously if you're making a film about Irish nationalism in general then you include the urban and you have the great heroes like Parnell and Yeats. But the more common experience was the conservative, fearful and fearsome local gentry.

But in all seriousness it was not that simple of an affair.  The entire reason the English were there was because the Pope was pressuring them to, and Irish nobles were begging them to come and still the English King didn't want to.  When Henry II made the tremendous blunder of simply saying anybody who wanted to go to Ireland could, he ended up be saddled with the whole mess.  After sending his fantastically talented son John Lackland to run things (that went well) he made an attempt to govern it by collaborating with Irish nobles.  After that failed he just gave up and let the place run itself.  That is pretty much how things remained until Ireland became a serious national security risk because of the reformation.  Then things got ugly, but for the exact same reason things everywhere else in Europe got ugly.  In the 19th century there was considerable number of Englishman fighting for Catholic Emancipation and Home Rule and so forth.  And even in the shitty parts you could at least maybe figure they felt they couldn't sell out the Scots-Irish Protestants or being concerned about having a hostile Irish state closeby.  Perfectly ordinary, if not admirable, things any country would do in that situation.  And that is the WORST of British empire building?  Fuck I didn't see British political parties and figures standing up for the Burmese.  I don't see at least somewhat reasonable justifications of national security or rather ordinary religious and ethnic conflict justifying the Zulu Wars.

[jimmy olsen]

[Admiral Yi]

Black Hawk Down is in heavy rotation on BBC America (fittingly).  WTF is Jaime Lannister doing in that film?