TV/Movies Megathread

[Ed Anger]

This new mini-series  on the HitlerHistory Channel, "The World Wars", is exactly what you'd expect from that channel: overdone.

The PBS special on the logistics and engineering of D-Day was done much better.

The historical and chronological errors on the History Channel show make me giggle.

I did like young Hitler.

[Ed Anger]

No Brits better watch it. Their blood pressure will skyrocket over the Sicily/Italy bit. 

[CountDeMoney]

This new mini-series  on the HitlerHistory Channel, "The World Wars", is exactly what you'd expect from that channel: overdone.

The PBS special on the logistics and engineering of D-Day was done much better.

The historical and chronological errors on the History Channel show make me giggle.

I did like young Hitler.

I like the CNN-style historic hyperbole.

"With the Ribbontrop-Molotov Pact, Germany and Russis were now the most powerful military alliance...in...the...world!"

Yeah. Because that's why it was signed.

[celedhring]

I just found out there's a Warcraft film in the making (as in the Warcraft videogames), and it finished shooting last week. 

Isn't this like at least 5 years too late?

[viper37]

It has the dude from Vikings.  I don't know about the timing.  Maybe they're planning a Warcraft IV, post WoW&all.

[Duque de Bragança]

Giving Lovefilm a go, after a long time; so quick, I need some decent films of the last 5-6 years to populate the list.

Try to watch at least the first Elite Squad to get you in the mood for the Brazilian World Cup.

I'm guessing this is a joke, you're actually recommending some urban combat/crime film action movies?   

It's both. It started as a documentary but you can see it as an urban combat/crime film. Sometimes in the news, specially before this World Cup, there are reports of police pacifying favelas. With this movie, you'll get a look at it from another perspective and the context.

[Ideologue]

I just found out there's a Warcraft film in the making (as in the Warcraft videogames), and it finished shooting last week. 

Isn't this like at least 5 years too late?

Warcraft annoys me.  There is no reason for Duncan Jones to be wasting his time on this shit.

[Viking]

I just found out there's a Warcraft film in the making (as in the Warcraft videogames), and it finished shooting last week. 

Isn't this like at least 5 years too late?

Warcraft annoys me.  There is no reason for Duncan Jones to be wasting his time on this shit.

Best case scenario?



Edit: I'm referring to the first one, not the eventual sequels.. srlsy, making a movie out of a amusement park ride?

worst case scenario...

[Savonarola]

Phantom (1922)

FW Murnau's other movie from 1922 (the first being "Nosferatu.")  This one concerns a poor, honest clerk who is run over by a carriage carrying a beautiful woman from the upper class.  He's unharmed, but becomes obsessed with the woman; leading him to a web of deceit and evil.

The film doesn't have much of a story.  The first two thirds of the movie, dealing with the clerk's corruption, drags along.  The setting and cinematography is brilliant, it has the same sort of nightmare quality as "Nosferatu."

One thing that I thought was clever is that the clerk finds a gold digging harlot that looks like the woman he's obsessed with (and played by the same actress.)  He behaves just as obsessively towards her since, of course, the object of his obsession is imaginary.  The film uses a lot of camera tricks to convey a nightmare like quality; but this more concrete example of the film's dark fantasy works well.

[Valmy]

Wait the carriage that ran over him is imaginary?  Damn 20s Expressionism.

[celedhring]

worst case scenario...

I worked in this film 

[Liep]

We've probably concluded many times that movie ranking lists are stupid, but this one seems particular stupid.

http://www.empireonline.com/301/

[crazy canuck]

How much did you get paid to make us click on that?

[Eddie Teach]

Seriously, The Breakfast Club at 38?  ^infinity

[Ideologue]

Even assuming a reader's choice poll isn't a complete waste of time already, lists like that really need to disqualify movies from the past ten years.  The Dark Knight Rises?  Star Trek?  Star Trek Into Darkness?  Are you fucking kidding me?

Of course, it is a complete waste of time.  The big problem when you have polls of people is that everyone's definition of how the list works is different.  There's already a vast difference in taste--by which I mean bias--between casual film fans and harder core cinephiles.  Then in the latter category, you have genre nuts (to whom, I suspect, the inclusion of Suspiria is owed).  And then there's age bias, where you're a lot likelier to overrate movies from your formative years.

But even if everyone had the exact same biases, or were completely unbiased, they'd still be operating under different rules--some people would pick their favorite movies, others would pick the most important movies, and still others would pick the movies that they think are best-made by some sort of quasi-objective standard.  Self-consciously applying these criteria would yield different lists from the same person.  A top ten of favorite movies, by popular acclamation, would be topped by Empire Strikes Back (as here) but Bicycle Thieves would be nowhere in the top thousand; a top ten of most important would have Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory and Birth of a Nation; and a top ten of best-made movies would be Russian Ark, Rope, Gravity, and a grab-bag of Kubrick and De Palma films.