TV/Movies Megathread

[The Brain]

Cop out show more like.

[Malthus]

It is. Season 2 gets a new duo.

I dont think it will be the same now that we know the premise. 

There was always the tension that the State cops were on to something with their investigation of the one partner.  So much so that the other partner drew his gun when entering the shed in the last episode.  Not sure how they could recreate that sort of thing now that we know it really is "just a cop show".

Subvert the premise. Have one of the cops actually in on whatever conspiracy.

[FunkMonk]

Michelle Monaghan was really hot in True Detective.

[Ideologue]

NYC in the late 60s was dirty.

He's making fun of me because he doesn't understand or like one the pillars of cinema, production design.  I reckon he probably also hates costume design, lighting, and composition in both space and time.  I guess he likes acting and writing, but the meandering plot centering around lousy, unappealing characters was one of the bigger drawbacks of The French Connection had for me.  Though hardly great, The Seven-Ups is significantly better.

[Sheilbh]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5PwfEMBM0
I like the look of this. MORE TILDA SWINTON!

[The Minsky Moment]

I reckon he probably also hates costume design

I.e what plainclothes cops and hoods wore in 1960/70s NYC

lighting

Yes.  There was smog in NYC 40-50 years back.

composition in both space and time.

OK Carl Sagan

meandering plot

Only if you have attention deficit issues

centering around lousy, unappealing characters

You know it is based on a real story?  The characters aren't supposed to be appealing. They are supposed to be cops and hoods.

[FunkMonk]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX5PwfEMBM0
I like the look of this. MORE TILDA SWINTON!

I just came back from seeing this and I can confirm Tilda Swinton plays easily the most memorable character in the movie. She's great. I'd pay to see a movie based around her character. 

This movie itself is wonderful and I loved it. Smart, action-packed, ridiculous fun.

5 Ideologue's leading a revolution out of 5

[Neil]

Why did Party Down only get two seasons? That show was brilliant.

Because too many critical cast members started getting real jobs.

[frunk]

I watched the last of the Firefly episodes.  I went to click on the next episode and that was the end of the season.  Noooooooo

Too bad the series didnt have time to get into the Shepherd's back story, or for River's character to develop, or etc.

Then I watched Serenity.  I enjoyed it but there was one jarring and one subtle inconsistency with the series.  The jarring inconsistency is in the series the Captain refused to send River and her brother off the ship because of her instability.  In Serenity he did just that.  The more subtle inconsistency is her instability is caused by [spoiler]discovering the secret of the dead planet and the creation of the Reavers when she read the mind of one of the ministers who came to observe her.  She was fine after she arrived on the planet and the secret was discovered by the crew.  But in the show her instability was caused by the numerous brain surgeries which stripped away parts of her brain.  Her brother was in the process of trying to find a cure for that condition. [/spoiler]   

A few months pass between the end of the series and the beginning of the movie.  There's a comic that covers part of that time, and it goes into [spoiler]the increasing pressure of the Alliance expanding its control and in particular their unflagging desire to find the Tams.  That forces the captain into greater risks to stay away from the Alliance while still protecting the Tams,[/spoiler] and leads to the opening of the movie [spoiler]where he convinces Simon to let River come along on the heist.  Simon is the one who decides to leave the ship, not wanting to have River be used on capers again, and the captain insisting that due to the greater risk of their presence that they both be full participants.[/spoiler]

[Syt]

Whedon has done a decent job on expanding the tale in comic form. There's also a book out there that covers Shepherd Book's background.

[Josephus]

Under the Skin.

Weird. Fucking. Weird.

Plus side: Nude Scarlett Johannsen.

[Ideologue]

I'm not sure I ever said that The French Connection had no or bad production design.   Or that it was a bad movie, only that it isn't that half as great as its boosters claim.  (Also, they're unappealing because they're dull. )

Anyway:

League of Gentlemen (1960).  British heist film with the twist that the crew the ringleader's brought together are all disgraced officers in the British Army and thus used to the iron discipline needed to execute the perfect crime.  League of Gentlemen features great build-up and fine characters (including several gay ones--I know, they're the British military, but what I'm surprised at is that they're out,), and releases its tension with an excellent robbery scene involving poison gas and submachine guns.  Unfortunately, the film ends on a slightly disappointing note--[spoiler]though the gang is solid till the bitter end, a few random and a bit hard to believe, not to mention narratively-unsatisfying, events occur that send them all off in the same prison van to face the Queen's justice.[/spoiler]

B+

Singin' in the Rain (1952).  Sure the songs in this musical are arbitrary and only very rarely advance the plot or reveal much more than the surfaces of its shallow characters, and the dramatic stakes are practically nonexistent until fifteen minutes before the end, but it is also perhaps the most garish movie ever made, and that counts for something in my book.

B+

[Eddie Teach]

Singin' in the Rain (1952).  Sure the songs in this musical are arbitrary and only very rarely fail to advance the plot or reveal much more than the surfaces of its shallow characters, and the dramatic stakes are practically nonexistent until fifteen minutes before the end, but it is also perhaps the most garish movie ever made, and that counts for something in my book.

B+

One of the relatively few movies that manages to be watchable in spite of a dozen musical numbers.

[Ideologue]

Oh, and WarGames (1983).   A great thriller that has a lot of trouble concealing its controversial political agenda.

How about a nice game of Galaga?

A

[Ideologue]

Singin' in the Rain (1952).  Sure the songs in this musical are arbitrary and only very rarely fail to advance the plot or reveal much more than the surfaces of its shallow characters, and the dramatic stakes are practically nonexistent until fifteen minutes before the end, but it is also perhaps the most garish movie ever made, and that counts for something in my book.

B+

One of the relatively few movies that manages to be watchable in spite of a dozen musical numbers.

I was especially fond of the part where I was pretty sure either Gene Kelly died or I did, and we went to dancing heaven for ten whole minutes of a 100 minute movie.  It makes me feel that the movie might've been better with even less plot than it already has--which could fill up, maybe, a 22-minute sitcom--and was essentially Live Action Fantasia With A LOT of Tapdancing.