TV/Movies Megathread

[Eddie Teach]

So I finally got around to finishing Kieslowski's trilogy. Three Colors: White. It was a good one.

[celedhring]

I do not want to see Selma. My mother said: Selma who?

A friend of mine thinks it's the biopic of a woman named Selma that was involved with MLK. He's Spanish so he has an excuse.

[celedhring]

Dallas Buyers Club - pretty middle of the road film elevated by McConaughey's and Leto's performances. They are both truly excellent.

[Ideologue]

I thought Leto's was kind of one-note and obvious, if good within those confines.  Even though Captain Phillips alternated between bland and atrocious to look at, Barkhad Abdi should've won Best Supporting Actor.  And McConaughey for Best Actor was a travesty of the kind... well, the kind for which the Oscars are depressingly well-known.  The Academy hates black people.

The very definition of the middle-of-the-road film, though, yeah.

[Martinus]

Ok, so 4 episodes till the end of season 2 of Arrow now and this may still happen but I have no clue why Arrow just doesn't put an arrow into [spoiler]Slade's only good eye[/spoiler].

[celedhring]

I thought Leto's was kind of one-note and obvious, if good within those confines.  Even though Captain Phillips alternated between bland and atrocious to look at, Barkhad Abdi should've won Best Supporting Actor.  And McConaughey for Best Actor was a travesty of the kind... well, the kind for which the Oscars are depressingly well-known.  The Academy hates black people.

The very definition of the middle-of-the-road film, though, yeah.

I think Leto has some greatly nuanced moments. I loved when he goes to see his dad and puts on a suit, etc...

[Ideologue]

OK, that part was pretty good.

[celedhring]

Now that is unexpected; Wolf of Wall Street is the most pirated movie of 2014, but even more surprising is the fact that the 20th is... 1987's Robocop 

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/top-20-most-pirated-movies-of-2014-led-by-wolf-of-wall-street-frozen-gravity-1201388403/

1. "The Wolf of Wall Street": 30.035 million (Paramount, Dec. 25, 2013)
2. "Frozen": 29.919 million (Disney, Nov. 27, 2013)
3. "Gravity": 29.357 million (Warner Bros., Oct. 4, 2013)
4. "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug": 27,627 million (Warner Bros., Dec. 13, 2013)
5. "Thor: The Dark World": 25.749 million (Disney/Marvel, Nov. 8, 2013)
6. "Captain America: The Winter Soldier": 25.628 million (Disney/Marvel, April 4, 2014)
7. "The Legend of Hercules": 25.137 million (Summit, Jan. 10, 2014)
8. "X-Men: Days of Future Past": 24.380 million (20th Century Fox, May 23, 2014)
9. "12 Years a Slave": 23.653 million (Fox Searchlight, Oct. 18, 2013)
10. "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire": 23.543 million (Lionsgate, Nov. 22, 2013)
11. "American Hustle": 23.143 million (Sony/Columbia, Dec. 13, 2013)
12. "300: Rise of an Empire": 23.096 million (Warner Bros., March 7, 2014)
13. "Transformers: Age of Extinction": 21.65 million (Paramount, June 27, 2014)
14. "Godzilla": 20.956 million (Warner Bros., May 16, 2014)
15. "Noah": 20.334 million (Paramount, March 28, 2014)
16. "Divergent": 20.312 million (Lionsgate, March 21, 2014)
17. "Edge of Tomorrow": 20.299 million (Warner Bros., June 6, 2014)
18. "Captain Phillips": 19.817 million (Sony/Columbia, Oct. 11, 2013)
19. "Lone Survivor": 19.130 million (Universal, Dec. 25, 2013)
20. "RoboCop" (1987): 18.739 million (Orion, July 17, 1987)

I suppose pirates were looking for the shitty 2014 remake, and ended up downloading the original by mistake - and to their benefit.

[Admiral Yi]

I caught the tail end of Prometheus last Friday, and it reinforced that what makes the movie unsatisfying is that the one interesting question raised in the movie--why exactly did the giant god people decide to kill off humans--is left unanswered.

[Sheilbh]

TV schedulers have been wonderful this Christmas. Perfect balance of festive films, war classics and murder mysteries

Watched the Heroes of Telemark this afternoon

[Syt]

A staple growing up as a kid was German TV's "Album" series where they review the year's news in an hour. It's just news films with dry commentary (sometimes cynical), distilling major news and slice of life to a pretty comprehensive "photo album" of the year.

It turns out a bunch of those are on YouTube and on a whim I watched the 1983 one. It's a good mixture of the big stories (Lech Walesa receiving the Nobel Peace Prize) and the whimsical (Frog Olympics in California). Each month gets about 5 minutes, with big stories taking maybe a minute, others only a few seconds.

Boiled down to the main topics: Poland (still martial law, Solidarnosc, Walesa, Papal visit), Lebanon (ongoing fighting, suicide attack on U.S. forces), hundreds of thousands protesting against modernization of the nuclear arsenal in Germany, invasion of Grenada, free elections in Argentina after 7 years of military rule, Kohl winning the elections (with Green party entering parliament), Thatcher winning elections and meeting Reagan, Craxi winning in Italy, Troubles in Northern Ireland and IRA bombings for Christmas in London, attempted assassination of the South Korean president, and downing of the Korean jet liner by the Soviets.

Also: Pinochet's 10th anniversary in office, Iran-Iraq War, Gromyko's first May Day parade, pollution, unemployment in the USA, sandstorm in Melbourne, a solar powered car, 20 years of Franco-German Friendship Treaty, a dog riding a motor cycle, Pope JP2 meeting his assassin in jail. And a new exciting vacation destination: Iceland!

It additionally featured Bavarian minister president Franz-Josef Strauß visiting Dresden, only mentioning that it's about money, which is understating things slightly. Strauß at the time was preparing loan agreement of 1 billion Marks (a huge sum at the time) that kept the GDR afloat a bit longer (the GDR agreed to make things a bit easier for families to get back together, West Germans travelling to the East, and also dismantle part of their automatic firing mechanisms along the border).

[Eddie Teach]

A staple growing up as a kid was German TV's "Album" series where they review the year's news in an hour.

That's nothing, Billy Joel can review 40 years in 4 minutes.

[Queequeg]

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning.

What the fuck?

It's not perfectly executed, but the last thing I was expecting was Noe meets Refn meets Cronenberg meets Apocalypse Now with some of the best fight scenes I've ever seen? 

That was really surprising. 

[Martinus]

So, season 2 of Arrow was great. Now finally I have caught up to season 3. 

[celedhring]

So, season 2 of Arrow was great. Now finally I have caught up to season 3. 

Season 1 is the test of faith that has to be endured in order to reach the vast riches of season 2.