TV/Movies Megathread

[11B4V]

Watching Archangel. Pretty good so far.

[mongers]

Watching Archangel. Pretty good so far.

Oh, I should catch that shouldn't I?

[Sheilbh]

So I've re-watched all of the first series of Queer as Folk (here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od/collections/queer-as-folk-box-set).

It is still brilliant. Some of the acting's dodgy and everyone looks achingly 1999, but even when the writing and everything else is a bit clunky it's very good. And as Russell T Davies put it, 'no boring issues'

It brought back a lot of sensations from being fourteen and watching that on the TV in my room, with my hand over the remote to turn it off if my mum came up. How exciting it was, all very Smalltown Boy.

Onto series two (alas only two episodes long).

[Eddie Teach]

X-Men Days of Future Past. It was fun.

[Martinus]

So I've re-watched all of the first series of Queer as Folk (here: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/4od/collections/queer-as-folk-box-set).

It is still brilliant. Some of the acting's dodgy and everyone looks achingly 1999, but even when the writing and everything else is a bit clunky it's very good. And as Russell T Davies put it, 'no boring issues'

It brought back a lot of sensations from being fourteen and watching that on the TV in my room, with my hand over the remote to turn it off if my mum came up. How exciting it was, all very Smalltown Boy.

Onto series two (alas only two episodes long).

I only watched the US version. It was my first gay tv show - played a role in my coming out.

[The Brain]

God damn America!

[Tonitrus]

Binge-watching the new series of House of Card.

Pretty good, but also way too blatantly preachy on a political level.

[Sheilbh]

I only watched the US version. It was my first gay tv show - played a role in my coming out.

Never saw the American one. But I was watching Cucumber and Hazel (a liberated mother of a gay boy - 'seems I missed all the drama last night. Too busy dancing. That'll be the title of my autobiography') made an appearance which prompted this. [spoiler]In Cucumber her ghost, or an image of her from when Lance watched Queer as Folk appears to sort-of warn him he's in danger and he doesn't listen. But I was weirdly moved by the death of a fictional character from a show that ended 15 years ago.[/spoiler]

The British one is mercifully short. One series of eight half hour episodes followed by another series of two hour long specials which packs a lot in. It's brilliantly narratively dense. At the time it was hugely controversial the first episode featured Stuart (Littlefinger from Game of Thrones) shagging Nathan (Charlie Hunnam, late of 50 Shades and Sons of Anarchy) who's 15 (at the time the gay age of consent was 18).

There were even newspaper columnists telling people to boycott  companies that advertised during the show and Becks who were the sponsors pulled out (which the production company called 'a homophobic act'). In fairness even now the sex scenes are pretty risque - after rimming the fifteen year old 'no-one told you about that, did they?'

And as Davies says 'no boring issues' so while things are included in the plot that are 'issues' like homophobic bullying and parents not being accepting it's never really about them, it's always about the characters with a constant tone of humour and liberation. It always seems to be aiming for that sort of mood of it being a really good night out when everyone's on form.

It didn't prompt my coming out. I was in a glass closet at school - I find it amazing to hear how common it is now for teenage kids to come out - but it made the whole prospect of gay life a lot more exciting and positive. It was odd re-watching, because it's terribly sad in a way but that show mattered a lot I thin and part of me still wants to move to Manchester.

[garbon]

I will say that I never cared that much for either. I wished they had featured some hot guys.

[CountDeMoney]

Never been really big on the "business" reality shows--except Undercover Boss and occasionally Cake Boss  --but without a doubt, Bar Rescue on Spike has become my fave-rave.  Fuck, that guy is a psychopath, and I love him for it.

[Josquius]

Dragons den is rather good.
As was undercover boss before it became a famous show and people expected it, it also lays on the son stories too thick

[Valmy]

Never been really big on the "business" reality shows--except Undercover Boss and occasionally Cake Boss  --but without a doubt, Bar Rescue on Spike has become my fave-rave.  Fuck, that guy is a psychopath, and I love him for it.

Cake Boss is pretty charming.

[Ed Anger]

Never been really big on the "business" reality shows--except Undercover Boss and occasionally Cake Boss  --but without a doubt, Bar Rescue on Spike has become my fave-rave.  Fuck, that guy is a psychopath, and I love him for it.

The Profit on CNBC is pretty good. They give out numbers to explain why the business is going down the toilet.

[Ideologue]

Big Hero 6 was pretty cool, even though they kind of flubbed the ending.  I loved Baymax.

[spoiler]You think they should have left him dead?[/spoiler]

I regret losing you as a reader, Tim.

Hero soon becomes a morality play about the hollowness of revenge.  Unfortunately, it's one unwilling to completely sacrifice its bog-standard superheroic showdown to the healer's ethos as represented by Baymax.  Witnessing the end of Big Hero 6 is witnessing, in real time, a development meeting absolutely fail to come to a consensus.  It's never pleasing to see a movie that so obviously ends more than once—and not in that Return of the King way, where things just keep happening until the sun gets old and fat and red, but in the very specific way Hero concludes, then concludes again.  (The last time I saw it happen was Birdman, also written by a mess of people, and even there it's not half so clean-cut.)

The two competing and largely incompatible visions of Hero's ending we get must have already done mighty battle many times in Disney's boardrooms.  The first is a traditional brute-force-and-tactical-epiphany solution to a superheroic problem, resolutely adequate if uninspired, geared toward those who have engaged with the climactic action.  The second is a far kinder redemptive ending, made for the sensitive soul, [spoiler]where the villain can only be defeated by giving him the only thing he really wants.  [/spoiler]Since no decision was ever reached as to which was better (one is so obviously better it hurts), both of these endings actually occur in the movie, one after the other.  The end result is probably superior to just another schematic tale of superheroes learning to fight, but it remains only barely satisfactory—and it's so much more clearly jerry-rigged than either ending would have been alone that if you do see the conflict behind the screen, it may yank you right out of what's happening within it.

Nonetheless, sentimentality does win out in the very end—the closing sequence is both absolutely predictable and absolutely heartwarming—so Hero can't be accused of true failure on any level at all.  Heck, on its merits as an experimental comedy alone, it'd be worth recommending.  Its only sin is that it actively flirts with greatness, only to shrug and walk away.  And that's less a deadly sin than it is just a frustrating one.

[Ed Anger]

Horrible Bosses 2. Alright.

B+

Sex Tape. Ok.

B-