TV/Movies Megathread

[Tonitrus]

Trading Places- Damn thats a good film, not seen it for a while. Whatever went wrong with Eddie Murphy.

Besides growing old?  I might actually blame his decline on the writers of the film he has done.  Beverly Hills Cop 1/2 were good, well-written films with a great mix of action comedy (which I think the 80's did that better than we do now as a whole)...BHC3 took that formula and dropped a big turd on it.  And the rest of the films he has done probably couldn't have been saved by any actor/comedian.

It might also have been that his flavor/style of humor had also slipped away from him.  And it's hard to say that maybe his comedic edginess simply lost its edge over time.  The the film overall was "meh", Tower Heist had at least a little spark of his old self.

But I think he could make a comeback, but I think it would be more about the role written for him than the role that he performs.

[11B4V]

I've been watching The Blacklist this season, and really liking it. I had missed most of last season, felt I was tired of it, but I'm really liking it now.

One of my favorite shows, Grimm, started its next season a few weeks ago. On Friday nights.

I really like The Blacklist

This is one of my season passes.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Trading Places- Damn thats a good film, not seen it for a while. Whatever went wrong with Eddie Murphy.

Besides growing old?  I might actually blame his decline on the writers of the film he has done.  Beverly Hills Cop 1/2 were good, well-written films with a great mix of action comedy (which I think the 80's did that better than we do now as a whole)...BHC3 took that formula and dropped a big turd on it.  And the rest of the films he has done probably couldn't have been saved by any actor/comedian.

It might also have been that his flavor/style of humor had also slipped away from him.  And it's hard to say that maybe his comedic edginess simply lost its edge over time.  The the film overall was "meh", Tower Heist had at least a little spark of his old self.

But I think he could make a comeback, but I think it would be more about the role written for him than the role that he performs.

Good Christmas movie.

[FunkMonk]

Amazon's The Man in the High Castle was excellent. Some of the writing is a little sloppy, perhaps, but in general it's a wonderful (and chilling) little show. And it made me feel really uneasy in some parts. I didn't know how to feel, which is what I imagine the writers were going for.

[Valmy]

Starting watching Episode 1 because of Josephus. I will never forgive him. The fighting scenes, Jar Jar, the shield generator scene.

Sorry. 

Pssst. Don't watch the next one.

Yeah as bad as Episode 1 is, Episode 2 is even worse. Episode 3 would be somewhat mediocre and unforgettable if it did not tie into the original trilogy which makes it unintentionally funny and cringe worthy. And keep in mind I did not even mind Jar-Jar or the Gungans at all.

Best to just skip all three I think.

[viper37]

Starting watching Episode 1 because of Josephus. I will never forgive him. The fighting scenes, Jar Jar, the shield generator scene.

Sorry. 

Pssst. Don't watch the next one.

Yeah as bad as Episode 1 is, Episode 2 is even worse. Episode 3 would be somewhat mediocre and unforgettable if it did not tie into the original trilogy which makes it unintentionally funny and cringe worthy. And keep in mind I did not even mind Jar-Jar or the Gungans at all.

Best to just skip all three I think.

reflecting on your earlier comment about how you do not care for a war that involves clones and droids.

I think that's a point Lucas was trying to make, that many wars treat soldiers like expendable piece of technology.
Look at 17th-19th century warfare, many frontal assault against an heavily fortified place, by throwing soldiers at it you expect it will eventually fall.
ACW and WW1, in many places, the same thing, throw a mass of soldier at the ennemy, bombard their fortified positions hoping it will soften 'em up while it does nothing in reality.
In WWII, we do remember how the russians defended Stalingrad.

The point of the droids being disabled once their "command ship" is destroyed is akin to 18th century warfare in Americas where you would shoot the officers hoping to leave the army disorganized.
The fact that soldiers on both sides are expendable is to emphasize how often infantry was treated that way, and still is in many places.

But as always with Lucas, it was badly done.

[viper37]

Shocker: Disney did not want Lucas to participate in the movies

"But basically, they weren't that keen to have me involved anyway," he said. "But at the same time, I said, 'If I get in there I'm just going to cause trouble, because they're not going to do what I wanted them to do.' And I don't have the control to do that anymore and all I would do is muck everything up.

[Valmy]

I think that's a point Lucas was trying to make, that many wars treat soldiers like expendable piece of technology.

Well generals might do that and politicians might. But we, the viewer, will not. But if they literally are expendable pieces of technology then why would it be bad to treat them that way?

[Berkut]

I think that's a point Lucas was trying to make, that many wars treat soldiers like expendable piece of technology.

Well generals might do that and politicians might. But we, the viewer, will not. But if they literally are expendable pieces of technology then why would it be bad to treat them that way?

Yeah, it is a rather odd point to make - that it is inhumane to treat people as disposable ammunition, and to illuminate that, lets actually replace them with even less "human" humans.

[viper37]

Well generals might do that and politicians might. But we, the viewer, will not. But if they literally are expendable pieces of technology then why would it be bad to treat them that way?

In every wars, you had generals concerned about the lives of soldiers under them and others who were not.  You had civilians supporting the ida of masses of soldiers sent at the ennemy and others who did not.

Besides, we, the viewers, generally don't care much about unnamed characters.  In many action movies, you got tons of people dying, and I've rarely heard of someone having a tear over that. 

This is where the clone wars shone, giving then name, not just numbers, having a bit of a story for each of them and making us care when one of the identically faced soldiers died.  It's bad to treat them that way, because they have unique personality, even the droids, sometimes.  You begin by seeing them as expandables, you are supposed to end by caring for them a little.  but that did not work well in Lucas movies.

[viper37]

Into the badlands

It's a pretty good show.  If you like martial arts.  Aside that, I'm not sure there's even a story to be told.

Basically, the Badlands (no idea where this is, I guess it's a comic book thing) are an area without a real government and without guns.  People use swords, knives, hatchets and their martial arts skills.

The land seems ruled by 6 barons and at least 2 of them are martial arts experts.  We haven't seen the other 4, but I'm guessing it's the same.

There's the ultra badass swordsman/second in command/half slave to an hyper mean baron (Martin Csokas) and there's the Widow (Emily Beecham) and one of her teenage daughter (unclear if she's a real daughter or if all her staff are "daughters", it's hinted she's only surrounded by females), another friggin martial art expert, at least in hand to hand combat and throwing stars.

And then, there's a teenage boy with some sort of Hulk super power, when he bleeds, he becomes a friggin martial art expert. He has a medallion with a carving identical to the 1st martial art expert posess.

The boy knows a way out of the badlands, something no one else knows and they have no idea what is out there, but they want to go.  1st martial art expert can't leave his work, as it would mean the death of him and his girlfriend, who happens to be pregnant and that is also a death sentence to have a kid when you are 1st martial art expert to a bad guy.  Some sort of assassin's code.

Also, the mean baron is training an army of martial arts experts, recruited from their teenage years, inside a place called "fortress" (aptly named).
It seems this baron makes his money by cultivating opium.  Others are apparantly planting and selling tobacco.

Anyway, I'll be watching for a little while, see if it goes beyong the gorgeous orgies of martial arts fights.

[Barrister]

Best to just skip all three I think.

I don't know that I agree with that.

The prequels are not as good as the original trilogy.  I think few will argue that point.  But in part that's because the original trilogy are really, really good.  And unfortunately a lot of modern action blockbusters are really, really bad.

Are the prequels better than, say, the Transformers movies?  I would say so.  Better than Jurassic World?  I think so.  Better than Man of Steel?  Yup.  And they're probably on par in terms of interesting visuals but nonsensical plotlines with the Star Trek reboot movies.

Deciding whether or not to watch the prequels will depend on your response to the original movies.  If you loved them then the notion of seeing some more of the same, though not as good, is still compelling.  If you were neutral on the originals then by all means skip them.

[Eddie Teach]

Re: Badlands. It's some kind of post-apocalyptic setting. I'm willing to forgive the stupid premise that a ban on guns is enforceable by men with swords for the sake of the cool fight scenes. But I wasn't wowed by any of the story elements, either.

[Razgovory]

I think that's a point Lucas was trying to make, that many wars treat soldiers like expendable piece of technology.

Well generals might do that and politicians might. But we, the viewer, will not. But if they literally are expendable pieces of technology then why would it be bad to treat them that way?

Yeah, that's like watching Saving Private Ryan and feeling sorry for the bullets.

[Tonitrus]

I wont really judge Badlands, because I am not really watching it (though what I have seen just seems silly)...but I a hating it more because it's delaying Talking Dead for an hour, and AMC is exploiting TWD (through use of "scenes from the next episode, etc) to promote it.