What Have You Watched Recently?

[kahuna's bro]

the super friends

[Doc Shadow]

I just watched Hammer's The Vampire Lovers on youtube.

 

Damn but Ingrid Pitt had a fantastic body.

 

I warn you if you watch it, there are strong lesbian overtones and the movie is uncensored.

You'll see every inch of Ingrid as she steps out of a bath in one scene.

 

You've been warned.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DsITJc3WGs&list=HL1382484729&feature=mh_lolz

 

On the other hand it's really not that scary.

 

And there's a second Where Eagles Dare veteran in the cast. The first is Ingrid of course. See if you can spot her cast-mate.

[L. Marcus]

This year's Halloween movie: Shaun Of The Dead. Even better and more fun than I remembered.

[death tribble]

Weekend of a Champion. This is a documentary Roman Polanski produced in 1971 about (Sir) Jackie Stewart and his attempt to win the Grand Prix in Monaco that year. It has several days leading upto the race and the race itself. And Jackie takes Roman around the track as it was in 1971, it is different now. Also after the film finished it switches to modern day and Jackie and Roman discuss it and what has happened since. If you like Grand Prix stuff, get this, it is brilliant.

 

Wrestlemania 28. Some good matches on this. The Sheamus vs Daniel Bryan one is not among them and is a missed opportunity. The Big Show vs Cody Rhodes match was good. Nice to see Big Show enjoy himself and do a couple of things I had not seen before. Kane defeats Randy Orton and that showed how good the pair can be. C M Punk vs Jericho was a good match but the two stand out ones are Triple H vs The  Undertaker in Hell in a Cell with Shawn Michaels as special guest referee and John Cena vs The Rock. Watching Cena lose is a balm for the heart. And it seems that someone has learned the lesson that they should not give him an elaborate entrance. Getting Lilian Garcia to do the opening song was a good idea. The fans know her and she knows how to do the piece properly. I have not finished with the extras yet but the ones with The Rock are good. Some more background on the Kane Orton rivalry would have been good. The Undertaker-Triple H background is an extra.

[csyphrett]

Watched RIPD. Dead people want to break open the afterlife. Cops have to stop them

CES

[L. Marcus]

A. came to visit. I, she, and C. watched Spielberg's Lincoln  -- they had never seen it before. Day-Lewis is awesome as the eponymous president.

[kahuna's bro]

lo campeones de la lucha libre

[Legatus]

Dead In Tomstone : fantasy western; Danny Trejo returns from hell to collect the souls of his six former gang members in exchange for his own

 

Mickey Rourke as Lucifer

Antony Michael Hall as the main villain (he has come a long way since Weird Science, hahahaha)

Dina Meyer as the sheriiff's wife/eye candy

 

I'll give it a B-

[death tribble]

The Wolverine. I now have it on DVD. The original comic saga is better but Yukio and Viper are good. And I don't think they should have killed off the Silver Samurai.

[Michael Hopcroft]

The slice-of-life anime comedy Hidamari Sketch last week released a two-episode OVA (Original Video Animation, a direct-to-video release which, in anime terms, really carries none of the stigma associated with direct-to-video in America) that will probably (though maybe not certainly) represent the end of the series.

 

The series is set in a small apartment building across the street from a private arts high school. Students (girls only) who don't live nearby and would have a hard time commuting while living with their families rent one of the six units and live there through there entire stay in high school. At this point in the series there were two seniors, two juniors, and two freshmen (high school in Japan runs for three years) living in the building. The OVA revolves around the graduation of the two seniors: Sae, a professional writer already who is continually battling deadlines and stress, and Hiro. Hiro, who constantly and with little cause worries about her weight, is Sae's principal support mechanism. She takes it upon herself to make sure that Sae eats regularly and otherwise takes care of herself. She cooks for the other residents all the time. They are inseparable friends who help each other with everything.

 

In fact, according to the other residents, they act like a married couple in all but name. The tenants have come to see themselves as a sort of family group, with Hiro as the "Mom" and Sae as the "Dad". Of course, any such comments cause Sae to blush furiously; she likes to trot out a long history of her love life that even on first hearing is clearly spurious. Hiro, for her part, does not mind any insinuations on the subject -- she doesn't come out and say it, because she must think she doesn't have to.

 

I was anticipating the graduation episodes with a little bit of dread. I sort of expected a dramatic revelation of some sort and a tearful separation. Thankfully that did not take place. In fact, like it has been through four seasons of TV episodes and OVAs it was left ambiguous whether there will be any separation at all. There are quite a few colleges and universities in the Tokyo area. There's no reason to believe either of them will be leaving town. They might or might not end up living together in the near future, but they have gotten so close that I can't imagine them not seeing each other frequently. Are they going to be physically intimate (or have they been already)? Nobody feels compelled to ask.

 

If there is a fifth series (and the OVAs had excellent sales, so it's possible) what they will do without Hiro and Sae living in the building would be very interesting. The current juniors would become seniors and have to deal with the school trip and college entrance exams -- which are a huge, life-defining moment in the life of a young Japanese student. Imagine the course of the rest of your life being largely determined by how well you do on your SATs and you get the general idea. The junior we see most of is Yuno, the series' viewpoint character, and she has yet to decide anything at all about her future. A fifth series might have to devote significant time to that decision.

 

[Dr. MID-Nite]

RIPD: Meh

Desolation of Smaug: Pretty good.

Batman:Under the Red Hood: Decent

[Bazza]

Blade Runner The Final Cut. Very arty, and intellectual, but too slow and too thin a plot to be enjoyable.

 

Replicants might as well be NPCs and my name might as well be Bob, or Dave, or Brian...I could not care about them at all. 

[Brother Jim]

Thale

 

I watched it on Hulu.

[death tribble]

The Time of the Doctor. Have to say I was disappointed. They threw in a lot of enemies, the Weeping Angels, Cybermen, Sontarans, Silence and the Daleks. Others are mentioned in passing. They bring back the scar that dominated Matt's first season. Contrasted with this is Clara having Christmas dinner with her family. And at the end it was nothing that worked. The change also happened quickly.

[Michael Hopcroft]

At my Mom's apartment, she got to show me Christmas in Connecticut, a wartime romantic comedy from 1945 that she thought suitable for the season. It was, at the very least, a very funny film.

 

Elizabeth Lane is the most popular writer of domestic advice articles in the country, writing about her experiences on a farm with her husband and baby. Just one catch: she's a complete fraud. He doesn't have a farm. Or a husband. Or a baby. So when her publisher invited a war hero to spend Christmas with her non-existent family at her non-existent farm, she fears the worst -- especially when he invites himself as well (he wants to get away from his doctors and the ruthless diet they have imposed upon him). Fortunately an arrogant, boring architect has been trying to marry her for months -- and it just so happens he owns a farm in Connecticut, which he will let her use in exchange for her becoming his wife. Now all she needs to do is borrow a baby, make it look like she's the fantastic cook everyone thinks she is, and keep up the ruse through Christmas to save her career.

 

Oh, and whatever you do don't fall in love with the sailor....

 

There are several reasons this is an interesting movie. One is that Sydney Greenstreet got to do comedy, playing the arrogant, pushy publisher. Greenstreet was one of the period's best and most distinctive character actors, with his imposing girth gracing several popular films. He's best known today as the urbane-but-ruthless treasure hunter Kaspar Gutman in The Maltese Falcon. It's easy to see why Greenstreet was so successful -- despite his lack of leading-man looks and advanced age (he was 65 when Christmas in Connecticut came out) he had compelling charisma. You could do a lot worse than model one of your RPG villains on Sydney Greenstreet. The movie also features S.Z. Sakall as a celebrity chef who becomes Elizabeth's confidant and a key part of her ruse. Sakall was featured in Casablanca along with many other refugees from the Nazis -- Sakall was a Hungarian Jew and most of the family members he left behind in Hungary died in the concentration camps. He was a very funny man known for his "rotund cuteness" and one of the film's running gags is the trouble his character has with colloquial English (he has to ask the meaning of the word "catastrophe" and whether it's good or bad).

[Bazza]

To Kill A Mockingbird

The Presido

The Outsiders

 

Halfway through They Live.

[tkdguy]

I watched this episode a few days ago. Here are a few scenes; some are NSFW:

 

[Bazza]

They Live

RED

Nearly finished Black Swan. 

[csyphrett]

Part of Monsters versus Aliens: Cloning around. Aliens arrive at Area 50 something and move in as part of a covert actions while the monsters act covertly to stop them.

 

No insectasaurus in the ones I have watched.

CES

[SKJAM!]

Finally getting around to Firefly--amazing how much of the dialogue I already know, but not in the order it was said.

 

In anime, been watching Kill la Kill (Go Nagai tribute about a young woman seeking to avenge her murdered father with the help of her living uniform) and Samurai Flamenco (male model and closet superhero geek in a world without superpowered people decides to become a masked hero--fairly realistic until the end of the seventh episode, when things get weird.  And then even weirder a few episodes later.  We're pretty sure something fishy is going on, but what precisely is still a mystery.)

 

eta:  Just happened to get Chuushingura ("The Loyal 47 Ronin") (1962) from my Netflix queue, so watched and reviewed on my blog: http://www.skjam.com/

[L. Marcus]

Got Oblivion for Christmas, and just watched it. Very beautiful movie, neat action, amazing tech -- should have been better served by a more gelled acting team. 3+.

[Spence]

 

In anime, been watching Kill la Kill (Go Nagai tribute about a young woman seeking to avenge her murdered father with the help of her living uniform) and Samurai Flamenco (male model and closet superhero geek in a world without superpowered people decides to become a masked hero--fairly realistic until the end of the seventh episode, when things get weird.  And then even weirder a few episodes later.  We're pretty sure something fishy is going on, but what precisely is still a mystery.)

 

eta:  Just happened to get Chuushingura ("The Loyal 47 Ronin") (1962) from my Netflix queue, so watched and reviewed on my blog: http://www.skjam.com/

 

in Anime -

I watched Arpeggio of Blue Steel and Beyond the Boundary which look to have ended.

The Sword Art Online Extra Edition that was just released.

And I am still watching Strike the Blood and Log Horizon which are both ongoing.

There are 28 new simulcasts on CR and I am sampling them to see what I like. 

 

I started both Kill la Kill and Samurai Flamenco, but didn't get into them. 

 

In movies it has been slow for me.   The last actual movie I really enjoyed was Pacific Rim. 

 

For TV the mini-series Mob City was really good but short. 

I am giving some of the new series a try, Intelligence may be good.

But right now The Blacklist, Elementary and Agents of SHIELD are the only ones I really keep track of.  

 

[Nolgroth]

Hobbit: DoS - Loved it. Hardly see it becoming as reviled as somebody suggested in another thread. I decided that both LotR and the Hobbit movies are simply fantasy movies that are strongly inspired by Tolkien, not adaptations of his books. I am able to enjoy them much more now.  I only wish that Bard was played by somebody who looked less like a cad and more like the noble warrior he was from the book. Ah well. Still a fun movie. 

 

After Earth - I usually like Will Smith movies and I really wanted to like this one. I didn't. Too many things that did not necessarily make any sense at all. It tried to be deep but should have settled for being a popcorn movie. Would have been more enjoyable I think. I did like the design of the Ursa. Imagining what I could do with such a thing in my next Fantasy Hero or Space Opera campaign.

 

Pacific Rim - This movie works but only because I did not expect much from it. I got a little more than I expected. I did keep wondering why the aliens didn't ship over a dozen (or a score) kaiju at once. I decided it's best to just take that movie as an action romp and leave it at that. Oh and shoot both of the scientists on sight. Best scene occurred mid-way through the credits.

[Cassandra]

Captain America: The First Avenger - Good Superhero Movie, but kind of takes a The Invaders movie off the table.

 

All Star Superman - Good, but with a very busy plot.  Nice to see Jimmy Olsen in Drag, and Lois with superpowers.

[slikmar]

Pacific Rim - This movie works but only because I did not expect much from it. I got a little more than I expected. I did keep wondering why the aliens didn't ship over a dozen (or a score) kaiju at once. I decided it's best to just take that movie as an action romp and leave it at that. Oh and shoot both of the scientists on sight. Best scene occurred mid-way through the credits.

 I thought they explained that. The frequency was increasing, which is why earth was getting in serious trouble. The Aliens were sending as many as they could and learning each time. I got the feeling each one sent increased the size of the "hole".