What Have You Watched Recently?

[Cassandra]

NTSF: SD: SUV

 

The comic version of 24.

[Bazza]

[Cassandra]

 

He used a Lugar, but calls it a Ruger.

[DasBroot]

Big Hero 6 on Netflix.

 

Not bad at all.  Very cool look and power visuals for the villain (who almost pulled off sympathetic until his apathy towards the fallout of the fire and culmination of his master plan).  

[Michael Hopcroft]

Finally got to see all of Adventure Time: Islands. I had gotten home from the hospital (long story) and had just gotten the DVD not feeling sure how I would like it. I don't know that much about the series, but some of the episodes I've watched on YouTube and Hulu have been impressive. Despite the incredibly silly drawing style there's a lot of really intelligently-written stuff going on. And thankfull you don't need a lot of the lore for the series (which is in its eighth season and is renewed to end with Season 10 in a year or so).

 

Finn Merten, young professional hero and protector of the bizarre Land of Ooo, had believed for most of his life that he was the only real human left -- on a planet occupied by things like sapient candy and pastries, vampires who drink the color red and play a mean electric bass, talking dogs with stretching powers that would make even Plastic Man incredibly jealous, and so on. But recent events have shown that there were indeed more humans -- and now a technologically-advanced vehicle has shown up to take him back. Soon Finn, said stretchy-dog (who is intelligent, if rude, and who Finn had been raised to think of as his sibling -- not as a pet), and the "seeker" who had accidentally summoned the vehicle (referred to as Susan Strong -- she's huge, muscular, and linguistically challenged, though pretty smart when you think about it) go out looking for the human colony. Evidently a human war or series of wars had done a lot of damage to the Earth, and Finn hopes to find his real mother and answers about his true heritage. But the ocean is dangerous, the course uncharted and unexplored, and Finn finds himself totally unprepared for what he finds.

 

 

It turns out there are human survivors, but they are in virtual captivity as a result of the actions of the visionary "Founders". They were so obsessed with the safety of the human survivors that the system they founded went to alarming lengths to keep the people at home. We learned that Susan, then a seeker-in-training named Kara, had betrayed her best friend without wanting to (mind-control implants tend to do that), that one of the colony cities lives entirely in virtual reality to the point that they can't survive in the material world, and that the seeming utopia city on the greatest island denies human free will. Worst of all, Finn's mother had decided to upload her consciousness into hundreds of robot clones to protect the human survivors of a monstrous plague, and as a result she has become what most dictators can only dream of -- and when Finn arrives she decides that she needs to "protect" him too and he gets no say in the matter.

 

 

What Finn and Susan experience is distressing, and will likely fly well over the heads of typical children. But the real following for the show seems to be among the sort of adult fans who flock to animated series that explore serious topics in humorous ways. And the Islands miniseries is a fascinating tale of hubris and its cost.

[Ternaugh]

The American President--a bit of nostalgia, for a time when presidents could have 61% approval ratings, and White House staff that actually worried about making sure that they supported the president in making the right decisions. The main crux of the movie is that the widower president falls in love with a lobbyist, and is then targeted for it during the ramp-up to a re-election campaign by an opponent who runs on fear mongering and lies. It's what ultimately led to Sorkin's show, The West Wing, and features similar "walk and talks" and dense, intelligent dialog from capable, opinionated people (what a friend of mine refers to as "liberal porn").  (On Hulu Plus)

 

Lost in Space--Danger! Will Robinson! This is the extremely muddled, overly-long attempt to reboot the "Lost in Space" series as a movie. There are moments that harken back to the original series, but they are essentially overshadowed by a poor time travel plot, and wooden characterizations. ("Recommended for me" on Netflix)

 

Babylon5, Season 3--The Shadow War season, and probably one of the finest examples of SF on television. (DVD)

[death tribble]

Italy's Invisible Cities. Florence. Episode 3. Shows the city and goes through the history of the Medici as well. Sumptuous and wonderful. 

[DasBroot]

The new Voltron series on Netflix.

 

I had a smile on my face most of the time.  Faithful AND better written (remaining kid friendly but with dialogue that doesn't instantly make an adult cringe) than the source material - this is what a retelling should be about.  My wife shook her head every time she noticed me watching it (like "Bones" is any more realistic, sweetie) but really - the day I don't enjoy seeing a giant robot made of out lions blow up enemy battleships will be a dark day indeed.

[DasBroot]

Lost in Space--Danger! Will Robinson! This is the extremely muddled, overly-long attempt to reboot the "Lost in Space" series as a movie. There are moments that harken back to the original series, but they are essentially overshadowed by a poor time travel plot, and wooden characterizations. ("Recommended for me" on Netflix)

 

Lost in Space is one of those movies I liked in spite of itself.  It had a LOT of bad going for it but the tech was so slick looking and Gary Oldman did such justice to the Smith character (you know, because he's Gary Oldman) that I forgave a lot.  A LOT,

[Pattern Ghost]

Agents of Shield Season 4 parts 1 and 2. It was kind of unnecessary to see Daisy dressing at the start of episode 1 with her putting on her underwear.

 

I agree. Totally gratuitous. Yet I'm strangely OK with it.

[Ternaugh]

Lost in Space is one of those movies I liked in spite of itself.  It had a LOT of bad going for it but the tech was so slick looking and Gary Oldman did such justice to the Smith character (you know, because he's Gary Oldman) that I forgave a lot.  A LOT,

 

It's one of those movies that I really wanted to like better, for the reasons you mentioned.

 

 

 

I've just finished watching the four Indiana Jones movies on Hulu Plus, about one a night this week. Generally enjoyable (even the last one), the only gripe that I had was with the transfer. All four movies should really show up as letterboxed, but the Hulu Plus versions have been mostly cropped to fit 16x9. It was especially noticeable in parts of the last film, where Indy was just a nose and hat brim on the right hand side of the frame while carrying on a conversation with two of the other characters.

 

Last night, we went to see The Lego Batman Movie, which had plenty of shout-outs to previous versions. Not quite as good as The Lego Movie, it was still worth the price of admission.

[Christopher R Taylor]

After watching the documentary Cocaine Cowboys about Miami in the late 70s and 80s, I got a yen to watch Miami Vice again and its surprising how well it holds up.  One of the things they noted in Cocaine Cowboys is that the Miami Vice production team would take some crappy run down building and turn it into one of those deco spots, then leave it fixed up.  They changed Miami, how it looks and feels.

[death tribble]

The Mighty Boosh season 1 episodes 1-4. Left me flat really.

 

World of Warships replays hosted by The Mighty Jingles showing winners and runners up in competitions as the game went into Open Release. I like it as well as the World of Tanks replays.

[death tribble]

The last three episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Cardassians turn on the Dominion, Damar dies, Weyoun dies, the Dominion surrenders, peace is celebrated, Dax and Julian get together, Worf becomes an ambassador to the Klingons, O'Brien returns to Earth, Kira becomes the one in charge of Deep Space Nine, Dukat and Winn try to release the Pah Wraiths and kill each other, Sisko and Dukat have a final confrontation which results in the death of the former and the exile of the latter to the Pah Wraiths prison.

[zslane]

Gantz:0, recently added to Netflix streaming.

 

 

I had never heard of the manga or anime before, so this was completely new to me. Intriguing concept and exquisitely beautiful CG, even if the facial animation is still firmly stuck in the uncanny valley. Some of the characters act in ways that only make sense if you grew up in Japan, but I've sort of come to expect that from anime anyway.

 

I may even try to adapt a Hero System campaign around it.

[bigdamnhero]

Citizenfour, a documentary about Edward Snowden and his leaking the extent of the NSA's domestic spying programs. Much of it is actual footage of Snowden's first 3 days of meetings with Laura Poitras, Glen Greenwald, et. al. It's a very sparse film, without a lot of Werner Herzog-esque narration or "framing" and what coms across is a fascinating inside look at both the events and Snowden himself. Without kicking off a debate on government spying here, ima just say it's well worth watching regardless of where you fall on the privacy-vs-security spectrum.

[Cassandra]

The Tick Live Action Series.

[Matt the Bruins]

Legion has won my heart for comic book-inspired TV series after the bitter disappointments of Agents of SHIELD and the Berlantiverse shows. I'm not really sure what's going on as yet, but it's a hell of a ride.

[Cassandra]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

[csyphrett]

Watched Police Story: Lockdown. This is the most serious Jackie Chan movie I have ever seen with Chan as a police captain having to negotiate with a smart hostage taker over a drugstore shoplifter. Some of the scenes show the planning of what could happen as the characters try to decide what to do.

 

CES 

[Greywind]

Trance with James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel and Rosario Dawson.

 

Survivor with Milla Jovovich and Pierce Brosnan.

[Ternaugh]

Westworld (1973) - Still a great movie, and one of the first depictions of a computer virus in cinema.

 

Outland - Often called High Noon in space, Sean Connery plays a federal marshal who uncovers a conspiracy that's killing miners on a colony on Io, causing a showdown with the hired guns coming in on the next shuttle. Enjoyable movie, but I usually have to ignore the wrong idea that people explode when exposed to vacuum.

 

Battle: Los Angeles - A moderately interesting war/alien invasion story marred by the idea that Earth is special enough to target from light-years away because we have "the only source of liquid water"*. As long as the action's with the soldiers on the screen, and not with the reporters on the strangely still-working cable news channels, it's a serviceable story.

 

 

 

 

*Because, you know hydrogen and oxygen are so hard to find in the universe, and nobody with plasma weapons or interstellar rockets would have the ability to melt ice.

[Michael Hopcroft]

Battle: Los Angeles - A moderately interesting war/alien invasion story marred by the idea that Earth is special enough to target from light-years away because we have "the only source of liquid water"*. As long as the action's with the soldiers on the screen, and not with the reporters on the strangely still-working cable news channels, it's a serviceable story.

 

 

 

 

*Because, you know hydrogen and oxygen are so hard to find in the universe, and nobody with plasma weapons or interstellar rockets would have the ability to melt ice.

Organic life cannot exist without liquid water. Period.

[Matt the Bruins]

The point is, anyone with the technology to cross interstellar space can make it from easily obtainable raw materials without having to fight any natives for it.

 

It makes a lot more sense if Earth is a point of interest as a rare habitable planet for colonization, or because of its incredible biodiversity. The aliens in Independence Day, for example, weren't revealed to be getting anything from Earth that they couldn't have obtained from Venus with no opposition. Clearly having a habitable planet with a large amount of plant and animal life wasn't a consideration, and those are the main things that differentiate the two planets to a race with materials science and force fields good enough to protect their equipment from nuclear explosions and Roche limit tidal forces.

[zslane]

I tried to watch Cloverfield again, but 30 minutes into it I was feeling nauseated (just like when I saw it originally in the theater), and had to stop. On the one hand, I sort of feel that the induced nausea and disorientation work cleverly to amplify the feeling of dread from the events you are witnessing. On the other hand, they also make me stop watching, which is utterly counter-productive to the telling of the story.