What Have You Watched Recently?

[tkdguy]

Is Hamlet any good?

 

Pretty good. I remember watching a bit of this one when I was in high school.

[DasBroot]

Just watched the Daredevil and Jessica Jones netflix series.

 

Daredevil was the stronger series, in my opinion.  The cast was strong all around (with the only character who annoyed me being Karen Page and Vanessa to a degree).  Kingpin was very well done.  Punisher not so much but still watchable.  I know the focus was on Daredevil and there's more than enough law court procedural shows to go around but I do wish Matt Murdock had more screen time as a lawyer (though missing days of work at a time, ruining your relationships and career, because you're fighting people all night and recovering is the most realistic thing on the show).

 

Jessica Jones was interesting.  It had no choice to be dark with the Purple Man as the season foe but it wasn't dark for dark's sake.  I hated Simpson. Hated him.  He was fine for one appearance, maybe two - but after that he just annoyed me to no end, and no amount of trying to give him a backstory could change that.  Tennant was great as Zebadiah - er Kevin.  Of note, though, due to me being hard of hearing and needing captions on if I'd binge watched the show and if I had made a drinking game based around every time Jessica's CC line was 'scoffs' I'd be dead.

[Nolgroth]

Eh, Simpson is the Netflix version of Nuke. He was always a sort of one-dimensional character to me anyway. I see him as existing only for the good guys to have a punching bag. "Give me a Red!" **Daredevil smacks him a few times.**

 

I actually really enjoyed both Kingpin and Punisher. They were certainly different takes than the Marvel mainstream versions, but each of them really hit the right chords in my opinion. My blah character was Electra. I was just not convinced that she was some really kickass assassin. I got more of a female Dexter vibe than anything. Not sure why everybody hates Karen Page, but different folks/strokes. I thought she did better than okay. Not my favorite character perhaps, but far from my least favorite.

 

The early Daredevil season 1, where they are building up how dangerous Kingpin is are gold. Love that part of the series.

[DasBroot]

Saw the new Fantastic 4 last night.

 

It's not the worst science fiction film ever made, like some people claim.  My biggest problem with it could be summed up as:

 

It. Was. Boring.

 

All of the characters were completely flat with none of the source material personality traits.  This is particularly confusing as more than half the movies run time was devoted to character interactions.  Boring character interactions.

 

Superpower wise the effects were ok but honestly the ones from 2005 looked better overall.  Sue got her powers as an afterthought.  Ben's best action scenes are on MONITORS at the base.  Johnny looked better with special effects 10 years ago.  So did Reed. Doom, as always, was a mess.

 

There was no heroic action until the end - one fight scene in all of that run time.  It was a boring fight scene to boot, and shot so that it was hard to follow. It took me a second to realize that Sue had turned Ben invisible so he could wallop Doom while the other two kept him distracted.   

 

Also the FF just don't work as teenagers.  Most of their character depth comes from them being in their 30s - with long relationships and full careers behind them before the accident.  18 year olds who sneak off to another dimension? Ugh.

[Nolgroth]

You know, just watching the trailer, I could have told you that.

[csyphrett]

I dont think the director cared about the source material as such. I saw a rumor that he wanted to get rid of Sue for some reason.

CES 

[csyphrett]

Watching NCIS season 13. Halfway through. The usual first story arc wasnt dramatic as some. It was just Bishop's marriage coming apart

CES 

[death tribble]

Is Hamlet any good?

There are three versions. Olivier's, Mel Gibson's and Branagh's. All three are good in my not so humble opinion.

Watch Olivier's first and Branagh's last. Branagh's version is almost the entire play. Olivier's and Gibson's cut out bits but still have clout.

[Cassandra]

Pixels (Not as bad as I thought it would be.)

 

I Married A Witch (Classic supernatural comedy with Veronica Lake.)

 

 

[L. Marcus]

I saw a Hamlet, a televised RSC production, with Doctor Who as the eponymous prince and Captain Picard as King Claudius. Very good, it was.

[Joe Walsh]

The Jungle Book (the live-action version). I never cared for the animated version, but this one was good.

 

The Talented Mr. Ripley. Didn't care for it. Bailed 1/2 hour in.

[Nolgroth]

There are three versions. Olivier's, Mel Gibson's and Branagh's. All three are good in my not so humble opinion.

Watch Olivier's first and Branagh's last. Branagh's version is almost the entire play. Olivier's and Gibson's cut out bits but still have clout.

 

When going to see Mel Gibson's version, one of my friends asked a person coming out of a previous showing how it was. The person responded along the lines of "Well, everybody died." After we finished watching it, my friend grumbled about the other guy spoiling the movie. I remember that all of us in the group turned to him and asked if he had every read the play. He got the most dumbfounded look and returned, "There was a play?"

 

I miss my old crowd. They could always amuse me.

[DasBroot]

Teen Titans - Trouble in Tokyo

 

Silly, but fun.  Insane number of action sequences made it feel longer than its run time but not in a particularly bad way (almost, though). It matched the tone of what I'd see of the series it was based on (probably less than 10 episodes overall).

[Enforcer84]

My hospital stay included viewings of:

 

Big Daddy

Dick and Jane

 

and a bunch of shows I'd not seen: Forged in Fire and Fast and Loud to be the most often indulged

[Grailknight]

Finally saw The Force Awakens as it begins its' run on Starz. It managed to be entertaining without being good. 

 

Really, you'd think that they could come up with a more original plot  instead of just papering over the original. Jurassic World did it better with a smaller universe of options.

 

But decent acting, SFX and an excellent job of making me feel like this was part of the originals managed to overcome the plot holes and Mary Sue heroine.(bad script, I liked the actress) Don't think I'll see the next one until it comes on cable unless I get some good reviews.

[Pattern Ghost]

 

• Thank god we finally get rid of <name removed to protect the spoilage>. They have no reason now to bring that character back and no really rational way to do it. Good riddance.

 

Three letters: LMD.

[Nolgroth]

Three letters: LMD.

I must have missed my (in)Obvious Clue roll.

[DasBroot]

Attack on Titan season one

 

Beautiful, great potential, interesting world - but choppy as hell and some aspects that seriously needed explaining nearly pulled me right out of it for large chunks of the story.

 

I have no doubt the manga fills some things in - but I don't read manga.  Based on being stand alone there were plot holes large enough in season one to march a  Colossal Titan or three through.

 

I'd watch a second season without reservation but on my personal anime-o-meter Season 1 is lower than I expected (which is why I try not to buy into hype).

[Michael Hopcroft]

I've now gotten farther into Steven Universe, jumping around a bit, and I'm really enjoying it. Steven's universe (if you'll pardon the pun) is much darker than you would expect (although this does air in prime-time as opposed to traditional children;s viewing hours). There are sorts of really horrifying things going on that the network must be really tolerant to allow. And since all Gems identify as female with the exception of the half-Gem, half-human Steven (whose nature is complicated and as yet not entirely revealed -- especially to himself), homophobes would probably find the series utterly alarming.

[Joe Walsh]

We've been re-watching Frasier.  We're at the point where it starts to get a little too repetitive and dumb (when Daphne's relatives arrive). 

[death tribble]

The Paralympics. Britain are second in the medal table in terms of medals won overall and number of golds. China are first, the Ukraine are third and the USA are fourth.

[L. Marcus]

Ex Machina -- a concept sci-fi chamber play. The Turing Test put to the test, in one of the best movies of last year.

[sinanju]

I watched the first episode of DARK MATTER via Netflix on the recommendation of an acquaintance. Six people (and an android) awaken on a spaceship with no memory of their identities or how they got there. I only discovered after starting it (via the credits) that Tailgunner Joe (Joseph Mallozzi) and a fellow alumnus of Stargate were the executive producers and writers. I hate Tailgunner Joe. Given the chance, he stripped the Stargate universe of everything enjoyable about it and created the arrogantly, aggressively, abysmally stupid and awful Stargate Universe. Anyone who disagrees about the utter lack of redeeming qualities of SGU is just wrong.

 

Still, I watched the first episode. And I was surprised to find that I liked it.

 

But I'm not sure I'll watch any more. Why? Because it was so ****ing dark! (Among his other numerous sins when he ran SGU, he favored a show so darkly lit that you could hardly see what the hell was happening most of the time. And that has carried over to Dark Matter. I guess he thinks it's "artistic" to fill the screen with shadows and darkness. Or maybe he takes "dark" literally when it comes to dark stories or dark matters. I dunno. But it's annoying as hell, and doubly so when I know very well that it's a deliberate choice not to light the damn set.

[csyphrett]

Not lighting the set helps cut down on production costs

CES

[bigdamnhero]

Just finished Ascension, which I had somehow never even heard of. Interesting concept with a few good twists that are actually thought out and baked in, rather than just being teist-for-the-sake-of-twisting. Bummed that they decided not to greenlight a second season...

 

I binged Dark Matter Season 1 a couple months ago, and enjoyed it a lot more than sinanju did. Not in my Top 5 scifi series ever, but well worth watching. Unfortunately I finished Season 1 too late to stream season 2, so now I have to wait for that season to hit Netflix too.

 

And in case anyone here hasn't yet seen Orphan Black - GO WATCH IT RIGHT NOW! Unfortunately it's not on Netflix streaming, but they have the DVDs if you still have a DVD plan, or you can stream them from BBC America via Xfinity if you have access to that.

 

As for movies: wife ~dragged me to see Secret Life Of Pets, but we walked out after 30 minutes by mutual consent. We were expecting a Pixar-esque movie that can also b enjoyed by grownups, but not so much.