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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Watched Safe with Jason Statham and Catherine Chan. 9 yr old Mei is taken from her home city in China and turned into a living account book by a Triad. After being given a number to memorize, she is kidnapped by the Russian Mob for that number. She escapes from the Russians and runs into Luke Wright, an excop turned bum, who takes her under his wing and begins decimating both sides of the conflict as well as a squad of dirty cops mixed in to the problem.

 

CES    

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Raul Garcia is a Spanish animator who worked on various films for Disney and Warner Brothers but rarely got a chance to direct on American productions. Sop as a nine-year labor of love he directed a series of shorts based on  Edgar Alan Poe stories, which were collected last year into the feature release Extraordinary Tales. I caught it on Netflix last night and am extremely impressed with it.

 

Garcia uses a different animation style in each short, and while none of them match the fluidity of animation with a larger budget each short is more unsettling than the last. From the CGI of "Fall of the House of Usher" to the intense terror of "The Pit and the Pendulum" and the disturbing debauchery of "Masque of the Red Death", the anthology had me deliciously disturbed throughout.

 

It's very different from what you normally see.

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I just finished watching the last two episodes of season two of Person of Interest.

 

I'm really enjoying that show. And I like the way it's been evolving. In the beginning, we learn that Harold Finch built (and programmed) a supercomputer for the US government. Hooked into virtually every surveillance camera, phone, computer and other device in the US, if not the world, it looks for possible threats and when it finds something, it sends an identifying number to government parties, who investigate the individual question. Said individual may be a perpetrator or a victim; they aren't told. They have to investigate and determine what's going on, and stop the threat. The Machine doesn't just spot terrorist threats, it spots any premeditated scheme of violence, but it only sends "relevant" info to the government. The other info is deleted every night at midnight.

 

Except...that Harold gets the numbers for "non-relevant" threats, and with the help of John Reese, he works to determine whether the individual is perpetrator or victim, and stop (or help) them, as necessary. It's a good premise for a weekly investigation/action series. But there's more to it.

 

 

As the first season draws to a close, and throughout the second season, we learn that Harold didn't just build a machine. He created an artificial intelligence. One which, when threated by any of the many parties who would stop at nothing, kill any number of people, in order to control it, is capable of modifying its own code and taking defensive actions. By the end of the second season, when several parties finally track down where the machine had been installed years ago...they find only a vast, echoing, empty chamber. The Machine had itself moved, one node at a time, so it never went offline, by cut-outs who had no idea what they were doing, or by whom.

 

By the end of the season two finale, NOBODY knows where the machine is. NOBODY controls it. It controls itself. In short, if you're familiar with the background for Eclipse Phase, Harold Finch built the first TITAN.

 

Harold Finch will eventually be responsible for The Fall.

 

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I enjoyed POI for its entire run - though the show, like many that switch tracks, did lose a fair number of fans when it moved more towards science fiction than procedural.

 

Seeing as how I'm a fan of William Gibson and Arthur C Clarke *I* certainly didn't waiver when themes from both authors started ramping up. Based on the positive tone to the spoiler tag I'd say you're in for a treat.

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I saw SING! 

It's been a good year for Animated Features. While this wasn't as good as Zootopia or Kubo, it was still enjoyable. If you're okay with 'The Voice' or "American Idol' done by animals complete with mostly sympathetic backstories, you might get a kick out of it.

 

I do suggest avoiding trailers and TV spots if you can. They give up too much in the movie. 3 out of 5 stars, maybe 3.5

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I had been working at a movie rental place, but we didn't get free rentals. It went out of business - and now we have a new one who kept the staff. They have free rentals - so I've been catching up on movies I was interested it, but didn't want to spend money on.

 

Limitless was really good, I enjoyed the different take on drug addiction.

Both Gravity and Interstellar were amazing.

Monument Men - didn't especially like.

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Superman--watched this one again about a week ago, found that I really enjoyed the lead-up, but became somewhat bored with the Luthor land scheme story.

Superman II--watched this one again yesterday, mostly enjoyed it.

Superman III--Oh, my. I'd forgotten just how bad this one was. Hulu's holding my place right around the halfway mark, but I sincerely doubt that I'll go back to it.

 

Mr Selfridge--working may way through the final two series on Amazon Prime. Consistently enjoyable for me.

Smallville--somewhere in the middle of season 6. I had missed a fair number of episodes (working nights, WB being very bad about announcing start of season), so I've started from the beginning.

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