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What Have You Watched Recently?


Susano

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans. I was expecting this movie to suck badly. I was surprised when I actually became engrossed with it. Turns out it was pretty good despite not having Selene in it.

 

I saw this recently. If you liked Underworld 1 and 2 then you should like this. The bonus here is Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen both of whom really can act. This lifts the film considerably.

 

Babylon AD. A criminal waste of talent (Charlotte Rampling, Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh and Gerard Deopardiu). One wonders what the expanded version is like as this ends as a damp squib.

 

Waltz with Bashir. The director of the piece wonders why he can't remember his time in Lebanon during the war of the early 80s. This is an animated film but is for adults only and for people of mature sensibilities.

It ends with the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

 

The Wrestler. Brilliant. Mickey Rourke deserved to be nominated for awards and got the Golden Globe and Bafta for his performance. And where has Marisa Tomei been for the past few years ?

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans. I was expecting this movie to suck badly. I was surprised when I actually became engrossed with it. Turns out it was pretty good despite not having Selene in it.

 

Or quite possibly because of the lack of Selene. I disliked the first two massively. But then vampire flicks are a hard sell on me.

 

Waltz with Bashir. The director of the piece wonders why he can't remember his time in Lebanon during the war of the early 80s. This is an animated film but is for adults only and for people of mature sensibilities.

It ends with the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

 

This I want to see, the preview looked pretty cool.

 

 

Balls Of Fury - redeaming qualities: Kristopher Walken, Maggie Q (spends most of the movie in micro-skirt and sports bra.. yummy). Not redeaming qualities: every other actor in it.

 

Awesome bits: Take every Kung Fu movie you watched at 2 AM, combine their laughably bad plots into one mish-mashed thing, make it a ping-pong tournament instead. Really, the movie was horrible but I could NOT stop laughing. It managed to peg so far into bad it flipped and became good. Really, if you're a fan of the bad Kung-Fu Action Flicks you will like this movie.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

The X-Files: I Want To Believe.

 

Odd.

 

Not in the unexplained phenomenon sense.

 

It was watchable. The acting and script were rock solid, the production values in terms of cinematography and soundtrack were Chris Carter polished. Scully and Mulder were great to watch. In fact, they felt more like real people than they did on the show. Older, wiser, more intimately involved on an emotional plane.

 

But it wasn't an X-File. No aliens. No supernatural. No massive government conspiracies. No comedic shtick. It was a classic horror/thriller serial killer film. And a somewhat dark, emotionally heavy one at that. The X-Files was never "serious drama." This fit more into post-9/11 pessimistic zeitgeist.

 

I guess a word with a Domestic Security Monolith, carte blanch NSA wiretapping, extreme rendition, executive sanction, nuclear proliferation, an ongoing foreign war, and active terrorist cells plotting to kill women and children renders a major pillar of the original premise moot/unpalatable.

 

And then the writers avoided the show's other pillars (the unsolved mysteries/creepy supernatural) and wrote a crime drama that happened to have Mulder and Scully in it. And one that treated them like struggling characters rather than familiar, comfortable archetypes. No wonder it got panned. People want what they expect. They expected a bizarro world bit of escapism.

 

Instead they got an earthbound emotionally heavy film that involved questions of morality without easy answers, people making choices, and allegory. Also, it worked like an old thriller from before the CGI/Sex-it-up/Bigger-Than-Life-Baddy era in terms of camera work, lighting, and timing.

 

But no post-modern camp conspiracy mythos. And no monster-of-the-week.

 

That may be the "X" in this file.

 

And yet, I liked it. Better in some ways.

 

The show lost me towards the end of season 7, though up until that point I was a die-hard fan.

 

If you're looking for an X-File: 1.5/5. You'll probably be disappointed - not much X.

 

If you're looking for a horror/thriller that happens to have Mulder and Scully in it: 3.75/5.

 

But then, I'm a crime/horror/thriller fan.

 

 

I thought, due to the fact that this was a film set several years after the show, that having Mulder and Scully living together was, though jarring at first, a very smart move.

 

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Re watched Arahan again, this time with a friend.

 

Seriously, this movie deserves to be a Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu hustle level hit. A great Superhero movie set in Korea. Good hearted schmuck turned hero, beautiful superheroine with depth and heart, an older generation of masters now fading, a scary yet sympathetic bad guy, action, comedy, pathos, just a great little movie.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Re watched Arahan again, this time with a friend.

 

Seriously, this movie deserves to be a Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu hustle level hit. A great Superhero movie set in Korea. Good hearted schmuck turned hero, beautiful superheroine with depth and heart, an older generation of masters now fading, a scary yet sympathetic bad guy, action, comedy, pathos, just a great little movie.

 

As I've said, I've seen it, and really want to get it.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Deadwood episodes 1-12 (Season 1).

 

I have to get this on DVD sometime.

 

I did notice a definite increase in the amount and frequency of using "swedgin" as some kind of swearword after the DVDs started circulating amongst my friends :)

 

As for myself -

Season 1 of Eureka.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I've been collecting the various volumes of the Star Trek Remastered series.A considerable improvement upon the previous DVD releases in ever respect.I've only gotten as far as Disc Five out of Season Two ("The Trouble with Tribbles" disc ) but the remastered episodes are a joy to watch.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Taken. Decent action-thriller movie. Nothing groundbreaking' date=' but a solid entry for the genre. I probably will not return to it with near the frequency that I do with the Bourne trilogy.[/quote']

 

I heard they completely left the aliens out of this one.... what a shame!

 

;)

 

I watched the Easter episode of Dr. Who. With a flying double-decker bus! Woot! I'm so pissed this is the actor's last season....

 

Korren

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I've been collecting the various volumes of the Star Trek Remastered series.A considerable improvement upon the previous DVD releases in ever respect.I've only gotten as far as Disc Five out of Season Two ("The Trouble with Tribbles" disc ) but the remastered episodes are a joy to watch.

 

I'd like to get those. Are there boxed sets coming out?

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

I heard they completely left the aliens out of this one.... what a shame!
Tellin ya. I figured with Long Gone Jim in it, there should have at least been a cameo of an alien. But no, just deadly serious kidnap drama where the father has to tear apart Paris and kill a buncha deserving criminals to get her back. Sheesh. Nothing like I expected. :D
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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

Tellin ya. I figured with Long Gone Jim in it' date=' there should have at least been a cameo of an alien. But no, just deadly serious kidnap drama where the father has to tear apart Paris and kill a buncha deserving criminals to get her back. Sheesh. Nothing like I expected. :D[/quote']

 

Apparently, you haven't seen the Director's Cut. The father has a laser sword fight with the chief bad guy, who's an alien. However, laser swords trump acid for blood.

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

 

I thought, due to the fact that this was a film set several years after the show, that having Mulder and Scully living together was, though jarring at first, a very smart move.

You are right, it was odd in that it wasn't "an X-File".

 

 

I really enjoyed it when Assistant Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) showed up.

 

 

As I understand it, Hoover really didn't like unsolved cases anyway, so the whole concept of a collection of unsolved X-Files is unreal in the first place. I think the most a case went unsolved for was about 2 years, and an upcoming Special Agent-in-Charge* would get assigned, given the chance to impress the boss -- Hoover.

 

*Mark Felt's autobiography

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Re: What Have You Watched Recently?

 

You are right' date=' it was odd in that it wasn't "an X-File". [/quote']

 

Don't make me punish you.

 

Consider two other X-Files. Season 1 Beyond the Sea and Season 3 Clyde Bruckman's Last Repose.

Both of these use psychics but the criminals themselves are normal. X-Files: I Want to Believe has the priest receiving psychic visions which help lead to the conclusion of the case.

Conclusion ? It is an X-File.

 

It may not have been the X-File you wanted but it is an X-File.

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