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Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by C-Spin
I enjoyed the episode, but it was more for Matt and Jenna than it was the episode itself. Been loving the new intro since Christmas, VERY Classic Who.
Was it just me or was this episode HEAVILY reminiscent of The Idiot's Lantern? Right down to the bike-riding. Better production values and set in the modern day, but otherwise...
Wow. I just watched this for the first time in ages and was suitably horrified. I couldn't afford a camera for the longest time but I still wanted to make films, so I taught myself animation using a free program called Anim8or, which was actually sort of awesome. This was after trying to teach myself to do traditional animation in Paint, which... y'know... was shitty. I put this on Youtube after the fact because some friends wanted to see it, I think I did it in 2006? Somewhere in that neighborhood.
It was for some Anim8or forum contest that was about Newton and his laws or something, so of course I went for the most obvious thing imaginable, and then... Not sure why I took it where I took it. Blocked in some countries due to the soundtrack being stolen from Smashmouth, so sorry to our foreign friends. But not really. You're the lucky ones.
So that was it... and I really haven't gotten much better since then.
Yep, still totally psyched for this.
I've mentioned here before how I love Quantum of Solace and think it's the best of the Craig Bonds... to the agreement of no one. Part of it, I'm sure, is that I never had any problem understanding what was going on in any of the action sequences. Am I the only one? I've seen review after review and post after post complaining about how incoherent these scenes are, but I never had any problem following them.
That said, it's not my PREFERRED style of shooting action. I like it better than Sam Mendes' action cinematography, which just kind of sat there for me. But I think Casino Royale strikes the best balance on the action front. The camera is frantic and participatory when appropriate, but Campbell also gets back with a wide and lets you know the geography and find your bearings. I think the parkour chase is one of the better action scenes in modern film.
For my money though, nobody does it better than Spielberg in his prime. All three Indiana Jones films are shot perfectly when the action rolls around. Saving Private Ryan, as bullet said. Hell, even Duel. Jurassic Park's action feels a little dull now, but I'm going to chalk that up to technological restrictions.
I'm still watching The Daily Show, but I pretty much agree with Brian on the subject. I've always found Colbert to be the funnier one, and I think his show is hands down the more clever program now. I like that he's using the character sort of as performance art and drawing attention to bizarre political mechanics with things like his running for President or the Super PAC. Every time he had Trevor Potter on the show to peel back an extra layer of scum it was amazingly illuminating.
I was going to try out the original House of Cards, but I guess I'll save myself the trouble. Speaking of British TV shows about politics; "The Thick of It" is one of the greatest sitcoms I've ever seen. It just ended this year with a fourth season that was a Hulu co-production, and currently all four seasons are available for viewing on the free version of Hulu. Really smart, hysterical show. Despite the absurdity of some of the situations it feels very real. Peter Capaldi is amazing, and not just when he's shouting obscenities at everybody.
A good metric for whether or not you'd enjoy the show is the movie In The Loop from 2009, which is a pseudo spin-off featuring some of the same cast, some of whom play their roles from the show. Very funny movie, but the series is better.
Anyway, that was just a recommendation I had, apropos of nothing.
Die Hard 6 will be about McClane finding out that he's actually immortal now. He'll run around begging people to kill him but noone will be able to.
I think they need to turn Die Hard into a six film prequel saga to The Matrix and reveal in the next one that John McClane is the first of the failed Ones. It's the only way to salvage the franchise.
Wow.
That was a total waste of Fincher.
It's certainly a weird choice. I can see him pairing with Timberlake because they worked on Social Network and Fincher's done pop videos before (black and white dancey ones, even), but this song's kind of a dud. Still plenty of cool shots, at least...
David Fincher just did a Justin Timberlake video, I believe the first music video he's done since Closer. I'm not terribly fond of the song, but it's still interesting work from Fincher. And Justin Timberlake is kind of undeniably cool... Come on...
I don't WANT Khan, I hope we don't get Khan, but I'm not ready to rule him out just yet. I don't think it'd be Benedict Cumberbatch, but we haven't seen so much as a single still photo of Peter Weller in this movie yet. And those cryo-sleep pod-lookin' things in the trailer have me nervous. Of course, they could be in there because they intentionally lead you to think that way. Dammit, JJ.
Guess I'll embarrass myself with mine. Also in no particular order:
The Killers - Battle Born
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Metric - Grow Up and Blow Away
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
I know I picked the obvious one for Bowie, Scary Monsters and Low also fought it out for that spot. Could have been any of them. Battle Born's pretty new, I initially was very disappointed with it, but the more I listened to it the more I loved it. It's currently my favorite by The Killers, but once the novelty of newness wears off it could drop back behind Sam's Town, which would take its place on this list. I don't have any excuses for the other ones.
I felt like a dumbass earlier today when I went to Kate Mara's IMDb and saw that they were sisters, because it was SUCH a revelation for me. I've been aware of her for a couple years, I KNEW her name was Kate MARA... When I was watching the first episode yesterday I was thinking, "Man, it's weird how much this girl sounds like Rooney Mara when David Fincher directs her." Never made the connection.
Anyway, through episode six, show keeps getting better. The fourth wall breaking shouldn't work as well as it does, but Spacey's so charming, he makes me feel like we're buds and I'm in on a secret.
I'm only up to episode 5, REALLY enjoying it so far. They've hooked me. I'm sure I'll have more to say once I finish the season, but so far the biggest shock for me was seeing, "Directed by Joel Schumacher" in the opening credits for episode five. That guy's still working? And on things that DON'T suck? I'm astounded.
Is this the place where I can moan about the cancellation of Sym-Bionic Titan? I know it's been a while, but I'm still pissed at Cartoon Network. And they haven't even put out a DVD yet...
Fantastic episode, guys. I'm in pretty complete agreement with Dorkman (and also Trey, except when he says you could get away with just randomly having the kid be a superhuman killing machine). I love Rian Johnson's other work, the trailers for this were great, and I was expecting a total home run. Turned out to be just okay. I'll probably never watch it again either.
I just couldn't manage to make it to the theater on this one, so my first viewing was on the blu-ray from Netflix last week. Since I had the option I watched the bonus features too, so I wanted to address a couple of things you guys touched on. First, in regard to Kid Blue being Jeff Daniels... If you consider deleted scenes canon, no.
You could argue that in the theatrical cut it's ambiguous, but Rian Johnson's intent in the film as scripted and filmed is just that Blue's a screw-up of a lacky who looks up to Daniels' character. There are a whole host of deleted scenes featuring Kid Blue, and how he tracks down the Joes. But the revealing one is after Daniels takes his gun and hammers him, a guy takes him out back and is going to kill him, but Kid Blue escapes. So safe to say he's not meant to be young Jeff Daniels.
You also mentioned that it's surprising how wonky the time travel mechanics are, because he had Shane Carruth consulting on that, but Johnson makes a remark on that in the commentary. Towards the ends he basically gives him a thank you shout-out and says, half-jokingly, "He looked over the script and said, it's good, but your time travel is total bullshit, and then I didn't do anything about it." I'm paraphrasing, but not that much.
I'm glad it's JJ. The film snob in me is all, "Bullshit, it should have been Duncan Jones or Danny Boyle or something," but I'm actually pretty happy about it. He IS a safe choice, an obvious choise, but It's like DiF said on the Harry Potter commentary, you get Chris Columbus in to set up the world, then you can bring in Alfonso Cuaron to fuck around with it. A new trilogy needs somebody like George Lucas on the original, do the job, get it done, keep it simple, get us invested, then let the more obscure choices come out and play. This is a tough balancing act for Disney, they've got to lure in kids and anybody else who's not already into Star Wars, the saga fans who love all six movies, and the original trilogy purists who were burned by the prequels. Given his success with Star Trek, it seems fair to assume Abrams can do it.
As for his stylistic merit... I know people were into Joss Whedon for the job more for his writing than anything, but they wanted him to direct as well. I've always thought of Whedon and Abrams as Kindred spirits when it comes to direction. Serenity and Star Trek definitely have a common ancestor, the two of them stage their action in very similar ways. I don't know why the internet at large is all hot for Whedon but down on Abrams. Is it cool to hate him already?
A minor but exciting aside for me... JJ's involvement almost certainly means this one is going to be shot on film. The grand digital experiment was just one more thing separating Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith from really feeling like Star Wars. Subtle though it may have been. Not that I have any problem with digital filmmaking at all, but within a series it's good to have that cohesion. It bothers me that Aliens is randomly 1.85:1, too.
It's always been like that. At least here.
It didn't used to do that with movies, the "shrink screen, make related recommendations thing" until sometime early last year, I think. Then later in the year it made it so it autoplays the next episode if you're watching a TV series. This trailer business is all new for me, just now. I watched a movie yesterday and it didn't happen. I'd tolerate something like that from Hulu, but I'm giving Netflix twenty dollars a month...
So I was watching a movie on Netflix Instant and it ended, but there was stuff playing over the credits. Netflix still made it all small like it's wont to do, and gave me a poster for House of Cards. Then it said, "Watch the trailer in 10, 9, 8..." and there was no option to cancel, so it just killed what I was watching and jumped to a lengthy trailer for House of Cards.
I'm just wondering... Who do we have to kill?
I know there's a lot of effects enthusiasts around here, so I figured this might be enjoyed by some. Pretty interesting article with some fascinating breakdown clips. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2013/01/ … -and-azog/
And I feel slightly vindicated but slightly angrier on the Azog issue after watching that last one. Though I wonder if he'll be improved in the next film given that they know what they're doing from day one.
I hate that I'm agreeing with you. It feels as tho, once he was put in charge and encountered all the pressure of budgets and deadlines that Davies contended with, he ends up doing much the same things as Davies: writing whatever seems exciting and mysterious without much planning and pulling answers out of his ass at the last minute.
Do you think it would help the show if they went back to the way it was in the classic series, with there being a showrunner and a script editor who were two entirely different people? Or is this just a weakness of the two showrunners they've chosen, rather than the current system?
I already saw the light, I was playing dumb....
oops, I mean duh, I don't know nothing.....
Damn you, Jimmy. Damn you straight to hell.
Wait....so the complaint is that he is writing strong women and not dumb or meek ones?
Yes. Because his idea of "strong" is one-note, and it's almost as much a disservice to women to paint them all with the same "strong character" brush as it is to do it with the "weak character" brush. I proposed those adjectives simply because they represent the opposite of Moffat's typical female character, and are not traits we've seen in any women he's written. What I really want is just something different. Think about a character like Rory. That's a GREAT character with a believable arc and his own kind of strength, but he's not the Doctor, he's not Captain Jack, etc. I want that for the women characters too, and it's not at all what I'm getting.
EDIT: Dammit Jimmy. If you're not saying what I was just typing you're seeing the light before I've had my shot at breaking you.
Right now I'm just sitting through the current episodes, waiting for Moffat's run to end. I hate feeling this way but I just can't seem to rustle up any affectionate feelings for his writing anymore.
While I still have some enthusiasm for the show, I must admit I'm a little miffed with Moffat myself. I was with the entire internet in thinking that Moffat's episodes were far and away the strongest of the Russell T. Davies era, and I was SO stoked when it was announced that he was taking over as showrunner. Series 5 is, I think, the best of the "nuWho" series. It all felt so energized and there was a consistent standard of high quality with a greater focus on science fiction than ever before. Series six was a step down, the jury's still out on series seven. But it's become clear to me that Moffat is kind of a three-trick pony, as far as his plotting is concerned. Jumbled timeline with predestination paradoxes, scary everyday thing, glib prophesizing.
And he's a ONE trick pony when it comes to writing women. Amy Pond is Madam Du Pompadour. That didn't bother me TOO much, because he burned a cool character idea on one episode in somebody else's era and wanted to explore it more fully. That's fine with me. But Sally Sparrow is also a very slight variation on the same character. River Song is an amplified version of it. Even Katherine from Jekyll and Irene Adler (ESPECIALLY Adler) are the same character as River Song. And now it looks like Oswin is too, though Jenna-Louise Coleman plays it with more charm than Alex Kingston. There ARE... y'know... meek women. Hateful women. Dumb women. Could we get a little variety, please? It works for your male characters.
I have a hard time with the whole "MY" Doctor thing. The first one I ever saw was Patrick Troughton, randomly watching at a friend's house, and I had no idea what was going on with the story. But it was pretty entertaining. The first one I sat down and watched seriously was Tom Baker, and obviously he's a great Doctor and part of the upper tier.
The first one I was really in love with was David Tennant, and it was during his run that I got addicted to the show and started buying up all the DVD's I could afford, both new series and classic. But I like Matt Smith better than Tennant now. I think Smith is my favorite Doctor, at least at the moment. I was wary about him after the casting announcement, I didn't think he was very good in The End of Time, but I was on board with him the second Eleventh Hour started. Completely erased all thoughts of Tennant and how I'd been dreading his departure.
So I have no idea which one is mine. Though to be honest, I love all of them except Hartnell, Davison, and McCoy. And they're pretty okay too.
I finally got a chance to see this last night. In 2D 24p. Nearest HFR showing is two hours from me and while I'm interested in experiencing that... I'm not surcharges and also a tank of gas interested. Everybody's pretty much covered my feelings on it, overlong, self-indulgent, no stakes, too much slapstick humor, cartoony action sequences, etc. I even read this thread and many reviews before hand, so I was EXPECTING ridiculous, over-the-top action, and it still surprised me with how far it was willing to go. The finale of the Goblin mountain sequence was so absurd.
It suffered a flaw that I think many prequels do; it's designed too MUCH to be a prequel, rather than simply a story that's set earlier in the timeline. If you understand the distinction I'm making. The introduction into the world of Middle-Earth isn't as strong as in LotR. Aspects of fan-service moments like the "present" day stuff with older Bilbo are going to be relatively baffling to newcomers. I just think the way it's made is prohibitive of eventual saga viewings for people who have never experienced the series before.
That being said, there was a good deal to like about it. It was a beautiful experience, for a start. And it entertains on a scene-by-scene basis for the most part, even if the pacing is less than ideal. I thought Martin Freeman was fantastic, I was rooting for him to be cast long before The Hobbit was ever officially greenlit. This is the first time my personal pick for a role has actually been cast, and I'm so glad he didn't disappoint. James Nesbitt sort of stole the show, and Cate Blanchett is a beautiful ageless demon woman. And of course everything to do with the Riddles in the Dark sequence was fabulous.
The most nonsensical thing about the movie to me, though... Why the Hell was Azog CGI? I really just don't understand what that achieved that a big, buff, bald dude in prosthetics with a digital arm replacement wouldn't have. Get Jason Momoa or somebody in there. I might have forgiven it if he and his shiny skin weren't hands down the worst CG creature in the movie.
If I can add a question, Do you guys come up with your titles first or last?
My titles almost always come last. My documents folder is filled with "Detective Movie Thing Script," and "Horror Idea" kind of titles. Often if a story has a strong central character it'll be "[Character Name] Script," that sort of thing. Very occasionally I come up with a concept and the perfect title for it all at the same time, but it's far from the norm, for me at least.
That was really fun, I already have "xenophobically inept, yours absolutely" stuck in my head. I went ahead and sent it to my aunt who routinely beats me at Scrabble.
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Posts by C-Spin
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