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.

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...

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.

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.

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...

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.

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?

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?

Damn you, Jimmy. Damn you straight to hell.

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 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.

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.