Wow, how did I miss that!? Thanks for the heads up.

Too bad they don't have Bell & Sebastian on there. I finally tracked down someone selling bootlegs on DVD a while back. If you've not seen it and you understand french, there's a legitimate DVD box set you can import (which I have) in two parts. One of the best children's shows ever made, in my opinion.

In other randomness:

I am amused at the reactions this trailer is getting:
1/3 of people say "OMG this looks fucking awesome!"
1/3 of people say "OMG this looks fucking cheesy and stupid!"
1/3 of people say "OMG this is so unrealistic and stupid!"

Myself, I agree with all of them. It looks stupid and unrealistic and cheesy, but completely off the rails and awesome. It makes me sad that 2/3 of people are apparently unable to enjoy something like this for what it is. This is clearly not trying to win realism awards. The only thing I wish it had was way more cheesy dialogue and stupid action one-liners coming from Lincoln.

Noboru Ishiguro passed away yesterday. If you were alive in the 80's and watched anime on TV or bought anime on VHS, then you probably know who he is. For those of you who don't, he was one of the reasons anime became a thing in the US. He was a director and oversaw some of the most popular shows at the time. Yamato, Robotech/Macross, Gatchaman, Lupin the 3rd, Astroboy...

He's also one of the reasons people in the US believe that all anime looks the same and is about giant robots and cheesy sci-fi. His stuff was so popular in Japan that it's all a lot of TV stations in the US bothered to license. The stigma exists largely because we were only ever exposed to the work of one guy. It wasn't until later that they started importing other shows like Voltron, and most of them were just ripping off either Gatchaman or Robotech.

Huge influence in anime and on a lot of people who were kids in that era (myself included). It is a sad day, indeed. I think I'll go watch some Gatchaman.

Just watched X-Men: First Class. I don't understand what the hubbub was. I thought it was worse than X3.

The set and costumes are a wreck of occasional, half-hearted waves at 1962. The script is a mess. It's basically the same story as the first X-Men movie, for one thing. For another, the only decent line of dialog is "Turn the nuclear reactor to 100% and see that I'm not disturbed." Except for the BabyMutants! scenes, the first 25 minutes is promising, and then Moira MacTaggart gets completely lost. The vague love quadrangle is awful, as is the TeenMutantDanceParty! sequence.

January Jones is terrible. Jennifer Lawrence is an embarrassment, and she's taking over from a fashion model. Think of that: a fashion model was more menacing and emotive. Michael Fassbender is great until he drops all pretense at an accent and turns into the Lucky Charms leprechaun at the end.

Also, the Cinemax Dish Network rating clearly promised N and SC, and there was no N or SC.

I went to an advanced screening of Cabin in the Woods on April 2nd, host by Shock Till You Drop, and they just posted the post show audience reactions (including me, wearing my Nationals shirt and hat).
http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/16 … -you-think

"Life is about movies; anything else is a bonus!"- Me   

First Class good elements, but those are maybe like 5% of the movie. Otherwise pretty much everything Zarban said.

Also I'm still remarkably amused by the whole "training" scene.

"We're gonna have to work hard, and it'll be tough, and the only way we're gonna get through this is with each other."
*3 days later*
"Well now that we're all awesome and amazing, with each of us an amazing piece of new unheard of technology that was designed and built yesterday, let's do this shit."

I guh buh, what?

I just watched The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Sudden Death (1995). Error Flynn's romp in the woods was a fun popcorn movie in Old Hollywood style like few others. Wonderful and yet also missing some obvious opportunities that Michael Bay would have hit out of the park (like editing for best suspense and careful set-up or maximum payoff).

JCVD's Die-Hard-in-a-Hockey-Arena was fun and ridiculous and great, considering what we're talking about and the fact that I'm not really a JCVD fan.

EDIT: Also, yesterday, I watched Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter, a late entry in the Hammer horror line. It was fun and very different from pretty much any other vampire picture. Very clever, altho a bit flat. The commentary echoed my sentiment that it was kind of amazing that it wasn't picked up as a TV show or even given a sequel.

Last edited by Zarban (2012-04-14 21:36:26)

I saw Killer Elite so you don't have to. It was boring and forgettable. At least Al Pacino seemed to be having fun.

I watched the Asylum version of The Three Musketeers the other day. It wasn't very good, but it was so close to being very watchable. They kept missing all of these great opportunities to throw awesome one-liners out there, or they throw the wrong ones out and kill the vibe.

Example: There's a torture scene where they're torturing D'artagnan for no particular reason, and the torturer guy (who looks like he was actually caught in a fire, so if that was makeup, then great job...  but I don't think it was...) asks her where the three musketeers are and she mumbles something and then one of the musketeers sneaks on him and starts hitting him or something.

What they should have done was get a close-up insert of her saying "right behind you!", then the guy just cuts his throat or stabs him in the back of the head or something. Boom, down one fight scene, you got a funny scene AND something pretty brutal and awesome and you didn't have to shoot a clumsy fight scene.

Also, there's a shot in the trailer where one of the guys punches a helicopter and that shot was not actually in the film. I feel cheated, because that made me think the movie would be full of people punching helicopters and dual-wielding chainguns and shit like that. Instead it was mostly really bad Mission Impossible type stuff bookended by hilariously awesome action sequences.

EDIT: I also had a hard time getting over the fact that one of the guys has dual ponytails, one above the other. And somehow he still had sidehair hanging behind his ears.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-04-15 01:47:35)

That's amazing. So applicable to so many movies.

So I was wandering the wonderful random paths of ImDB today, when I found what looked to be a pretty cool newish TV series. Falling Skies. So I decided, what the hell.

I just finished the premiere,

AND IT IS AWESOME.

Basically, take The Walking Dead, replace Zombies with invading aliens, add an actual sense of humor, replace the dipshit kid with one whos pretty kinda good, and then just make the whole thing actually good.

Oh and add Noah Wyle as History professor turned apocalyptic soldier and Colin Cunningham being rockstar apocalyptic gang leader.

And yes, it's just as awesome as it sounds.

Only down side is the effects suffer from being a lowish budget TV show, but they did a cool thing with some puppetry so I gotta give em that.

EDIT:

V.

Finally got around to starting this one. It's been sitting on my list for a while now. The first time I tried watching it, for reason I just got horribly disgusted with it within 5 minutes and just turned it off. I honestly have no idea what I was on at the time cause it's actually pretty awesome.

Though it does suffer from one of the things I hate about studios/networks, and thats the whole thing of having to explain your entire show in one episode so that they can decide whether they want to buy it or not. Because when I was hearing about V from other people I was expecting (Or maybe hoping) that it would be the sort of thing where it's a slow gradual reveal and it spans a season or 2, and it's really gradual and subversive. But nope, it's just BAM, suck my giant truth of the V cock. So that was dissappointing.

What is never disappointing though is Morena Baccarin in short hair. Oh yes indeed.

Oh yeah, and I guess Alan Tudyk and bunch of other people are in there too, but my gods Morena.

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-04-15 09:22:07)