Comic Talk and General Discussion *

What are you watching right now?
Ozoneocean at 5:31AM, Jan. 6, 2016
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What's on your watching queue, TV schedule, YouTube, Netflix, DVD stack etc right now?

I'm trying to get through Cleopatra 2525.

A friend gave me the DVD of the second season so I watched all the first season online. It's not good and it doesn't get better…
The concept is interesting, the actors are beautiful and competent, sets, costumes and effects are good too but the writing and direction are SHIT!
It's set in a post apocalyptic world where robot aliens have taken over the surface and people live underground on levels like a gigantic underground skyscraper. They get to different places by freefalling down a huge shaft or swinging back up using rocket boots and web projectors.

The trouble is this was made in 1999-2001 or something and has that look: goggles, skin tight shiny pvc, braided hair… All that industrial cyberpunk style that was SO big at the time! So it's a bit dated. But worse that that it also has all those stupid needless acrobatics that were so popular in TV then too, you don't dodge you cartwheel, you don't get up, you do a forward flip, you don't charge you run up a wall and kick off into someone, and backflips, endless arseing backflips…
Also from what I can tell it was made by the same people that did Hercules and Xena, so it's full of the same bunch of gym-bunny New Zealanders and Aussies doing bad American accents as well as the occasional real American or Brit.

Just as horribly written as Xena and Herc was. Very plastic TV, eye candy only.
I'm watching as a test of endurance.
bravo1102 at 6:35AM, Jan. 6, 2016
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But Xena and Hercules knew they were camp.

Anyway I am watching Star Trek DS 9 which I discovered is my brother's favorite ST series. Interspersed with that I have a list gleaned from a recent book on gangster movies. I just finished Sorsese ‘s The Departed which is one of the best films I’ve seen in a while.

I also saw Public Enemies, Jim my Cagney in Public Eneny, Edward G Robinson in Little Caesar among others. Love those old BW films. Amazing thr ride they could take you on back then.
.
Genejoke at 8:22AM, Jan. 6, 2016
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I'm currently rewatching spartacus. More precisely spartacus vengence as thjats the season I'm on at the moment. It's a great show, completely gratuitous, yet very well written in spite of the over the top visuals. Season one was by far the worst looking series, owing more to mortal kombat in its gore than the less obvious cgi blood and practical effects of later series.
fallopiancrusader at 8:41AM, Jan. 6, 2016
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I remember watching Cleopatra 2525 when it came out! It was just as terrible as Oz described. I also loved the cardboard sets.
I just got done watching “Kink”, a documentary about the website of the same name. I definitely recommend it, as long as you're not easily disturbed by some of the more outlandish possibilities of human behavior.
KimLuster at 12:33PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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Ha, well… I really don't know what I've idly watched lately, while I did other things (like work on my comic)…! Just a hodge-podge of inane stuff while I wait for the walking dead to return…! Ya know, watching something about my culture! ;)
maskdt at 2:35PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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Adventure Time. I'm tired and have a bit of a mysterious fever, so the bright colours and optimism of the early seasons suits me quite well right now.
HippieVan at 2:51PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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maskdt wrote:
Adventure Time. I'm tired and have a bit of a mysterious fever, so the bright colours and optimism of the early seasons suits me quite well right now.
I should re-watch Adventure Time. It's definitely a good choice for illness/anxiety.

I've been working through Buffy. I don't have too much time for TV, so it's taking me a while. I really enjoy it! In Season 4 she has a really awful, generic, wooden love interest who I couldn't stand and he was around for almost a season and a half, so I just kind of powered through that part during Christmas break. Since his character left things have gotten much better.
Duchess of Friday Newsposts and the holy Top Ten
HippieVan at 2:54PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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I'm also re-watching Veronica Mars! Mostly I just want to watch the first season again - the second season has a pretty disturbing conclusion and the third season isn't very good. I haven't seen the show since I was a teenager (maybe 15 or so), and it's interesting watching it again now. There are definitely parts of it where I have a different understanding/reaction. It's also funny seeing how quickly the technological bits have become outdated.
Duchess of Friday Newsposts and the holy Top Ten
kawaiidaigakusei at 5:17PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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I recently completed the entire first season of Aziz Ansari's Netflix show “Master of None”. It was genuine and really highlighted the strengths and pitfalls of my age group. I also could relate with growing up in an Asian American home like Anzari.

Right now, I am watching Portlandia: Season 5. I am taking it one episode at a time because I do not want to watch them all in a rush.
( ´ ▽ ` )ノ
last edited on Jan. 6, 2016 5:48PM
Banes at 8:28PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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I was binge watching Portlandia and loving it, then burned out on it. Might be time to revisit that one; it's fantastic and I was still on season one or two I think.

Lately I've been binging Corner Gas, a Canadian sit com from a few years ago…just got burned out on that one, too, so I'll put it aside for awhile.

I finished the anime Seven Deadly Sins last night. It was pretty cool. i don't watch much anime but i liked it.

On Youtube/The Net, my boys are the hilarious dudes at redlettermedia.com, with their movie review series “Half in the Bag”. Great stuff.

My brother told me about this film analysis channel called “Every Frame a Painting.” This guy is brilliant and is his own one-man film school! Highly recommended:
https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting

Bravo, Deep Space Nine is my favorite too, especially from late-season 3 onward. Hope you're liking it!



last edited on Jan. 6, 2016 8:32PM
Ozoneocean at 8:35PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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Love Portlandia! Love it!

DS9 was a great series but I did get a bit annoyed at the war stuff when that took over from them having interesting and unusual adventures. I just wanted the Jemhadar, the Markee, the Vorta and the founders to all die in a fire. The Klingons too AND the Kardashians or whatever the thick neck big butts were called.
maskdt at 8:37PM, Jan. 6, 2016
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Banes wrote:
Lately I've been binging Corner Gas, a Canadian sit com from a few years ago…just got burned out on that one, too, so I'll put it aside for awhile.

Ahhh, Corner Gas. I was actually living in a small town in Saskatchewan when that first aired; it was like they just put a few cameras in my town!
Banes at 2:57PM, Jan. 7, 2016
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@maskdt - cool! It's a funny show - just not a binge watch type of show. It's like a cartoonier version of Northern Exposure. Makes me wanna visit Saskatchewan, too!



last edited on Jan. 7, 2016 2:58PM
Genejoke at 4:00PM, Jan. 7, 2016
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So my binge watching of Spartacus has ended. Such a good show.
Hmm, what next?
I watched interstellar the other day, that was pretty good, but I felt lost its way as the film progressed, Matt Damons role was too obvious. Still an admirable film.
Also recently watched into the badlands, that was an interesting series. Not great but certainly has potential and some great action scenes. I also liked that it was a different take on post apocalypse type setting.
last edited on Jan. 7, 2016 4:02PM
Genejoke at 4:24PM, Jan. 7, 2016
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I've been working through Buffy. I don't have too much time for TV, so it's taking me a while. I really enjoy it! In Season 4 she has a really awful, generic, wooden love interest who I couldn't stand and he was around for almost a season and a half, so I just kind of powered through that part during Christmas break. Since his character left things have gotten much better.
I've been working through buffy again recently, first time in a long time. Looking back on the show I'm finding my opinion on some series and characters has changed. Season 4 is definitely not a great season, there are good episodes but too much didn't really work. Riley was an interesting one, not interesting in himself, but that he was so unlike Angel. I like that she got with the bland nice guy, even if it was only for a while. It's a shame certain writers on that show were too obvious in the humour as Joss Whedon has a very subversive kind of humour and a few brought the show to almost charmed levels of campness on occasion. Still a great series overall.
Ozoneocean at 8:31AM, Jan. 8, 2016
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I found Interstella so very, very dulllllllllll… it was really trying to be 2001 type of film but it dragged like an anchor

I re-watched She's Outta My League and now I'm re-watching The Hangover.
Neither are very smart movies, but they're good, light, dumb, broad comedys that are a soothing tonic for the brain when you're feeling flat.
kawaiidaigakusei at 9:36AM, Jan. 8, 2016
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@Genejoke-

Were you watching Interstellar or The Martian? I got confused when you said Matt Damon. I want to see that movie solely for the poop potatoes.
( ´ ▽ ` )ノ
Genejoke at 12:24PM, Jan. 8, 2016
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Definitely interstellar. As soon as he comes into it you know exactly how it's going to play out.
Ozone, indeed the hangover isn't a clever movie, but it works for what it is.I enjoyed all the hangover movies to some degree.
Watching season two of dragons race to the edge with my kids. They love it. To be fair it's a pretty good expansion on the how to train your dragon movies.
Ozoneocean at 8:37PM, Jan. 9, 2016
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I tried to watch Scott Pilgrim again but I didn't have time to finish it before I had to get changed for the Quackcast, but DAMN that movie is super good! Better every time I watch it.
Genejoke at 2:06AM, Jan. 10, 2016
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I haven't seen scott pilgrim, the trailer was enough to put me off. Looked painfully bad.
I watched a couple of older films last night.
Domestic disturbance, a John Travolta film about a rivalry with his exes new husband and stuff. it was okay for what it was.
Eye for an eye, a sally field starring revenge thriller. Thrilling? perhaps not but it was okay.
the night before I watched…
the imitation game. That was really good actually.
The conjuring, also very good if a little predictable.
Ozoneocean at 7:47AM, Jan. 10, 2016
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Trailers are often wrong. Scott Pilgrim is one of the best films ever.
It's densely packed with amazing scenes. Way better than the director's other films like Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Currently watching Roadgames, staring Stacey Keach and Jamey Lee Curtis. It was filmed in Australia back in the ‘80s. It’s a thriller about a Truck driver who thinks he's on the trail of a guy who's murdering hitchhikers. He picks up an American hitchhiker and together they try and work it out.
So far it's been seriously bloody boring. God awfully tedious! It's well made and acted but soooo sloooow!

The other annoying thing is that in common with all Australian films made in the ‘70s and ’80s the people in the small towns and on the road between the big cities are always monosyllabic halfwits, or taciturn brutes who look at you dangerously like characters from deliverance- really reflects the bias and sheltered lives of the privileged Sydney and Melbourne film makers who produced this crap back then. They were so cosseted in their sheltered little big city environments.
Embarrassing.
Though I've seen the same thing done in US and British films too often enough.
Call Me Tom at 10:39AM, Jan. 10, 2016
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Just watched The Bloob, can't help think that the end of that flim was a warning about global warming!
I'm sorry for any offence I cause.
bravo1102 at 1:11AM, Jan. 11, 2016
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Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in 1967's Bonnie and Clyde. I remember the kid in it from Star Trek's episode Miri. Supposedly that started Gene Hackman and Faye Dunaway ‘s careers. It was notorious for the bloody ending but it’s really tame by today standards. Because I watched 2013's Gangster Squad too. Really captures 1949 LA and Sean Penn plays a great asshole. But then he is a Colossal ass in real life.

And then for classics there was John Huston ‘s The Asphalt Jungle. Really great camera work in there. Every frame a painting. Jean Hagen is the “hooker with a heart” though they couldn’t say that in 1950. So different from her other movie of 1950, Singing in the Rain.
Genejoke at 12:22PM, Jan. 12, 2016
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I've started watching deep space nine. I've never watched the whole thing but always liked what I have seen, and I've seen fair chunks of every season. Watching it through certain things strike me about the star trek series of the 80s and 90s. They do very little character development and all the personal drama is very ham fisted. It's doubly frustrating in ds9 as there is far more of a plot arc in it compared to TNG but the character continuity is often iffy. Still a good series, I'm just being picky.
Banes at 5:41PM, Jan. 12, 2016
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ozoneocean wrote:
Scott Pilgrim is one of the best films ever.
It's densely packed with amazing scenes. Way better than the director's other films like Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.

Crazy talk.

The ramblings of a madman.

XD



Ozoneocean at 9:01PM, Jan. 12, 2016
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Ok, about Scott Pilgrim, I can easily unpack that- with Scoll Pilgrim Edgar was doing something totally new with his skills, he was taking the sum of all he'd done before and turning it up to 11, using it in new ways to produce something different.

In Sean of the Dead all he did was remix a bunch of old Spaced TV episodes into a homage of a Romero film. Spaced was GREAT show, but we'd seen it all before, ON the show. Nothing new, it was basicly the movie version of the show for those that hadn't seen the series.

HotFuzz finally moved away from Spaced. It had a little bit of a satire on American cop movies in there but the majority was another homage/riff, this time it was of British TV shows from the ‘70s, ’80s, and ‘90s. Anyone who grew up with those would recognise all the tropes.
*SPOILER*
Whole villages secretly being part of a cult is as old as old as old and it’s been made fun of many times before too from Doctor Who to Randal and Hopkirk, so this was very old ground for a British film, being trodden largely the same exact way. The gun-nut supercop was a nice new touch but not enough.

That's why I feel the way I do. :)
Genejoke at 6:51AM, Jan. 13, 2016
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Hit man agent 47. It was okay I suppose. The first attempt at a hit man was better though. The thing is, the film makers clearly didn't get the game. They've taken the character and almost made him into a terminator not a highly skilled assassin. Far too much guns blazing and hand to hand and not enough being stealthy and clever.
Banes at 9:57AM, Jan. 13, 2016
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ozoneocean wrote:
Ok, about Scott Pilgrim, I can easily unpack that- with Scoll Pilgrim
Edgar was doing something totally new with his skills, he was taking the
sum of all he'd done before and turning it up to 11, using it in new
ways to produce something different.

I can see your point there. While I feel that Shaun and Fuzz were incredible mixtures of genres executed with mastery, Scott Pilgrim was something quite different and I was surprised it wasn't a bigger success (though it's hopefully getting its due as time goes by!)

Just watched Safety Not Guaranteed. It was in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep and it had a major effect on me in those emotional hours. Good stuff!

Funny that they reference Star Wars several times in that flick, and the director is now in line to direct the ninth Star Wars movie in a few years. Neat. Like seeing the Batman symbol in Christopher Nolan's first film, “Following”.



last edited on Jan. 13, 2016 9:59AM
Genejoke at 2:17PM, Jan. 13, 2016
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Just been made to sit through a fair chunk of meet the Spartans.
I know it was going to be bad. In fact I knew it was going to be shockingly bad. I just didn't realise the extant of its awfulness. Spare yourselves and never watch any of it. It's nearly as bad as the film Adam Sandler did with Paul Thomas Anderson, punch drunk love. Only better as it is very occasionally amusing.
Banes at 3:03PM, Jan. 13, 2016
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Because of unusual circumstances, I watched Meet The Spartans I believe almost ten times in the CINEMA!

I believe this should earn me some kind of extra benefit or trophy in the next life.


A painful experience indeed.



last edited on Jan. 13, 2016 3:04PM

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