Entertainment Discussion Forum

[Scuttle Buttin']

Netflix is your friend.

I have no issue downloading things or whatever, it's just knowing how far back to go, I guess.

Weirdly, I've randomly seen one episode of Doctor Who, but I've stumbled upon it twice.. they end up on a space station or something that's orbiting a black hole, is all I really remember. And the blond in it was pretty cute.

 

[Britwitch]

Okay, change of topic: Why? Because I'm highly topical, that's why.

So I finally broke down and started watching the latest Doctor Who (Matt Smith) and while I still loved David Tennant's doctor I am extremely impressed with Smith's performance as him.

Anyway the topic is your favorite Doctor...Who is it? (See what I did there-very funny right-see I told you I'm highly topical)

Tough one this, really it is. Mr Brit is a huge Whovian...like way back to William Hartnell!
So I have been well educated

But I do admit having a preference for the more modern Docs.

1) David Tennant - just amazing!
2) Matt Smith - I think that for his age he makes an awesome Doctor, there is real depth in some of his performances...and he does the comedy well
3) This is a real toss up between my childhood Doctor Sylvester McCoy and an earlier one, Peter Davison...can't say...will think some more

 

[The_Spectre]

I have no issue downloading things or whatever, it's just knowing how far back to go, I guess.

Weirdly, I've randomly seen one episode of Doctor Who, but I've stumbled upon it twice.. they end up on a space station or something that's orbiting a black hole, is all I really remember. And the blond in it was pretty cute.

Season 1 or 2 of the more recent Doctors. Keep watching and you'll get things rather quickly.

Also if you want a quick summary of the series here you go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szHO-wEmvio

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Well, they did manage to completely blow the last episode of House. Seriously, how do you write something that's the ending of your entire series and doesn't even challenge the main character to display his full emotional range? The penultimate episode was better, the season six finale was better, the season five finale was better, the season four finale was MUCH better (and honestly what I felt they should have been at least AIMING at).....

Argh. Deleting from my DVR and pretending like it never happened.

 

[chronicle_tenko]

Well, they did manage to completely blow the last episode of House. Seriously, how do you write something that's the ending of your entire series and doesn't even challenge the main character to display his full emotional range? The penultimate episode was better, the season six finale was better, the season five finale was better, the season four finale was MUCH better (and honestly what I felt they should have been at least AIMING at).....

Argh. Deleting from my DVR and pretending like it never happened.

Compared to say... the last episode of sopranos? Is it still bad?

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

Well, they did manage to completely blow the last episode of House. Seriously, how do you write something that's the ending of your entire series and doesn't even challenge the main character to display his full emotional range? The penultimate episode was better, the season six finale was better, the season five finale was better, the season four finale was MUCH better (and honestly what I felt they should have been at least AIMING at).....

Argh. Deleting from my DVR and pretending like it never happened.

It wasn't as good as some of their previous season finales, definitely.. Amber and the bus crash, for example... but I thought it was still pretty good. I was going to be annoyed if they were taking the way out it seemed they were during the last 15 minutes, because it just seemed lazy and expected, but I was happy they didn't, at least.

I don't know.. I can't claim to have clear judgment on it, really. All I could while watching it was that I used to watch it with my dad, and he's not around to see it end, and that's an incredibly weird thing. So my own emotions likely got in the way of any kind of objective judgment of it to begin with.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Compared to say... the last episode of sopranos? Is it still bad?

It's not a bad episode. It's just...I was expecting some dramatic high that they never reached. I was hoping, when I learned that Kal Penn and Anne Dudek were back, that we'd get something that were really gripping emotionally like the ending of seasons 4, 5, or 6. Those accomplished the goal of connecting with me a lot better. This episode included a fairly obvious Sherlock Holmes homage, and it was like the whole episode was stalling for time until they could reach it. Hugh Laurie deserved a better script as a send-off.

Dissolution of tension...the most dramatic moment for the characters involved was never reached. It's still coming, eventually, but never shown. Previous season endings have inspired me, cracked me up, or made me bawl, sometimes all three. The series finale did none of that.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

It wasn't as good as some of their previous season finales, definitely.. Amber and the bus crash, for example... but I thought it was still pretty good. I was going to be annoyed if they were taking the way out it seemed they were during the last 15 minutes, because it just seemed lazy and expected, but I was happy they didn't, at least.

I don't know.. I can't claim to have clear judgment on it, really. All I could while watching it was that I used to watch it with my dad, and he's not around to see it end, and that's an incredibly weird thing. So my own emotions likely got in the way of any kind of objective judgment of it to begin with.

It was...okay. But the show shouldn't have ended with an "okay" episode, so it can only be bad.

I'm going to attempt to purge my memory, and pretend like it ended after 6 seasons. I think that's leaves the entire show maintaining a clear progression leading to an ending that followed logically and left the characters where they deserved to be, at the end. I guess I had too much faith in the writers to deliver some great send-off for the series, based on just how well they'd previously been able to embrace extreme drama. The way season 7 ended should have been some kind of a clue to me. I should have taken the hint and stopped watching then. Most of season 8 sucked, but then it looked like they were finally gearing up for the big dramatic ending with the last four episodes. What they did felt like a cop out...unless I pretend like Wilson was hallucinating most of the ending. But then, hallucinating was always House's thing, not Wilson's.

 

[Britwitch]

Well, they did manage to completely blow the last episode of House. Seriously, how do you write something that's the ending of your entire series and doesn't even challenge the main character to display his full emotional range? The penultimate episode was better, the season six finale was better, the season five finale was better, the season four finale was MUCH better (and honestly what I felt they should have been at least AIMING at).....

Argh. Deleting from my DVR and pretending like it never happened.

It wasn't what we were hoping for...not by a long way.
When the credits began to roll we were just kinda sat in silence, and not the good, contemplative kind either!
SPOILER
I thought when they got on the bikes at the end we might have some awful last minute crash or something but....no....just the camera panning away over the trees...
shrugs
Felt like a waste of an episode.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

It wasn't what we were hoping for...not by a long way.
When the credits began to roll we were just kinda sat in silence, and not the good, contemplative kind either!
SPOILER
I thought when they got on the bikes at the end we might have some awful last minute crash or something but....no....just the camera panning away over the trees...
shrugs
Felt like a waste of an episode.

I'll give you two options.

1) Do what I'm doing, pretend like it ended with the ending of season 6, after House lost his patient, and experienced true emotional remorse, which essentially represents a full character arc for him, especially since he was off Vicodin at that point and got Cuddy at the end. I think if you stop there, you've told the entire story you needed to. There's some pretty solid episodes that happened after that, but a lot of bad, especially the way they ended seasons 7 and 8. I feel like he'd gone through everything as a character he needed by the end of season 6, and I can stop it there and imagine a happy ending for him, Cuddy, and Wilson.

2) Some have suggested that Wilson started hallucinating during the funeral. I refuse to go back and watch and see how well that plays, but basically, the text message was fake. House isn't really there, so when he says, "I'm dead, Wilson. How do you want to spend the next 5 months?" it's all in Wilson's mind. I don't think I can really give the writers credit for that, though, since they were clearly making a Holmes homage. If you pretend that, then House died, and it's somewhat more complete.

 

[zydrate]

MIB3

Who's going to see this or who has seen this?

 

[Britwitch]

walks in and blows dust of the thread


We've just started watching 'Arrow' without any real preconceptions and more out of playing the IMDB game while checking details for something else (you know, where you check what you want and then end up idly clicking through actors/writers/directors and finding other things they've done). We're three episodes in and rather enjoying it.

Have heard it's based upon a comic-book hero...which would probably explain why it had a 'Batman-esque' feel to us. We figured it was just a modern twist on Robin Hood.

Anyone else watching...?
What is everyone else watching these days?

 

[Noon_Shadow]

So what is up with the use of lens flare in films? I don't fucking get it. Frankly, it's distracting. Is the point to make everything seem like a home movie? I'm not sure. If you're doing something, please have a reason for doing it.

I'm going to trace this concept back to Saving Private Ryan and shaky-cam. The idea was to make the opening scenes at Normandy look like a lot of the war films that were actually shot at Normandy. Then, you had the shaky cam effect because a lot of the vintage film of the landing was from actual soldiers running around, trying like hell not to get shot. They had a damn point-they wanted it to remind people of old footage they'd seen.

It got copied onto various other productions with various effect-Battlestar Galactica used it to varying degrees, but they knew when to set the camera up, and when to let the camera bounce around a little. That show involved a lot of people who knew what the fuck they were doing. But then Michael Bay decides to make HIS films look like they're home movies, and starts jumping in on the lens flare craze, and J.J. Abrams like to copy everything he sees, so he starts doing it too. Then Len Wiseman (who the fuck is Len Wiseman? Apparently just a dude who directs stuff that Kate Beckinsale is in) thinks it's the most awesome thing ever, so he'll do it too.

As I said, it's distracting. Perhaps that's the point-you're making up for awful writing, so you're attempting to distract from scenes where absolutely nothing is going on by wondering what is causing that blue/white line right across the middle of the screen.

 

[Veroe]

So what is up with the use of lens flare in films? I don't fucking get it. Frankly, it's distracting. Is the point to make everything seem like a home movie? I'm not sure. If you're doing something, please have a reason for doing it.

I'm going to trace this concept back to Saving Private Ryan and shaky-cam. The idea was to make the opening scenes at Normandy look like a lot of the war films that were actually shot at Normandy. Then, you had the shaky cam effect because a lot of the vintage film of the landing was from actual soldiers running around, trying like hell not to get shot. They had a damn point-they wanted it to remind people of old footage they'd seen.

It got copied onto various other productions with various effect-Battlestar Galactica used it to varying degrees, but they knew when to set the camera up, and when to let the camera bounce around a little. That show involved a lot of people who knew what the fuck they were doing. But then Michael Bay decides to make HIS films look like they're home movies, and starts jumping in on the lens flare craze, and J.J. Abrams like to copy everything he sees, so he starts doing it too. Then Len Wiseman (who the fuck is Len Wiseman? Apparently just a dude who directs stuff that Kate Beckinsale is in) thinks it's the most awesome thing ever, so he'll do it too.

As I said, it's distracting. Perhaps that's the point-you're making up for awful writing, so you're attempting to distract from scenes where absolutely nothing is going on by wondering what is causing that blue/white line right across the middle of the screen.

I feel the same way noon about lens flares...I felt it most in the new Star Trek movie...the one from a couple years ago not the sequel coming out in a week or two...and btw I hated the interior design of the Enterprise in the new star trek too...its way way too open. Any enemy fire that penetrates the Enterpirse's hull and all that air in those huge fucking interior spaces will be gone, and last time I checked Air is a hugely precious commodity on a spaceship. I'd think ship designers in Starfleet would know better.

That and the glass panels for the bridge stations in TNG. No matter how far into the future fingerprint smudges will find their way onto glass. Fingerprints laugh in the face of Starfleet technology.

And why the hell didn't their uniforms have pockets...no matter what century people are going to have stuff and they'll need pockets to put that stuff into.

 

[Veroe]

just FYI...
Peter Davison's daughter plays the Doctor's Daughter, Jenny and is (I think) married to David T or, at least, is having his kid.
So take that.

I knew that, but it still weirds me out and I'm from Tennessee where people mistakenly presume incest is common.

 

[Scuttle Buttin']

So what is up with the use of lens flare in films? I don't fucking get it. Frankly, it's distracting. Is the point to make everything seem like a home movie? I'm not sure. If you're doing something, please have a reason for doing it.

I'm going to trace this concept back to Saving Private Ryan and shaky-cam. The idea was to make the opening scenes at Normandy look like a lot of the war films that were actually shot at Normandy. Then, you had the shaky cam effect because a lot of the vintage film of the landing was from actual soldiers running around, trying like hell not to get shot. They had a damn point-they wanted it to remind people of old footage they'd seen.

It got copied onto various other productions with various effect-Battlestar Galactica used it to varying degrees, but they knew when to set the camera up, and when to let the camera bounce around a little. That show involved a lot of people who knew what the fuck they were doing. But then Michael Bay decides to make HIS films look like they're home movies, and starts jumping in on the lens flare craze, and J.J. Abrams like to copy everything he sees, so he starts doing it too. Then Len Wiseman (who the fuck is Len Wiseman? Apparently just a dude who directs stuff that Kate Beckinsale is in) thinks it's the most awesome thing ever, so he'll do it too.

As I said, it's distracting. Perhaps that's the point-you're making up for awful writing, so you're attempting to distract from scenes where absolutely nothing is going on by wondering what is causing that blue/white line right across the middle of the screen.

To be fair to Abrams, he said that all of his lens flares were naturally occurring and he left them in.

But he also said he's removing them from future films because of the feedback he got.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

I feel the same way noon about lens flares...I felt it most in the new Star Trek movie...the one from a couple years ago not the sequel coming out in a week or two...and btw I hated the interior design of the Enterprise in the new star trek too...its way way too open. Any enemy fire that penetrates the Enterpirse's hull and all that air in those huge fucking interior spaces will be gone, and last time I checked Air is a hugely precious commodity on a spaceship. I'd think ship designers in Starfleet would know better.

That and the glass panels for the bridge stations in TNG. No matter how far into the future fingerprint smudges will find their way onto glass. Fingerprints laugh in the face of Starfleet technology.

And why the hell didn't their uniforms have pockets...no matter what century people are going to have stuff and they'll need pockets to put that stuff into.

Well, the glass is supposedly not actual glass, but transparent aluminum. Not that that really fixes the smudge issue. But then again, all these devices people use now have glass panels on them, the tablets and smart phones. So perhaps you just need to assume that they're being carefully cleaned, even though it's never shown.

But I agree about the lack of pockets. You'd think they'd need to carry their communicators and tricorders in something. I guess they wanted the costumes to have very clean lines for their actors, and didn't think pockets looked appealing, but it would help if they looked more functional.

But this lens flare thing...people used to go to great lengths to avoid lens flare. You're supposed to feel like you're there, not like you're behind a camera somewhere. At least, that used to be idea. Now they're actively finding different interesting light sources to use to make the right kind of lens flare. And as I said, it doesn't seem to serve a purpose. I always believed in the law of conservation of detail-don't add something that's not actively doing something. If you throw something in just to serve as a red herring about the plot, at least that detail is actually accomplishing something. I keep expecting the characters to notice the lens flare and then realize that there's coded messages in the light, or something.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Okay, all you GOT watchers. For those you who have read the book (I haven't seen any of S3 of the show yet) tell me.

Did they do it properly? Or did it fail to live up to the books in any appreciable fashion?

I'm reviving this thread, since there's a ton of GOT watchers here, and this is a good thread for it.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

Okay, all you GOT watchers. For those you who have read the book (I haven't seen any of S3 of the show yet) tell me.

Did they do it properly? Or did it fail to live up to the books in any appreciable fashion?

I'm reviving this thread, since there's a ton of GOT watchers here, and this is a good thread for it.

I'm just finishing up Book Two and I haven't seen GoT yet so I couldn't tell you. But the kid brother read the books and told me what happens because I asked him so I'll let you know when I've seen the episode tomorrow.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

I'm just finishing up Book Two and I haven't seen GoT yet so I couldn't tell you. But the kid brother read the books and told me what happens because I asked him so I'll let you know when I've seen the episode tomorrow.

Well, thanks doll. I'm gonna have to get started on Season 3 soon. I'll probably rip it off online, but I'll make it up to the creators by purchasing the DVDs of the first season shortly. I'm greedy, but I also have a morality about it-I'm only ripping off stuff when I have basically no other option for watching it, but I still want to make sure the creators get financial compensation for my entertainment.

Still, I was hoping to hear from someone who knew the books really well. It was a moment in the books that was awesome, in that it made me want to throw the book out a window and stop reading the series, and yet it worked so well within with the story that I couldn't stop there. I'm hoping the episode had the same effect. Of course, from Season 2, they already changed a few elements of it that added to just WHY it was so great a moment in storytelling. I'm hoping they've found a way to make up for it in translating it to the screen.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Guardians Of The Galaxy is gonna have a cameo by Lloyd Kaufman.
Why?
Because Lloyd Kaufman is one of the founders of Troma (studio home to The Toxic Avenger series, Class Of Nuke'Em High series, Surf Nazis Must Die, and Sgt. Kabukiman, N.Y.P.D.)
Why, why?
Because the director of GotG is James Gunn.
Why, why, why?
BECAUSE JAMES GUNN WROTE TROMEO AND JULIET!!!!!

dies

Quickly brings Vail back with the down of a Phoenix...because he's just that full of nerd references today.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Yeah, but I'm still in need of an Esuna.

You'll have to see an actual healer for that. I still just have the "Item" ability. Shrugs. I'll get to work on training up my "Magicka" abilities later.

 

[DarkWarrioress]

Ok... saw that coming, in regards to GoT. I pretty much thought thats how that episode was going to go, despite what I already knew. But even if the brother hadn't told me, I saw that coming. Frey was insulted. The King of the North refused to marry one of his daughters after he had sworn to? His daughters weren't good enough for Rob? Yeeeeeah. Treacherous old bastard. And we must not forget the Lannisters (did I spell that right?), they have a hand everywhere, that's how wealthy that old son of a bitch is.

 

[Noon_Shadow]

Okay, I'm slowly catching up on GOT. Watched episode 3.5. And THAT...that episode is really what the show should be. Sure, there's lots of sword and battles and that's the kind of payoff that makes me watch and stick with it, but that's not why this show got made. It's taking good actors and having them just simple BE these characters, on screen. Because it's worth seeing Nikolaj Coster-Waldau delivering the Jaime Lannister monologue. You don't even need the big expensive set and costuming jobs for this. He's naked, just get him good and dirty (yeah, okay ladies) and put him in a tub of water. Camera angles can stay low so you don't need much of a backdrop. And those two actors together are just brilliant. It's a damn good show.

I also am in love with the little girl who plays Shireen. The song she sings at the end over the credits, is just perfect. Kind of sweet, very disturbing, and slightly creepy. It's just sad that she's basically filling the roles of three different characters from the book, which is a lot to put on a child actor. But of course, if HBO is going to go through the trouble of casting someone, they're going to use the hell out of them, since this cast is already so darn big.

 

[saysalice]

I'm pissed about that last episode of GoT. No spoilers, but that last scene - a specific moment inthat last scene, which I'm sure won't be hard for anyone to guess - disturbed me so greatly, I was awake half the night. I still have to push it out of my thoughts if I start to remember it. It was the most horrible thing I can imagine, and I sure didn't need to watch it.

What angers me is that my husband has read the books, and he says that specific moment was NOT part of this scene - that the character wasn't even present at the event, and that the show obviously didn't want to spend any more time following that character. So that's how they tied up that loose end.

It was a shocking scene as written, but what the show chose to do with that character was horrific. If it wasn't part of the author's original vision for the scene, then they threw it in just for shock value and to ensure we'd all be talking about it. I find that extremely tasteless, and I've just about had it with the show. One more dirty trick like that, and I'm out.

...Which, I'm sure, HBO will be crushed to hear.