What Are You Watching?

[Ryan]

American History X on TV.

[eversonpoe]

many of my favorite shows return this week.... and the pirate bay is down.
how do I watch them?

search for "kickass" on google. that's my alternative and works almost as well (and the ads are slightly less annoying)

[ambergris]

My first Game of Thrones rewatch, now that the fourth season will be on free TV from today on (yes, german free TV is very, very slow). It made me realize how incredibly flawless the first season was. Small mistakes start creeping in with season 2 (like Jaime Lannister murdering that unimportant Lannister/Frey squire in captivity and the completely shameless cliffhanger at the end of the season). It gets a little worse in season 3 with the torture porn, and then worse again in season 4 with the was-it-rape-scene and pacing issues. It's still a fantastic series though, but not everything worked perfectly.

[Vertigo]

A lot of season 1 felt very creaky to me, I remember wondering at the time why everyone was jizzing over GoT while ignoring The Borgias. Season 4's the highest consistent standard for the show so far, in my opinion.

[ambergris]

A lot of season 1 felt very creaky to me, I remember wondering at the time why everyone was jizzing over GoT while ignoring The Borgias. Season 4's the highest consistent standard for the show so far, in my opinion.

Interesting! Did you read the books? I watched Season 1-3 before reading them (books 1-3). Initially, season one is probably a bit overwhelming with all the characters and the setting. But with the context of the books (and the latter series) in mind, I found season 1 very smooth.

[sentient02970]

Finally watched Nolan's "Following" on Netflix. I was pleasantly surprised to notice aspects of Inception, Memento and Batman in the film even though it was his first real movie. It has some sense of predictability in it but I love the film noir quality of it.

[Vertigo]

Interesting! Did you read the books? I watched Season 1-3 before reading them (books 1-3). Initially, season one is probably a bit overwhelming with all the characters and the setting. But with the context of the books (and the latter series) in mind, I found season 1 very smooth.

I haven't read the books, no, but that does highlight one of the big issues of season 1 for a new watcher - the fact that so much conversation is about people, places and events that you don't see, and happened long ago.
But yeah, that is an issue that's negated on re-watching, knowing what happens next. There are problems remaining, however, with stunted dialogue in many episodes, and actors who hadn't yet grown into their characters. The show starts to come alive from A Golden Crown though, I wish they'd bring back Jane Espenson to write more episodes.

[Fixer808]

I got my wife into "...Sunny".

[thevoid99]

Conrad and Butler in "Conrad and Butler Take a Vacation" from the Criterion DVD for Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming as part of a Noah Baumbach retrospective I'm sort of working on.

[Space Suicide]

I got my wife into "...Sunny".

Watch the season 10 premiere tonight?

[Fixer808]

'Fraid not, I'm not quite up to date (only halfway through season 8, she's just finished season 1).

[elevenism]

Good god Nightcrawler was a trip.

[implanted_microchip]

Haven't stopped wanting to cry since finishing it. Gorgeous and perfect and overwhelmingly depressing.

[decadent]

Started warching The affair last night and i am already halfway through. I like the split episodes and all the details they put into them.

[elevenism]

The Theory of Everything was disappointing.

[GulDukat]

Star Trek: The Animated Series.

[Exocet]

American Sniper....something about that man which this is based on, Chris Kyle, really interested me, read about him when he was alive he had a real intensity.
The film was good, however its not the film i expected. Hoped for more examination into him as a person and his psychology.
Its basically a very well executed Iraq war film, like the Hurt Locker with cuts back to Texas.
Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller were both good. Worth seeing.

[theruiner]

So, I watched Frank on my brother's recommendation, even though I really didn't think it looked very good. But I figured I would give it a chance since it was on Netflix and, holy crap, I was shocked by how good it ended up being. It was funny, fun and surprisingly endearing. I was really, really impressed. The ending was a bit of a let down (but not terrible) but it didn't dampen how good the movie was up to that point. Well worth watching.

[Millionaire]

The first episode of 12 Monkeys the show was pretty good. Its different from the Gilliam film, more sedate. I'm a huge fan of the film and wasn't expecting much, but I thought it was well-done.

[Pillfred]

Dracula: untold. I'm a huge vampire nerd, we'll see how it is.

[elevenism]

Dracula: untold. I'm a huge vampire nerd, we'll see how it is.

you still up? how was it? i was about to do the same.

[dlb]

American Sniper....something about that man which this is based on, Chris Kyle, really interested me, read about him when he was alive he had a real intensity.
The film was good, however its not the film i expected. Hoped for more examination into him as a person and his psychology.
Its basically a very well executed Iraq war film, like the Hurt Locker with cuts back to Texas.
Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller were both good. Worth seeing.

I have that still on my list but never got around to seeing it as I assumed this was pretty much focused on him getting back to normal life. And yeah, I'm not really into that at the moment. So this is really more a war movie like Hurt Locker you say?

[implanted_microchip]

I was very surprised by how much I was enjoying this up until the third act. Jennifer Lawrence really carried much of it, DeNiro was putting in a level of effort he's simply not given to a film in ages, and it seemed to be really taking both a comedic and serious look at mental illness and how it affects relationships and life. And then the third act happened, and all of a sudden it turned into a typical "Love solves everything, even ingrained mental disorders!" Hollywood ending that just put me off heavily. It could've been a lot more, and the entire ending felt like a forced storybook ending made to make audiences happy rather than continue confronting and dealing with the serious issues the two protagonists had. It was like they were different characters all of a sudden. It just disappointed me quite a bit, because it could've amounted to so much more than it did. It just conformed very heavily in the last 30 minutes to a formula that is so tired and worn, and it's insulting in a way.

So I followed that up with



Absolutely stunned me. I've seen Bronson, Drive and Only God Forgives, enjoying the first two and finding the third to be really empty and lackluster, although I plan on giving it another chance someday. Anyone who browses the Hannibal thread knows I'm a fan, and so Mads Mikkelsen is a bit of a selling point for me. Refn, Mikkelsen and Norse mythology in the same film pretty much sounded to die for, and it ended up being one of the most interesting films I've watched in a while. Not for everyone, but definitely delves into the artsy, borderline pretentious style and imagery that fans of Refn love and those who hate him hate. It's one I know will be in my head for a while, and I'm strongly considering buying the score on red vinyl; it worked so well in favor of creating the atmosphere and mood the movie had. It could've been either too gratuitous or too boring and somehow the film manages to walk a very thin line between the two; there's highly brutal violence, but it's not over-bearing; there's lots of silence and long stretches of camerawork and scenes, but those manage to simply help craft an atmosphere. I certainly felt absorbed by it, and was thoroughly immersed in its bleak landscapes, contrasted by some gorgeous cinematography at later points and the vivid black and red visions of One-Eye. I'm really looking forward to giving it a rewatch, and seeing what I think of it later on.

[Magtig]

An Honourable Woman - 8 part BBC series (with a crap name) starring Maggie Gyllenhall -who won a Golden Globe for best actress for her work.

Normally I never have a problem following anything, but this one is pretty complex (in a good way). Many of the scenes could be still artworks in their own right. I loved this series.

Also just rewatched the entire Battlestar Galactica Series again for the fourth or fifth time. Still love it (except about half a dozen bloat episodes).

[Space Suicide]

Mmmm just bought A Walk Among the Tombstones today on blu-ray. I shall watch it tomorrow night. Been looking forward to it. I've heard mixed things but it looks like it's up my alley.

[Fixer808]

The Interview. Dumb as hell, predictable as hell, but still kinda funny. Certainly nothing to write to Pyongyang about.

[onthewall2983]

[decadent]

Mmmm just bought A Walk Among the Tombstones today on blu-ray. I shall watch it tomorrow night. Been looking forward to it. I've heard mixed things but it looks like it's up my alley.

The best thing about this movie is the trailer.

[Space Suicide]

The best thing about this movie is the trailer.

Haha, so I've heard. A lot are unfavorable to it since it's "painfully slow, doesn't deliver and basically doesn't live up to Neeson's past films."

[Pillfred]

I thought it was decent. Watching it again due to this post as I was pretty drunk the first time I watched it and am pretty sure have I bits of out confused with The Equalizer.