Abhimanyu

Since everyone is chiming in, I thought I would too.

I loved it. I am a little suspicious of any comics reader who doesn't :P

But seriously, great capper to the trilogy. Bale does his best work on the character, Tom Hardy is a brilliant balancing act between high camp and brutish menace and Anne Hathaway was a very very pleasant surprise (I'm always dubious about the Catwoman character). The pacing was off and the film overreaches wildly but - these days - that's a compliment if anything. People are making wayyyy too much of the politics. The screenplay was done and production half finished when Occupy came to the fore. Excellent action setpieces. Massive flood of catharsis in the end.

I had a few problems with it here and there but am too lazy to put them in spoiler alerts! Not worth it anyway - great film! It's no TDK but why go there.

You, my good sir, have the brain worms. I absolutely adore early Cronenberg, but Existenz is a stinking, lumpy turd which felt embarrassingly out-of-date from the moment it first hit cinemas, while Spider, A History of Violence, and Eastern Promises are three of the best films he's ever made.

What he said.

Oh, the studios love sci-fi movies. But, for the most part, they like watering down their more expensive projects as much as they possibly can in order to make them palatable to the largest possible audience. Hence the hiring of well-known hacks like Lindelof.

In this case, however, I'm reasonably sure that Scott had some degree of free rein as well as ambition. It's just that Lindelof didn't have the talent to pull off what Scott had in mind.

I am devastated. Prometheus was every bit as bad as Sethos said it was. Worse, in fact. I didn't even think it was a great B-movie, given that I found it sleep-inducingly boring for long stretches. I thought the first two-thirds were pretty damn bad too. A truly dire script lies at the root of the problems.

I don't know about that.

 

Begins has "Does it come in black", "Nice coat" and "I've got to get me one of those". They are out of place, but are more fun than having a detrimental effect of the piece.

"I've got to get me one of those" made me cringe. Literally.

I really really hate how Nolan (by studio mandate, no doubt) has to shoehorn those blockbuster movie moments into a film that just cannot sustain them. The last 10 seconds of the trailer are a great example. Nolan's Batman is decidedly NOT a one-liner type of person. It doesn't help that Bale is humorless, the Batvoice sucks and the one-liners are generally excruciating.

Ah well. Still looks like a great movie. Just trying to prevent my expectations from getting way out of hand.

Downey was unsurprisingly awesome but - for me - the real treat was Ruffalo as Hulk. My favourite screen iteration of the character by far, right there. He absolutely nailed the role of Banner.

Also, major props to Hiddleston. Withnail via Asgard was the perfect way to go.

Agree with everyone here - liked it very much.

It's the same as the one in The Dark Knight, isn't it?

It's ugly as hell but Batman is usually in low lighting and moving fast/edited choppily so it ends up being pretty irrelevant.

I guess I'll have to start watching Spartacus again, what with seeing you guys rave about it so much. I pretty much stopped after season 1.

If the first season didn't do it for you then I doubt the prequel or sequel will do much to hook you - it's really just more of the same.

I didn't actively mind the first season. I watched it all the way through with some level of enjoyment. I just didn't like it enough to actively seek out season 2. Might still do so now, listening to you all talk about it.

I guess I'll have to start watching Spartacus again, what with seeing you guys rave about it so much. I pretty much stopped after season 1.

Any of the Norway contingent catch Lillyhammer? If so, opinions?

Sons Of Anarchy is blazing along at the moment, top stuff though I fear we may be in for a rubbish ending cause if things play through to their natural conclusion now it's hard to see how there can be another season.

Just so. Sutter says he's planning for THREE more seasons. I think there shall be some major chickening out in the last episode or two.

In other news, the latest episode of Community was outright brilliant. The hiatus really makes me nervous - I shall be angry if they cancel it. For all the difference that makes to NBC executives!

The latest episode of American Horror Story featured a character straight out of a Garth Ennis comic, namely the [ Spoiler : ghost of a gunshot victim with no lower jaw ] - seriously, it was like seeing something from Preacher on the silver screen!

Has the show picked up any since the first three episodes? Those 3 were so completely and utterly nonsensical (and not even in an extremely interesting way) that I just gave up on the show after that.

Drive really was great, huh? I took yet another friend to see it today. My favourite film of the year so far and I have a sneaking suspicion it may remain in that spot till Dec 31.

Boardwalk Empire is finally starting to come into its own. The Nucky plot is still the weaker one but all the other stories are going gangbusters.

 

Really, just now? I've loved the whole season, especially last week's episode about Richard (the half face guy).

Well, that's what I mean - the last few episodes of this season have been cracking. Most of the season, really. Last year, I was finding it more or less enjoyable but fundamentally lacking.

The Walking Dead is good when the characters/story show and don't tell. Via actions. But holy god, when they start to spew dialogue, it's almost as bad as Dexter. I really think the show could do with a stronger cast too.

Boardwalk Empire is finally starting to come into its own. The Nucky plot is still the weaker one but all the other stories are going gangbusters.

Dexter has been VERY lackluster. There were some funny bits at his reunion, but man has that show become so bland.

 

Dexter has been boring, obvious and mostly awful for a long time now. I think I'm pretty much done with it now. I've been watching it out of habit and because I'm a sucker for serial killer stories but the repetition and hit-you-over-the-head-with-Subtext voiceover is getting so infuriating that I finally realized there's better things I could be doing with the time.

Drive is now the best film I've seen in the theaters so far this year. Somewhat faint praise since it's been a mostly mediocre year thus far. But don't let that diminish your sense of just how much I loved this movie. A stylish, wonderfully scored and shot throwback to the best of 80s antihero thrillers (fans of To Live and Die in LA absolutely must watch this movie) and 60s samurai and Jean-Pierre Melville movies. Plus, Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman in one movie should give anyone a reason to try it out.

It might end unhappily on another network because the dumbfucks at AMC are fucking up negotiations for season 5, BB's final season. Or, Gilligan might just end it with the season 4 finale, if AMC get even dumber. They are fucking up Walking Dead the same way, lowering their budget per episode and pocketing a huge tax break they got which was supposed to help offset WD's budget. AMC are some dumb idiot fuckwad stingy douchebags, and that's me being nice.

That's old news on the BB front. They've made a deal and the final season will go ahead on AMC as planned. Thankfully.

Unfortunately, it does definitely sound like The Walking Dead is going to be severely compromised in season 2.

Yes, this was definitely more like it.

Still miss Henry Rollins though.

 

Louie takes the Seinfeld formula and adds every cuss word except fuck, which is there, but bleeped. An episode that I particularly enjoyed was the one in which Louie goes on a USO tour to Afghanistan, and his daughter packs one of their classroom ducklings into his luggage to "protect him". My favorite part is the scene in which Louie is eating a meal at a table with a cheerleader, and she is disgusted by his act and says " why can't ya'll talk about christian things." And he says, "What's christian and funny?"

Louie borders on genius in the second season. Though I actually thought the USO episode was the weakest of the whole series. It's the only episode where I felt he was pulling his punches and being a little saccharine. No wonder though - as much as they give him free rein with everything else, the military is one topic they'd never allow him to take any potshots at in the current US climate.

It certainly looks visually appealling. Hope it has some substance to it.

Well, if shit is a substance, I consider the movie a big pile of substance. Just came from the cinema.

The critics seem to agree with you as well. Even less interested in this movie now.

I've decided to get back into "A Game of Thrones." Now that I have I can't imagine why the hell I stopped it.

Yeah, am reading Storm of Swords right now. Good stuff.

Anyone read Lance Henricksen's autobiography? Did you know he had one?!?

Holy shit, are you serious?!?!?!

OK, that goes on TOP of my reading list.

Though the self-congratulatory title ("Not Bad For A Human") puts me off a teensy bit.