Abhimanyu

So, I should avoid The Killing? I've been re-watching Twin Peaks sporadically, and was itching for a new whodunit.

I certainly wouldn't recommend it. I honestly don't remember being this outright annoyed at a show's producers before (maybe Battlestar Galactica). That's 13 hours of my life that I'll never get back. OK, 11. 2 episodes were good. Seriously, the finale wasn't just bad - it was insulting.

OK. the finale to The Killing is the biggest, most insulting slap in the face to the audience that I can recall a television show ever having delivered. There's no way I'm returning for season 2. I've been struggling to care for most of this season and now...there's just no way.

Now off to watch the Game of Thrones finale to redeem my evening!

Not looking forward to the finale of The Killing. The critical/fan community seems to have spent the past 24 hours raging about nothing else!

Nobody did say that.

I actually think it is. I found it superior to the original in pretty much every way.

The first season of Luther struck me as being an utterly absurd show built around a fascinating (and brilliantly realized) character. I knew I wasn't going to be impressed as soon as Luther's uber-detective skills first manifested themselves in the form of 'she didn't yawn when I did! sociopath!'. It was entertaining enough though. I'll probably download them at some point. Did you guys find the plotting any better than it was in the first season?

Ugh, I am really really going to miss Game of Thrones.

I wish there was an applet somewhere that takes your IMDB movie voting history and keeps generating a list of movies you might like.

 

I've been IMDB voting on almost every movie I've seen in the past few years and it's nearly at 2000 movies at this point. More than enough for some Skynet type AI to figure out what other movies I might like!

 

Wow.

 

If you had paid New Zealand prices to watch that many at the movies, it would have been about $28 000 dollars.

Well, I didn't watch them all at the theater. I just vote on every single film I watch - whether it's at home or at the movies. I can't afford to watch a film a day at the theaters!

Yeah that last episode of The Killing was the best since the pilot. But it doesn't say much about the show's plotting that its best episode since the beginning had nothing to do with its central murder mystery.

I wish there was an applet somewhere that takes your IMDB movie voting history and keeps generating a list of movies you might like.

I've been IMDB voting on almost every movie I've seen in the past few years and it's nearly at 2000 movies at this point. More than enough for some Skynet type AI to figure out what other movies I might like!

Not exactly a resounding recommendation on John's part. What with my limited bandwidth, I'm trying to decide whether this is worth obtaining. Anyone else seen it?

Toy Story 3 is more poignant than sad I'd say. You really should watch it Tony.

 

This. There is much sadness involved but it's a healthy sort of sadness. Not the kind that'd make you throw yourself under a bus.

Also, anyone here seen Hanna? It was the most off-kilter, utterly bizarre, creepy movie I've seen in the theaters in a long time (keeping in mind these are Indian theaters which only get blockbusters). Seriously though, it's like a Bourne movie directed by David Lynch with some input by Neil Jordan. Saoirsie Ronan is amazing in her role (man, three of the best performances in movies I've seen in the past year are by young girls under 17) and I am further reminded of why I am half in love with Cate Blanchett. You have NEVER seen Tom Hollander in a role like the one he has in this movie. Also, kickass soundtrack by The Chemical Brothers.

It's not exactly profound but I have never seen a movie quite like this before.

I have to say, I disagree vehemently with Rogan on this one. I loved WALL-E through and through.

Right. My friend who I saw it with and I talked about why he wasn't curing diseases or solving world hunger or fixing the recession/depression. Or why wasn't he running for office. All he did was go for the moulah. But to me, that is very indicative of the typical american's pop culture dream: how many times have you heard someone say, "when I win the lottery..." People dig the quick shot to the millionaire's club, and that's ultimately why Limitless will not be memorable. But it had so much guilty visceral appeal, didn't it?

Well the whole point of the movie is that it takes that 'typical American' and turns him into something else. With a premise like this, I don't particularly want to see what an average person would do. I want to see what the superhuman (which he supposedly became) would do. And I want him to have similarly superhuman/smart/interesting antagonists. That Russian guy was the last straw.

I don't know about Ade but I hated how the movie just wallpapered over the huge implications that such a drug could have for a human life. So the guy went out and made a bunch of money on Wall Street. That's the best they could come up with? The subplot with de Niro ended up going pretty much nowhere. And, ultimately, the antagonist was a two dimensional Russian gangster stereotype who got old two scenes in and wasn't anywhere near an interesting adversary. They didn't even do anything fun with the fact that he became a genius too. The last two thirds of the movie was one big squandering of opportunity.

Limitless was a shit wannabe film that fell short of the mark on all the films it tried to ape.

 

I hope this helps many people who may be fooled by previous comments on this film.

Agreed though I might have enjoyed the first half slightly more than you did. It started off alright (though derivative) but devolved into an incoherent mess. Terrible cartoonish (not in a good way) ending.

The writing on Dexter has been awful since season 2 :(

I always enjoyed this special by Bob Saget. It's nothing revolutionary but it really cracks me up for some reason. The only bit that falls flat for me is the song he does late in the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctHArXFxu9A&playnext=1&list=PL81861511241DF32B

And I'm pretty sure everyone has seen this bit by Chris Rock but there can't be a comedy thread in existence that lacks this clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Voy506jhg

Caught Kick Ass and thought it was a ton of fun. There's not a whole lot to it but Hit Girl makes the whole thing worth while.

Not to mention Nic Cage aka. the only DKR-style Batman we're likely to see onscreen!

Drive Angry is poignant, though proviking and without a doubt the chronicle of our time.

Okay, it was actually only very fun. It tries to be Shoot 'Em Up and comes close, at least in the gunfight/sex scene department. And no, I'm not talking about some sort of juxtaposing of sex and violence.

 

Also, William Fichtner? He's the man.

It's a better Ghost Rider movie than the Ghost Rider movie.

Oh man, it's like 2007 all over again....why do I have to wait a year for this movie!

Definitely Morrison IMO. Please no Geoff Johns.

'Lefties' who give the rest of us a bad name by making sweeping, abusive statements about an entire country simply because they don't like its foreign policy/government. Dismissing its culture, art, people all in one moronic umbrella statement and giving rightwingers yet another person to point at and laugh, claiming that all liberals are hateful idiots.

Dislike even more: Said 'lefties' who do so while sitting in a university in the very country they're abusing, taking its free grant money!

People like this have started to piss me off almost as much as the Glenn Becks of the world.

Yeah, I actually think John's approach might work better. It's really frustrating watching The Killing from week to week. But I can see it being more palatable in a couple bursts of continuous viewing.

Game of Thrones is absolutely the best thing on TV right now.

something something screeching Beatles something...

 

 

Can I have those in a box? Please?

That comes across as very disturbing.

Unfortunately, John, they don't quite manage to keep up the same level of quality after that. There's just not enough story to justify the length of the season and the character work isn't nearly as strong as early episodes would indicate. It gets bogged down pretty quick and the various subplots get a little stale. The micro-level timeline of a day per episode was a bit of a mistake.

I don't want to seem too harsh on it. There's enough there that I'm still watching. But it doesn't live up to that early promise.

Count me in as one of those who really enjoyed Black Books. I can see why Rogan (or others) might find it a bit precious though. Dylan Moran's standup comes across that way on occasion.