I've been watching Sword Art Online. Possibly one of the best things I've watched.

It follows a young boy/guy/lad after he and thousands of other people become trapped in a Virtual Reality MMORPG. Over the course of two years they have to learn how to live within this game world, a world in which dead is dead - in game and IRL. There's a brief interlude about 14 episodes in which takes place in the Real World before we go into a different game.

It does a great job of incorporating game stuff like inventories and player profiles into the medieval setting - it's basically my dream come true.

The action and animation are really good, and the character development is some of the best. It made me feel emotions at one point, which hasn't happened for quite a while.

Sword Art Online sounds neat. I just added it to my Netflix instant queue.

I started going through my Ghost In the Shells a few nights ago, starting with the original movie, then Innocence. Today I just started the first episode of Standalone Complex. So it looks like I will be ghosting for a while...

Just saw Dirty Dancing. Even after all these years, it is still a good movie. Incredible dancing and music!

I agree!

"Nobody puts Baby in a corner!"



Watching: 'IZombie"

Ohh, that is my Netflix list, once it comes out on dvd!

This is the first one I've seen, it was interesting/okay/not bad.

just finished watching "Little Busters!", another anime. Didn't think I'd like it but it's actually really good.

Set in a school, the story follows a guy called Riki and his friends who form a baseball team called The Little Busters. At first it sounds kind of boring but the anime focuses more on the characters and their issues than sports.

It's hilarious in some parts at the beginning, then heads in a more emotional feel-good direction as the first season progresses. From the end of the first season and throughout the second there's a lot going on, and gets pretty deep at some points (I basically spent the entire time trying not to cry and failing).

There are supernatural/fantasy parts to the story which are really subtle at first, but this increases as the show goes on. The characters are good, the dialogue is really well done, and the animation is solid. Also, lots of cute high school shenanigans

Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (Sia) singing, two female dancers in those totally nude costumes dancing against each other as if mirrored; but then they broke apart and their dance told each's individual story while changing the dynamic between them like positive and negative ions; repelling but fractal and repeating each other's patterns; only to come together in the end once again when one crumbled broken and the other ran to save the first.

It was riveting, haunting, and left me feeling deeply touched to the point of nearly being in tears by the story of the dance without even knowing the lyrics of the song they were danced to - I don't even know if it was in English or not. Amazing, amazing performance; Sia has a beautiful and strong voice that seems to weave the story you are watching like a puppet-master. Tremendous performance, moving and unforgettable. Art at its finest.

...Fair enough...


Person of Interest is finally back!!!...Awesome stuff!!...

NCIS: New Orleans is properly good though...I absolutely love that one...May end up being my fave of the NCISsses...

We're back to the watching something every night thing...And I hate it...It's just too much tele... ...And no, my addiction won't let me stop when we actually like the things we're watching... ...

I have been watching The Bridge (Bron/Broen). The original Scandinavian version that is, not the American copy (why is there always a copy of every successful European movie or tv show, the original is always better?)

There were some plot events that left me scratching my head, but the characterizations are really well done. It is a character-driven piece after all. Sofia Helin really steals the show with her performance of a Swedish detective with Asperger's Syndrome (or something very near to it). The things she blurts out sometimes are just so unintentionally hilarious. It is worth watching just for her.

Just finished The Battle of the Five Armies. It was good, though I would not call it great. There was a little too much battle, without any pause to catch ones breath. It became numbing by the end. Still, it had its good points. It was fun seeing Galadriel pulling out all the stops and showing just what the oldest elf in Middle Earth can do. I am also probably one of the few people who enjoyed the Taariel parts.

It is sad that the whole thing is over now. Then again, if Disney held the rights, they would put out a LOTR movie every year - like they are going to dilute the Star Wars franchise. So maybe fewer is better.

In the middle of watching some fascinating documentaries called 'Killer Tanks'. It's about various tanks from World War Two. Really great stuff.

Have decided - while I still have the marbles to do so with - to watch the entire of Dragonball Z again...All 291 episodes...

Have gotten through the first 5...And have realised that while the story is excellent, the pacing is utterly terrible...So am liberally using the 1.5x watching technique while much of the repeated posing shots with added "Gnurgh!" "HAH!" "Whooaaaarrr" things are going on...


McDaughter is going through Gundam Wing too...Awesome child... ... ...



We enjoyed the Galadriel bits too...Very excellent...

We also very much enjoyed the Tauriel stuff too...I thought it was an excellent addition, personally...*Shrug*...The ladies certainly appreciated the whole of that stuff with Kili and Tauriel anyways...

I'm looking forward to all this Star Wars stuff...Though I'm currently struggling with the decision as to whether to bin all the 100+(?) novels I've got from the Expanded (Expunged) Universe™...

Right now I´m watching Anger Management

Just finished watching Atari: Game Over on Netflix. As a person who remembers Pong and the Atari 2600, I loved it. It follows both the rise and fall of Atari back in the 80s, and documents a gaming archaeologist's efforts to find the mythical site where Atari supposedly buried all of its copies of its ET game. There are interviews with lots of folks, including the guy who made the ET game. He did it in 5 weeks! The crunch time was to make Christmas sales. All in all, it was very cool. If you love video games, and the old Atari, you will be enjoy this.

I spent last week watching Turn: Washington's Spies on Netflix. It was really good. I was impressed with how much fact is in the fiction. Be it Roger's Rangers (who really existed, and whose command really did shift from Rogers to Simcoe during the war, down to little things like Anna Strong signaling Caleb by putting a black petticoat on her laundry line. Though granted the latter is not absolutely proven fact, but it is how the story goes, and that still made it into the tv show. Ben Talmadge did lead a raid on Long Island that took him back to his home of Setauket. But in reality it was not until years after the show is set. The main characters are of course all real members of the Culper Spy Ring, America's first real spy network.

It was really nice to see Angus MacFayden again. I loved him as Robert the Bruce in Braveheart. But sadly his career never really went anywhere after that. He's the only actor I really know. Though I have seen the guy who plays the main character Abe Woodhull in some smaller part here and there, such as the younger brother in Man On A Ledge. I loved the guys playing Ben Talmadge and Caleb Brewster, and the woman playing Anna Strong is just a joy to watch on screen.

The bad guys are well represented too. From Angus as the truly badass ranger, Simcoe the diabolical psychopath. Burn Gorman (who I remember from Torchwood) as the befuddled commander of Setauket, and of course Major John Andre, whose name most Americans ought to be familiar with due to his unfortunate association with Benedict Arnold. I really liked how they presented Andre. Though they got some of his timeline off. In reality he was still being held as a prisoner of war when the series began. But hey, it still works. IRL, he was generally presented as a dandy, and aside of being executed instead of Arnold, he is most famous for the party he gave in Philadelphia to celebrate Lord-General Howe's retirement. You still see that dandy exterior in a rather wild party he gives for other British officers. But in the show we also see a much more steely plotter under that velvet glove. It all comes together to make him a delightful character.

They even worked in some good and realistic African-American characters, former slaves of Anna Strong. There were slaves in the North as well as South, though at that time there were not the huge numbers as there would be after the cotton jin was invented, making cotton plantations in the South hugely profitable. And just like IRL, they were technically given their freedom by the British. Though of course they were not really free. One - Jordan - was sent to New York to become a laborer for the British Army, the other - Abagail - became Major Andre's house servant. Jordan joins Rogers Rangers, and gives us a great view of Rogers through his eyes. Likewise Abagail provides us with a view into Major Andre's affairs, and becomes an invaluable link in the spy chain.

SubRosa, I've seen this advertised on the tellie. Thanks for the great review. My entertainment dance card is 100% playing in Skyrim with a voracious elf right now, so it is good to get the 'executive' version of such shows.

If you can talk Buffy into perhaps taking a little break to stop and smell the roses for a while, you might like the show. Speaking purely as a writer, the American Revolution is a fantastic setting for a story. It is a time when wars were still gentlemanly affairs, all full of courtesies and formalities. Yet at the same it was a time of back-stabbing political intrigue, guerrilla warfare, executions, personal vendettas, and all sorts of truly vile behavior. Just as Rebels and Loyalists clash, so too is there a clash of Old World ideals vs. New World realities on both sides. It is fertile ground for all manner of storytelling, not just war stories, but spy tales like this one, romance, crime, you name it.

I was also thinking just now that the actor who plays Ben Talmadge - Seth Numrich would make a great replacement for Chris Evans, if the rumors are true that he plans to step down from playing Captain America at some point.

well the first 4 episodes of Game of Thrones season 5 have been leaked so I just had to watch them all (naturally). As a TV show it's still really good and I enjoy it. As a conversion from book to TV it's quite frustrating, and some material in the TV show spoils the books that are yet to be written. Incredibly annoying.

Why bother basing something on a book if you're not going to follow the story? Same thing happened with The Hobbit films - feels like a fan fiction spin-off. *sigh* such is modern entertainment I suppose.

Watched the first episode of Breaking Bad last night.

Looks promising, think I'll carry on watching it.

Also saw the first episode of Olympus, which looked kinda cheap. Don't think I'll bother with it.

Same here. My excitement at the thought of some high quality super cool and interesting Greek mythology stuff was crushed within the first few minutes. Such a pity.

I did an Iron Man movie marathon over the last few days, and I noticed something interesting. In the first movie the terrorists who kidnapped Tony were called The Ten Rings, or some such thing, and they had a logo with 10 circles and a pair of crossed scimitars in the center. Guess what logo we see in the 3rd movie? Yep, the Not-Mandarin Ben Kingsley is using the exact same logo in all his broadcasts.

Yeah, it sounded great, but those low quality backgrounds and everything just killed it.



Yup, the Ten Rings, a little nod to The Mandarin. I never noticed the logo in the first film, but finding out about the Mandarin later I got the reference. One of their little nods to the comics, even if the films don't fit into the same universe.



Currently watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Kind of an odd film, I think maybe it's trying a little too hard to keep me guessing at it.

They may be not quite so different. One of the bonus features on the Thor 2 blu-ray is a short called All Hail The King, with the Ben Kingsley Mandarin in prison. At least until the real Mandarin - who is quite ticked off - makes his feelings known...

*Grumbles about blu-ray special features*

So, there is going to be the actual Mandarin then. Cool.




As for Tinker tailor Soldier Spy, the film was pretty much junk. The whole thing felt scattered and disconnected, like they tried to be inscrutable and missed, badly. The plot didn't really work, the idea that there's a mole in MI6 is completely undermined by he lack of any real consequence of that. You see one agent killed at the start of the film, and then there's nothing. There were chunks of story thrown in which add nothing at all to the plot, and despite how much the film tries to make it look personal to Gary Oldman's character, he was so devoid of emotion as to be completely unbelievable.

Currently rewatching the first season of The Vikings to get back in the mood for Skyrim.

I have Season 2 & 3 on standby, haven't watched them yet. But it's been more than two years since I watched the first season, so I wanted to refresh my memory before I dug into the new material.

I really like how Travis Fimmel brings Ragnar to life. And Floki as a character is probably the most fascinating one of them all. But I just can't get enough of Lagertha - she is just the sort of strong, independent woman that I love to write about.

Lagertha is by far my favorite in that show too. For her hair if nothing else! Grits and I were talking at one point about how great the hair is on that show. From Ragnar's braided top-drop, to Beorn's old school Frank back of the head shaved off look. Lagertha always has the best hair of everyone though.

Vikings is really good at the moment, and it just keeps getting better! There's so many great characters - my personal favorites include Ragnar, Floki, Athelstan, and King Ecbert. They're all so complex and feel so well developed in such a short amount of time.

If I was in a cartoon I'd get heart-eyes every time Lagertha appeared on screen

OMG! I love that outfit! Can someone put that into Skyrim so my Alise can find it and channel a little bit of Lagertha's ferocity??

just watched the adventure/comedy/all-round-heart-warming-tale 'O Brother, Where Art Thou'. It's 15 years old now but still stands up to any modern film.

Set in 1930's Mississippi, and loosely based on Homer's Odyssey, it follows the adventure of 3 escaped prisoners (played by George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson) as they travel across the state in order to locate some money which Clooney's character claims to have stolen from an armoured car and hidden somewhere.

They get into all sorts of hilarious situations, at one point forming a band with a guitarist they meet on the road (who claims to have sold his soul to the devil in return for musical talent). It's really funny, and one of those films that just makes you feel good. The soundtrack, composed of folk/bluegrass music, is absolutely fantastic - and the reason for me watching the film in the first place.

I just finished watching Crank and Crank 2. These movies are so bad, they are good. They are hilariously insane.

So I'm still unclear… you guys are saying that you like Lagertha?



I'm with you fellers!

Hmm, I'd say that Lagertha has her own fan club right here on Chorrol.com!

They even acknowledged it in the show. In one of the second season episodes, Þorunn tells Aslaug how she admires Lagertha and wants to be like her. Aslaug responds with no little envy by asking why everyone wants to be like Lagertha?

ahaha it's just little bits like that which are the funniest. The comedy and music work so well together.

I watched the season 3 finale of Vikings today. Quite a good end to a really good season, though I think I preferred the ending to season 2. Always really interesting to see Ragnar's plans come to fruition - he's a clever one.

Now we have to wait a year or so for season 4

I finally started Season Three of Vikings today, and Agent Carter as well. I am liking them both. With Vikings I was not surprised of course, having already seen the first two seasons several times. I appreciated that once more someone on the show has some sense of military... well... sense. When the Vikings and Wessexians (what do you call someone from Wessex?) were sailing upriver and found the Mercians divided on both banks, I thought, wow, that was stupid. That would allow the Vikings to destroy them piecemeal, as they could land on one shore, destroy that force, then sail over the next day and finish off the other. Then Ragnar did exactly that.

It was just like in the second season when the Vikings had the big battle against Ecbert, and Horik insisted upon advancing down the hill, with dense woods to either side. I instantly thought wow, that was stupid. If they were going to advance, they would need to put skirmishers out into those woods first, since there could be an entire army hiding in them, ready to surround the advancing Vikings. Or better yet, they should just sit still on the high ground, and let the English come up the hill to them. Well, if you saw that episode, you know how that turned out.

One disappointment that continues though is their portrayal of the Saxons/English (well, they were really still Saxons back then, it was a about a century later that the term England started to come into use). In reality there was very little difference between the Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings. Ethnically, both were from Germanic stock, as the Anglo-Saxons all came from northern Germany, Jutland, and Holland. They dressed the same. They used the same weapons. They used the same tactics in war. The only real difference was that by the 800s the Anglo-Saxons were all Christians. Which would translate into a Saxon wearing a cross pendant, and a Viking wearing Thor's hammer pendant. Otherwise they would be virtually indistinguishable. Plus dramatically less rights for women in society of course.

Speaking of that, I am also enjoying Agent Carter. I love seeing the post-war period. No cell phones, no internet, heck, no tvs! As ever, I loved Hayley Atwell, and her fight not only against the Enemies of Democracy™, but also against the sexism that was so ingrained in the time. I really liked how the show does not make things easy for her. Especially given what happens to her roomate. I did not see that coming! Plus James D'Arcy is nice to see again, and as Jarvis no less! I enjoyed seeing Dominic Cooper as well. I really like seeing both.

Just watched The Last Stand.

Solid enough for an action film. Pretty good. And some bits of it were the best kind of insane

Wasn't that the Ahnold movie from last year, with the guy from Jackass? I liked it too. It was nothing spectacular, but still a fun watch.

I just finished The Imitation Game. A wonderful movie about Alan Turing - one of the breakers of the Enigma code, inventors of the computer, and a gay man at a time when it was still illegal. Benedict Cumberbun turns in an excellent performance as Turing.

Just watched Captain America The Winter Soldier.

Technically, it's a very well made film for the most part.

It's just a shame it's got plotholes you could fly a helicarrier through.

Watching some Angry Joe Reviews. I just love listening to Joe scream!

It was nothing compared to the earlier movies Arnold was in! I think they were masterpieces from a time when action movies were laced with humor and ridiculously musclular guys with automatic weapons.

I watched the new Avengers film today. It was quite good. Lots of action, lots of CGI, some funny bits, some of that complicated Marvel lore that we all pretend to know lots about but really have no clue. Everything I look for in a superhero film.





I love his stuff! He's always really good at picking through all of the aspects of games, and he isn't afraid of being overly critical.

I'm always afraid that vein in his forehead is going to burst when he is yelling, lol.

I watched his Ride to Hell review a little while ago. It was priceless! The review, not the game of course! I think the review is probably far more entertaining than the game could ever be!

I just found his review on Pillars of Eternity. I love Other Joe as a barbarian, showing off the beefcake!

Dewey's Opera episode of Malcolm in the Middle - Comedy at its finest!

Just watched Resident Evil: Afterlife.

It was terrible. A huge amount of the plot boiled down to nothing more than narrative convenience, most of it was completely unexplained, key plot points were completely unconnected to the rest of the film, with a villain who was only there for the sake of there being a villain in the film.

And anything that couldn't be explained in a few seconds was completely ignored, no matter how much was subsequently built upon it.

It was a like seeing a house of cards still standing, despite half of the cards being missing, simply because gravity didn't think it was worth the effort of making it fall.

What a great description! I've never seen it, don't watch horror movies unless they are funny ones.