Now watching Shaun the Sheep.

Well, in about two minutes.

I love Shaun the Sheep !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ymit-Tr1WM

Ewe've been Framed !!!

We went to see Curse of the Were-Rabbit in the theater...

Yes- we are very silly people. Why do you ask?

I was watching Aardman when they were still on brown plasticine men hassling one of the most beloved children's TV presenters ever...

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

Not the 70s version, but somewhere there's bound to be a clip of Take Hart somewhere... ...

Watched Hawk The Slayer for a laugh last night... ...

Just as an aside, the episodes of Shaun the Sheep are available on Netflix- in streaming. As are several Wallace and Grommit features...

In case anyone was interested....

Or just watch all the episodes on Youtube.

I just finished watching The Town. Excellent movie. I had reservations about a Ben Affleck film, but they were all dispelled within 15 minutes of the opening credits. He really shines in this film, because here he is an actor again, like he was in Goodwill Hunting, rather than a movie star. He even looks different from the days that he was Hollywood's It Man of the minute. He's older, rougher, and like everyone else in this movie, has forgotten how to shave.

But jokes aside, he really did well here. Not just as an actor, but also as screenwriter and director. He gives us a good story - not incredibly original - but good. With solid characters who have believable motivations. The tension really rachets up as the movie goes along, as you can see the walls closing in around his character. You wonder what is going to happen next, and know it is going to be bad. No truly happy endings here, although not as bad as they could have been either. All in all, an excellent movie. Of course it helps that like Goodwill Hunting, it is set in his old stomping grounds of Boston. You can really feel his love for the city come through in the film, dirty parts and all.

I also saw Taken last night, with Liam Neeson. Another good film, this more of an action vehicle then The Town (which was more on the drama then the action). The first 20 minutes of the movie are spent getting to know the characters. Which was well spent, because the action that starts afterward has a real emotional undertone to it that would otherwise be lacking. I could feel his rage, his desire to kill everyone of the men who took his daughter. I was practically cheering when he did just that.

Its a dark movie, not only becuase of the world of kidnapping and sexual slavery that it delves into, but also because of the protagonist's actions. He is no nice guy, he plays by no rules, and shows no mercy, including to people who no longer pose a threat to him. He is vengeance, cold, hard, and final. That hardness is what makes this movie work. It is not a happy film you watch for slam! bam! fight scenes. It is all about a desperate man willing to do anything to get his daughter back. That desperation seeps through every scene of the movie.

Having finished Burn Notice (for now), I have moved on to an old favorite of mine, Malcolm in the Middle.

I remember watching these when they were airing. Great stuff.

Watched Barbie's Christmas Carol with the kids...Yes, yes I did...And, right, I didn't fall asleep!!!... ...

McB Bless your heart, I do hope they are able someday to appreciate the sacri...I mean appreciate the memory, yea that's it.

Farscape.

I just finished with season 2. Whoa. They bring back lots of the antagonists from season one and two for the finale, like the blood trackers, the Sheyang, Durkha, and others. The 3 part arc near the end is one of the neatest bank jobs ever in sci-fi. Coolness awaits you.

Watched Surrogates last night. It was... interesting. I personally felt the plot sort of fell apart in the last third though. No one to really hate, no one to love, only one I actually liked dies... Still, the premise was outstanding.

Re: Farscape. It's been recommended to me several times from several people. Seen the first episode, but it didn't really 'grab' me. Have to give the next few episodes a shot I guess.

Sorry for Double post, but a friend just sent me a link to a short vid that was very cool

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgAlQuqzl8o

The Cello Wars.

The Doctor Who Christmas Special™...

The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe...

Beautiful programme...All the way through...

And then Karen Gillan turned up...*Sigh*... ...

Right now I'm working through the Red Dwarf complete collection I got for christmas!

Not sure if any of our Non-British members have ever heard of Red Dwarf, so if you haven't, I strongly suggest you do! heres a couple of videos of some of the best bits:


Toaster

Lying

Smeee Heeeee!

I watched Speak again tonight. Wow. Even after the second time, it is still powerful. I think I have mentioned it before, so I won't try to write a review for it again. Still, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Loves Red Dwarf do I!!... ...

Watched Bugsy Malone yesterday... ...

God I haven't seen that film for years... ...

Went to see Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol yesterday...Very excellent...Brilliant in fact...

If you like that sort of thing of course... ...

Watched "The King's Speech"- wonderfully acted. We so enjoy "big" movies that actually deal with a small group of people.

Finished up the American version of "Life on Mars." I would certainly give it a recommendation- Harvey Keitel is ALWAYS worth seeing- and this is one of his perfectly-realized character roles. Gretchen Mol is also a bonus- not gonna say anymore about that- nope, nope. (Sigh).

I started watching Bettany Hughes' The Spartans last night. Still have two episodes of it to go. I have her Helen of Troy next. I have seen them both years ago, and going back to them again is still lots of fun. I really like her documentaries. She not only is a good speaker, and has a slightly tongue-in-cheek, down to earth style, but she also presents a depth of information not normally found in t.v. documentaries.

For example, she shows us a real hoplon - from which the Greek hoplite got his name - and how it dictated tactics. Both with ancient sculptures of battles, and modern re-enactors, she showed us a phalanx as it really was, men all standing shoulder to shoulder in a long line 8-12 ranks deep. Then slamming into the enemy phalanx and pushing and shoving away at one another until one line broke its formation, resulting in their defeat. She even mentioned the hoplite drift, caused by each man getting closer to the man on his right, whose shield covered half of his body.

I do not know why it is so hard for Hollywood to show this reality in films. Instead they always want to show people mixing up in some wild melee, all spread around. The reality is that ancient war was a team sport, fought in dense formations, where the loser was the first to lose their cohesion. An Athenian general once berated the Spartans for their practice with weapons, because individual skill mattered little on the battlefield. You were all packed in too tightly to do anything except push forward, and jab nearly blindly ahead with your spear. It was all about endurance and courage.

Also refreshing to see in a documentary is her open admission of homosexuality in Ancient Sparta, something many 300 fans cannot admit (why weren't there any scenes in 300 of Gerard Butler pile driving 12 year old boys?). Whether it is the girls celebrating the Ambrosial Night, going down to the shrine of Helen at the Eurotas river, getting all oiled up, singing, dancing, reciting erotic poetry, and making love under the stars. Or that fact that part of the institutionalized pederasty was just that, older men were not only the mentors and teachers of boys, but lovers. That is something that makes even many historians squirm and try really hard to pretend did not exist. Even Spartan wedding ceremonies were a result of this. A bride had her head shaved, was put in an army tunic, and put in an unlit room. The groom would enter and have his way with her. They did everything they could to relieve the shock at having a sex with a woman, by trying to make it hard to realize that it was in fact a woman he was with, and not a boy.

The docu on Helen of Troy was not just about her and the Trojan War, but Mycenean culture in general, as well as warfare at that time. I remember one of the coolest parts of it was that she had a historical reenactor who actually built chariots from that era and put them to use. He also made the figure eight wicker shields they used, and real life practice with them showed them to be surprisingly strong and durable.

"Face Off" - really interesting !!

Sherlock - The Hounds of Baskerville...

The newish BBC take on Sherlock Holmes by Steven "Doctor Who" Moffatt and Mark "Doctor Who" Gatiss...Guess why I watched it initially?...

Aaamywho...This last one is probably the best hour and a half's TV I've seen in a long long time...It was in every way brilliant...If it comes on BBC America or the netflix thing, GET IT...Soooooo brilliant...Soooo soooo sooo brilliant...

Anything Quentin Tarantino produced really, but Inglorious Basterds hold a special place in my mind. Not because of its violence or anything, but the character of Hans Landa. He's a type of evil that makes you smile and laugh. In the words of TVTropes, he's an Affably Evil, Magnificent Basterd. Christoph Waltz's acting is seriously superb. I applaud him.

I saw The Tunnel last week. It was a good little hand-cam horror movie. As the hand-held camera genre films go, it is definitely one of the better ones, like Rec/Quarantine or Cloverfield. The tunnels themselves are the biggest treat though. I do not know where the movie was filmed, but it is an incredibly cool place. It was plainly a real tunnel system, and not a sound stage.

I also started watching The Borgias this week. I finished the first disc yesterday. A good series. It really draws you in, even though the main characters are all scum. I have always been a Jeremy Irons fan, and he does a wonderful job as Roderigo Borgia/Pope Alexander. On one hand you see the greedy, ruthless schemer that he is, then the next you find him almost overwhelmed with piety from genuine religious experience at being elected Pope. He lets the Jews come to live in Rome after being banished from Spain, then tells him son to have a man murdered to pay for his daughter's dowry. He paints the picture of a very multi-hued character. Too bad he seems to have misplaced his razor though, as he always has a 7 o'clock stubble.

The guy playing his eldest son Caesere is excellent too. If anything, he is even more ruthless then his father. Yet at the same time we find him being reluctant to be dragged deeper and deeper into the church. What he really wants is to be prince of state, rather than a prince of the cloth. And damn, he makes a good schemer. Like his father though, he seems to have forgotten how to shave.

So if you liked shows like Rome, I recommend this as well. It portrays the decadent and brutal nature of Renaissance Italy quite well.

Some anime called Gundam Wing...It's so wince inducing badly written (as, I suspect, is that sentence) it's positively amazing...

Haven't watched it since '98 I think...Brilliant... ...Giant fighting tech!! Oh yes!!... ...

Saw the first 3 episodes on Netflix

LOVE the adaptation of modern tech and modern times. Cumberbatch is simply perfect as a 21st century Holmes.

Staying with the detective genre, we just finished watching the ninth (and therefore last- for now) episode of Inspector George Gently.

Wonderful cultural time-travel for someone who lived throw the '60's but was too young to be completely aware... And brilliant acting as well. Highly recommended for anyone who likes police procedurals which are more about the coppers than the crimes.

One word: Tobuscus

My favourite youtube celebrity. He really draws you into his videos, and is absolutely hilarious to boot!

Bless yo face! Tobuscus?! Yeah, I like him too. Particulary his LP of Amnesia: Dark Descent. Which reminds me that I still haven't finished watching it to the end.... Bless yo face, Han Solo-Rollo, but I must go now. Tobuscus calls.

The kids know all the words to his Assassins Creed: Brotherhood trailer... ...They keep playing it...Loses something eventually though... ...

His Skyrim one makes me laugh every time though... ...

I finished The Borgias last week. At least the first season. My final episode of Farscape was yesterday. So now I am in the dead zone of nothing to watch. So I dug through my dvds, and broke out Reilly: Ace of Spies. Any one who likes Sam Neill should watch this. It shows him in his prime, playing the world's first super-spy (and his character was real). It is definitely slow by today's standards, no super-fight scenes, flashy gizmos, or eye-popping cgi. But what it does have is solid acting, a strong plot, and a character who is as brilliant as he is devious.

I finally finished with Reilly: Ace of Spies. I had forgotten how good it was. Sam Neill is simply outstanding in this role. Most amazing of all is that it's true. Sidney Reilly is the ultimate spy (and probably the most successful one the British ever had). He is brilliant, ruthless, and a mercenary to the core. He used everyone around him to achieve his goals, including his wives. There were often times that no one was sure who he was really working for.

Anyone who likes spy stories or political dramas will like this. There is almost no action, as it is all about planning, thought, and maneuvering. Which is to say, its about being smart, not acrobatically shooting things. The setting is also fascinating. It begins at the turn of the 20th century, and goes to the mid 20s.

This is a time when spying was still a gentleman's game, to be played with honor and fairness, and of course only something done by officers (because only they could have the breeding necessary to be so honorable of course). Reilly otoh, is a thoroughly modern spy. He is not an officer, or gentleman, and has no scruples. But he gets the job done when no one else can. For the first half of the series, he views it all as a game in fact. He even says as much in the Dreadnaughts & Double-Crosses two parter (where he successfully represents the Germans in getting the contract to build the new Russian fleet, beating out the British for the same deal. The upshot of course is that thanks to his involvement with the Germans, he will have access to the blueprints of every German warship, and send copies back to London). But to the outside it certainly looks like he has sold the British out.

Things all change with the Russian Revolution. In fact, half the series takes place in or after the Revolution. Reilly is a Russian by birth, so this he takes seriously. Finally something is personal to him: fighting the Bolsheviks. At one point, he very nearly overthrew them, and took power in Russia for himself. While ostensibly working for the British, it is plain that Reilly is on his own mission, and is doing it all for himself, and his personal beliefs.

Besides Reilly, we also get to see some of history's most fascinating figures. Prominent are of course Lenin, Stalin, and Felix Dzerzhinsky (head of the Soviet secret police). All are expertly portrayed. Dzerzhinsky especially shines here, as he gets a large role in the last 7 episodes, and is the only man to ever truly outplay Reilly at the game. Although in the end, Reilly beats him, even though the cost is fatal to himself.

Just went to see Women in Black, well besides never sleeping again, I'm keeping the lights on
I do like the fact that it's like Insidious, It does not need gore for it to be frightening.

Spartacus: Vengeance.

Don't hate! RIP Andy!

I have been watching X-Files for the last few weeks. I just finished the most disgusting episode ever: The Host Well, it might not be quite as gross as the inbred episode, but this one definitely makes my inside churn. Ewww. Funny thing is, it is also notable in that it has the first appearance of Steven Williams as Mister X, who was my favorite of all the men in black in the X-Files.

Being Human, season 2. (SyFy). Sam Witwer is awesome. Loved him in the Force Unleashed.

I just finished watching Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. It is as brilliant as it is twisted. A wonderful satire of hillbilly slasher films, where the hillbillys are the good guys, and the college students the psychos. If you like black comedys, I highly recommend it.

I saw the 2011 version of The Thing last night. It was definitely a worthy successor to the previous two films. It is a prequel to the Carpenter film, and they did try to keep true to the events of his movie. They even duplicated several sets and items from the Carpenter version, such as the one where they find the hollowed out block of ice in the Norwegian base, or the bodies of the two men melted together (seeing how they got that way was very cool!).

At the end however, it seemed like they had missed a lot. But you have to watch through the end credits. You see the last bits there, taken straight from the Carpenter movie. The alien/dog, the Norwegians chasing it in the helicopter, etc... They even used the same music from Carpenter's movie, which was just the icing on the cake.

A few things felt derivative, like how the Norwegians just happened to have flamethrowers too. They even came up with an alien test. But theirs was different, and I have to say, was both inventive and made perfect sense. OTOH, nothing felt forced, and everything that happened made sense.

The effects were naturally better as well, and the Lovecraftian horrors that the alien turned into went beyond what Carpenter could do in 1982.

If you like the other two movies, definitely watch this. Good horror stuff.

Wait, isn't The Thing about a plant that says "feed me?" and stuff. If so, I've seen the original a couple times. It's hilarious. EDIT: dang. that was little Shop of Horrors I was thinking about. I'm getting old.

Lately Netflix recommended an old soap opera called Dark Shadows to me. I read about it and thought it sounded interesting. Man, I'm hooked! It started during the mid-1960's. From what I've read online, a lot of the scenes were one-takes, which means you occasionally see actors blow their lines, forget what they're supposed to say, cough, etc.

It's a 100% atmospheric show. It's not about great acting or special effects, it's more about the mood of the show. It captures the mood of a haunted house perfectly, try looking it up. I'm not saying you all will like it, I'm just saying there's nothing else like it. Passions comes closest, I guess, but Passions is a modern show where they had a lot of retakes and everything is more or less perfect, as most shows are.


The cool thing about a soap opera is the writers and stuff get to plan ahead (way ahead) if they need to. They aren't limited to a one-time plot as in a movie; there's a bit of movement. I'm not a big soap opera-watcher, but this one is different. I think I read Dark Shadows at one time had a pretty good market share during daytime TV, which means it was on for quite a few years, but it eventually got cancelled. It's one of those shows that managed to complete the transition from B&W to full-color, too, but I haven't made it to the color episodes yet.

Oh my goodness. Barnabas Collins and his Dark Shadows day show grew to almost cult-like proportions during its heyday! I guess I'm giving away my age. . . .

I once met Blackie Dalton - the gunfighter who went out into the streets of Dodge City and died to kick off each weekly episode of Gunsmoke. Ooooh - and who can forget Joe Friday?

Heh, I guess I woulda been not even born yet during the first couple seasons. I can imagine what it must have been like...all these other regular daytime soaps like General Hospital and All My Children..and then Dark Shadows comes on the scene. There are some portions of Dark Shadows that are downright disturbing, even without CGIs and all the stuff we'd see in a modern horror show.

I remember Dark Shadows. There was even a remake of the series back in the late 80s or early 90s. It only lasted about half a season though.

Yesterday I watched Dragon Age: Redemption, a short movie made from several webisodes. For what it was, it was rather good. Felicia Day stars as an elf, and put in a good performance. Most of the characters are pretty stock, and the plot nothing original. But they did it all very well, for what is basically something that is just one step up from a fan movie.

It made me try out The Guild, also with Felicia Day. It is something I have hemmed and hawed over watching for a long time now. Netflix has it on instant viewing, so I watched the first episode last night. It is just ridiculous, with a cast representing the many stereotypes of gamers, all taken to comedic extremes of course. It was fun, and Day is a joy to watch. I added the rest of the series to my disc queue.

Where did you see DA: Redemptions? On the web? Or TV?

I just went and watched Dragon Age: Redemption. More or less agree, very stock, not the best writing and unoriginal. But on the other hand I did just spend an hour watching it and enjoyed it enough to watch to the end so it can't have been bad. It suffered from trying to do too much, especially with CGI, with too little money. Less ambitious sets and less CGI done better would have worked.

Saying that it was only a semi-professional production so I shouldn't expect too much and it was free and it was about a game series I rather like. So yeah if you like Dragon Age go for it, otherwise probably not.

EDIT: Saga - I just watched it on youtube, there's a HD version on the Machinema channel.

What Olen said. Try YouTube, or just google it. I never even played the Dragon Age games, but I still liked it. Its very simple plot and predictable characters mean that you do not not need to know the game. It is your basic fantasy swords and sorcery tale. If you like that, you will like DA:R. Just do not expect Hollywood blockbuster money behind it and you will not be let down.

Okay, thanks. I'm not sure if I'll have time to watch that today. Especially if it's over an hour. I'm at work. :/

Kinda off-topic kinda/sorta but I got DA: Origins a few years back. I think it was Origins. Whatever DA everybody complains about, that's the one I got at home. Anyways, I popped it in, sat thru the opening movie and stuff, but when it came time to actually start playing the game, I couldn't get interested for some reason. I think I tried for half an hour, moved my character around and stuff. I just couldn't get into it.

Compare that to the beginning of Oblivion and Skyrim. In both games I was hooked from the moment the opening credits started rolling. Not that I'm putting the DA series down, but I just thought it was interesting I literally had no interest in the game, whereas with TES I would have probably kicked anybody who would have dared take the controller out of my hand during my first playthrough!

It was only about 45 minutes or so, not counting the end credits. So about the same as watching a t.v. show.

Cartoons.

Cartoons? Seems I'm not the only one. Don't really know why though. Probably because I wanted to watch from a "grown-up" perspective. Not much difference, still watched it like a kid.

I watch these cartoons a LOT:


South Park (They killed Kenny!)
Family Guy (Stewie)

I also watch some King of the Hill, but it takes a back seat.