I just finished The Last Jedi and loved it.

I am getting into the holiday spirit by watching Die Hard. Yippie Ki Yay!

Best.
Christmas film.
Ever

WOOOOOOOOOT !!! On my "Favorite movies of all time" list! I was heartbroken about the death of Alan Rickman from it (one of my all time favorite actors).





*mALX wipes tear from eye...*

Also the best tree ornament ever!

I just watched Logan, and to be honest, I was pretty disappointed with it. I mean the plot in itself was pretty good, but it left too much of the setup only explained with one or two lines. And one scene in particular really bugged me, when suddenly the Professor apparently has some telekinetic ability

I just tried to watch Dunkirk. Christopher Nolan did something I thought was impossible. He made WWII boring. There are about 10 words spoken during the entire film. Time literally dilates as it switches between characters - unless it really does take two days to fly across the English Channel. Some of the protagonists are impossible to tell apart. There is absolutely no character development. No real characterization at all for that matter. Nolan never makes any attempt to explain what is happening or why. The Germans never even turn up. Turns out they were the smart ones. Terrible movie.

Wow, it really had to be bad for it to overcome your love of history! Doesn't sound well done; more like some college kid's project.

Khajiit seemed to remember when this came out and all the critics seemed to love it. After reading what you wrote, this one looked at the user reviews on IMDB, and sure enough, most everyone hated it. To be honest, it didn’t look very interesting to Khajiit when they were running the trailers on TV. Whenever Khajiit wants to watch a WWII movie, he usually puts on Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates. The later is ridiculous, but it’s pretty entertaining. And Rachel Weisz is in it, so there’s a bonus.

My love of history often makes it harder to like historical movies. For example, IRL there were nearly half a million men trapped in and around Dunkirk fighting off the Germans. In Nolan's movie, there were a few hundred guys on the beach doing nothing, and about 5 French guys manning a perfectly arranged sandbag barricade about a hundred feet away. Apparently those 5 French guys stopped the entire German army. Which in retrospect was not very hard, because there are literally no Germans in the movie! (there are a handful of German planes, 3 dive bombers, 1 medium bomber, and two fighters - but we literally never saw a single German human being). Imagine Lord of the Rings without us seeing a single Orc?

By the same token, in the movie the RAF only sent 3 Spitfires out to cover the beaches. Only 3, for the entire battle! And it took days for them to fly across the English Channel. IRL the Battle of Dunkirk had the most intense air combat of the entire Second World War. The RAF flew over 3,500 missions during the 9-day campaign. They put everything they had into defending the beachhead. Without them, no ships would have made it in or out, and no one would have escaped. TBH, I thought the movie was an was insult to the RAF. It made it look like they just could not be bothered to give a crap.

The Royal Navy is likewise tragically under-represented. IRL there was a fleet of 39 British destroyers that continually came in and out to take people off, along with a handful of Canadian ships. There were about 850 civilian ships on top of that. But the movie makes it look like just two Royal Navy ships came along, and about a dozen civilian boats. Again, it seems like the UK just had better things to do than rescue their men.

A lot of this is because Christoper Nolan apparently has vowed not to use CGI. Which is pretty stupid. This is exactly the situation that CGI is meant for - to make a hundred people look like a hundred thousand. His refusal makes the events look small and insignificant.




I don't know why the critics loved it. It really was badly done on the simplest levels. Like I said, the characters are entirely one-dimensional, often to the point of having no names. They almost never speak. There is no life to them. They never develop. The story itself is practically incomprehensible. To the point of there not really being a story at all. It is just a series what appear to be unrelated events. It all kind of comes together at the end. But far too little to late.

Plus it is literally bloodless. Bombs and bullets kill people, but they don't hurt them. Awfully civilized. It just does not look like war at all.

Ouch. SubRosa came in with the RKO out of nowhere on Dunkirk. I haven't seen the movie, nor really planned to. But it certainly sounds like something I will be avoiding now.

You know, I keep meaning to get around to that recent Vietnam War documentary by Ken Burns, but I keep forgetting about it or I am doing something else. I hope to watch that sometime in the near future.

The Ken Burns documentary was good. It completely misses a few things, but it was still solid over all. The first episode is a bit confusing, because it goes from explaining historical events taking place in or after WWII, and then cuts to an American talking about their experience sometime in the 60s (without telling you that it was an American in the 60s), and then goes back to telling the historical events in the 40s and 50s. It is like they were afraid viewers would get bored and turn it off if there was not an American talking about a gunfight every 15 minutes. Once it gets to America's involvement in the war, that jumping around stops thankfully.

I can't understand why he would refuse to use something that (as long as it is well done) can only enhance the picture = and if he wanted to take that "high road" as he seems to be implying = then spend the money to put a mass of real extras and props like they did in Game of Thrones.

It really does sound like a pedestrian effort; and if the critics actually did "Like" it = probably because the people in media positions consider themselves leaders of the minds of the sheep public; and if they say a "dog" like Nolan's movie is amazing they think the public will immediately love it and make it a hit. The movie's audience was more discerning than the critics; I have to applaud the audience for seeing a dog and saying it.

Finished watching Breaking Bad earlier. Damn good series, with a damn good ending. Loved it, start to finish.

Now I need to decide what to rewatch next

They had a Breaking Bad marathon here too; and I rewatched it too = but missed a bunch, and had to wait for them to continue it when they broke for hours at a time between seasons - so instead I finally watched it on my Son's Netflix instead so that I could binge it from the very beginning to the end and even replay scenes like where Gus gets killed or where Walter says "I am the one knocking," etc.

Nice. There really are some fantastic scenes in there. And after only having seen Bryan Cranston in Malcolm in the Middle, I was astonished by how good an actor he actually is

That is the only place I ever really saw him before too; (actually, he did bit parts as Dr. Watley on "Seinfeld;" but nothing that displayed his acting ability).

I absolutely never realized he could do such an intense role! I read or saw something about the making of Breaking Bad where someone in the production insisted the role of Walter go to Bryan Cranston; so THEY knew something I don't think even the public realized. He is an outstanding actor; and it kind of shocked me to watch him transform from Hal to Walt that way.

Agree completely on Bryan Cranston and the ending for Breaking Bad... we just finished it ourselves.

Tried watching Myths and Monsters... and gave up part way through the first installment. The subject matter is interesting and should be right in my wheelhouse- but they managed to make it dull- plus they kept jumping around, instead of focusing on a single theme....

Currently about halfway through Godless. If you are a fan of- 1)Gritty and intense 2)Westerns 3) Dark foreboding- this is a show for you.

Khajiit has watched Ep.1 of this but hasn’t started the second one yet.

This is on my Watch List, too.

Now if only I could leave Tamriel long enough to watch this and so many others . . .

Exactly Khajiit’ problem!!

Conan the Barbarian in AMC!

Crom!

Tried to find a gif of Valeria doing the sword palm tap thing but surprisingly, Khajiit couldn’t find one.

While in the Mall this Monday to buy a 2018 Wall Calendar, I stopped at Barnes & Noble and spent almost the whole of an Xmas gift card to purchase the movie Patton (cheap) and Game of Thrones Season Five (not cheap). Haven't watched either due to not feeling well much of the week. (For once this feels like a traditional winter bug of some sort rather than a flareup of one of my serious conditions. I likely caught it from my brother, who complained of similar symptoms during his last visit.)

Wow, to sick to watch a movie!
Hope you feel better soon D!

Aw, so sorry you haven't felt well! Hope both you and your Brother get well soon!

Finished up "Godless"- highly recommended.

Also finished "Longmire"- some disappointment in one choice the final episode made, but overall a good program.

Started watching "Frontier." Appropriately bloody, as it involves the fur trade in North America in the 1700's. Will give it some more time, despite the obvious anachronisms, such as the use of "Okay" by an Englishman, when the term did not come into use until most likely 1830's U.S. Not to mention Michael Smyth's leather coat. Just what every Irish petty thief on the London waterfront was wearing prior to the American Revolution...

Not to mention the reference to someone as an "American"- um... if he was from what is now the U.S., he probably would have been considered an "Englishman". And then there was the supposed French fur trader who expressed surprise at the American's Englishman's seal coat...

And don't even get me started on the accents (such as there are)- the stereotyped characters- or the instant sea travel....

I too finished watching “Godless” on Netflix. I found myself enjoying it very much, unlike many other so-called Westerns that abandoned historical accuracy for soap opera histrionics. The characters are very well developed, and Jeff Daniels did an awesome job playing the villain in such a homegrown, rough diamond manner. The women are not cardboard cutouts, each one of them with her own history and her own quirks, some of which were merely hinted at in the show.

I always liked Michelle Dockery from Downton Abbey, even though there were times I wanted to slap her character Mary silly. In this, she played just the tough, gritty frontierswoman who survives all disasters and keeps her head high, even when you can see the fear and conflict in her eyes.

And Jack O’Connell who plays Roy Goode reminds me so much of a young Kevin Bacon, from his understated delivery to his body language and mannerisms, there were times I thought I was watching Kevin Bacon!

But my undying praise is reserved for two unlikely actresses: Merrit Wever and Tantoo Cardinal. I call them unlikely because to look at, they are unremarkable women. Yet each in her own way portrayed strong, powerful, self reliant women in ways that make you wish they are part of your own life. Merrit Wever is Mary Agnes, the local sherrif’s sister who starts wearing her dead husband’s clothes because it’s easier to get the job done. In fact, I fell in love with her when her brother got on her case about that, and she told him “You wear a dress, Bill. Just put a dress on.”

And Tantoo Cardinal. Gosh, her character Iyovi is old, but as an old Paiute, she is gritty, practical, cynical, and smart. She takes care of her small tribe (Alice, Michelle Dockery’s character, and her son Truckee, played by a rather winsome Samuel Marty) in a no-holds-barred manner. I wish my grandmother was like that!

So like treydoggie, I highly recommend this series.

I watched the new anime Godzilla on Netflix this morning. It was good, although it did have an overabundance of youthful testosterone. When I was 17 that sort of enthusiasm would have resonated with me. Now that I am older, I tend to find that it is just egotism and foolishness. But the characters are still good. They are people you can believe and latch on to.

Godzilla himself (herself, itself?) is really cool. I think anime is a good format for GZ. They are going for the evil version of Godzilla here. Normally I am a little disappointed with that, because I always want to root for Gojira. But he was really awesome here. He is not simply a big irradiated animal. He is a God Of Death sent by the Gods to punish those species who have grown too arrogant. He wiped out human life on planet Earth. They tried to stop him with nukes, and literally turned the entire North American continent into a vast radioactive crater. It did not slow him down one bit.

The human and alien characters in the movie are the lucky 4,000 who escaped the planet on spacecraft, provided by two friendly alien races who came to help humanity, in exchange for a place to live on the planet afterward. Obviously even they were impotent against Godzilla. So they were forced to flee with the humans. The aliens are pretty cool, a bit stereotypical, but that is not a bad thing. That just makes it easy to understand them.

I liked that they acknowledged Relativity in the show. The refugees were traveling at near light speed (and even via a wormhole at one point). Funny things happen with time when you do that. Even though only 20 years had passed for them, they returned to earth 20,000 years later. It is a whole new world, and it is vicious and ticked off.

They did a lot of wild stuff in this, which is usually not good IMHO, alien races, fleeing the Earth and returning, and even some major changes to Godzilla (for example, now he has an electro-magnetic shield that protects him from things like nuclear weapons. Instead of atomic breath, he how has an EMP beam that blows electronics (like mecha and spaceships) to bits. But it all works. Godzilla is more badass than ever.

Most of all it is packed with lots of explosions and guns and fire and killing and giant monsters. Really, everything a Godzilla movie should be. It is a very fun action spectacle.

btw. It is an hour and a half long, and basically a movie and not a normal anime series. But Netflix called it Part 1, and the ending is very wide open to more. In fact it demands more. So my guess is they did the one movie to test the waters, and will probably make more if it does well. Like Netflix's Castlevania series.

Man Khajiit hopes they do more Castlevania! Loved it. The show really felt like one if the games, especially the last part with all the swinging around.

I just watched the new It. It was ok, but nothing really special. I seem to remember the old tv-miniseries as being better. But that could just be nostalgia making my memories better than reality.

I did note that the scene with The Wolfman and the silver wrist rocket bullet was not in the movie. That brings me to something else that disappointed me. In the book the kids realized that It took the form of what they were most afraid of. So they armed themselves with the weapons those things were vulnerable to. Like how one kid was afraid of the Wolfman, so they made the silver slingshot ball. In the movie It still takes the form of their worst fears, but the kids never took the next step and used their brains to arm themselves.

I was not really impressed with the guy playing It either. He really did not scare me. The CGI they used on him got creepy at times. But his performance itself was just kind of bland to me. He didn't have charisma. They should have gone with someone with more personality, like Jackie Earle Haley.

Still, it was a decent horror movie. If you have not read the novel, or seen the old mini-series, it is better, since then you won't have any preconceptions.

And on the plus side, in the movie the token female character does not get gang-banged by the half-a-dozen other male characters in the sewers. Yes, Stephen King wrote that. I don't remember if that was in the mini-series or not. I think I will try giving that a watch next.

Did you ever see the Netflix show Hemlock Grove? The guy who played Pennywise/It, Bill Skarsgard, played one of the main characters on that show. Guy is just not impressive. It’s like he has only one speed, broody. Khajiit much preferred his co-star, Landon Liboiron. Honestly though, arguably the best young performer on that particular show was a young lady named Freya Tingley who played Christina Wendall.

I tried watching one episode of Hemlock Grove a few years ago, but just could not get into it.

Since I rewatched Rogue One and A New Hope a few weeks ago, I decided to finish out the original trilogy over the weekend with Empire and Jedi. This time out the unsung members of Rogue Squadron jumped out at me, thanks to having read the Rogue Squadron comics recently. So I was pointing at the screen saying "That's Wes Janson!" and "It's Hobbie!" and "That's Tycho!"

At the end of Jedi I was also struck by how that movie marked an end of an era. All the film trilogys really do. The original trilogy marks the end of the Imperial Era with the deaths of all its major players: The Emperor, Vader/Anakin, Tarkin, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Bail Organa, etc... The old world - good and bad - all died. The same was true with the Prequels. It was the death of the Old Republic. Now the new Trilogy does the same, it marks the death of the New Republic Era, and with it the deaths of Han, Luke, Leia, etc...

It is a little sad. But this understanding helps me not hate the new films for killing Luke and Han (and Leia must be next in the final movie). It is just how these movies have always worked.

Not to mention the new trilogy is more “in your face” about clearing away the old to make way for the new. Kylo even outright says this like it’s the trilogy’s mission statement, lol

I started watching the 90 mini-series of It. Definitely much better than the new movie. The actors are so much more enjoyable: Jonathon Brandis, Seth Green, Emily Perkins as the kids, and John Ritter, Tim Reid, etc... as the adults. Tim Curry is so wild he is just perfect as Pennywise. They are a lot more fun to spend time with than the new crew.

I also like the format of going back and forth between past and present better, the way the book did it. It keeps it all tighter together I think. It is a tough proposition for a movie because it is so long. So I understand why they just did the half of the story with them as kids for the movie, and are saving the half where they are adults as a sequel. But it just seems weaker. This is just something better suited to a tv series than a film.

Yeah Tim Curry is awesome in that! Khajiit’s favorite part of the movie is when

Just watched Hellboy II: The Golden Army for like the second or third time. Khajiit really likes this movie and it’s predecessor. The second one felt a bit like an Elderscrolls story to me for some reason (or maybe Khajiit just likens the “Golden Army” to Dwemer Animunculi). A bit of a shame we won’t have any more Hellboy films by Guillermo del Toro, but they are doing a new film in the franchise.

Yeah, the Hellboy films are such great fun. Not sure I could say I favour one over the other, but I did love that Golden Army and everything.

Might have to watch them again soon

I watched the first episode of Westworld today. It was good. Full of disturbing moral issues surrounding action with the total lack of consequences, and with it an utter lack of ethics. I hope the robots rise up and murder all the humans.

I was also delighted when I was listening to the score in one scene and realized it was Black Hole Sun. Then later during the robbery when it was Paint It Black being done by an orchestra. It was really strange, but fun, to hear those songs done is such a different way. All we need now is this song, maybe for the season ending.

Hellboy is returning.

You should!



Khajiit quite enjoyed Westworld. Stick with it.


Yep.

Khajiit watched a couple of episodes of a new Netflix series called Altered Carbon. It’s a sci-fi show set a few centuries in the future. Technology has allowed humanity to escape their confinement to Earth and even from their own mortality. So far this one finds it interesting and is curious to see how it goes. At its core, the show is a murder mystery. It can be fairly violent at times (including a hilarious encounter in a hotel lobby) and the guns (energy weapons, they say) make big messes. The language is pretty rough and there is a fair amount nudity too. If you don’t mind these things and like weird sci-fi stuff, then it looks like it’s worth a watch.

That is actually a book by Richard K Morgan. Good stuff, really.

Didn’t know it was a book, though Khajiit remembers thinking it would make a good book

I tried watching Britannia, but could not make it through the first episode. The Romans are once again bad imitations of Roman Legionaries, wearing leather armor, carrying shields made out of something that is definitely not wood faced with leather. The chariots the Celts use are the standard Mediterranean style, not Celtic chariots. I saw Celts wearing helmet that look like they came out of the Dark Ages, and in a few places some weird kind of breastplates that might have been from wicker. And so on. I gave up for good when the outcast Druid was talking about God, Hell, and Demons. I guess the Celts all became Christian 600 years earlier than in real life.

Why not just make a movie about Al Capone and have him wear an Adidas tracksuit, and shoot someone with an AK-47? Or where the Pope is praying to Zeus to open the gates of Elysium?

Khajiit wants Romans wearing Lorica Segmentata and carrying their famous rectangular wooden shields. He wants the Celts to be in full body woad paint and at least half naked.

They are wearing a version of segmentata that is all leather. I did see one man in lorica hamata that made me want to cheer, as it was the only thing in the entire show that looked good. Their shields are the usual inward curved, rectangular scutums (which is correct). But they are solid brown, which is all wrong. It looks like they are made of brown leather. The Celts are not even 20% naked, and have only a little bit of tattoos. No quicklime in the hair, no woad (at least not in the first 40 minutes or so). None of it looks right.

It also has the Romans executing a midnight commando-style raid near the beginning of the show. Riiight. That is the kind of thing German Harii or the Celts themselves would be right at home doing. But the Roman army could not sneak up on a blind, deaf, turtle.

Oh, and the people riding horses had stirrups.

That sounds eye rollingly bad. Lol at the stirrups anachronism!

Watching Deep Space Nine, again.

Best Trek evah.