That is priceless!

Fair dues... ...

In preparation for Monsters University coming soon, we watched Monsters Inc. today...I really had forgotten how good that one is...Excellent film!...

Game of Thrones!! In one minute.


NOOOOOOOO!!! It's not on tonight.

Just because of Memorial Day. Next sunday! The rains of Castemere!

Red Wedding! Red Wedding! Red Wedding! The Red Wedding!

Fans who never read the books will cry in terror!

Speaking of Anakin's raid on the Jedi academy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzW727RY-ig

LOL...my wife freaks out a bit over Robot Chicken...

The L Word.

I squealed when I saw it was on Netflix

Kristanna Loken

Just finished watching The Help. A fantastic movie about racism and women in 1963 Jackson, Mississippi. Very moving, and surprisingly funny. Octavia Spencer was just fantastic as Minny.

Memories of my childhood.

I watched the crap out of that cartoon!

Jennifer Beals

Katherine Moening

I tried watching The L Word, but I never got past the first episode. It seemed like there was a more heterosexual sex going on than lesbian sex. It made me think they should have named The H Word, and never watched another episode.

Heterosexual as in the actresses? Or the characters? Because once you move past Jenny's boyfriend in the first couple episodes, there's hardly any hetero stuff.

She never got past the first episode, so there's no way of seeing how the season turned out.

The characters. The new girl who has just moved into town seems to spend almost the entire first episode boffing her boyfriend, at least in part to prove to herself that she is not a lesbian. Like DE said (trying to quote you and him just wound up confusing the forum), I never got past that to see if she ever stopped smoking the sausage or not...

Watched The Hangover 3 a couple days ago. It isn't for pompous or prissy audiences but it was pretty entertaining to me. I especially like Mr. Chow's ridiculousness.

Not watching much of anything right now. Waiting for Falling Skies to start up again next month...and The Walking Dead in October. Occasionally I get sucked into an episode of whatever cooking reality show ThatSkyrimWife is watching...Hell's Kitchen, Master Chef, Chopped, etc.

Watching Louis CK. I love this guy. His acts are very adult but also very hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BWVvmDnF7s

I have been watching The Prophets of Science Fiction on Netflix. It's very cool. Each episode takes a different sci-fi writer and not only gives us their biography, but also shows us the modern technologies that were predicted by them. Such as Phillip K Dick and Virtual Reality, Isaac Asimov and robotics, Mary Shelly and organ transplants, etc... Definitely a good watch.

Game of Thrones did it again . . .

Great episode. I love this story!

Though I know what happened . . . good lord. The Red Wedding was so graphic and dark! I know for a fact some people thought it was too much. But hey, its realistic. Especially

Powerful scene!

Could you guys please use spoiler tags for those of us who aren't up to date won't have the series ruined for us? I love Game of Thrones and live in a blackout on the show until I can catch up.

Sure, I put the rest of my post in the tag.

ETA: On the same subject…

The show is very enjoyable without reading the books. If you haven't read the books the show is wildly unpredictable though. I haven't read the books and I love the series.

Also, a news report about all of the upset fans ruined it for me anyways.

Brutal....just plain brutal...I've never seen an episode or read the books...but that clip was f***ing BRUTAL!

I think we will see it. The start of the next episode's preview suggest as much. I don't know about you but I am excited to see



Also. I have the feeling everything happened both because of the author AND the fans. This quote says all:



The show does that to characters. Great show, though.

Ayyy...I'll just stick to my Five-O and NCISses ta...*Shudders*...

All of which are a fortnight away from their finales!!...

Oh no!!...Not having stuff to watch?!!...Unlikely, that's what DVD boxed sets are for!... ...

Been watching some bad movies lately, most not by choice. I tried the 2004 Frankenstein with Parker Posey, and the Kenneth Branagh/DeNiro Frankenstein. Ugh. Mozart's Sister did not turn out to be that good either. It starts good, but the ending is incredibly depressing. The Paperboy was likely blah. I gave up on that one about 20 minutes in.

Today I am watching a bad movie because I want to though. Playing Fallout 3 lately has gotten me in the post apocalyptic mood. So I fired up Damnation Alley. Not a good movie by any stretch. But unlike all the others it is at least fun!

Yesterday I watched a movie called Dragon Lore: Curse of the Shadows. It's a very low-budget, independent movie that borrows a lot from Tolkien and World of Warcraft. I was not expecting much. But I was very pleasantly surprised. I thought it was not half-bad. It's not going to win any Academy Awards, but I was actually kind of engaged by the story and the characters, to my surprise.

If anyone is looking for a 'good-but-cheesy' fantasy movie you might give it a try, when it comes out. Here's the IMDB for it if anyone's interested: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2250234/

Sadly, Netflix does not have it. I love the picture though.

I just noticed that Jackie Earle Haley is in Damnation Alley. That's right: Rorsarch. I did not realize that he had been a child actor. It looks like he is about 10 or 12.

It's not scheduled to be released until August. I should have mentioned that in my post, I'm sorry. I posted this as a kind of heads-up so folks who are interested could be on the lookout for it when it comes out.

The woman who plays the main character (the one in the picture) has had a bit of training in swords and bows. She pulls off a few badass moves with her elven sword that I think are way above-average for this kind of low-budget movie.

Just watched a really cool movie..."The Book of Eli". The setting could easily have been The Wasteland from Fallout 3, with Denzel Washington as The Lone Wanderer. So many of the scenes looked like they were right out of the game. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it highly.

I liked that movie.

A little too religious for my tastes but overall it was an excellent movie.

The major twist, which I won't spoil, was a bit over the top for me as well.

I felt the same way. It was alright to see once, but I'd never want to see it again.

I felt the same way too. I'm glad I watched Eli once, I guess. But I can't picture myself ever watching it a second time.

I finished watching Babylon 5. At least the regular series. I can never keep a dry eye during that last episode. I still have the standalone television movies they made after season 5 left. Today I watched In The Beginning, which was probably the best one. It is a prequel, set a decade before the series, depicting the the Earth-Minbari War, which nearly saw the extermination of the human race.

Watching the first part of season 5 of Breaking Bad. It is a pretty intense show and I've really enjoyed it. It is a lot more predictable than say, Game of Thrones, but it is very enjoyable.

Game of Thrones. Trolled us. Hard. In this season finale. They really did.

Mr. Grits and I had a “discussion” earlier about what would be in the final episode. I won!

(All right, I didn’t guess what was in the episode, but I did say NO IT’S NOT or something similar about things that were not in it. So while I wasn’t technically right, I still call it a win! )

I thought it has been pretty generally accepted that this will occur in episode 2 of season 4.

There has been some dispute over whether the other event you mention would occur this episode. Myself, I've always been in the camp that was certain that couldn't happen. In terms of narrative pace, it's way too soon for that. If I were the show runners I would certainly hold off on that until next season and was not surprised when Benioff and Weiss did so.

I can't say I feel trolled in any way. Just my opinion.

About the pace, I actually was under the impression it would be an hour longer, so I was expecting many things to happen. Since it didn't happen that way, season 4 may just begin with a bang with Lady Stoneheart and the event I mentioned above. Episode 9 was great, but episode 10 was alright. Not what I expected though.

But man oh man did I enjoy seeing Arya. Love this scene.

And of course, our heroic Dany in the last scene! Go Dany! So emotional!

I started watching The Night Stalker. Not the original series, but the reboot with Stuart Townsend. It did have a nice cameo of Darren McGavin from the original show, cgi'd into one scene in the pilot. That was really cool. So far so good. I noticed that one of the writers is Frank Spotnitz. X-Files fans should remember that name.

Stuart Townsend looks really weird though. Maybe it is just the short hair, but he looks completely different from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. He looks even more different in XIII. I wonder if he has been killed and replaced by a not so accurate Life Model Decoy?

Superman: Man of Steel...

Oh my frickin' Gods... ...

It's really quite an amazing bit 'o' film that is...

Fair dues to Goyer, Nolan and Snyder...They really have completely ignored the other films (including no references to the John Williams theme, which I was expecting to hear towards the end.) and it works far better than any of the others ever did...

Henry Cavill is brilliant, Russell Crowe is proper superb and Amy Adams is just Amy Adams with attitood...But hey, who cares?... ...

And finaly, a damned decent Super-fight!!...

It actually gave some hope towards a decent Flash film at some point...

But anyways...Amazing stuff...Loved it...

So, I saw Man of Steel this past weekend, going with my father as a Father's Day activity to see a movie about a son of two worlds.

Let's start with this: I think they're better about 'getting' Superman. They definitely took the best approach I have ever seen when it comes to Krypton's death and I for one would not change any of that part of the film. It is Glorious and Magnificent in everything it does for Kal-El's homeworld.

The acting is superb. Amy Adams makes a tough b!tch of a reporter that Lois Lane has desperately needed. Henry Cavill brings us a Superman that is truly 'Super,' a verifiable god amongst us mortals that is finding his place in a society that he wishes to simultaneously be a part of and be an inspiration towards greatness. Christopher Meloni sheds Stabler and truly fills out the role as an Air Force colonel that is determined to defend his country and his way of life. I could go on about the rest of the cast, but suffice it to say I think no role was mis-cast, but five must be discussed in greater detail.

Ayelet Zurer, the least depicted of Superman's parents, is about as good as can be expeceted in the role of Lara Lor-Van, birth mother of Kal-El and wife of Jor-El. The story (spoilers, but not) starts with her birthing of Kal-El, which, we learn in about five minutes, is the first natural birth of any Kryptonian in centuries, the planet's society long ago having turned to artificial birthing means. She displays all of the emotions of a mother, torn at once between keeping her precious son and sending him away on a trip that might kill him. Alas, there's little enough of this in the final film, and at two hours and twenty-three minutes, it seems like Snyder and co. were cutting seconds wherever they could. Cross your fingers for a Director's Cut, and this will matter soon.

Russell Crowe reminds us why he's an Oscar-winning actor, portraying Jor of the House of El with all the gravitas he brought to Maximus Decimus Meridius and the forward thinking intelligence he demonstrated in A Beautiful Mind. He appears more often, the function of a computerized projection with his memories encoded in the key sent with his son to guide him in the same manner Marlon Brando did with the Donner-verse Superman. The technology's evolved and the source of Krypton's death has changed, but Jor-El remains constant as the scientist and philosopher that foresaw the death of his world and tried one last gamble to save his son and his world by flinging a light into the future to a world that is just beginning to reach for the stars.

Kevin Costner as Jonathon Kent was the other half to Jor-El's paternal influence, and anchors the thematic elements of nature vs. nurture that Man of Steel is advocating. He recognizes Clark's world-changing nature, and the manner of Clark Kent's upbringing is shown as a series of flashbacks that involve the use and development of his abilities coupled with the response you should expect out of Costner playing all-American Dad. The film starts with Clark as an adult, so the majority of the Smallville scenes play out as flashbacks to this incidents of a formative youth in Kansas. If Jor-El wasn't enough reason, then Papa Kent's loving fatherhood alone is enough to make this a Father's Day movie, and I don't give that one up easily.

Diane Lane as Martha Kent is exactly what you should expect of her, a great actress depicting a great mother to a son that needs more than most when it comes to parenthood. Her scene with a very young Clark hiding in a closet is the first we get of Superman's Earth parents. and for her alone we could have made this a Mother's Day movie, were it not for the fact that Marvel has basically called 'Dibs' on all of May. By the design of the narrative, she actually gets the most amount of time present, sharing not only the scenes with Jonathon Kent but also some of the expected mother-son scenes when Papa Kent was presumably out of town delivering the harvest and she would be expected to run the entirety of the farm. She's good, she shows why she should be in more films of this type, and she shows a certain toughness to old farmers you'd expect out of a piece of Daedric plate armor.

The one actor, however, that puts this all to shame is Michael Shannon, who takes the role of General Zod and makes you ask "Terence Who?" It's tough for me to say this, because I always found it difficult to reconcile the character development of Zod in the comics since the release of Superman II (Keep to the Richard Donner Cut, the original release is a piece of Cacat) but it's something that's been happening for years, and at this point the story in the films needs a new start. Shannon delivers. Boy, does he deliver. There are a few moments there where you truly understand the villain, and his actions come off as being perfectly in line with his stated intentions. There's a sort of sympathy in there, if only because it becomes apparent that he refuses to see himself as a victim of circumstance even when he is, but Michael Shannon owns the role and this is why I love the guy. Well, this, and his reading of that sorority profanity letter on FunnyOrDie. That stuff's hilarious, but I won't link to it because the sheer amount of profanity in the material that Shannon reads would blow the moderators here to about the same degree as Krypton's destruction.

All of this, however, detracts from one important thing: writing pace. This is the biggest screw-up of the movie, as it speeds certain elements of the mythos to a solar-empowered Kryptonian's top speed while slowing other parts down to about the level you'd expect of molasses running uphill in a New England winter. Clark Kent doesn't become Superman until he's 33, much longer than depicted in the comics, and then Lois Lane launches a blitz into trying to track down a mysterious do-gooder, a film in its own right, only to be interrupted by the rapid arrival of Zod and crew. What follows is more extended dialogue, flashbacks, monologues, and then a seemingly endless climactic fight between super beings. Individually, all good. PResentation: spot on. Hans Zimmer's score, or the magnificent use of visual effects, I don't know what's better.

But it is paced so poorly. And the writing is particularly at fault, which makes it all the more difficult to reconcile the spectacle with the narrative. It feels like a rushed version of the myth, like a recounting of Heracles's Twelve Labors with the first three rushed through, the next seven quietly detailed in exposition, and then a long, drawn-out detailing of every part of the final two, with pages focusing on each step of the journey. They could have done this part better, and the ending feels rushed as a result, shoe-horning a bunch of dangling plot threads to a conclusion that could have been left as the strings for hooking up the sequel. Instead, we get one scene at the end to do this, and it's nowhere near enough to compensate for all the events that were used to wrap up the final big fight scene. That scene, by the way, is about what you'd expect for a knock-down, drag-out fight between Kryptonians, and its resolution is going to remain controversial for a while.

In all, I can state that this is a new Superman. It's got a lot of potential. The ground is fertile for this story. I just wish the next project remembered that the Kents were farmers, and they allowed more even growing to occur while leaving enough left at the end to seed a potential third film or Justice League crossover.

So...you recommend seeing this movie?

Yeah.