Watching the new Kolchack: The Night Stalker got me in the mood to see the original series with Darren McGavin. I have been just loving them. I would not call it good, but it is a ton of fun. Darren McGavin and Simon Oakland (the editor Vinchenzo) are just great together. I just love their arguments!

I also noticed something. The new show from 2005's episodes are about 42 minutes long. When I was watching Babylon 5 before it (from 1995) the episodes were 44 minutes and change. The original Night Stalker from 1974 were 51 minutes long! We have been getting robbed of airtime by the commercials! Lousy money-grubbing networks...

I’ve been watching Longmire, a quiet crime series set in modern Wyoming. I am generally not a fan of CSI type shows, so watching a low-tech rural sheriff’s department deal with so far pretty simple crimes is enjoyable to me. These guys don’t talk about trace evidence. They have to figure it out.

I also like the somewhat bleak setting and taciturn locals. When the newcomer characters come on the scene the cultural differences are evident without any explaining. Even the wardrobe choices speak. For example one woman’s clothing and accessories look western, but they’re the sort of things one might buy from an expensive catalog. That’s not an accident.

The main character is likeable but has real issues. It takes an entire season for the most recent backstory to be revealed, and by then the characters are ready to be real with each other rather than sharing a round of the swelling-music-hugs so often shown.

We’re almost caught up. There’s a this season marathon on A&E this weekend, and then the new episodes air Mondays. (In the US.)

Longmire is in my instant viewing queue on Netflix, same with Continuum, which also looks neat. I just have not gotten the time to watch either yet.

Over the last three nights we've watched the Jurassic Park movies...We quite enjoyed them really...There was good and bad in all of them...But still a decent watch...

The wife and I were shocked at how many bits that we remembered from the cinema seemed to be cut out...And we can't for the life of us figure why?...

Usually cutting for time is done for the cinema - hence the extended version DVDs...*Shrug*...makes no sense why...

Just watched "Stand Up Guys" and enjoyed it immensely. It was a fun movie that kept me entertained for the entire play time.

I watched The Seven Samurai a few days ago. A simply outstanding movie. But a bit long at 3.5 hours. Toshiro Mifune was just spectacular. I read that he had been originally cast as the kensai, and it was going to be The Six Samurai. But after thinking about it, Kurosawa decided that six stone-faced samurai would be a bit too staid. So he added the character of Kikuchiyo (whom I will always lovingly think of as "The Monkey Boy"), and recast Mifune in the role. He wanted a character who was off-kilter, that would add some fun to the whole thing, and gave Mifune a lot of license in making that happen. It worked!

Dude. Jurassic Park was my childhood movie. When I was seven all I did was watch The Lost World over and over

It was my favorite dinosaur movie of all time. Still is.

Same here, DE. Same here.

This reminds me of cereal boxes. The net weight of cereal boxes has gotten lighter and lighter over the decades. Like they think we won't notice. Ha!

(Most of you are probably too young to know what I'm talking about, but hey... )

Jurassic Park was and still is good. The Lost World was and still is crap.

Just watched The Good, The Bad, The Weird. It was a very fun Asian Western, and obviously an homage to The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Though it also has homages to several other classic westerns as well. Its pretty much a straight action shoot-em up, and surprisingly funny as well. I loved the music. If you like Asian films, and Westerns, you will probably have a good time with this.

Despicable Me 2...Yes please!! Thank you...

Brilliant film...Loved it hugely...

Heh-heh-heh...Buttum!!...

Not watching anything ta the moment. But tonight, ThatSkyrimWife, ThatSkyrimYoungin, and I will be watching....wait for it...FIREWORKS! Our town has decided that the weekend before July 4th is preferable to the actual day or the weekend after.

Along with our rotation of Netflix streaming shows...

Second season of Men of a Certain Age. I mostly was interested because of Andre Braugher... but Ray Romano and Scott Bakula do quite well too.

Just got the complete "Crime Story" with Dennis Farina and Anthony Denison. It is a "bit" dated- more so than "Homicide", for example. But- the things that drew me to it originally are still there- the look and feel of the early 60's- the ambiguity of cops who bend the law almost to the breaking point (and who came from the same neighborhood as the criminals).

And add us to those watching and enjoying "Longmire."

Last night, we watched Gladiator for the first time in years...

I saw that film 5 times in the cinema...I absolutely loved it with a passion...

Everything about it - at the time - was perfect for me...The story was proper full-on brilliant; Russell Crowe was amazing; the pre-Spartacus gladiator bits were brilliant...As for the soundtrack...Quite possibly Hans Zimmer's finest moment...

Sadly, it doesn't seem to be aging quite as well as some films...The few CGI visual effects that there were (done by the company that later did the Doctor Who effects) seem cheap...Some of the physical effects look false...

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved watching it again, and will absolutely watch it another squillion* times before I eventually croak...But I think its HBO origins were shown up because of 300 and the Spartacus TV show that we watched...

Spartacus did do the Gladiator thing so much better...And yes, it had a longer time scale to do it in, but the soldier that became a slave that became a gladiator that defied the romans story seemed to be better told over said scale...

But, again, I did absolutely love watching Gladiator again...And the soundtrack is still truly amazing...




*Approximate number...

I just watched All About Eve. I'm a little ashamed to say that I've never seen a Bette Davis movie before. Holy cow, that woman was really something! I was stunned. As soon as she entered a scene I stopped paying attention to the other actors and watched her. I have a serious crush on Bette Davis now.

Oddly, somehow she seemed to me more modern than the other actors in the movie. I don't know quite how to explain it. The other actors seemed as though they belonged in that period, in the late forties/early fifties. But I could easily picture the Bette Davis of this movie existing in the 2010's.

I am going to make it my personal mission to track down more of her movies now.

That is a really good Bette Davis. She plays that character type so well. Another good one is "Dead Ringer"

Six words...What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?...an absolute classic!

Yes!

Regular Show.

WATCH IT!

High five!!


The Lost World wasn't amazing, but it was sure better than that Jurassic Park III flick!

I liked the third one. The ending was the only thing that fell flat for me, as it was obviously rushed. But that is what happens when you have to write a brand new script just a few weeks before shooting, and still don't have it finished during production.

It is true that by the third movie, the whole "being chased by dinosaurs" thing was getting a bit stale. But if you just ignore the second movie (which I consider a wise choice), it is not so repetitive.

Westworld - Yul Brynner

Good one!

Have a Yulathon, and follow it up with Magnificent Seven, and the King and I.

I love "The King and I" version with Yul, my favorite remake of it!

Last Saturday "Magnificent Seven" came on - I was doing my weekend cleaning and didn't find out till it was halfway through. I came in just as Yul was holding up 6 fingers. It was on a station with no commercials, so I missed a bit more as I cleaned. It didn't come on again either, so technically I missed it. I'm keeping my eye out for it to come back on.

Was the "Seven Samurai" subtitled? (and of the two, which was your favorite?)

So far as I know Seven Samurai only comes in Japanese with English subtitles. I do not think anyone has ever dubbed it. Though I could be wrong. I prefer it that way. I hate dubbing. Movies are always best in their native language, because you hear the emotions of the actor. Dubbing is always flat and dull. Plus, if you watch enough in the native tongue, you start to learn a few words. Its also in black and white, so if you do not like bw movies, then that will be a turn off.

Seven Samurai was definitely my favorite over The Magnificent Seven. Though at three and a half hours, it does drag a bit. Both movies have their charms though. Horst Bucholz was fantastic as Chico in Mag 7, and Toshiro Mifune was incredible in Samurai. Eli Wallach definitely made a much better villain in Mag 7. The big bad in Samurai does not even get any lines! He just looks menacing in an eyepatch. OTOH, Kyuzo (the sword saint) in Samurai is just fantastic, he's like a superhero, much more awe-inspiring than James Coburn was in Mag 7.

I agree 100% on dubbed voices, ususally so deadpan emotionally that you can almost see them reading the lines from a script. I'd much rather have the subtitles too. I'll bet the only channel that will carry it here will be Sundance, if it will carry a movie that long.

Do get Netflix? That or another service like Hulu is probably you best bet.

I've seen it advertised on Comcast's home page, don't have it. I might be able to find it on Pay-per-view, I didn't think of checking there.

As far as I'm concerned Seven Samurai is worth buying. I think it is one of the finest films in cinema history. I have a huge collection of Kurosawa on DVD and they were worth every penny to me.

Of course, I collect DVDs, and I suppose not everybody does. I like to be able to watch a film that is particularly important to me on impulse, like reading a book. I have probably single-handedly kept Criterion financially afloat for several years now.

It turns out that someone over in the fiction forum is writing a story based upon the Seven Samurai. You might want to go look at it...

A TES VERSION!

OH MY GOD,I HOPE THEY FIGHT A GIANT ARMY......OF GOBLINS!

I'm watching Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

Moogley is crying over a dead bear and everyone is racist.

It's a good movie.

I started watching a new show last night on FX called The Bridge. It's a crime drama about a serial killer in El Paso, TX / Juarez, Mexico. It is set in today's time and has the Juarez drug cartel and Mexican police corruption as back drops, as well as a female El Paso homicide detective as the protagonist, and she has emotional issues. Looks pretty good so far...we'll see...

Thank you. I don't usually read fan fiction, but I will read yours.

ParaNorman.

8.8/10

Check it out.

Pacific Rim.

Where can I start with this movie? Directed by Guillermo del Torro(Hellboy Pan's Labyrinth, Mama, Splice) , starring a bunch of people I've never seen before (besides one guy, who had a fifteen minute part, but was still great)

I walked into the theater not knowing what it was about. My roommate told me "Giant robots fighting monsters."

Okay. I can sit through that.

I saw the run time. Two hours and eleven minutes. Sigh. okay...

Totally worth it.



The movie comes in 3D and regular and what I REALLY like is usually, when a movie is meant for 3D, you can tell. This one was amazing without 3D. i can't watch 3D, it makes me sick. I tried watching Avatar without 3D, and I was like "Why is everyone so close to the camera?!"

But this was great. Totally worth the money to spend seeing it in theaters.

So remember I mentioned that podcast(TGS) well......just watch.

Thank me later.

Also if you're confused,Dodger(the girl),Jesse Cox(The girls Pafic Rim robot co-pilot thingy) and Totalbiscuit(The englishman) are the hosts of the podcast.

This is a fan-made film made in a deal with Warner Bros. by TheGameStation.

Watched this the other day, great fun.
Also wanting to watch Pacific Rim.
Animation wise, Hotel Transylvania is good fun.

I loved Hotel Transylvania! I fell asleep during ParaNorman.

It is a lot of fun.

Been on a bit of a western trip while I've been quiet of late...

Did the Magnificent Seven...Well totes obvs dahling... ...

Terrence Hill's Trinity films (They Call Me Trinity/Trinity Is Still My Name)...

And the serious film he did with Henry Fonda called My Name Is Nobody...It's actually the Trinity character again, it's just that they thought it would work in a more serious kind of film...Not one to watch if you're a horse lover though... ...The final set-piece is...Not for horse lovers...Put it that way...

Oh, and we watched the latest Ghost Rider film...It was alright...Could be worse...


EDIT!!!!...We loved both Paranorman and Hotel Transylvania... ...Brilliant films...

ParaNorman was amazeballsirific.

I watched Fog of War yesterday. It was an outstanding documentary about Robert McNamara. What I found really fascinating was the behind the scenes look it gave at the decision-making at the highest levels of power in America. The recordings of his conversations with Kennedy and Johnson were real eye-openers. I did not know that he recommended to Kennedy that we withdraw our people from Vietnam, or that he opposed troop escalation there under Johnson. In fact the latter is what got him fired. He sent a memo to Pres. Johnson saying that the war was unwinnable and that we needed to get out. That was the final straw.

I also found his insights into the Cuban Missile Crisis to be equally fascinating, and far more chilling. As he put it, rational, logical people nearly brought about World War 3. Kennedy did not initially believe that a peaceful solution was possible. The ambassador to the Soviet Union - Llewellyn "Tommy" Thompson - disagreed, and insisted that diplomacy would work, because he knew Kruschchev. If Kruschchev could come out of it and tell the world that he saved Cuba from invasion, then he would look like a hero to his people. So he could withdraw the nuclear weapons from Cuba under those circumstances. Which is ultimately what happened.

The really scary thing though is that in a conversation that McNamara had with Castro many years later, Castro not only admitted that he had well over a hundred nuclear warheads in Cuba the time, but said that if the U.S. had invaded he would have used them against us, even though it would have also meant the utter annihilation of Cuba in return (and then of course a full Soviet counter-strike against America, and vice-versa). If Thompson had not been able to empathize with Kruschchev and his position, and convince Kennedy to act on that, we'd all be dead. One man saying no to the president saved the world.

For people who want to know more about history, or who would just like a look at the inner workings of politics, then I highly recommend this film.

Supernatural...Bloody excellent series which kinda lost its way a little the past couple of seasons...Not any more, soooo excellent!!...So glad it's back to ass-kickingly awesome!!...

SHHHHHHHH I haven't seen it after season four!

Adventure Time,this zombie episode is actually kinda,depressing.

Monsters University...

Excellent film, if not quite as good as the first one...Like Cars 2, I loved the first one so much that I was left feeling a little flat by the sequel (prequel in this case)...The others of the family thought it was brilliant, amazing and I kinda thought, "Yeah, it was excellent...But..."...Y'know?...I felt it missed some of the charm of the first one...As it's a prequel, it seem to spend too much time hinting at the other one...

It was excellent though...

Muchly looking forward to Planes though...Aerolanes was my thing when I was a boy...And that they've done a film like Cars for them...Yes please!... ...

It's not harming that they're using Jeff Lynne's Don't Bring Me Down in the trailer either... ...

Man of Steel was a fantastic movie. I enjoyed it. Now I can't wait for Man of Steel 2! And it is confirmed that Batman will make an appearance in the new Man of Steel movie in 2015.

Any word on who they are looking for to play Bats in the sequel? Christian Bale? or will they go to someone new?



I have been watching Warriors, hosted by Terry Schappert. It is a very cool show. Shappert is a Green Beret and veteran of three tours in Iraq. He explores a different warrior culture in every episode. The vikings, medieval knights, samurai, Germanic tribesmen, etc... The real fun part for me is the fighting demonstrations he goes through with recreationists, learning the ins and outs of how they fought. At the same time he goes into the ethos of each warrior culture, explaining what motivated them, what codes of conduct they lived by, etc... As a warrior himself he shows a great deal of respect for these people. Plus you can see that some of it is just a lot of fun! (since no one is actually being killed).

As a writer, I find myself taking notes. The fighting techniques are the real deal, how people actually fought. As someone who grew up hearing the so called 'experts' on history describing knights, vikings, and such as being nothing more than thugs in armor blindly waving crude weapons around until someone finally died, this show is a wonderful dose of reality. Take the German clubman, the most common type of Germanic warrior when they first met the Romans. He's a guy with a small shield and wooden club. Does not sound like much does it? But that club has been cut so that its striking side tapers to a narrow edge, putting all of the energy of the blow into that very small area. One hit is far more than enough to shatter bone. So this is a weapon that kill or immobilize your opponent in just a second.

I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to add some realism to their writing. In fact, some of the things in the Vikings episode have already made its way into Seven.