Oh my... ...Wow...Fair dues, that was mighty, right there, that was... ...So help me, I might actually read what happens there now... ...



Anyways, completely skipped the Doctor Who episode, Fear Her...The one with the alien in the girl's head and it's ship in the patch of road, and the whole drawing pictures that moved etc...Oh, and the Olympic flame thing...Urgh...Yawn...Wasn't a fan of it back then...Back when the 2012 it was set in was still some way into the future...*Shudders*...So couldn't bring myself to waste a watching with it anyways...

So, skipped forward to Army Of Ghosts, the one where The Doctor and Rose go back to Earth and there's things that the people presume are their dead relatives coming back...And it turns out to be Torchwood and the rift and Cybermen and The Daleks and Tracy Ann Oberman's cleavage...Oh wait...No...That's not...Ooooh!!!...Freema!!!...*Sighs happily*...Freema indeed...

Nevermind...Another one I've not seen in years and thoroughly enjoyed...Yes, I might have actually enjoyed Fear Her...But...Probably not...



Well...She's...Wow... ...

Just watched The Fantastic Four. I'll watch the second one tomorrow

Gods, I do love those films

Warehouse 13...Ye Gods that was the best one ever...Mostly in Spanish...You had to watch it really...But so funny....

Almost Human...Interesting series...Shame it got cancelled...Karl Urban is really excellent in it...Well, he's been excellent in everything I've seen him in anyways, so it's not really a shocker... ...

Killer Elite.

I'm not really sure what to make of it. It has it's good moments and its bad.

*shrug*

Going to see Godzilla!!

He looks fat in all of the pictures I have seen.

Yep. He was huge.

Monstrous, perhaps?... ...




Aaaanyways...Just Castle, last night...

They recently had the finale over there in the US...People were unimpressed by the artificially created jeopardy that they found in the story...It looks like a late final signing on of Nathan Fillion and the network's granting of another series kicked them in the head when it came to a finale story... ...

Still, we're not there yet, over here...So it was awesome!!... ...

So how was G-Zill? Most of the reviews I read say it was good, but not great. They say the cgi G-Z looks excellent. I read in one place that Andy Serkis was even brought in at one point to help them nail down things like facial expressions.

But they also say there is a big slow slump in the middle of the film, and that it seems to miss out on opportunities. One of the strongest things of the original Gojira film (before Raymond Burr came along) was that it really did something with Godzilla being the fruit of nuclear weapons. On one hand he was a rampaging force of nature that was coming back to make humanity pay for its hubris. But as the palentologist from the original movie stressed, Gojira had suffered a massive dose of radiation poisoning and survived. He was the key to overcoming the harmful effects of nuclear power and weapons. My understanding from the reviews is that the new movie misses out on using G-Z as that force of nature, in either respect.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: May 16 2014, 09:53 PM

I really liked Godzilla.

I thought the monster parts were great. The story was interesting and paced in a way that made me anxious for more monster. Usually when they try to be too technical the characters just sound silly, and this movie was vague enough to not distract with pretend science.

The big (in scale) scenes were exciting and often beautiful to see. I suppose that’s art direction. Those guys did a great job. There was one scene that took my breath away, it was that gorgeous. They also did an awesome job of creating suspense. These creatures are HUGE, and yet they managed to create some tense and surprising scenes out of smoke, darkness, claustrophobic cityscapes, and equipment failures.

The small scenes where people were in offices and houses usually provided a lot to look at. Background clutter, rooms that looked lived in, that aspect was well done. However the reason I noticed this is that the human stories were so boring I was looking at the dishes, vintage toys, and cat figurine just like the one a Japanese exchange student gave me during the time period portrayed in the scene. That’s not good. The background should be rich, but in the background. I’m pretty sure I was supposed to care about the characters.

I’d guess that the part the reviewer identified as dragging was the family story. There was a message about the sacrifices made by the families of active military and first responders. At one point someone must have realized that they had accidentally portrayed the protagonists as the actual worst parents in the world, because they spent a lot of time backpedaling and creating a bunch of unlikely happy situations instead of going for grim. It would have been a better movie if one of them had died.

The reviewer completely missed the boat on the force of nature bit. Godzilla was very much a force of nature in this movie. It couldn’t have been plainer. The “wise” character even talked about him in those terms. There were also visual references to earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis in addition to the things that were stated outright. I’d say that the insignificance of human endeavor to nature was a pretty big theme. Of course this Godzilla took a different role than he did in the original movies, so that might have thrown them off.

To me the biggest mistake was trying to develop some of the characters too much. In most cases the points could have been made better with an unnamed series of characters in vignettes rather than the bunch of people they tried to let the audience know personally. We just needed to recognize the humanity in the moment. The backstory was often unnecessary baggage.

There were other cool monsters but the star of course was the big G himself. I thought he looked awesome. There should be a new award for Best Tail. They really seemed to honor the original vision of Godzilla as some sort of pear shaped dinosaur-gorilla-alligator-whale creature unlike anything else. I remember watching the old movies, and from the first glimpse this guy was definitely my Godzilla.

WAS JET JAGUAR THERE?

PLEASE TELL ME HE WAS.

Just watched Joe Kidd.

Pretty good film. Ending was weird though.

Double Person 'o' Interest...Which was properly awesome!!...

Agents of SHIELD...Which was actually not bad at all, really...

NCIS...Always brilliant...Well...These last two have been mostly brilliant...It's been the backdoor pilot for NCIS:New Orleans these last couple...Scott Bakula gets another job!!...And about time too!!...It shows much promise though...Am looking forward to the series when it hits later in the year...

For those old enough to remember it...It also stars a chap that once played a boy called Caleb in a series called American Gothic, starring Gary Cole...I think Caleb was the son of the devil or something...Anyways, he's all growned up and everything now... ...Where the hell did the time go?... ...

And then...We watched....


STAR WARS!!!...Nope...Not, Episode IV - A New Hope...'Cause I'm old enough to remember it NOT being numbered and subtitled...

Bloody STAR WARS!!!...

Yeah, I know...If it's the re-graphic-ed and remastered '97 (or whatever it was) version then it has to be the numbered one...But still...

Bloody STAR WARS!!!... ...

It was much fun!!!...Ooooh, I've just thought of a point to make...Somewhere...

AAaaaanyways...Proper loved watching it again... ...I have missed the Falcon... ...

This post has been edited by McBadgere: May 18 2014, 03:36 AM

Community is awesome.

I watched 11 episodes in a row.

McB - Awesome that you watch STAR WARS! It´s a very good movie wouldn´t you say?

I have the blu-ray set of the Star Wars films. Every once and a while I pull them out and do a Star-a-thon with them too. I still love the first movie as well.

Last night I watched Hell and High Water, with Richard Widmark. I was very unimpressed. So today I broke out Ice Station Zebra, a true masterpiece of Cold War spy action with a submarine. Being an Alistair MacLean story, directed by John Sturges, no wonder. Next up I might give Hunt For Red October another whirl.

Sorry, no Jet Jaguar in this one.

I also went to see The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

I took a little nap during Spider-Man 2, but the parts I was awake for were not very good. The electrical effects looked neat. They didn’t seem to know what to do with the characters, though, and most of the movie made so little sense it would have worked as a parody.

I loved The Grand Budapest Hotel. It was a gorgeous, energetic comedy with moments of true nobility and an undertone of sadness. There was really no character development, but the main characters had layers revealed throughout. The whole thing was a story within a story. I thought the stylized approach worked for that very well.

Ice Station Zebra was the first spy thriller I ever saw. I watched it when it came on TV. It will always be a favorite.

Ah, well at least it wasn't just the McDaughter and I then... ...Shame that...Should have been much better...

I put Grand Budapest in my Netflix queue. It looks interesting, and F Murry Abraham!

Good stories do not really need character development, though it is certainly nice when it happens. It all depends on where in the MICE quotient the story focuses most upon. There are basically 4 things one can focus on: Milieu, Idea, Character, Event. Every story has some measure of all 4, but typically one is central.

Milieu stories focus on the setting itself, making it come alive in as a real, living, breathing place. The characters are basically there to move through the world and show it off to us as they discover it themselves.

Idea stories are mysteries, and the story is spent trying to solve the mystery. Typically the main character is a detective of some sort, who rarely actually evolves or develops as a character. Instead they are often full of interesting quirks or layers to their personality, which are revealed to the reader as the story progresses. Or not. Ice Station Zebra is that kind of story, as it is all about finding the missing film.

Character stories obviously depend upon character development!

Finally Event stories are about showing some large or small event taking place, and the characters are basically witnesses. Typically there is some problem with the world, and it needs to be fixed. An asteroid is going to crash into it, the Nazis are going to take over, etc... Often there are multiple view point characters in order to see the events from every point of view. The movie Midway is a good example. There is a little bit of character development as Chuck Heston's character grapples with the fact that his estranged-son is in love with a half-Japanese girl, we see him making the attempt to move beyond it, even intercede with the FBI, and mend fences with The Boy. But in the end the film is all about the battle itself and Chuck is just there so we can see it unfold through his eyes. The movie World War Z is another good example, as it is about stopping the zombie menace, and the main character himself does not grow or change as a person. Instead he jets around the world, showing us the effects of the zombie apocalypse all over the place, and finally helps discover a way to protect people from the zombies.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: May 19 2014, 05:11 PM

Hawaii, NCIS:LA, Man vs Weird, Ripping Yarns, Warehouse 13 and Doctor Who - Doomsday, the last one with Billie Piper being a regular...Ended with Catherine Tate ( ) on the TARDIS in a wedding dress...