I'm currently watching what might just be my favourite movie of all time: Dungeons and Dragons. Love this film.

Also, I watched episode 1 of Vikings earlier. Looks promising.

This post has been edited by Callidus Thorn: May 30 2015, 11:39 PM

If it is the one where they have duplicated a trapped dungeon and have a real person trying to work his way through it - I loved that one! It was so well done!

I have been having a Fast and Furious-thon. Last week I did the 4th, 5th, and 6th movies in order. Yesterday I did the first one. Wow, Vin Diesel had such a baby face in that one! Now I am down to the 2nd movie, which at least has the bright spot of Ludacris. Then that will be all (I refuse to subject myself to the horror of the 3rd movie...)

My older son looks like Vin Diesel:


http://i434.photobucket.com/albums/qq67/Ma...zps6eb1f5a1.jpg



(sorry about the finger, he was tired of having his picture taken).

What I'm NOT watching: "Whispers."



GAAAAAAAH!!!!!



*shivers*

Your son needs to shave it all off, and drive a little faster and furiouser!

Just saw Mad Max: Fury Road. It was ok. Basically it is one big car chase, with lots of fire, explosions, and people being killed in extremely violent ways. What we all look forward to in a Mad Max movie!

The Good: The vehicles in this are more amazing to look at than in the previous movies. They are really weird, over the top devices concocted from a mad man's brain. Like what is basically a tank, but with the body of what I think was a 1970 Challenger. The car battles are also way beyond anything we have seen in a Mad Max movie as well. They got really inspired, and quite inventive in thinking of ways to annihilate vehicles and people.

The bad guys are also far beyond what we have seen before. They are a bunch of religious psychopaths called the War Boys, whose only wish is to die in battle on the road, in order to go to Valhalla. They spray their faces with what might be silver paint before they go all kamikaze. Chroming themselves up like a car. They are also really sick. I don't just mean morally. They seem to have various forms of cancer and/or leukemia, thanks to the post-nuclear armageddon fallout. So they use the few healthy people left in the wasteland as 'blood bags', literally living off of transfusions of their blood.

They are led by a really creepy guy who spends all of the movie wearing this horrific mask and armor. I took one look at him and thought "If that is supposed to scare me, it's working!". He keeps a harem of the last hot girls in the wasteland, and my guess would be is the only one allowed to breed. As villains go, these guys are the best in the series, for both menace, and creep factor.

Said women escape with the help of Charlize Theron's character Furiousa. She was very cool. She has a half-shaven head, paints her forehead with black grease, and has a mechanical left arm. She basically drives the whole movie, literally as well as figuratively.

The Bad: Tom Hardy as Max. He is the worst part of the movie. Mel Gibson may be an anti-semitic ass, but at least he has charisma, and some measure of actual talent. You were always looking at Mel whenever he was on the screen in the original movies. Tom Hardy is just boring, and his Max does not really do a whole lot of anything. He spends the first 20 minutes or so as a captive of the War Boys, and is just along for the ride for the rest of the film.

It really is not a Mad Max movie at all. It is a Furiosa movie. I think it would have been better if they had just not named the character Max and dropped the idea of it being another Mad Max movie. It would have been better as Furiosa: Fury Road (or maybe something a bit less alliterative). That way we viewers would know exactly what we are getting.

The plot is not much to talk about either. The movie is basically one big chase, with occasional pauses between explosions and gory murders. But hey, no one goes to see a Mad Max movie expecting a brilliant script. So I don't really hold that against the movie.

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jun 11 2015, 02:44 PM

I saw the trailer the other day. It seemed much more focused on Furioso than on Max. In fact, Max seemed like such a wallflower next to Charlize Theron.

I loved Mad Max though I'm saying this as someone who has never seen or really heard of the others. I can definitely see where Borderlands got its inspiration from! Max definitely was a wallflower. He could have been left out of the entire movie and it would have been just as good.



While I wait for Orange is the New Black, I've gotten into a novela called Maria la del Barrio. I think I know why my great-grandma and great-aunt would spend hours watching these shows! Maria la del Barrio is about a you girl who lives in a slum with her godmother. Together, they go through the dump and get things to recycle or sell (I think). When her godmother dies, a wealthy man takes her in as an act of charity. She's had a love at first sight going on with the elder son, Luis Fernando, for awhile ever since she passed him in a church.

Luis Fernando is an irresponsible drunk who is feeling very bitter towards women after his ex cheated on him. Being the eldest, his parents want him to be more responsible, but his mother babies him too much.

Meanwhile, his distant cousin, Soraya, schemes to marry him in order to secure the family fortune and resorts to he Nanny Calixta's witchcraft to try and force his heart.

The younger brother has feelings for Maria, but she's head over heels for Luis Fernando.

One of the maids cares for Maria like a mother and another maid despises her.

If nothing else, I'm learning a lot more Spanish watching this!

Dragonheart.

One of my favourite movies of all time.

And the only film ever to capture Sean Connery in his true form

That is among my list of favorites too; it is timeless, funny, touching, and so well done.






This post has been edited by mALX: Jun 12 2015, 08:02 PM

Colombiana



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1657507/






This post has been edited by mALX: Jun 13 2015, 07:04 PM

Whispers. Hope the lights don't go out with the storm tonight ....

I have been watching the Alien Quadrology. Wow, these movies are still great. I was stunned at how good the first movie looks on blu-ray. While the exterior shots of the Nostromo were obviously done with models, the interiors look like a real spacecraft, that you could step right into tomorrow. Naturally I watched the Director's Cut from 2003.

Today I am on Aliens, and watching the Director's Cut of that too, which adds another half hour or so of footage. One interesting thing is that Aliens was made with the Theatrical version of Alien in mind. So when the marines get to the Alien nest Ripley is just as puzzled by how it all looks as everyone else. But in the Director's Cut of Alien, there is a scene where Ripley finds the Captain and skinny maintenance guy in a similar nest, all cocooned up against the walls. That was shot with the original movie, but ended up on the cutting room floor (probably to reduce the running time, the reason most things get cut).

I do love the little Terminator references that James Cameron worked into Aliens. When Ripley first meets Bishop and learns that he is an android, Burke says the android from the Nostromo was a Hyperdyne Systems. In the Terminator, Cyberdyne Systems was originally Hyperdyne Systems in the first draft of the Terminator script.

A little later in the dropship Hudson is bragging to Ripley about their firepower, and says they have phased plasma rifles. That was in the Terminator, in the gun shop scene, Ahnold asks the owner for "a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range".

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jul 6 2015, 03:06 PM

Watched another couple of episodes of Vikings today. Still think it's a damn good series, for the most part. There are one or two bits that really piss me off though, like that damn malformed mystic, who has no business being in the show.

But apart from that, I'm loving the show

That annoys me too. My guess is that they are trying to appeal to their predominately Christian audience by portraying the Pagan holy person as being a twisted creature, rather than a healthy, 'normal' person. Even that aside, the guy is completely useless. I don't see why anyone would waste their time talking to him. He never has anything useful to say, not even in the form of generic advice like: "Odin Say: Don't Run With Scissors."

This post has been edited by SubRosa: Jul 6 2015, 03:07 PM

That was pretty much my guess as well. If anything it just makes me madder. I can only hope he doesn't pop up too much later on(I'm only five episodes in) otherwise I'm going to spend ten minutes ranting everytime he does.




On another note, just watched Enemy at the Gates. Pretty good film. Didn't like that last bit in the hospital though, seemed kind of unnecessary.

Watched the new Disney Pixar film, Inside Out.

It follows the story of a young girl, but through her emotions (Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness) which are personified as little people working in her mind. It explores the human mind as the young girl goes through a stressful time in her life. The way things like memory and personality are shown is really fun and the whole concept is great.

The way it deals with things such as depression is really really well done, as it doesn't just try to make light of the whole situation, and you can really see where they put the effort in. During the film's design and writing they consulted psychologists to help them get these things right, and it really shows.

Fun, cute, one of the best animated films I've seen for a while. Definitely recommend it.





Also watched Jurassic World. It was ok.

The idea is that some fancy corporate types splice some DNA together and make a super dinosaur, which of course breaks loose and starts killing everything in sight. Why they didn't make a super herbivore to start with, I have no idea.

Enter Chris Pratt, the military-man-turned-dino-trainer who dashes around saying cool stuff and being a badass. Accompanying our hero is a corporate lady whose only notable feature is the ability to run in heels, and two children - One of whom is more interested in girls than dinosaurs, whilst the other is very excitable and annoying. The entire film is a big game of hide and seek with the big scary dinosaur, and we see very little of the park itself.

Special effects were good, fight scene at the end was quite good, first 3/4 of the film was average. I was looking forward to it so much, but I just prefer more dinosaurs with my dinosaur films

This post has been edited by hazmick: Jun 22 2015, 09:01 PM

Watched episode 6 of Vikings earlier.

Damn did it piss me off.

Some of it, most of it actually, was great, but there were two things that ruined it for me.

That bloody burning boat funeral scene.

And that scene talking about Ragnarok. It was a beautifully done scene, utterly ruined by that malformed mystic jackass delivering the most pathetic and inept summary of Ragnarok I've ever had the misfortune to hear.

Such a damn shame.

I'll keep on watching though, the good does outweigh the bad.