Now Showing - What We Watched - Page 243

Originally Posted by HopefulFred 

I know this isn't what this thread is supposed to be about, but I did just watch this. And I like it very much.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSoIs4wfaeM
It's the Star Trek: Into Darkness trailer. I'm very excited.

Originally Posted by J_P_A 

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 - ??????
I'm not sure what to say about this........ My wife wants to go see the Part 2 in a couple of weeks, so I thought I should catch up before we go. It's been a couple years since I've seen any of the movies (procrastinating I guess), so I'd forgotten what I was in for. There were parts of this movie that were laugh out loud funny, though they were not supposed to be. It sort of reminded me of one of those spoof movies, e.g. Scary Movie, at times. Even my wife commented that it seemed really cheesy when taken out of context. That context being a room/theater full of the target audience I suppose. With all that said, I did think to myself more than once that it's not a bad thing to have a movie that's driven by the story. I don't necessarily get into that sort of story, but it's a nice change to watch a movie where I don't just get to watch the firey explosions and fighting robots Perhaps the worst part is the story would have been over a long time ago if I had written it. There would have been a fight between the two guys. The LOSER has to take the girl! She's WAY too much trouble!
Now for the bad news, after the movie, I realized that there are already four on BR, which means I missed the third one in there somewhere. Well, "missed" might be the wrong word there
On an unrelated note, has anyone seen my man card laying around? I seem to have misplaced it!

Representatives of the leading news services were in the network, and Shelia selected individuals randomly to pose their questions.

The first one, as luck would have it, was from the Gotham Times. "Tyrant, when will the next elections be held?"

There was a murmur of humor at the manner in which he addressed me, but I knew that my preference for exactly that title would soon be accepted. His question set me back. I hadn't thought about elections, but, of course, I had abolished Congress, and I myself had taken power through no elective process. Would I step aside in four years to allow a new president to be elected? I didn't have to. Yet elections had always been vital to our system. There would be broad and deep popular outrage if I did not commit myself to the restoration of elections.

"There will surely be elections," I said somewhat lamely, "but I'm not sure when."

Then they were on me, figuratively, like a pack of wolves. If I was serious about future elections, why couldn't I name the date? Was I in fact planning to remain a dictator for life? Did I think the people would stand for that? How could there be congressional elections if there was no Congress? I answered as well as I could, which wasn't really adequate. I felt like a less-than-bright student before a university panel. I had to promise to try to come up with better answers, after researching the matter.

Then a respected member of the Holo Guild had his turn. "Tyrant, suppose I were to call you a gnat-brained, pigheaded, philandering son of a spic?"

Suddenly there was silence in the chamber and on the air, and probably all around Jupiter, for this was being broadcast live. I knew what he was doing: He was testing my commitment to the freedom of the press, which encompassed all the present media. Actually Spirit had arranged to plant the question without telling me; that was her little bit of teasing.

It took me only a moment to recover. I hauled my open mouth closed. "I really don't think of myself as gnat-brained," I responded.

There was a pause as the audience assimilated the significance of that. Then the laughter began, timorously at first, swelling to heroic proportion. It was, I think, comprised mostly of relief. I had answered the true question: There would be no censorship. If the Tyrant himself could be openly insulted, without consequence, then anyone could.

In all my tenure as Tyrant I never suppressed the press.

-- "Bio of a space tyrant, book 4, Executive" by Piers Anthony

Originally Posted by RTROSE 

They are horrendous, poorly written, acted, and cheesy to the point of being funny.

Originally Posted by BasementBob 

.......................
4/5 Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977)
..................

Originally Posted by BasementBob 

I really never thought of it as being funny.

Originally Posted by RTROSE 

............They are horrendous, poorly written, acted, and cheesy to the point of being funny. ...............

Originally Posted by J_P_A 

Are we talking about the same twilight here?

Stephen King stated, "the real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer, and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."
King went on to say that He further explains,
Wayne Janes stated, "teens, fantasy enthusiasts and women (sales are mostly to females) who swoon at the idea of a virginal James Dean-ish vampire made Meyer the go-to gal for chaste love"

Incident #680

Submitted By: Jack Henderson

Revokee: Jason Sobey

Reason For Revocation:

On December 5th 2012, the accused went to a cinema to watch the new “Twilight” film. And to make things worse, the accused made a Facebook post saying that “Twilight was not bad”.

http://officialmancard.com/category/revocations/

This review is from: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part 1

Bella (Kristen Stewart, who seems horrified at even having to FAKE sex with a man) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) are finally getting married... and we get to see every single step of it. Everything. We see hairstyling, shoes, invitations, furniture arrangement, awkward toasts and the newlyweds making out at the altar (classy!). Oh, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) freaks out when he discovers that Bella plans to actually (gasp!) have sex with Edward on their honeymoon.

So they finally have melodramatic sex... only for Bella to get lightly bruised, which upsets Edward so much that he refuses to have sex with Bella again

But then, Bella unexpectedly gets pregnant (wow, sex leads to pregnancy! WHAT A TWIST!). Excepting Rosalie, the Cullens all want her to abort the baby, but Bella refuses to do so even though it's killing her. This threatens to spark off another battle between the werewolves and vampires, because Bella is the center of the universe.

The worst thing about this dreadful movie is that they broke the ludicrous "Breaking Dawn" story into two separate movies. This works when you have an epic story ("The Hobbit") or a plot-heavy one ("Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows"). But for a tween-porn romance about how special Bella is for having a functioning uterus, it's the kiss of death.

So to fill out all the space NOT occupied by plot or characterization, the movie is crammed with padding. Lots of padding. Endless padding. We're forced to watch Bella shaving her legs, lounging around the house, and listening to hideously unfunny wedding toasts (except for Charlie's). Even the SEX feels like it has been padded -- I spent most of the PG-13 sex scenes wondering if Bella would ever change expression during sex (and no, she didn't).

But the movie REALLY jumps the rails when Bella gets knocked up with her demonspawn. Suddenly we're assaulted with hellish birth scenes, sexual fantasies about a newborn baby, and ghastly CGI wolves. And whenever those CGI wolves are onscreen, the mood jumps from "stoned" to "hilariously hammy" ("I AM THE GRANDSON OF THE CHIEF!").

The acting is pretty much what you would expect. Kristen Stewart's Bella is her usual self -- graceless, mumbly, whiny, plain as yogurt. She spends most of the movie either LITERALLY begging Edward for sex or cuddling up next to Jacob.

As for Jacob... well, kiss any likable qualities in this character goodbye. After ranting about the evils of imprinting, he becomes a brainwashed pedophile engaged to a baby. And everyone is okay with this.

Originally Posted by J_P_A 

or fighting robots.

"That thing belongs in a museum."
"We all do"

For many years, the original nitrate film negative was thought to have been lost in an Allied air raid in 1942 that destroyed a leading laboratory outside Paris.[3] Prints of the film were rediscovered in 1958 and restored and re-released during the early 1960s. Then, it was revealed that the original negative had been shipped back to Berlin (probably due to the efforts of Frank Hensel) to be stored in the Reichsfilmarchiv vaults. In the Allied occupation of Berlin in 1945, the Reichsfilmarchiv by chance was in the Russian zone and consequently shipped along with many other films back to be the basis of the Soviet Gosfilmofond film archive in Moscow. The negative was returned to France in the 1960s, but sat unidentified in storage in Toulouse Cinémathèque for over 30 years, as no one suspected it had survived. It was rediscovered in the early 1990s as the Cinémathèque's nitrate collection was slowly being transferred to the French Film Archives at Bois d'Arcy.

In August 1999, Rialto Pictures re-released the film in the United States, based on the Cinematheque negative found in Toulouse; after watching the new print at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas, Janet Maslin called it "beautifully refurbished" and "especially lucid." The print was restored and released as the inaugural DVD of the Criterion Collection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Grande_Illusion

Originally Posted by The Mice 

As far as I was concerned, The Twilight Saga movies are strictly for a teenage audience. Before I realized what this series was about, I one time was invited over to a friend's place to watch one of the movies (not sure which one anymore) and we all agreed it was instantly forgettable.

Originally Posted by RTROSE 

Yeah, that is what I would say too.
Just joking of course. I think your spot on in your assessment, however that does not explain why my wife, my sister in law, and over half the women I work with go nuts over this drivel. (All well into their 30's and 40's)
Regards,
RTROSE

Originally Posted by tony123 

I use Flixter to browse movies and then go to Netflix to see if they have it. I believe Netflix "hides" movies to manipulate the flow of inventory. Just a theory.

Originally Posted by RTROSE 

Yeah, that is what I would say too.
Just joking of course. I think your spot on in your assessment, however that does not explain why my wife, my sister in law, and over half the women I work with go nuts over this drivel. (All well into their 30's and 40's)
Regards,
RTROSE

Originally Posted by J_P_A 

or fighting robots.

Well what I do is just type what I'm interested in into the search box and go from there. I usually just type in a specific title that I'm interested in and then look at the other suggestions that are there as well.

I believe Netflix "hides" movies to manipulate the flow of inventory. Just a theory.