What are you watching and enjoying?

[slothian]

Hunt down the Thick of It, it's Iannucci's best work.

I really like The Thick of It as a satire of what British politics basically is today. I don't find it to be all that funny though.

The Long Good Friday: Bob Hoskins' breakout role. He's great as a London mob boss who's having a really bad day at the hands of an unknown threat. Also stars Helen Mirren as his moll and Pierce Brosnan in a memorable cameo role.

Event Horizon: Here's the thing about Paul W S Anderson. When I say I don't like his films, I mean strictly when he decides he's going to write/produce the film and shunt his wife into the lead female role - his direction is actually pretty good on the whole. He's essentially Britain's Tim Burton. This film holds up really well, barring the odd shonky effect. Larry Fishburne and Sam Neill play very nicely off of each other and Sean Pertwee going around swearing is always fun, particularly when he's facially the spitting image of the Third Doctor.

Amadeus: Not a film everyone's going to enjoy, nor is it factually accurate, but the source material is so strong that it's a joy to see it was realised on film so expertly. Given that both were nominated for Best Actor nods, I always wonder why F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce didn't become bigger names. But the reason to watch this film is to watch one man's bitter descent into destroying his more superior rival, set against the music of that era.

And yes, in the interest of full disclosure, I went to a posh school and took part in a stage version of it in a minor role.

[Stavros]

Hunt down the Thick of It, it's Iannucci's best work.

I really like The Thick of It as a satire of what British politics basically is today. I don't find it to be all that funny though.

You don't find the state of British politics funny?

[slothian]

Hunt down the Thick of It, it's Iannucci's best work.

I really like The Thick of It as a satire of what British politics basically is today. I don't find it to be all that funny though.

You don't find the state of British politics funny?

Laughable and funny aren't the same thing.

[JasonC]

The state of British Politics is more laughable than X-Factor. And that includes Rylan Clark...

[KnightWing]

Wait. You mean there are other countries in the world BESIDES America? Like, with their own politics and everything? Holy shit. Has anyone told CNN?

[Stavros]

The Crow II: City of Angels- inspired by recent earth 2 shows and the recent nWo doumentary (Sting) I've decided to watch all the Crow movies, with the main objective of figuring out if it's anywhere near as bad as the Highlander franchise. For most of my thoughts check out my live tweeting job from last night. Couple of things with mentioning though- The Crow has raised a child that wears a leather vest on bare skin as standard, which must get him beaten up at school. Secondly, the whole reason that they get killed is because the kid hears gunshots and in his excitement, runs out of their home into the street to see what's happening. It's no use mourning that this kid was killed by a ruthless drug gang, he'd have run into traffic by the time he was 10. There is fun stuff here, the villain is the bounty hunter from Firefly's Objects in Space, and he's very similar in style. Objectively it's very nicely shot, it's not an ugly film. Everything else misses the mark or is a blatant retread. There's an evil asian henchwoman, the bad guy attacks the crow to depower our hero and kidnaps someone to draw him in etc. The most WTF moment has to go to when The Crow blows up a building and then his bird flies by three palm trees that spontaneously combust as well, all to the dulcet tones of the worse remix of "I'm your boogieman" I've ever heard-

Oh, and just so you know, the hero fails. The person he was trying to save died. Everyone died. There's no fucking point to this movie.

[Venneh]

Just finished this week's MLP. Existential horror, go!

And now, time to marathon all of Utena. Haven't seen this in a while.

[Kenny Evil]

I was ill this weekend (awesome) so I burned through a load of early episodes of Cheers and all 13 episodes of Lucky Louie. The first episode of Cheers is one of the best pilots I have ever seen. The characters are introduced in order of importance to the show and already very well defined and the humour is incredibly sharp, even 30 years later. Lucky Louie was pretty good as well, though not as good as Louie. I think it's one of the rare breed of sitcoms where the main characters are dirt poor. First time since Roseanne where I can remember the characters struggling with paying bills. I laughed quite a bit and it's a shame there was only the one series.

[SuaveStar]

Warrior: I expected to find this boring, and when it starts, it kind of is. But then they start the fighting, and the story gets interesting, and it's just a very good MMA film. Even if it does have Kurt Angle in it.

Razor's Edge: Bill Murray plays an army soldier, left wondering what the meaning of his life is. Parts of this film are pretty dull, and tedious, however, the overall film was so engrossing, Bill Murray tries so hard to be likeable, not as a Bill Murray acts like a dick with a good heart character, but as a real person who's life has been torn upside down, by the death of others due to his actions. Definitely check this one out if you can.

[Gareth]

Is Scrooged a funny movie?

[SuaveStar]

Is Scrooged a funny movie?

It's one of my top three favourite Christmas films, so in my opinion, yes it is.

[dc20willsave]

Scrooged rocks on so many levels. It's hilarious as a comedy, it's hilarious as a Christmas movie, it's hilarious as a take-off on A Christmas Carol. I'd say more but then I'll be showing my hand for next month's Hey Gurlfriend a little too much.

[dc20willsave]

Glee: Have you ever broken up with someone but, afterwards, you find yourself wondering if it was the right thing? You keep tabs on them on Facebook and Twitter, maybe you talk on the rare occasion but, otherwise, you just try to content yourself with the thoughts of what you had. Then, one day, they do something that lures you back in and you fuck. During the entire thing, it feels wrong and you get no pleasure out of it whatsoever. Afterwards, you get the vindication that what you did was right. You had to have that last time so you could know that the break up was a good thing and you can move on with your life with the full knowledge that there are better things for you out there and that that time of your life is over.

So, in other words, I'm finally over Glee and I have never felt better.

[KnightWing]

That's funny. I actually started watching Glee again this season and decided it was good again.

[Stavros]

Eureka- It's exactly halfway between being Fringe or The Middleman. Worth it just to hear lines like "They weaponised the moon!"

[Dread]

I think I've finally realized the thing about Morgan Spurlock. He is exactly like Michael Moore, except, unlike Moore, he is ball-less and uses his talent for silly BS instead of asking big questions. Snooze.

[Molly]

Des, I both like and respect you. Do not tell me you admire Michael Moore.

[Dread]

I never said I admired him. I'm saying he uses the "entertaining documentary" style to provoke and incite. He has balls. Some of his work I really enjoy, others I do not.

[Molly]

Acceptable.

[Koete]

Just finished watching the first series and first episode of series two of The Hour. Even though I was able to call a few of the twists, the first series had a good story and they've shaken things up quite a bit for the second. Like most BBC shows, it has an amazing cast, which apparently wasn't great enough because they added Peter Capaldi to it.

[JackFetch]

I just got lucky and watched two great movies. One of them I'd never heard of.

The Descendants - It deserves all the praise it got. George Clooney is amazing in this. He looks like a guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. If you want to see the girl that's playing MJ in the next Spider-Man, she's in it also.

Hesher - I'd never heard of this, which is weird considering the cast is full of stars. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rain Wilson, and Natalie Portman being in the same movie usually gets my attention. JGL basically plays Buddy Revell after high school. He just moves into these people's house without asking.

[Molly]

American Horror Story: Mainlined the first season this week, and there's a lot to like here. It's smart, very well written and balances horror and sex perfectly, and given the theme of pregnancy and conception running throughout, that's clutch. Dylan McDermott is still pretty much the king of unlikable douchebags, but that's kinda the point here.

Loved Zachary Quinto. Loved the two big reveals with Tate, he was the gimp and he was Constance's son. The reveal of Violet's death blew my mind. Eric Stonestreet's death in "Piggy Piggy" was equally shocking. Oh, and Addy's death on Halloween was great. I could go on. My only complaint is the neat and tidy kind of Beetlejuice finale.For a show that had such balls for 11 episodes, the finale was super weak.

[SuaveStar]

The Graduate: At first, I really liked this film, but then I realised, every character outside of Dustin Hoffman's is incredibly generic, and don't really do anything, and it just made no sense.

Mrs Robinson claiming she was raped by Ben, comes out of left field, and is never really addressed. Ben goes on one date with Elaine, and they realise they love each other and that he should marry her. Mrs Robinson being bitter and wanting her daughter to be miserable just like she is, by marrying the wrong man, is just strange.

Elaine goes from hating Ben for raping her mother, to falling in love with him after a single scream, and drinking a glass of water? Yeah, that makes sense. She went on one, maybe two dates with him at most, and now he's stalking her. Yeah, that at no point comes across as the MO of a serial rapist.

Oh, and if I'm ever going to propose to someone, my words of choice would also be "We'd make a great team" too.

Mr Robinson is supposed to be a massive prick, but what's the worst thing that he does? Goes to the man who supposedly raped his wife and says "I'll ask you nicely to leave my daughter alone." The boyfriend of Elaine comes across as a nice guy in his one scene, but because a random locker room scene has someone saying "Oh, he gets around" I'm supposed to suddenly hate him, and root for Ben? Alright.

The ending was sort of ruined for me by Wayne's World 2, and The Simpsons who made fun of the confusing nature of the climax, and were spot on with their criticisms.

Overall, a pretty mediocre film, and certainly a massive letdown.

1.5 out of 5 stars.

[Gareth]

I'm the exact opposite, when I first saw the film I also didn't like it. I think it was because I was just taking at face value and didn't really get much out of it. But when I re-watched it and really stated to grasp what it was saying about society at the time I really started to realize what an amazing piece it was. It takes a story that seems simple at face value but secretly gives the audience something far more significant.

If you dont understand the social context behind the film (like I didn't at first) then you wont get much out of it and will probably misspercieve certain things as flaws rather than what they really are. The "blandness" of the adult characters for example is there to symbolize the generation gap and completely different cultures between the adults and the youth at the time.

Of course Ben is the only interesting character, you're seeing the world through his eyes. You are in his head the entire film and he is so far away from everybody else that they become irrelevant. No one else matters enough to be fleshed out characters in the story, if they were then Ben would lose that distance from the rest of the world.

The film perfectly captures that generation gap of the 1960's and how the youth at the time had such a completely different way of thinking that they almost couldn't communicate with the disapproving adults at the time. I love the final scene where Ben and Elaine as sitting in the back of the bus laughing while all the adults are staring at them disapprovingly. By the way did you notice that was a city bus? It's just going to bring them back to the same place, they're not escaping anybody...

While not perfect, the film is fantastic just in the way that it says so much while actually doing so little. It's a film you really have to think about, and it's one of my favorites.

5 out of 5 stars from me.

[SuaveStar]

Of course Ben is the only interesting character, you're seeing the world through his eyes. You are in his head the entire film and he is so far away from everybody else that they become irrelevant. No one else matters enough to be fleshed out characters in the story, if they were then Ben would lose that distance from the rest of the world.

I guess that's true, but my problem when thinking about the film, the rape line really bothered me. Not that they brought it up, but that she just shrugged it off after about a minute.

The film perfectly captures that generation gap of the 1960's and how the youth at the time had such a completely different way of thinking that they almost couldn't communicate with the disapproving adults at the time. I love the final scene where Ben and Elaine as sitting in the back of the bus laughing while all the adults are staring at them disapprovingly. By the way, did you notice that was a city bus. It wil just bring them back the where they were, they're not escaping anybody...

I never noticed the bus was taking them back where they started, I took it at face value. But the fact that the adults story is never actually explained properly makes sense when you put it like that.

One thing I found funny was Hoffman using a cross to keep back Elaine's family, just the possible symbolism of him using their own religion as a defence against these crazy people was funny to me.

While not perfect, the film is fantastic just in the way that it says so much while actually doing so little. It's a film you really have to think about and one of my favorites.

And we're back where we started. Like I said, I really liked the film when I finished it, it was only later when I thought about the few things that really bothered me, that I started to change my opinion on the film.