What are you watching and enjoying?

[KnightWing]

On Amazing Spider-Man, someone from a podcast said something that made me realize why I didn't like it. He said they made Peter cool before he got his powers. Instead of a nerd that can't even talk to girls, he's a skater that already has Gwen in his life. Like I've said before, this version of Spider-Man isn't for me. It's for today's teenagers, where being a nerd is cool instead of making you an outcast. His old origin doesn't translate anymore.

As one of "today's" young people (granted I haven't been a teenager in a few years, but still), I don't think Peter in ASM was cool in the slightest. People keep bringing up the skateboard as if it's still the 90s, where having a skateboard and a backwards baseball cap was the definition of cool. A skateboard means absolutely nothing today. Peter in ASM is absolutely a nerd and a social outcast. The fact that Gwen appreciates him regardless speaks more to her character, not to Peter's coolness.

[Missy]

Exactly. If skating made Peter cool, he wouldn't have been doing it alone all of the time. The way I took it was that Peter was skating to get some of his agression out, not to be popular.

[dc20willsave]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I got the movie from Netflix. It holds up surprisingly well. It definitely feels like a movie from the late 80s-early 90s but, overall, it's still really enjoyable and fun. That said, there is almost nothing for Michelangelo and Donatello to do in the film.

The Last Airbender: Oh god, this is crap. Between the most dance-fighting since West Side Story and one of the worst violations of the "Show, Don't Tell" rule in a film, it also has a problem with just being unforgivably dull. I can see where it might be worse for a person who's a fan of the series but even then, just fucking bad.

Quantum of Solace: As far as Bond films go, this is kinda dull. It may be because it has such a good film directly before and after it in the sequence but, as it, there wasn't anything really special going on. Also, the Bond girls in this one were something dull. The title song is total shit, easily the worst one in the history of the franchise.

Looper: Great time travel film. Outside of how good the actors are through out the entire picture, I actually think its one of the better films to do a time-travel storyline. There's a ton of things going for it and I think the way everything gets resolved works. I hate when a film resolves a time paradox in such a way that I can find all the holes in minutes. It took me at least the next day to think of one.

Osombie: It's a zombie movie where marines fight zombie terrorists in Afghanistan including a zombie Osama Bin Laden. Where do I even begin? Okay, first we have a chick with a samurai sword for no reason, we have a civilian conspiracy theorist who should not be alive, his sister who sucks ass, the guy who somehow takes his shirt off every five minutes for no reason, and the info dumps we get about every character literally 5-10 minutes prior to their death.

[Professor]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I got the movie from Netflix. It holds up surprisingly well. It definitely feels like a movie from the late 80s-early 90s but, overall, it's still really enjoyable and fun. That said, there is almost nothing for Michelangelo and Donatello to do in the film.

There is nothing for them to do in any of the films, save Michelangelo in the third film. But in the first film, you really get the sense that Don/Mike are best friends who are just used to Raphael/Leonardo fighting all the time and thus, just do their own thing.

Godzilla - I have no idea why I watched this. It isn't good, but I think with one change this would be remembered as an Independence Day level move: not good, but brainless fun. That change would be anybody but Matthew Broderick being the lead. His reading of the script (I cannot call this acting) is something to behold.

Still Crazy - I love this movie. Aged rock band reforms to see if they still have it. Simple enough, but what I love is that everyone has something to do. I feel too often movies about bands ignore most of the band. This give 4/6 of the band major plot threads and the other 2/6 get minor things to do. They are minor, but they are doing something besides being a walking guitar holder.

[SuaveStar]

Quantum of Solace: As far as Bond films go, this is kinda dull. It may be because it has such a good film directly before and after it in the sequence but, as it, there wasn't anything really special going on. Also, the Bond girls in this one were something dull. The title song is total shit, easily the worst one in the history of the franchise.

Nope, it's just a very mediocre Bond film, Casino Royale was mostly set up for QOS, and rather than give a satisfying conclusion to a two part story, it decided to just be very dull.

On TMNT, because all the turtles were wise crackers, and making pop culture jokes, there was no need for Mikey, and because there was no need for anyone to be a genius, that rendered Donnie obsolete as well.

Peter's a real dick in ASM, he destroys the backing board in the gym, and doesn't even apologise, the money he cost them was taking from the glee club, and they weren't able to make it to sectionals to beat William McKinley high. That, and Peter was just a bit unlikable in the film, and a bit to sure of himself, before he was bitten by the spider, whereas Maguire's version, was really a plain nerd until he was bitten by the spider.

[JackFetch]

On Amazing Spider-Man, someone from a podcast said something that made me realize why I didn't like it. He said they made Peter cool before he got his powers. Instead of a nerd that can't even talk to girls, he's a skater that already has Gwen in his life. Like I've said before, this version of Spider-Man isn't for me. It's for today's teenagers, where being a nerd is cool instead of making you an outcast. His old origin doesn't translate anymore.

As one of "today's" young people (granted I haven't been a teenager in a few years, but still), I don't think Peter in ASM was cool in the slightest. People keep bringing up the skateboard as if it's still the 90s, where having a skateboard and a backwards baseball cap was the definition of cool. A skateboard means absolutely nothing today. Peter in ASM is absolutely a nerd and a social outcast. The fact that Gwen appreciates him regardless speaks more to her character, not to Peter's coolness.

If he was a social outcast, he wouldn't have one of the hottest girls in school drooling over him. My point is that his old origin doesn't translate to today's youth because being nerdy is a trend now, not a hinderance. They cast a hot guy to play a hot guy. I'm ok with that, but that's not my Peter Parker.

[Gareth]

In my eyes, Spectacular Spider-Man is the only adaption that got everything right. Although as I said earlier, I do enjoy Raimi's trilogy quite a bit.

[slothian]

Not movies/TV per se, but it's the interval of my dad's production of 'The Pirates of Penzance' (he's in the chorus). The female lead has lost her singing voice & is lip-syncing to another soprano, who can't physically understudy for whatever reason, but it's otherwise going pretty well!

[SuaveStar]

Is it just me, or is the current series of Archer, really not as strong as series 1-3. The episodes involving the bigger series storyline, are all well written, with some great dialogue, but other ones, like the past two or three episodes have just felt kind of forced with only one or two good jokes, compared to the usual standard of a great joke every few minutes.

Edit: I just finished Milk. at first, I thought it was ok, but then I watched the special features and how all Harvey's friends at the time contributed to the production, and the actors talking about the film I realised that only three characters are actually fleshed out in the film, to the point where I could actually remember their names, and what they did, most of the characters just sort of came and went, and then just said things to Harvey out of nowhere like "Are you sure about this bill?" the films over two hours long, and yet somehow it still feels like it just rushed through nearly everything,

The ending with "Where are they now" sequences I actually had to pause and say "Who's that? What did they do? He was in this?"

[dc20willsave]

Simon and Marcy is the most soul-crushingly beautiful 15 minutes of animation you'll watch anytime soon. It's a reminder of why I love Adventure Time so much.

[Stavros]

Agreed.

Using the Cheers theme was awesome. Plus was the goo a Princess Bubblegum early appearance? She's the first of the candy people, so she might be much older than she claims and started as a pinkish goo.

[Professor]

30 for 30: Renee, Once Brothers & Catching Hell - The 3 best documentaries to come out of the initial 30 for 30 run. For the non-sports fans, Renee and Once Brothers would still be a great watch, as they use sports to tell a bigger story. Highly recommend all three.

[Professor]

With 'The Wolverine' hype flooding my facebook news feed, I felt like watching the original films for the first time in a long while.

X-Men - Nice start. World building is good and a nice introduction to some characters. My main gripe is beyond Magneto, the villains are non-characters.

X2 - Still the best of the three. But still not perfect. Same problems as before, just compounded by introducing more characters. What struck me was Jean's 'death' scene. Cyclops sells it, but since he has yet to be defined as a character, it has no emotional weight. Also, the Nightcrawler opening still kicks ass.

X-Men: The Last Stand - Total mess, yet not as bad as my memory made it out to be. I haven't seen this film since opening night. I didn't like it then, and I still don't, but it isn't as bad as I remembered. This totally screams of LAST FILM THROW ALL THE SHIT IN syndrome that series can have. It is just a disjointed mess. The 'Last Stand' would have held more weight if it were the original cast fighting rather than two new characters and Iceman. And this Wolverine/Jean love saga thing was only there because it had to be. It doesn't make sense in the context of these films and falls completely flat. And even with the fact it is quite clear this is the last X-Men movie, they still have the balls to leave sequel bait.

And I just remembered how much trailers sold Angel being a big deal. Forget what I said earlier, and fuck this movie.

[Venneh]

Watching Venture Bros, just got to the Fantastic Four episode. Dear god, this is awesome. I've seen episodes here and there, but never everything from the beginning.

[Gareth]

Also, I know I haven't been too hot on Adventure Time in the past, that's all changed.

[elnino14]

On TMNT, because all the turtles were wise crackers, and making pop culture jokes.

I missed the word "wise" in this on my first read. I was cracking up because of it.

[slothian]

I watched Ace Venture Pet Detective the other night. It sounds like back in the day it was akin to an SNL spin-off (Carrey's equivalent being In Living Color), where a TV sketch comedian was given a movie pilot to centre around a character. So why is it that Ace Ventura is more beloved film than any number of sketch comedian film vehicles? I'd say a combination of Carrey's talent, an engaging story, Courteney Cox being game prior to Friends, Sean Young's unusual antagonist and a guest star whose bad acting doesn't ultimately spoil the film (Dan Marino). I also noticed in this viewing that both the Mayor and Alice the librarian from Ghostbusters were in this movie!

[Dan]

I spent some time the other night watching a bunch of Flip the Frog shorts. Flip was the first creation from Ub "the actual creator of Mickey Mouse" Iwerks after he left Disney to start his own studio, and by and large, they're standard early 1930s cartoons; black and white for the most part, lots of music, inanimate objects that dance, and the like. They're more imaginative than the bulk of Disney's stuff at the time, and far better than the Warner Brothers' shorts of the early 30s (which didn't really get rolling until the 40s). And they're (and I hate this phrase) a product of their time, so there's some unfortunate stereotypical humor (Hey! That Scottish guy doesn't want to pay for his newspaper! He sure is tight with his money! Ha!).

However, they were done before the enforcement of the Hays Code, and as a result, there is some truly filthy humor in some of these. In one, Flip is a milkman, and he gets up early to milk his cows. He takes his bucket into a stall, and we hear a male voice yell, "Hey! Watch it! That hurts!" Flip exits the stall and looks apologetically at the bull glaring daggers at him, and it took a couple of seconds to realize holy shit Flip just grabbed that bull's cock. In another, he's trying to catch a mouse in an office, and the mouse runs up the secretary's skirt and stays there a while. She doesn't seem to mind. Later in the same short, she somehow manages to get her skirt ripped off, and there is a couple of frames of what is very clearly a vagina. Through it all, there is nudity, there's drug humor, there's (rather mild) swearing, and this is all in what is nominally a funny animal kid's cartoon character.

[dc20willsave]

Network: Fucking incredible.

[Professor]

Just finished Batman Beyond. Gotta say, it isn't that good. I enjoy the world they create, Terry and his relationship with Old Man Bruce. But the episodes are completely forgettable. The two most memorable things about the series are Return of the Joker & Epilogue.

Maybe this is due to recently reading this, but I would liken the series to the Ben Riley era of Spider-Man. You like the main character and want good things, but everything surrounding said character is bad. Going in, I remembered liking the show. Coming out, I like Terry and not much else.

[Gareth]

I kind of agree. I probably like it more than you. I love the characters, animation, music, and all that, but I agree that the episodes, for the most part, are very forgettable. There are a few memorable ones though, namely the ones that feature old villains.

I do think it has great potential however, as can be see in Return of the Joker and Epilogue, and I'd love to see a revival in the future.

[KnightWing]

I think Batman Beyond is the weakest entry in the Timm/Dini line from BTAS to JLU, but it's still head and shoulders above the vast, vast majority of other cartoons out there.

[Gareth]

The Conversation: This is one of the greatest films I've ever seen in my life. Frances Ford Coppola is at his finest here with nearly complete control of the film, writing, directing, and producing it. Gene Hackman is incredible in the picture and so is the entire cast (including a pre-Star Wars Harrison Ford). David Shire's score is beautiful and unsettling. I highly recommend this film to everyone, it's on Netflix instant and it's well worth your time.

[Molly]

The new Netflix Original Series, Hemlock Grove, is hot garbage. Why can't I stop watching it?

[Venneh]

Because you like pain. I'll be testing this theory this weekend.