What have you watched lately?

[Rollo Tomassi]

Safe House. Competent, if predictable, action thriller. It's no Bourne film, though. Despite what the TV commercials want you to think.

Lions for Lambs was on TV. Incredibly preachy bullshit from Robert Redford. And I'm saying this as a someone who would identify myself as a liberal more than anything else.

[Ran]

Last night I found GI Joe Rise of Cobra on TV. I turned it on somewhere in the middle. The small I watched part was terrible. I wasn't expecting much, but it was actually worse than I thought it could be. Putting lips on Snake Eyes' mask has to rank up there with nipples on Batman's suit in odd movie costumes.

[jjreason]

EPI in 3D. Very understated use of the 3D from my opinion - so much so that a few times I caught myself looking for any hint of it.

[Rollo Tomassi]

Flipping channels today, I ran across Secondhand Lions. I only watched about 90 seconds of it, but it made me wonder. Whatever happened to Haley Joel Osment? He hasn't been in anything in like a decade.

[jjreason]

I know what should happen to his sister (provided, of course, she's 18).

EDITED: safe at third - she's a 1992 baby.

[Rollo Tomassi]

JJ, when you were her age, she was an egg.

[jjreason]

I'm not put off by this. She's a little minx now & that's the important part.

[anarky]

SW:E1:TPM:3D. With Darth Plagueis in mind, it really is like a whole new movie.

Some little things I'd forgotten:

The movie really does drag once they get to Coruscant. It starts out action! action! action! Then they get to Tatooine, there's a minor lull in action, but made up for by the interesting storyline (and, of course, the podrace and small duel). Then they get to Coruscant, and zzzzzz. Anarky Jr dozed off. But then it goes into high gear when they get back to Naboo, and doesn't stop.

Anarky Jr really got a kick out of the Vader breathing at the end. She thought Maul would be scary, but he wasn't, because the kid beat him so easy, even though he stabbed his teacher.

I thought at first, "Jar Jar isn't that bad." But then he doesn't let up. The eopie fart was just way, way too much; by that point, it's tough not to be sick of him. In a theater where most of the audience was kids, even they weren't laughing at him anymore.

It's easy to see in retrospect how Ric Olie was dubbed "Captain Obvious." Every line he says is exposition. But never quite as painful as the "what are midichlorions" bit. Jake Lloyd, like Jar Jar, comes across as not as bad as you remember, but you get to a scene where actual acting is necessary (like that scene, or any where he's supposed to be excited and says a completely emotionless "yippee") and it hurts to watch.

Darth Sidious really is a fucking badass. Senator/Chancellor Palpatine is also a fucking badass. (Yeah, they're the same, and it's obvious, but you're still not supposed to know.) Ian McDiarmid did an amazing job in this movie. He and Liam Neeson carry it, acting-wise. I'm not saying they deserved to win, but I would have had no problem with either being on the short list for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for TPM.

[RoIIo Tomassi]

this! TV had a Jaws Marathon yesterday. They showed Jaws, Jaws 2, Jaws III, And Jaws: The Revenge back to back. Although I watch the original all the time, it'd been DECADES since I watched any of the others.
Did you know Jaws3 was Lea Thomson's first movie? Damn, she was hot back then. I never realized Dennis Quaid's character was Roy Sheider's son from the first two movies. It also had TV's Manimal in it! He gets swallowed whole by the shark.
Also, the Producers originally wanted to make Jaws 3 a spoof film called Jaws 3, Humans 0. Spielberg found out and threatened to leave Universal if they did that. So it never happened. Also, Richard "I Am Legend" Matheson wrote the screenplay to Jaws3!! However, the final was script doctored so much, it hardly resembled his original idea.
And I never knew this, or I had forgotten it completely, the little girl in Jaws: The Revenge (you'll probably best remember her as the voice of Ducky in Land Before Time "I'm Ducky! Yep! Yep! Yep!"). Anyway, her dad got jealous of her success and killed her, her mom, and himself and set their house on fire when she was 10 years old, back in 1988. That's fucked up.

[Diabolical]

Martha Marcy May Marlene - Elizabeth Olson (younger, talented sister of the Olson twins) plays a girl who escapes from a cult family and deals with the deep phsychological troubles of readjusting to normal life while living with her sister. Great performance by Olson - she should have had an Oscar nomination.

[jjreason]

My dad took us to see Jaws 3D in the theatre. Almost certainly my first 3d movie. I recall, very vaguely, that part of it dealt with the (FACKING HUGE) shark patrolling an underwater theme park or something, with glass walking tubes ... and then at the end there were pieces of jaw bone floating by my eyes. Am I close?

[RoIIo Tomassi]

Charley Varrick. A man robs a small town bank... And ends up stealing laundered mob money. The mob sends a professional hit man after him. This movie is 11x better than any movie with Walter Matthau and Joe Don Baker has a right to be. Also has Norman Fell (aka Mr Roper) as a federal agent and John Vernon (aka Dean Wormer from Animal House) as the mafia guy. Directed by Don Seigel, who did the Dirty Harry films.
I would love to see this movie remade.

[Diabolical]

I skipped a bunch of stuff between my last 2 posts, Californication Season 3 and Martha Marcy May Marlene.

Breaking Bad - All 3 available seasons. We should have a thread about this show.

Haywire - Gina Carano kicks guys asses and looks hot doing it. She can't act for shit though. Sadly, no nudity.

Drive - Solid flick, but I wasn't blown away. Maybe I need to watch it again because I don't see what all the hype was about.

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back - Still funny, but there are many parts of this feel outdated and poorly made/written.

Chronicle - Far better than it had any right to be.

Star Wars Episode I 3D - Posted my thoughts in the SW thread.

Californication Season 4 - More fucked up Duchovny awesomeness.

Red State - Second viewing. Best Buy had the Blu-Ray for $8. Kevin Smith feels like a real, honest to God filmmaker, rather than 90 minutes of funny dick and fart jokes.

Justice League: Doom - The Legion of Doom steals Batman's contingency plans to defeat the Justice League and uses them. Good, and it even had the real Batman.

Being Elmo - Great doc on Netflix about Kevin Clash, the man behind Elmo (duh). Why wasn't this nominated for an Oscar?

Game of Thrones - Halfway through season 1.

[Ran]

I wanted to see Red State.

This weekend I watched a bit of Mystery, Alaska. I saw it a long time ago, but didn't remember much about it. It was pretty cheesy.

Ended up watching Willy Wonka at some point over the weekend, too.

[Diabolical]

I wanted to see Red State.

I liked it (obviously) but I can see why it took so long to get made. Its not your typical style movie.

This weekend I watched a bit of Mystery, Alaska. I saw it a long time ago, but didn't remember much about it. It was pretty cheesy.

Hey you shut your mouth!