Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you WATCHING?

Haven't watched any of Season 3 but I've read all the books of course, so I have a suspicion as to what you're referring to since I figure it has to be the MAJOR devastating thing to happen in Season 3. (I'll only say: "Red Wedding?").

If yes...yeah. Man, that was brutal to read. Devastating is the right word.

Yep, that's the one.

My wife (who's recently read all the books) tells me that what happen in the show is somewhat different/slightly worse than what happened in the book. Seems there was one party present for the scene in the show who wasn't in the book. But I guess this character met a similar fate in the book but at another location. (Make sense?)

Hm. Not really but I don't want to overthink it, as I wouldn't mind the surprise!

The Red Wedding is major turning point in the books and as you'll see, oft-referenced / invoked hereafter. When I discuss it with my siblings, it usually leads to one of us saying "I want ___'s fucking head on a pike, and I want ___ to die a thousand deaths".

All I will say is that Harry Potter & friends got off pretty easy with ol' Filch in the books/movies! Bastard got EVIL for GoT!

Same actor?

Yep.

I've only seen two episodes or so, didn't notice him. But then I might very well not without the long stringy hair and the stooped walk. Filch was stooped, right? Sure picturing him that way.

Hope the poor guy wasn't hired to look the same in GoT.

Re-watched one of my all time favorite movies last night, the 1945/46 version of "The Big Sleep" starring Bogey and Becall. Man, I love that film.

I love the "insanely complex for no reason" aspect of the plotline. It definitely makes multiple rewatches more rewarding. And it's co-written by William Faulkner and Leigh Brackett! Legend has it that they wrote separate scenes without any knowledge of what the other was doing...which in a sense created such complexity.

This is one of Bogey's best roles when he was at the height of his popularity, and it definitely showcases him by featuring him in every single scene. My favorite parts are the small bit scenes with various walk-on characters like the female taxi cab driver and the bookstore owner.

Other versions of the Big Sleep are more true to the novel (which is great) and more clear in plot but they just don't compare for me. They don't have the atmosphere, the wit and the sense of fun / charm that this film has. Sometimes those things are far more important than the plot.

I have been watching the animated Star Trek episodes, which you can find on CBS' website. I am impressed by how good they are, actually.

A lot of the original writers wrote for it. Not high on animation but I would think the ideas were mostly good.

You just suckered me into watching an episode there. Odd that there's a mandatory retirement age for Starfleet in the 23rd century. Especially given the medical advances and the much greater lifespan of several races. Though the age may be race-adjusted.

It's kind of famous for the fact that they rewrote it in order to feature more Bogey/Bacall steaminess, pretty much ditching stuff that was necessary for the plot to make sense in favor of the chemistry!

I believe I've got both versions (pre and post rewrites) on DVD somewhere. I'll have to look for them sometime.

Hmm, by the end, more than just that point makes you question the logic of that animated Star Trek episode. ("The Counter-Clock Incident")

No reason to go back to being 75 years old if by some reason you've reverted to 35. You don't have to live your life over again, you're getting more life.

And there's the idea that the transporter can reverse any problem that happens to a human body because it holds old records of your molecules from the last transport. While I think it should be able to do that, McCoy should have used it to solve any number of infections and other problems if that were all there was to it.

Yeah, I just watched that special too! We must both own the same DVD. Try added / changed a bunch of Becall scenes because her most recent film bombed and she was panned by critics. It was in everyone's best interest to recapture the magic of her scenes with Bogey in To Have and Have Not. And no one can dispute the Bogey and Becall chemistry, especially as directed by Hawks.

I love the anecdote that the plot became so complex no one could figure out who actually killed the chauffeur. They even called Chandler himself--who upon viewing the screenplay, still wasn't sure!

All of these decisions--more complex plot and more emphasis on steamy chemistry--make the film work much better. It's what's made it such a classic.

One of my favorites!

I've been watching "Hannibal" and it's actually pretty good! I was tired of how it became a franchise and just how superhuman Hannibal had become, but if you forget everything that came before, you can enjoy it.

This new Dr Lector is creepy and detached, a mastermind and manipulator, but he doesn't revel in it. The actor doesn't play him as being so pleased with himself about his superiority. The cat & mouse game between Hannibal and Will is fun to watch (especially since Will doesn't even realize the game) and really builds on their relationship, as dysfunctional as it is. Assuming things play out the way they did in the book and Will manages to catch Hannibal, it's a much better telling of how that happened than in the Ed Norton "Red Dragon" movie.

After watching Gene Roddenbery's son's doc "Trek Nation" I've been rewatching a lot of "ST:DS9" - particularly during the whole Dominion War. I had lost interest in the show at the time - mostly because it had the misfortune of paling by comparison to "Babylon 5." Rewatching them now outside of B5's shadow, I'm appreciating it more for what it was.

Part of what I came to realize about my disinterest in DS9, which I still believe, (though I mind it less now) is that unlike other Trek shows, it seemed to hinge less on the Captain. As much as I love Avery Brooks, the one thing this show didn't have as opposed to other Trek shows, were regular scenes of the Captain convening with his staff to discuss whatever dire cirucmstances they had gotten themselves into. It helped once the war started and Sisko became more of a traditional commander, but otherwise, it seemed the cast had broken off into their own cliques. Julian and O'Brien (then Garak), Odo, Quark and Kira etc. It also didn't help that more and more characters were introduced that were not under his command - from his son, the Quark, then Rom and Garak etc. It was a different kind of Trek than I was used to - especially TNG which had raised the bar so high and was very much centered on Picard's leadership. Still, I'm glad to give DS9 another shot.

Coincidentally also watching DS9 re-runs. Not much on regular TV for me so looking for a distraction (my Ma passed end of April) I started picking up the Next Gen DVDs. Didn't much care for it so changed to the DS9, which I recalled enjoying, even though I also remembered it fighting for my attention with B5. (Andreas Katsulas plays all the aliens in all three shows).

ANYHOW: decided to try Next Gen season 3 and boy does it pick up. Three or four of the episodes have to go into the best ever contest. High speed cable went on sale so I got that. Net-Flex is free for a month so I got that. Now I'm half-way though Season 4, the first appearance of the Cardassians.


Watching Next Gen and DS9 at the same time has elevated several of the characters like O'Brien and Worf.

Yeah, he's great on all of them, but G'Kar on B5 stole the show!

I recently started watching the original Doctor Who episodes with William Hartnell as the Doctor

At this moment, Bates Motel.

I just watched "The Master," Paul Thomas Anderson's film from late last year.

I won't go into any sort of detailed plot synopsis (in short, it's a character study of a couple of personalities in the formative days of Scientology), but I will say this:


With this film, Anderson continues an unbroken stretch of turning out some of the absolute best pictures of the past 15 years.

I'm not afraid to say it... that even includes "Punch Drunk Love".


Anderson is just such an amazing director - taking stylistic influence from such greats as Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, and Robert Altman... and then using them as a launching point for his own unique vision.

I know it's still very early in his career to say this, but - with only 6 features under his belt - in my opinion, he's on the road to becoming one of the best directors of all time.

Finished Next Generation and am on Season 5 of Deep Space Nine, Trials and Tribble-ations. Best ever!

Saw Silver Linings Playbook last night. It was a good flick, but not the great movie everyone raved about. The cast was solid, especially DeNiro, who I thought has been more or less sleepwalking through the later years of his career. In this flick he had some great emotional and comic scenes. Jenifer Lawrence was good, but certainly not "Best Actress" good and I liked the story and direction, I just didn't think it lived up to the hype.

The art here is soooooooooooo cute! Matt Fishel's "When Boy Meets Boy".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOYEbuR5rZY

Warning: non-explicit animated nudity. You'll know when it's coming!

"Under the Dome" is really starting to find its voice! Last night's episode was the best so far and the closest to capturing the feel of the Stephen King book. It's a separate entity from its source, much as The Walking Dead TV shows is from the comic. But like TWD, I think that's a good thing for this series.

"Dome" addresses something I felt was flawed about the book. In the book, the whole story takes place in under a week. In that time I felt things went completely to hell a little TOO quickly. A continuing series would obviously take a more decompressed storytelling model, and I think that this actually serves the story better than the short timeline of the book.

Last night, during one commercial break, my wife (who's also read the book) praised the show for not having its bad guys be pretty much hardcore evil from the get-go unlike the book. I concurred. Here, there's a progression, and that feels more realistic.

That said, last night, at episode 5, was the episode that really started to make you feel that this situation was something MUCH more than just slightly abnormal. the level of tension was just perfect, and you could finally start to see the awesome potential of the series being realized.

I'm excited to see this continue!