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

Imagine the destruction of a Godzilla marathon.Huge creatures in trainers rampaging across the continents.

I've got some Ghost in the Shell to watch later. Some sort of prequel thing.

I watched all three Back to the Future movies last night. I think I was up till 4 AM. My head feels like it get shocked with 1.21 gigawatts!

Kinda ticked that netflix only lets me see a few certain sets of movies and shows lately. They will cycle the same hundred and fifty items through about ten different lists of "Because youwatched....".

Will be finishing up House of Cards Season 1 tonight and then moving on to Season 2 tomorrow. Man, the show is fantastic! Solid writing, acting and directing every episode--to the degree that this is probably my favorite series to do with politics ever.

Also, I checked out the Strain on FX. Kinda meh. Either the writing or the directing is off, because its making everything seem corny and cliche. And the acting looks pretty terrible too, which is odd since the lead, Corey Stoll is nothing short of phenomenal in House of Cards but totally unbelievable here. Since all the other actors are handing in B- performances, I suspect it's not them that's the problem.

Also on FX, which I've only seen a few times, is Tyrant, which from what I saw, looks excellent. I plan to catch up on that eventually.

I'm still puzzled. Both Del Toro and Hogan are actively involved in the show, yet it's so far below the standard of the book it's bizarre. Not that the book is a masterpiece, but it's a nice solid genre piece with some interesting ideas. Plus, it's laid out almost like a storyboard moving from scene to scene. I'm curious as to why they felt the need to deviate.

So...I had nothing going today in the afternoon at work so I walked over to the movie theater across the way and checked out Guardians of the Galaxy, the first superhero movie I've seen in the theaters since Avengers.

And...IT WAS FANTASTIC! Awesome! Incredible! I've really got nothing bad to say about it at all: every actor nailed it, every special effect was great, the directing was phenomenal, the pacing was cool, the story was awesome, the easter eggs were generous and subtle, and all around, it was one of the best things any studio--Marvel or otherwise--has done in years.

It may just be the first thing since Star Wars to really nail the space opera / sci-fi genre.

Probably my favorite adventure / action movie since Avengers. I haven't rewatched that one yet so I can't really compare, but I know it was 1,000 times better than most stuff Superman or movies that any other studio puts out these days.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Once again, Marvel Studios shows everyone how its done, even though no one else seems to understand it.

West Wing season I. As good as I remember it.

Picking up the conversation on Veronica Mars...

But a few follow-ups:

- I definitely did not like how Meg’s parents never got any kind of comeuppance. I did think that for the first time that sequence gave Sheriff Don Lamb some much needed depth and was thankful for that.

- You make a good point about Weevil’s ending to season 2 and how he often crossed the line. It underscores the theme that when someone like Weevil crosses the line he has to pay the price but when someone like Dick does, he often can find a way out of it.

- I also love when the girl whose dog Veronica saved pops up again, and so many others. A few of them end up in the movie as well and you’ll recognize them. The best episode for this was of course in season 1 when Veronica tries to uncover the truth about her rape, which brings back a ton of characters who either hate her or a few who have now changed their perspective (like the popular kid she saved from the cult).

- I don’t think I’m ruining anything by telling you that Gia doesn’t appear in Season 3 as she moved on as an actress but one pleasant surprise is she does show back up in the movie. I didn’t expect since following the end of Season 2, and what happened with Woody, she was easily a candidate for a character to move on and not be seen again. That being said, they did bring back Troy (Iceman from the X-Men movies) for an ep which was cool, so that shows you never know who might pop back up.

Also, I'm not sure who else here likes Wes Anderson films, but I saw The Grand Budepest Hotel last night and I absolutely loved it. It already ranks as one of my favorites, though 'The Darjeeling Limited' holds the title #1 favorite firmly.

Cobie, I appreciate your responding to me, even when I cajoled you into it. It's hard to discover such an awesome show and then have NOone to talk to about it! So when I discover there IS someone, who also happens to be someone whom I consider a good friend at that, it's hard not to try to take advantage of that!

As for Don Lamb, I was disappointed to see him not take it to Meg's parents all the way. But it was good to see him act human and not be a self-serving egotist for a change. His admission that he'd been abused as well was a rare moment for the character.



I'm only three-deep on Season 3 because Pivot changed up their VMars programming suddenly. My next episodes won't start DVRing until next Monday as a result. But I like what I've seen so far, and Weevil finally shows back up and has one of his better episodes!

Do you like the enhanced theme song in season 3? (I don't!) And is it my imagination, or did the show use darker lighting/subdued color palettes in the filming that season?

I'm not a fan of those "recommendation" lists, they just get in the way for me but you can watch anything in their catalogue at any time. I'm not quite understanding what you mean by "certain sets...."

Anyhow, this site helps me find things on Netflix

http://instantwatcher.com/

You can pick a genre at the top of the page or whatever.

As for Season 3 there is still a lot to really like but as I said, a few choices I’m not a fan of. One of those is the uber-serious theme song, which I felt was entirely unneeded. The original “We Used to Be Friends” by the Dandy Warhols is so awesome that I’ve had it on my ipod for almost a decade at this point. It’s so catchy and conveys the sense of fun the show has to counter-balance the seriousness of the plots. That minor change in making the opening all serious does have a big effect.

I also think you might be right about the darker lightning / subdued color palettes, which my wife noticed too when we watched it. It all goes back to them “upping” the serious level which really didn’t need to be done.

Seeing their interpretation of Xandar in Guardians of the Galaxy made me want a Legion of Superheroes movie so bad.

BB, when I log on using the wii, you only get 75 possibilities in any set, many of which overlap other sets, so your choice is severaly limmited to what they think you want to see on the streaming.

And a lot of it is curtailed because they lose the license or something. Dreden files used to be on it, now I can't stream it.

I tried Hemlock Grove. Ummmm.....

Really enjoying watching Eureka again.

Last night, I watched the pilot episode of Breaking Bad. I think I'll finish out the first season at the very least!

(Funny though....I'd always been under the impression that Aaron Paul's character was Bryan Cranston's character's son--my impression from commercials and what-not. Not so!)

Okay....I'm all in on Breaking Bad!!! I'm halfway thru season 2, and I can hardly wait for more when AMC airs another batch this Sunday! It's like the train wreck that you just can't look away from. And I mean that in the best way possible!

Oh no, the cult has gotten ahold of you!

Buckle in, Lardy! It gets better and better!

Been on an early '80s Sword and Sorcery kick lately, revisiting some of the films that I used to watch ad nauseum on HBO in my wayward youth.

Thus far I've seen:


- (1980) Hawk the Slayer - probably the first of the genre to really take hold, it's sort of a cheesy Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings quest movie starring... John Terry (Christian Shepard from LOST)!

- (1981) Excalibur - absolute classic from John Boorman. It's a bit high on the "shiny futuristic armor" scale, but nevertheless an awesome take on the Arthurian cycle. Interesting bit of Exnihil trivia: My dad actually took me to see this in the theater at age 7.... and promptly gave me a life long fear of birds pecking my eyes out.

- (1981) Dragonslayer - One of the first of Disney's more mature films, it's a fairly engaging film for most of the way, but sort of collapses during the actual... you know... dragon slaying. I'm guessing this flick must have been a fave of the young George R. R. Martin, as my ears perked up at characters named Vermithrax, Valerian, and Tyrion!

- (1982) Conan the Barbarian - The "Citizen Kane" of barbarian movies. Against all odds, the direction, cinematography, and score of this film elevate what is - at it's core - some pretty cheesy material into quite a beautiful and engaging film. This is the one to watch if you've only got time for one. I'm, by no means, an Arnold Schwarzenegger fan, but Conan is the role he was born to play.

- (1982) Beastmaster - Hey... Beastmaster's on! The flick that launched the "ferrets as viable pets" craze, Beastmaster is actually a pretty good flick. 80's everyman Marc Singer (later the star of V) bulks up nicely, befriends an eagle, a tiger, and a pair of ferrets, and wins the hand of the occasionally topless Tanya Roberts (who turn out to be his cousin??? I didn't remember that bit... eww.)

- (1984) Conan the Destroyer - all the good will engendered by the first Conan film is subsequently squandered in a dumbed-down and more kid friendly sequel. Damn, though... I never realized how huge Wilt Chamberlain was. He towers over Schwarzenegger. Grace Jones? The less said the better.


Up next in the queue: Krull, the animated feature Fire and Ice, Red Sonja, Ladyhawke, and Legend.

Love that movie, love most John Boorman movies I've seen (I even loved Exorcist II: The Heretic.)

My post was just going to be "Watch Krull", but I see it's on its way.



My life long fear of getting my eyes pecked out (no really) comes from the second Omen film...or was it the third. Hang on, I'll just check....gaaah my eyes! my eyes!.

I also saw this when I was pretty young. I just came away with a life long interest in Helen Mirren for some reason. Oh and an insistence that Merlin was from Yorkshire.



In the same way that Groo is the role that Gerard Depardieu was born to play...but hasn't. Groo vs Conan is now out incidentally from Dark Horse. An large axe would have brightened up parts of Citizen Kane no end.

I can't say I've seen many of these. Not because they're not kitchen sink or anything...

"Eeee Conan. How are we going to pay for all those racing pigeons you eat to keep your biceps big? Especially with your sister pregnant. You'll just have to get a paper round and that's the end of it."

I guess I just watched the movies that were in front of me at the time, rather than being able to search things out. Ah, the early days of video...

The West Wing: finished all seven seasons. Amazing how predictive. Even had an episode on a cop killing a kid that was trying to surrender. That was creepy. Hit a lot of the popular media issues today, across the board, with fair game to many opinions I thought. Sad to watch the episodes after the guy who played Leo McGary had died, going on as if he hadn't.


The Amazing Spiderman II: I like this Peter Parker/Spiderman. Didn't much care for the story-telling, the plot was okay but seemed to short-shrift the main one but liked nearly all the actors and action scenes.



Orphan Black: Heard it was popular. Didn't find any of the characters to be likable but that's kind of the norm these days, the popular culture writers wishing the dystopian future is now and everyone is grey with a lean towards dark. When I found it easy to predict the next scene or reaction, I pretty much started flipping through the fast forward, then the wiki, then took it back to the library.

About to begin my marathon of Avatar: Legend of Korra Books 2 and 3!