what was the last movie/tv show you saw?

[murlough23]

The premiere of the Ice Road Truckers spinoff, IRT: Most Dangerous Roads. They sent a few of the drivers to haul supplies in the Himalayas. Turns out all the stereotypes about driving in India are apparently true. It was scary as hell to watch even before they made it out of Delhi!

[Wildcatblue7]

I don't really watch those kinds of shows, but what do you think of the L.A. incarnation?

I LOL'd pretty hard when they used Tupac's "California Love" in the promos, but I liked it alright.

[murlough23]

I LOL'd pretty hard when they used Tupac's "California Love" in the promos

Seriously. Timely, guys.

Tupac has got to be the most licensed dead musician ever.

[Aaron]

Seriously. Timely, guys.

Tupac has got to be the most licensed dead musician ever.

ehh..Elvis and Michael Jackson take the cake.

[Aaron]

I don't really watch those kinds of shows, but what do you think of the L.A. incarnation?

Alfred Molina is awesome.

[Brenden]

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans

Nicolas Cage playing a drug addicted cop who uses extreme tactics to catch a murderer? Awesome.

[enemy anemone]

Date Night

(very happy and exciting?)

[AldaForPresident]

Inception, second viewing

[enemy anemone]

The Song of Lunch

Wordplay

[enemy anemone]

Food, Inc.

:\

[murlough23]

How to Train Your Dragon. Pretty good. A lot of action sequences meant it didn't drag on for too long.

[enemy anemone]

the cold feet episode of Mythbusters. couldn't watch Grant's segment with the tarantulas. so horrible, and the other two were laughing at him.   okay, I am a hypocrite and had laughed when he was like "I don't like fish touching me!", but the spiders? EVIL.

[Vlad!]

That was emphatically not an episode to watch over dinner. I had to avert my eyes for most of the first few minutes (when they were dealing with poo), and then both Grant's part with the tarantulas and Kari's part with the dinner made me shudder a little. I felt a little better during Grant's segment because he was clearly freaking out even more than I would have freaked out in that situation (which is still a lot), so I guess I felt like the freaking out was being taken care of? Haha.

Also, I have a hard time feeling bad for Kari because she so clearly enjoys torturing her other cohosts so much that when she gets tortured it seems like no more than she deserves.

Anyway, that episode was about two percent science, and I think they could do a little better than that. Normally the "popular sayings" shows are low on the science and high on the funny, but I still felt like I learned something from the other ones.

(If you want to watch one that was actually really interesting, check out "Red rag to a bull / bull in a china shop").

[Brenden]

Paranormal Activity 2

It improved on some of the things I didn't like about the first, though it has its' own minor issues. I still really enjoyed it and there were a few moments where I felt chills and got actually frightened for the characters. So, great movie.

B+

[enemy anemone]

Her Majesty

(If you want to watch one that was actually really interesting, check out "Red rag to a bull / bull in a china shop").

cool, thanks, I'll look for that one.

before I knew what exactly they were going to do with the cold feet experiment, I thought they wouldn't actually have to go through with the scary thing. like the experiment was to get them to run away or something.
I would have freaked out more than Grant. actually, no, I wouldn't have gone through with it.  I freaked out a little every time they showed the image of Grant with spiders on his face. (geroff! geroff me!!) I would have run away from the critter buffet as well. the plane thing looked like fun to me, but Tory's not-having-fun face was freaking me out.

fear is scary! run awayyyyyyy!

[murlough23]

That was emphatically not an episode to watch over dinner. I had to avert my eyes for most of the first few minutes (when they were dealing with poo)

Wasn't there a Mythbusters episode where they actually tried to polish a turd?

[Vlad!]

Wasn't there a Mythbusters episode where they actually tried to polish a turd?

Yeah, and that one was a little gross as well, but the dorodango stuff was so cool (and the turd-gathering segments sufficiently humorous) that it sort of eliminated the yuck factor. In this one, Adam just walks in with a bucket full of dog shit and says "here we go", at which point they start measuring things like its density, compressibility (!), and stickiness (!!). El barfaroni.

[enemy anemone]

White on Rice

and half of the bull episode of Mythbusters. I haven't watched the china shop part yet.

[AldaForPresident]

The Ring

[Vlad!]

Poltergeist and Poltergeist 2.

The first film was great; there was one truly chilling moment, one which evinced horror of the old school, made even more manifest by the fact that there was absolutely nothing going on visually. Directors of modern "horror" shockers whose idea of suspense is waiting two seconds before the thrill chord and the shocking image should be forced to watch that scene until they understand why, in a movie full of flaming skulls and grasping skeleton hands, a little girl's plaintive cry is the most intense part.

The second film had its moments, but everything was too forced. It could have been so much greater than it was. Julian Beck was brilliantly cast as Kane, and I was going to complain that he was criminally underused until reading on IMDB that he died during filming of stomach cancer. When you consider that Heather O'Rourke, the iconic child star, died due to a colonic obstruction, it seems like the Poltergeist films are not easy on its stars' digestive tracts.

In any case, the first has a place in any Hallowe'en repertoire. The second...well, not so much. It's not a bad film, but it doesn't live up to the original.

[Wildcatblue7]

Halloween (despite it being low budget and having horrific acting...still kinda scares the bejesus out of me)

Poltergeist (nothing makes me like clowns.  nothing.)

[Brenden]

Halloween (despite it being low budget and having horrific acting...still kinda scares the bejesus out of me)

I've never even found it particularly scary. Too many plot holes for me to suspend my disbelief.

Recently I watched,

Phantasm: Pretty good, The Tall Man is frightening despite not being in the film for very long and only having, what, four lines? I went into the film expecting something totally different than what I got, since everyone talks about The Tall Man and those death spheres, yet they aren't as prominent as the undead midgets. I didn't like the ending, though, it left me confused as to what had happened, but not in a good way. I've heard the sequels don't really give much explanation for anything either, so I hesitate to watch them.

Candyman: I really liked this one. I loved the setting, I loved the tone, the acting was great, it had an excellent villain. I especially was happy with how the movie leaves it up in the air about what happened, giving us a killer who may not even exist. You could easily read the movie as a woman getting so far into a myth that it consumes her and she starts killing people out of madness.

[murlough23]

Phantasm: Pretty good, The Tall Man is frightening despite not being in the film for very long and only having, what, four lines? I went into the film expecting something totally different than what I got, since everyone talks about The Tall Man and those death spheres, yet they aren't as prominent as the undead midgets. I didn't like the ending, though, it left me confused as to what had happened, but not in a good way. I've heard the sequels don't really give much explanation for anything either, so I hesitate to watch them.

I think I saw that as a kid, when my parents randomly stumbled across it on TV. Weird, 'cause my parents were generally quite vigilant about what they let me watch. (My dad was possibly less so when he thought my mom wouldn't know, so maybe she wasn't around.) Anyway, those still-moving detached fingers scared the crap out of me. It might be the reason I don't really do horror movies to this day.

The only scary thing I plan on watching today is the final episode of Caprica before it goes off the air until 2011. Scary, in the sense that people's lack of appreciation for cerebral sci-fi makes me worry for the future state of television.

[Vlad!]

Inception, first viewing.

I enjoyed it almost all of the way through. Given the descriptions I was hearing I thought it would be a lot more obtuse, but I don't think there was much there that the attentive moviegoer wouldn't be able to piece together on the first viewing. There was one pretty massive "huh?" plot device which I think pretty much was pulled out of nowhere and forced on us with only the most mediocre hand-wavy explanations, and I'm still not sure whether I think the ending was a cheap trick or a skillful invitation to thought.

I have to say, though, even though the movie was quite long I remained riveted the entire time. Even if about half of the film depends on a plot device which I think is pretty stupid, the fact that the movie as a whole remained enjoyable covers a multitude of such evils.

[Brenden]

The Walking Dead series premiere: This got off to a great start. The story is great, the characters are strong, the acting is good, it was pretty much as great as I could have hoped. You should really be watching this, even if you don't like zombies much. The zombies are just a setting, this is all about the human drama that comes from being in that setting.

The Amityville Horror (Original): Compared to the remake, which was pretty boring, this was actually pretty good. I liked the slow burning creepiness and thought the acting was decent. While the remake shows you tons of ghosts, you don't really see anything in this version until near the end. Even that is just fleeting glimpses, a pair of eyes that quickly darts offscreen, an evil looking creature through a window from outside the house in the rain. All in all, it was a decent movie.

Puppet Master: This movie was stupid. Really, really stupid. How did it get so many sequels? Did someone actually like this? The first hour of the film has little plot development and is basically just psychics walking around a hotel while whispering to each other. The puppets aren't really in the movie all that much and do all their attacking towards the end of the movie. Hell, the villain doesn't even reveal himself until just before the movie ends and then he's killed right away! So, yeah, dull, no suspense, stupid.

[Brenden]

Frozen: Not as bad as the trailer made it look, but still implausible and silly at times. The acting is decent and the characters are fine and it's a lot more entertaining than, say, Open Water. The main problem is that these characters are all incredibly stupid and the wolves are used in such a way that they make any attempt to escape pointless because there's a pack of wolves just sitting there waiting to attack. Overall, it's ok, I've seen worse, but I wouldn't care to watch this again.

[NewDimension]

Anger Management, Not Without My Daughter, and a bunch of lame, unpopular horror movies whose names left no imprint on my memory.

[enemy anemone]

I ended up watching another season of Project Runway. season 2 this time. "what happened to Andrae?" I love Tim Gunn.

[Brenden]

The Human Centipede (First Sequence)

It was pretty boring, actually. The concept is disturbing but the execution? Not so much.

[Vlad!]

I've been bad about updating this lately...I'm going to get all the bad ones out of the way in one go:

Who is Clark Rockefeller: A made-for-TV inferior Catch Me if You Can. Way too heavy-handed. Not horrible, but not great either.

Halo Legends: I haven't played any of the Halo games, and I saw nothing in these animated adaptations to make me want to. I'd have rather watched Ghost in the Shell again.

Delgo: Horribly-rendered, horribly-written, and honestly just all-around horrible. Why does this movie even exist? I realize that its target audience is at least fifteen years younger than me, but just because something is aimed at kids doesn't mean it should be horrifying to adults.

[bloop]

Well, murlough will be happy to hear that even I have my limits. The thought of having my mouth surgically circumscribing the anus of another human being was enough to keep me away.

[murlough23]

Well, murlough will be happy to hear that even I have my limits. The thought of having my mouth surgically circumscribing the anus of another human being was enough to keep me away.

My only surprise here is that this happened in a non-pornographic film.

[bloop]

That depends on your definition of "pornographic". 

[murlough23]

That depends on your definition of "pornographic". 

Really? You want to use that emoticon under these circumstances?

[Brenden]

My only surprise here is that this happened in a non-pornographic film.

This was pretty much just to get people ready for the crazy stuff director Tom Six wants to do in his next movie, which would be why it wasn't any more graphic than the average horror movie, possibly less so, the worst stuff is all obscured by bandages.

In his next movie, he has said he is really going to make the sickest film of all time, which means I'm gonna stay away unless someone says that it too isn't as graphic as it sounds.

But no, don't watch Human Centipede. At all.

[murlough23]

Wow. That was nauseating just reading about it. I fail to understand why people derive pleasure from horrifying and grossing other people out.

[Brenden]

Wow. That was nauseating just reading about it. I fail to understand why people derive pleasure from horrifying and grossing other people out.

For me a good story is a good story, whether horrifying or not. This was not a good story, so all that was left was things to gross you out, which isn't enough to carry any movie.

That's basically my argument against the Friday the 13th movies, there is no story or characters, it's just to indulge your lust to see people killed.

[murlough23]

For me a good story is a good story, whether horrifying or not. This was not a good story, so all that was left was things to gross you out, which isn't enough to carry any movie.

Makes sense. I can see how sometimes the graphic imagery (or at least the disgusting implications) are justified by the story that the filmmaker felt was important to tell. I often still won't watch the film if it's that horrifying, but I'll at least respect it.

[RedcoatJones]

I referenced this on Facebook, but I finally caught up with AMC's Walking Dead. Excellent show. Creepy, scary, but good characterizations, too.

Fun trivia: The opening episode has a lengthy scene in a hospital when our hero first wakes up. That hospital is the admin offices and men's recovery center from my old job (www.atlantaunionmission.org). The basement hallways where they shot the interior scenes always gave me the creeps, and when he stepped outside, I recognized the loading dock immediately. Cool moment. Of course, with the whole series being shot in Atlanta, I'm having fun trying to recognize places in pretty much every scene 

[murlough23]

Of course, with the whole series being shot in Atlanta, I'm having fun trying to recognize places in pretty much every scene 

I get to do this a lot with my favorite TV shows, between living in L.A. and having been to Hawaii several times. Sometimes it takes me out of the show for a second, especially when it's supposed to be some exotic international locale where super-secret spy stuff is going down.