What Are You Watching?, Films and TV Options

[Moosh]

New series of The Mighty Boosh. It's good. If you haven't watched it then you're no longer a decent person.

[Pikasyuu]

I just went out and rented the entire season one of Heroes. I caught some of the last episodes and a few more during a marathon a while ago (More than enough to develop a drooling, slobbering, fangirl crush on Milo Ventimiglia(sp?)) - season two so far is good, but man, is there ANYTHING better to sit in and watch during a rainy night? *swoon*

[I_am_the_best]

^I met the guy who plays DL from Heroes whilst handing out flyers at an anime/manga/gaming convention. It has to be said that I don't watch it at all, but it was pretty exciting nonetheless.

I'm not watching anything but looking for a place to watch the Death Note movie.

[PsychWardMike]

Currently watching Amelie and I don't know how I feel about it yet. I've also been watching Weeds and I think I need to give it a little more time before I decide whether or not it's a good series.

[PsychWardMike]

So I abandoned Weeds. I just couldn't get into it, and being that I personally smoke a lot of ganja and have close friends that sell, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief as much as the show requires me to. Still, it's more entertaining than Desperate Housewives.

However, I have found a few shows that have been very worth my time. The first is Dexter which I discovered about two days ago and have almost finished off the first season, the second Death Note which I catch every Friday (ish) when they stream it on adultswim.com and the last (and my favorite!) is Pushing Daisies which I simply can't get enough of.

[Izzy]

I saw the second National Treasure movie Wednesday night. It wasn't great, but not too bad. I found myself going 'That was dumb. So-and-so is obviously gonna do this-and-that' too many times, but I still can't say it was boring.

[selina]

So I abandoned Weeds. I just couldn't get into it, nad being that I personally smoke a lot of ganja and have close friends that sell, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief as much as the show requires me to. Still, it's more entertaining than Desperate Housewives.

However, I have found a few shows that have been very worth my time. The first is Dexter which I discovered about two days ago and have almost finished off the first season, the second Death Note which I catch every Friday (ish) when they stream it on adultswim.com and the last (and my favorite!) is Pushing Daisies which I simply can't get enough of.

i've been addicted to pushing daisies for quite a while now and i've been meaning to start on dexter too.

has the wga strike affected the pushing daisies too? i been looking forward to downloading the 10th episode for sometime now and its not popping up on torrent sites yet.

[Smiler]

I got bought American Dad volume 2 on DVD for Crimbo so a bit of that (I've not got volume BTW). It's pretty funny in a snort and giggle kinda way I suppose but then I kinda like Family Guy too so expected similir humour.

Also, I went to see St. Trinians today at the cinema... VERY funny. They've definately kept a lot of the traditions of the St Trinians movies and while the inuendo is perhaps a little more explicit it still at the same level as a contemporary release and a bloomi' good movie.

[Novander]

I stayed after work today to watch The Golden Compass.

Guys, don't bother; it is the worst. The voices are all wrong and the effects are too shiny, and it speeds ahead as fast as it can leaving all the awesome behind.

[MisterJ]

I've had a DVD of The Departed for a while now and never got around to watching it until last night, and I'm glad I finally did! I loved it.

[Izzy]

Watched a few episodes from The Twilight Zone last night because there was a marathon on Sci-Fi.

[Mata]

I stayed after work today to watch The Golden Compass.

Guys, don't bother; it is the worst. The voices are all wrong and the effects are too shiny, and it speeds ahead as fast as it can leaving all the awesome behind.

'Shame. I read the books last month and was interested in the film, but the reviews had all been very average so I didn't go to see it. There was a lot of focus about the absence of religious commentary in the film, but the first two books of the series hardly make any comments about religion anyway so I don't see what the fuss was about.

I got Day Watch for Christmas. It's the sequel to the very enjoyable vampire-ish Russian film Night Watch, which had higher box office takings in Russia than Lord of the Rings; it was an enormously successful film there. I've read the trilogy of books and found Day Watch very surprising. There were some startling differences from the novel, but this made the ending very exciting for me because I had no idea what was going to happen. You can't say that of many films adaptations! It was occasionally a little tricky to follow what was supposed to be going on, so the script could have been more forgiving to the audience (having read the books I had a pretty good idea of the narrative, but it struck me as being a little hard to follow sometimes), but overall I really enjoyed it.

[Novander]

I got Day Watch for Christmas....but overall I really enjoyed it.

Well that's good; I really liked Night Watch and I've been looking forward to Day Watch.

I just got back from seeing Charlie Wilson's War. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin, who I'm a huge fan of and the film was directed by Mike Nichols, who I've never heard of but imdb tells me he also directed Closer which I thought was a terrible movie. With Aaron Sorkin's help he has definitely redeemed himself here. Charlie Wilson's War is a very enjoyable film. If you're sitting there right now thinking "Man, I am really in the mood for a film about Afghanistan" I'd definitely recommend this over The Kite Runner. Also, it has Amy Adams in it who is just so darn pretty.

[Novander]

So John August, who wrote Big Fish, Go and (Tim Burton's) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, directed his first film last starring Ryan Reynolds and called The Nines.

It was supposedly released over here last November, but it is so brilliant only the smallest of cinemas would have been able to get hold of it. So brilliant, in fact, that I am vaguely considering refusing to speak to anyone who hasn't seen it. And it's quite possible I will refuse to speak to anyone who's seen it and didn't like it.

I can't tell you what it's about. I can tell it starts with an actor having a nervous breakdown of sorts after breaking up with his girlfriend, but that isn't it at all. For serious, look for The Nines.

[michael1384]

Watching who's line. S'quite good.

[Wiseacre]

love the new series Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann - has anyone else been watching it? So fun! The costumes and choreography are great and I love Carrie Ann I think she's a great TV personality and it's about time she got her own show. I even joined the fan club, hoping to win tix to the final taping!

[David J Rodger]

*slides in on a light beam*

Heroes: awesome piece of script writing I thought (Series One), very tight, well-thought-out, unlike LOST, which initially had me totally hooked but them just left me hanging so many times I dumped it like some cheap floosy scamming drinks with coquettish smiles.

Cloverfield: Again, very delighted by this film. Some people have veered away from it because of the hand-held cam vibe and the perception it's just a Godzilla flick. The hand-cam thing really worked, I thought, especially with the Manhattan setting...it dialled into the global awareness of 911... and recalled all those visceral memories of a city gone numb with trauma. Rather than terrorists...the horror is caused by something "from beyond", and it really does good service to H P Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos...and will hopefully bring his genre a little more into the mainstream. (Not too much though!)

Djr

[Novander]

In two days I have seen two awesome films. Yesterday (actually, it's now two days ago. Stupid midnight) I saw Juno which I think will appeal to any fans of films like Garden State. It's all indie rock and wit. Very excellent.

I just got back from the staff-only showing of Be Kind Rewind, Michel Gondry's latest film starring Jack Black, Danny Glover and Mos Def. It's just a really happy film; I'd definitely recommend it.

Anyway, I have to be back at work in nine hours for a fifteen hour shift (technically a 7 hour and an 8 hour, with an hour's break inbetween) so goodnight for now.

[PsychWardMike]

I just finished the second season of "Dexter" and was pleased for the most part. I thought the season finale wrapped everything up a bit too neatly, but it was still good.

I don't have a TV, so I've been getting all my media through my computer (my college has a student run, semi-illegal campus exclusive file sharing system) so I've not been completely unentertained. I've been watching a lot of "Invader Zim." I had worried that I had outgrown Zim, Gir, Gaz, and Dib, but I really haven't, which I'm really happy about.

I also caught "Dazed and Confused" which I really enjoyed. I also saw "Half Baked" which has led me to a realization: all stoner comedies need to be directed by Kevin Smith and need to have at least one cameo by Jay and Silent Bob. It's true for "Half Baked" and was true for "Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny" (which, incidentally, how cool would it be to see JB and KG clash with Jay and Silent Bob?)

Also caught "Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End" for the first time which pleasantly surprised me. It wasn't as good as "Curse of the Black Pearl," but after all of the negative reviews I'd heard, it kept me entertained for a couple hours.

[Phyllis]

Pushing Daisies. It is so good! I am so, so horribly addicted and want more than 9 episodes. It makes me want to bake pies all day.

And edit: I just watched Juno, and I loved it. I cried a little bit at the end. When did I turn into my mother?

[I_am_the_best]

I watched Jumper. It's honestly one of the worst movies I've ever seen. There was actually no plot. It started off alright, and then nothing happened, then it ended and everyone in the cinema was all 'umm'.

[Novander]

I also just watched Jumper. It certainly does manage to successfully ignore all the hassle of being a good film. Not the worst film ever made, but if I'd paid to see it I think I'd have been a little annoyed.

IATB: You know it's the first part of a trilogy, right? Or supposed to be. Hopefully the studios will come to their senses and be all "hey guys, you know how we got the writers back? Why don't we pay one of them to write something good?"

[PsychWardMike]

I can't believe I haven't mentioned this: throughout this semester and last my good friend here at uni and I have gone through the first five seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a fun show, and I think it's really interesting, being a huge Firefly fan, to see what Joss Whedon did before the crew of Serenity first picked up a psychic government runaway. Some of the Buffy characters are obviously the ancient ancestors of the Serenity crew.

[Phyllis]

You should watch Angel as well, Mike.

Also be prepared for Season 6 of Buffy to be not as great as the first 5. The musical episode is freaking awesome, though.

[Novander]

I've started watching Sports Night. It's good, mostly, but it's unsure whether it wants to be a drama or a sitcom, so the canned laughter seems really out of place. I'm thinking it's not going to get me into american sports the way The West Wing got me interested in american politics. Maybe Sports Night isn't as good as The West Wing, maybe sports are more boring than politics. Probably both.

I've also seen a fair few films since I last posted but if I started writing about them this would soon become the Novander Review Thread and I've already got a livejournal for that.

Superbad, though, not something I watched at the cinema. Far better than I thought it would be. Surprisingly touching at the end.