Dai

I watched Bridesmaids a few days ago, too, and that it was decent. The version I downloaded was 130 mins long, so I assume it was the directors/extended cut. The scene on the plane was way too long and not funny, so I assume this may be where a lot of the extended footage was added. It had bits of crap scattered throughout, but on the whole it was pretty enjoyable.

Also recently watched:

- Haywire, which was shit. The fight scenes were good, but the rest was cliched, bog standard action stuff. The end part was strange/shit, too. Ewan McGregor, the bad guy (complete with awful accent), escapes from the hero's house and goes on the run to another country. Literally FIVE minutes later, hes found, which leads to the final fight scene (which was crap). Bizarre.

- Drive. Most of the stuff I had read about Drive was that it was a marmite film. Funnily enough, I neither hated it or loved it. I thought it was pretty good, but thats about it. A decent story, some good action scenes thrown in, combined with some over the top violence (ie, the elevator scene).

Downloaded this show and am making my way through it. Im not a regular watcher of these shows, and havent seen a full deathmatch show for years, so was suprised about the atmosphere at TOD XI. The crowd are super harsh and blood-thirsty, and pretty much treat the wrestlers as jesters. Take that Nick Mondo clone, for example. No matter what crazy shit he took during his match, the crowd were essentially laughing AT him throughout. Must take a strange person to take a load of crazy bumps for zero reaction.

Same deal with the first non tourney match. That one guy gets belly to belly suplexed from the ring onto chairs set up on the floor, whacks the back of his head on a metal frame, then gets a thumbtack covered lantern smashed over his head. All of this sequence generated a few 'ohhhs', then you can clearly hear a guy in the crowd say "hit him harder". 30 seconds later he has a thumbtack bat smashed on his back, to zero reaction. The crowd go back to heckling them at this point. Pretty crazy, and Im sure it wasnt this sort of atmosphere during the old TODs I used to watch.

Finished Season 1 of Spartacus yesterday, and thought it was outstanding. Ill chuck the rest in spoilers to be safe:

Recently watched Real Steel, Super 8, Hugo and Warrior. All were decent, but was slightly disappointed with Warrior. Its got an 8.2 rating on IMDB, and a couple of people I know said it was brilliant, but I didnt think it was THAT good. Real Steel was good fun, and didnt get carried away with the sentimental stuff, which I thought it might.

Super 8 was going along nicely until the last 10-20 minutes, when the alien stuff was shite.

Also watched Transporter 3, which is one of the worst movies Ive ever seen. You can usually forgive the shit storyline and bad dialogue when the action scenes make up for it, but this film doesnt even have those. I think there was just one fight scene, and one car chase, both of which were shit, and edited like shit, too. Fast-fowarding parts of the car chase scene, the extreme shaky camera affects for the fighting, all of it made it look like crap. The decision to cast Patsy Palmer as the main sidekick/eye-candy to Statham for the entire movie, and attempt to make her as unlikeable as possible throughout sort of sums it up. The BMX scene....somehow making T-Bag from Prison Break a bland villan...etc, etc.

Speaking of 3D, has anyone else seen the Spiderman trailer in 3D? The parts where there were no big movements looked great, but as soon as you got into the action scenes, it became almost unwatchable. Things like Spiderman swinging through buildings, etc, were awful, and super blurry and messy looking. Has anyone else noticed the same?

 

 

No, because I hate 3d.. But is it the same Spiderman trailer that has been doing the rounds on the net for a while, or is this a new one? Will have to look it up if the latter.

Same one thats been out for a while, but Spiderman's quip about the small gun was edited out for some reason.

Prometheus spoilers below:

Prometheus in 3D was very average. It looked great, and the 3D worked well. Every character was bland and forgetable, though, which was a big problem with the film. There were loads of ridiculous/unoriginal scenes throughout, too (ie, the womans no-sell of the major surgery, the classic 'giant thing falling slowly down, all person has to do is take 5 steps sideways but doesnt', the look through the glass, etc).

Can someone explain the part when David put that thing in the guys drink? I assume he didnt know what it would do, so why did he do it? And for what point? Was he ordered to do it? It wasnt as if he closely monitored the guy afterwards, so it doesnt seem like it was an experiement. Also, what was with the complete non-reaction of the woman when David essentially told her "I killed the love of your life"? All of this story seems like a complete waste of time thinking about it now.

Speaking of 3D, has anyone else seen the Spiderman trailer in 3D? The parts where there were no big movements looked great, but as soon as you got into the action scenes, it became almost unwatchable. Things like Spiderman swinging through buildings, etc, were awful, and super blurry and messy looking. Has anyone else noticed the same?

I read an article on the BBC website by Theroux before the porn episode aired, where he talked about the porn stars essentially doing porn as advertising, and making most of their money from escorting. Thought that would have been very interesting if he had covered that in the show. As it was, there was too much bland stuff featured, such as the couple where the woman was a porn star.

I watched the first episode of "Oceans" on BBC, which was awful. Ive seen a few nature shows now that have this sort of format, where they focus as much (if not more) on the actual people doing the exploring, rather than the nature itself. Maybe its because they have to pad out the shows to make an entire series. What you end up with is a show where its mostly these annoying people talking about what they are going to do, only to not actually end up doing it. Sort of like that show Harry Hill always used to take the piss out of, for making claims and then never actually getting any footage of said thing.

Here is the description of the show; "Series revealing the hidden stories of the deep as a team of four marine experts voyage across the globe to explore our planet's last true wilderness - its oceans". What you actually got in the show: 15 minutes of talking about finding hammer-head sharks, but never doing so. 15 minutes of sea lions (hardly a mysterious creature of the deep), a few minutes of squids, and a few minutes of whales. All padded out with relentless talking on their boat.

As recommended by Sickboy, I too have started watching Spartacus. Im only up to episode 4 (The Pit), and have been impressed so far. Seeing Spartacus get arm-barred, then countering into a rear-naked choke in The Pit was one of the more bizarre fight scenes Ive seen. From reading this thread, it only gets better from this point. I was expecting the first three episodes to not be very good, but they were not bad at all, and had enough action thrown in to make the episode fly by. It seems like they spend most of their budget on the fight scenes (which so far have all been really good looking), as the CGI and 'outside' sets do come off as pretty cheap.

Watch Take Shelter if you haven't already. And love it.

 

http://stagevu.com/video/kxlditbnnbgs

Saw this last night, and thought it was very good. The main guys gradual mental decline and increased paranoia is told well, and acted superbly. There was nothing over the top, apart from that little punch-up scene, which was probably my least favourate part of the film.

The ending was confusing, mind, and a quick look at the IMDB message board shows plenty of theories about what it meant. Had the wife become parnoid? Was it just another dream? Was it reality? Whatever it was, it probably wasnt nescessary, and was not really in keeping with the rest of the film.

Watched Safe House last night. Very average, very unoriginal, with some decent action scenes thrown in (the car chase was pretty good). It was essentially a 6 episode storyline from 24 condensed into a 2 hour film, and instead of Jack Bauer you get Ryan Reynolds. Only watched it because it had a decent IMDB rating (7.0), but it certainly wasnt that good.

Also watched the newest Mission Impossible recently, which was a lot better than Safe House. Loads of good and original action scenes, good performances from the three main guys, and it doesnt drag at any point.

Finished off The Walking Dead earlier today. To be fair, it did actually pick up in quality from Episode 5 onwards. It's by no means excellent, and it still has pockets of shit scattered throughout, but at least it kicked up the action and tension, so most episodes at least had something decent going for it. The season turned out to be pretty good.

The finale sort of sums up the show. The first half was belting, then the second half is average and forgetable, with the characters rehashing old ground about surviving, and Lori/Carl being shit.

With a few exceptions, the writers have done a good job to cull a lot of the dead wood from the cast, too. There was no place for Shane once this story had run its course, and I think everyone will be glad to see the back of Dale. His death scene was pretty funny, too. I assume the writers spent the whole of that episode (the execution one, which was shit) trying to make Dale look like the good guy, just to make his death scene have a lot of impact. But by the end of it, I was so annoyed by his constant preaching that I was glad he got killed. Whats left it a pretty decent cast.

Ive read that theyre spending the next season at the prison they showed at the end, and introducing someone called The Governor, who's meant to be a good villan from the comics.

Im four episodes into Season 2 of The Walking Dead. Its as bad as most people have said. A lot of bad actors, bad characters, and just a contstant stream of emo speeches (which really start to wear you down after a while). You can only really get invested in these pain-filled speeches if you have invested in the characters, but the show hasnt give you a reason to do so. Because of that, you end up with loads of scenes of a misserable woman (the Mother/the blonde) who you dont know or care about, relentlessly moaning about an issue (the missing girl/the dead sister) you dont care about either.

Considering the season is only 13 40-minute episodes, its a painfully slow-moving show. You can sort of forgive a 24 epsiode season having a few fillers, but when its only 13, then it shouldnt really happen. The fact that the first episode had two monologues to 'God' in the space of five minutes sort of sums up the show.

I recently finished the original versions of The Killing I and II.The Killing was superb. One of the best things that can be said is that after 20 one-hour episodes, there arent any huge plot holes or big inconsistancies, and it wrapped things up very nicely. It also only took me around one week to finish the entire series, which shows how interesting it was. A great story, a great secondary story, loads of great characters (special mention to Hartmann, Lund and Meyer), loads of great relationships that developed throughout the series, and the pacing of the story was top notch too. I thought 20 full-hour episodes might be too much for one story, but I cant remember it ever dragging. Great show.The Killing II, whilst good, is nowhere near as great as the first series. Most of the things that made Series 1 great are missing from this one. The main story is good, but the political side-story is pretty weak. 10 episodes isnt enough, either, and that means there wasnt enough time to develop the characters. Compare the fat politician in this series to the superb Hartmann character from series 1, which highlights the problem with having only 10 episodes. Things also moved at too quick a pace, with too many deaths happening too soon. Still decent mind, and Ive read that theyre making a third series soon as well.

I only regularly watch The Office, Parks and Rec, and Modern Family, and out of the three, Id say Parks and Rec had the best finale, along with the best season.

How have you seen next week's Modern Family already? Is it online anywhere?

I only regularly watch The Office, Parks and Rec, and Modern Family, and out of the three, Id say Parks and Rec had the best finale, along with the best season. The Tom and Ann relationship story is a bit weak, but apart from that, its been top notch for most of the season. All of the top characters are excellent. Even though its unfair, when you compare the characters to the main ones from The Office, then the likes of Ron, April and Leslie are now a lot better than the likes of Jim, Pam and Dwight.The Disney episode of Modern Family was the best episode for a while in my opinion. It can still be great in parts, but I think its definately got more inconsistant this season.Anyone else watching Planet Earth Live? I can only watch it if Ive taped it, as there seems to be loads of padding out on each show. It seems to be 2 minutes of actual footage of the monkeys or lions, then about 5 minutes of Hammond or the other woman talking. Yesterdays show was an example of that, as I think I finished it in well under 10 minutes. Lots of talking, and only about 5 minutes of good footage of the meerkats.

She was very good, no doubt, but I think Brody and Saul were still better. Werent a fan of the 'off meds' Carrie toward the end, which I what is freshest in my mind.

Just watched the Season Finale of Homeland. The finale, along with the entire season, was very good. All of the main actors were top notch, with the weakest being Carrie. Damian Lewis in particular was superb. The main plot was interesting and original, and its gradual revelation throughout the season was very well done, without ever getting too over the top.

Is The Avengers worth seeing in 3D or not?

Just watched a few films that were on TV over the weekend.

The Transporter 2 somehow made the first one look believable. Probably the most over the top film I have ever seen. Has there ever been something as ridiculous as the stunt when he has a bomb on the underneath of his car, then procedes to flip the car into the air, knocks the bomb off with a dangling hook from a crane, lands the car and drives away. That has to be the most unbelieable stunt I have ever seen in a film. Other gems include completley destorying a helicopter with about 4 pistol shots, and a plane crashing into the speed at high speed, with the only damage being a few meters of water in the plane.

Also Terminator: Salvation was on. Average and pretty forgetable, with Bale doing his Batman voice. Not much else of note I can remember, really.

Didnt think the book would be enough to stop them/him trying to cash in even more, though. When you can have things like Ivory spending 2 hours talking about a single year in WWF history, then having Foley spend 4 hours talking about the 90's doesnt seem that crazy.

Someone mentioned Venis going over 1999 coming out soon. That would have been perfect for Foley.

That cant be it, surely? There must be a 3-4 hour shoot with Foley discussing pre-2000, right?

Havent read all of this thread, but is there a Mick Foley Shoot which talks about his pre-2000 career? Im assuming there must be. The reason I ask is because Im about 2.5 hours into his Straight Shootin interview (which I downloaded ages ago), and was disappointed that it basically started from his 2000 Commish gimmick. Its been pretty good, but I assume there is one out there that covers all the older stuff. Cant find it on a google search, though.

I also watched Ivory's 2001 Timeline shoot thing. It was a good watch, and at the end I was shocked that I had just watched 2 hours of Ivory's thoughts of WWF in 2001. I dont think Ive watched 2 hours of Ivory's matches in total, yet the format on this shoot made it entertaining to watch a low profile diva's thoughts for a couple of hours. Any other good Timeline shoot interviews?

Anyone kept up with the PL the last few weeks? The main thing to happen has been Taylor's continued run of form. Last week, it was a 112 average against Barney (who has also looked better the last few weeks than Ive seen for a long while), and last night it was an absolutley insane 117 against Whitlock. The second highest average in TV darts history they said. The thing is, Taylors been so good the last few weeks, that it didnt even feel that special that he had a 110+ average for most of the match. Crazy standard.

Apart from that, Anderson has looked solid the last few weeks, as have Barney and Hamilton.

This is a coincedence, as last week I spent a fair bit of time on THIS guys page, watching a shit load of death match vids. Its a great page, as its all just highlights/replays, so you dont have to watch all the boring stuff in-between the bumps.

This was probably the most memorable one I saw:

The guy genuinely gets fucking stabbed in the arm. Id say its sicker than anything else in this thread so far. Im like most people who find it fascinating that this guy willlingly got stabbed in the arm, plus took some other big bumps (the one at the end where he lands hard on his head in particular), all for probably less than $100, and in front of less than 100 people. Crazy.

That site could provide a game. Who can find the most insane bump infront of the smallest crowd? My nomination, after a quick glance, is

Anyone got any links to some good thumbtack bat shots to the head? Ive seen Insane Lane take a brutal one before (where they also went into his shoulders), but cant find it now.

Did anyone see 'The Great Ticket Scandal' episode of Dispatches last night? Basically, an undercover report highlighting how tour promoters (Livenation, SJM)give supposed 'fan to fan' ticket resellers large allocations of tickets to sell at a premium & get a kick-back. I wasn't surprised it's happening but I didn't know it was happening to the extent it is.

Yeah, I was a little shocked at the actual tour promoters doing that. I guess its a fair point that at least this way they get a kick-back of the profit, rather than nothing if it went through a tout. Was a pretty boring show, though, as it was essentially 15 minutes worth of a show stretched out into an hour. Also, if there werent a lot of idiots willing to pay

Looking at the rest of the list (particularly Se7en), Id assume Fight Club will make the cut. Again, judging from what else made the list, its surely impossible for there to be no Rocky movie at all in the Top 50.