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Sugar Hill - 70's Blaxploitation Zombie Movie. loving incredible. Go go go! The Anime Liker fucked around with this message at 03:42 on May 1, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 03:38
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Oh my, the first episode of Hemlock Grove is painstakingly awful. Not even worth finishing this episode it's so scattered. I don't know how any exec could see this doing well with different audiences. It seems very cheaply made, poor acting, random accents, incoherent story, etc. Anyone get further into it? 1.) How did you do it? 2.) Is it worth finishing at all? Edit: Oh and I forgot that the music makes the whole thing even worse. Music plays a huge role in building suspense and capturing the emotion of the scene. (See The Exorcist before and after they update music.) Hitch fucked around with this message at 03:52 on May 1, 2013 |
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May 1, 2013 03:50
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If you don't dig the first episode of Hemlock Grove, you probably won't like the rest. The whole season is like that. I liked it on sheer account of it being so weird and atypically produced in pretty much every way. I'm still surprised that it was ever made.
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May 1, 2013 14:50
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maxnmona posted:My understanding is Netflix is so confident in their original content, even though reviews mostly call House of Cards mediocre and Hemlock Grove painfully bad, that they're letting a lot of their outside content deals expire. It's another genius, customer focused Netflix move. I was thinking about this the other day - isn't most of this due to Warner Instant Archives going up? I can't imagine they could do much about that.
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May 1, 2013 15:22
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I was thinking about this the other day - isn't most of this due to Warner Instant Archives going up? I can't imagine they could do much about that. Yeah, I dunno, I got my information from the AV Club, which explained it that way and mentioned how Netflix is planning to develop some ridiculous amount of original series over the next couple years (the number was something like 40?). I didn't know about the Warner thing, so it might just be that. It's a bad precedent for customers, having each company have its own streaming service that it wants to charge you $10 a month for, so I really hope it fails quickly.
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May 1, 2013 15:25
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Disney's bombed with the quickness so Warner will come crawling back in 6 months. I do agree that the amount of stuff Netflix is alarming and surprising and not necessarily in a good way.
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May 1, 2013 15:28
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Another thing that may hurt Warner Archive Instant is that a lot of their titles are shown on TCM on a regular basis so people may not even bother getting it.
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May 1, 2013 15:43
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Wilhelm Scream posted:Another thing that may hurt Warner Archive Instant is that a lot of their titles are shown on TCM on a regular basis so people may not even bother getting it. Also, unlike Netflix which has been around for more than ten years, nobody has any idea Warner Instant Archives even exists and they sure aren't making any effort to let you know about it.
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May 1, 2013 15:56
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Wasn't the vast majority of the stuff that just expired MGM? What would that have to do with Warner having a streaming service?
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May 1, 2013 15:59
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MGM, Universal and WB. WB does account for a significant proportion of that but I am not sure how much.
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May 1, 2013 16:02
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Hitch posted:Oh my, the first episode of Hemlock Grove is painstakingly awful. Not even worth finishing this episode it's so scattered. I don't know how any exec could see this doing well with different audiences. It seems very cheaply made, poor acting, random accents, incoherent story, etc. I've been watching it one or two episodes at a time, and then I move onto something else. So small bites. My friend loves it, though. He's blown through the series in a week, has one episode left, I think. He's been recommending it to everyone. The only other shows I've heard him get this excited for are Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who, the latter being his all-time favorite show now. So take that for what you will. He also says to stick through it, because there's a lot of reveals and everything makes sense in the end, but that's not going to detract from the other major complaints (acting, music, etc.) American Horror Story is a good comparison. It's over-the-top and schlocky, but still watchable and entertaining.
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May 1, 2013 16:06
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Scanning through Netflix, John Noble caught my eye on a show "Dark Matters: Twisted but True" from the Science Channel. And damned if it isn't the best thing ever. The perfect fringe science show, a blend of bizarre truth (the history behind nuking the Van Allen belt), some out-there conspiracies grounded in their origins (talking about the Philadelphia experiment form the perspective of a scientist approached by a claimed participant), and some speculative conspiracy grounded in an even crazier-but-confirmed conspiracy (murder mystery of a man involved in MK-ULtra who may have threatened to expose civilian testing in France). Unlike a lot of similar shows, the actors in the dramatizations go hammy (intentionally) embracing the absurd instead of playing it straight, which works great juxtaposed with Noble's sincere narration. I've been burned out on "unsolved mystery" type shows for at least 10 years, especially with the explosion in stupid ghost stories where people feel cold presences in their attics at night. But this is something different. Even the stories I'm familiar with go in depth with some new fact or perspective that makes it worth watching. And they even undercut the stories with hoax elements by ending on possible explanation (having a magician show off the ease of levitating objects, re-framing a "Manchurian Candidate" scenario with mental illness and susceptibility to false memory under hypnosis) which is pretty refreshing for the type of show it is. The first season (six episodes) is up on netflix. Reading descriptions of the second season seems like it's just as entertaining, branching into all the most famous psychology experiments so wonderfully devoid of ethical behavior as they were. EvilTobaccoExec fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 2, 2013 |
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May 2, 2013 01:52
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My buddy finished Hemlock Grove. He liked it, but he says that pretty much every plot-line is left unresolved except for the main plot. To the point that it's annoying. So there you go.
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May 2, 2013 02:25
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:Scanning through Netflix, John Noble caught my eye on a show "Dark Matters: Twisted but True" from the Science Channel. This is the show that had a badly-animated army of gorillas in trenchcoats, right? Yeah, it's just the right amount of ridiculous. It's even better if you've watched Fringe and can just mentally replace John Noble with his character from that show.
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May 2, 2013 02:53
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:MGM, Universal and WB. WB does account for a significant proportion of that but I am not sure how much. The MGM library that was on Netflix and the MGM library part of Warner are different. Warner owns nearly all Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films made before mid-1986, with some odd cases here and there. Their library also includes almost all Warner films (obviously), most Allied Artists (except for stuff sold to NTA TV in the 1960s, which is part of Republic), some Monogram, and the RKO films. The current MGM owns United Artists films not reverted to estates (i.e. Chaplin and Walter Wanger), MGM films made after mid-1986, American International, Orion not co-produced with Warner, a ton of small studios absorbed by Orion (like Filmways, Empire, Atlantic, etc), plus licenses to the ABC Films (from Disney), Embassy (from StudioCanal), and Rank (from iTV). It's really complicated, but Warner has a solid library for streaming. I'll definitely get a subscription as soon as they make it Apple TV or PS3 compatible.
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May 2, 2013 02:54
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Egbert Souse posted:It's really complicated, but Warner has a solid library for streaming. I'll definitely get a subscription as soon as they make it Apple TV or PS3 compatible.
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May 2, 2013 03:28
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Egbert Souse posted:The MGM library that was on Netflix and the MGM library part of Warner are different. Interesting and more than a little confusing. And yeah, they have a great library, I'm just not that eager to go sign up for their site just to watch Warner movies.
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May 2, 2013 05:44
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Interesting and more than a little confusing. And yeah, they have a great library, I'm just not that eager to go sign up for their site just to watch Warner movies. I'll probably use services like this like I currently treat Hulu: subscribe for a month or two of the year, binge on the good stuff I've meant to see, and cancel immediately. Even if I only watch three or four movies, that's worth $10.
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May 2, 2013 05:48
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I hate the idea that now if we want to watch a TV show or movie, we will have to be subscribed to that network's offerings. HBO GO, Showtime Anytime, Warner Instant...all the networks own offerings. CBS doesn't put their shows on any of these streaming services. HBO/Showtime certainly don't. On the other hand, I'm thinking fat chance if Netflix is going to give Hulu/Xfinity or any of the others access to House of Cards. Everything is becoming so fragmented that it's ridiculous.
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May 2, 2013 05:53
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And this is why I still buy DVDs and Blu-Rays.
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May 2, 2013 05:55
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morestuff posted:I'll probably use services like this like I currently treat Hulu: subscribe for a month or two of the year, binge on the good stuff I've meant to see, and cancel immediately. Even if I only watch three or four movies, that's worth $10. Yeah, pretty much. I mean this is basically the idea behind a la carte cable and I could imagine it working out the exact same way except they'd really gently caress you because they'd probably try to lock you into years-long contracts.
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May 2, 2013 06:11
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Hitch posted:I hate the idea that now if we want to watch a TV show or movie, we will have to be subscribed to that network's offerings. HBO GO, Showtime Anytime, Warner Instant...all the networks own offerings. CBS doesn't put their shows on any of these streaming services. HBO/Showtime certainly don't. On the other hand, I'm thinking fat chance if Netflix is going to give Hulu/Xfinity or any of the others access to House of Cards. Everything is becoming so fragmented that it's ridiculous. CBS does have some kind of deal with Netflix because it has Everybody Loves Raymond/CSI: Miami/How I Met Your Mother and I believe a few others unless it's a deal with the studio behind those shows, I'm not sure. And Amazon Prime has The Good Wife so there's that.
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May 2, 2013 06:15
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Maxwell Lord posted:And this is why I still buy DVDs and Blu-Rays. Yep. That beautiful cloud singularity where meganerds can't wait for the death of physical media? Here you go. 80 monthly service subscriptions to keep track of. And 7 years after everyone really started hyping it, Hulu and HBO Go are buggy as poo poo and Netflix is hemorrhaging content. Crackle, Vudu, etc. of course being pure poo poo. And CinemaNow only works right because at $15 a pop, no one is using their bandwidth. I can't even imagine how lovely that "streaming video games" service will be. The Anime Liker fucked around with this message at 06:37 on May 2, 2013 |
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May 2, 2013 06:34
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Hitch posted:I hate the idea that now if we want to watch a TV show or movie, we will have to be subscribed to that network's offerings. HBO GO, Showtime Anytime, Warner Instant...all the networks own offerings. CBS doesn't put their shows on any of these streaming services. HBO/Showtime certainly don't. On the other hand, I'm thinking fat chance if Netflix is going to give Hulu/Xfinity or any of the others access to House of Cards. Everything is becoming so fragmented that it's ridiculous. Maybe we should just pay a middle-man company that can BUNDLE the disparate, lets call them CHANNELS, into one package, and then all I have to do is....OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE Like someone else in the thread said, if there's a unified search service that facilitates figuring out what content is where, I like the idea of being able to pick a la carte and vote with my wallet. It'd work far more effectively to promote good shows than the extreme subsidies that cable bundling provides lovely networks. Cable bundling is essentially the reason that any reality TV exists off of the major networks or History / Discovery. Because advertisers pay gently caress-all for, say, SPEED or OWN.
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May 2, 2013 06:40
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A GLISTENING HODOR posted:I can't even imagine how lovely that "streaming video games" service will be. Two words: Sim City.
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May 2, 2013 06:43
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Maxwell Lord posted:Two words: Sim City. Hey, at least with the Xbox 3.0 we'll be able to tweet about how streaming a 32gb video game was a bad idea as we browse through the Warner Bros. video app looking for Gladiator only to realize it was a Sony movie and the Sony video app isn't available on the Xbox, so you'll have to call your buddy and borrow his bluray because that idiot dinosaur isn't as cool as you because he isn't plugged into the cloud. 
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May 2, 2013 07:03
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A GLISTENING HODOR posted:I can't even imagine how lovely that "streaming video games" service will be. Which service? OnLive has been around for a while and aside from a tiny game catalog and worrying corporate instability, the actual streaming works nicely. I haven't used Gaikai. Watched Midnight Cowboy last night. Gosh, Dustin Hoffman is amazing. And I think it's the first time I've seen Jon Voight in a film released before '96. What a depth of performance.
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May 2, 2013 11:18
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I watched Silent Scream a few days ago. I am going to spoil some things but it really doesn't matter because the plot is so stupid that it really shouldn't exist anyway. Within the first 20 minutes the body count reaches near double figures. The twist of the movie is the most convoluted thing I think I've ever seen, and then they twist it again as if to save face from the first stupid twist, only to make things ever more stupid. To call this movie horror is a slap in the face of horror movies. If they called it slapstick horror I would accept that. Comedy would've been more on point. See this movie.
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May 2, 2013 13:20
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Since it was mentioned a while back in this thread, I powered through the Avatar: The Last Airbender series. I'd say it started a little rocky and wasn't sure how much of a kids show it needed to be but it came on strong by the second season. What's the general opinion of the sequel series The Legend of Korra?
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May 2, 2013 13:43
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 <--whaaaaaaaaaat?Its been recommended in the past but you absolutely need to see Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning. Its the latest sequel in the Universal Soldier franchise, but all you really need to know is that Universal Soldiers are government created super soldiers. I don't really want to spoil too much of it, but the movie is disturbingly violent, it has a Lynchian dream logic, the action scenes are intense (and oftentimes horrific), and Dolph Lundgren and Jean Claude are awesome. I haven't seen the Expendables movies but I have a hard time imagining they are better in those. One of the few movies from 2012 that I'm looking forward to revisiting.
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May 2, 2013 13:58
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Both Expendables movies are insanely terrible and predicated on the idea that none of these guys can act.
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May 2, 2013 15:48
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Thwomp posted:Since it was mentioned a while back in this thread, I powered through the Avatar: The Last Airbender series. I'd say it started a little rocky and wasn't sure how much of a kids show it needed to be but it came on strong by the second season. Legend of Korra is pretty good too. I'm looking forward to the second season.
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May 2, 2013 16:27
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Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning was utterly abysmal. The last fight was so boring I zoned out and started trying to research what they were thinking making this ugly, pointless, stupid movie. It starts off in the most shamelessly exploitative manner possible - the first scene is a POV of someone experiencing a nighttime home invasion by masked gunmen, in which they are brutally beaten and forced to helplessly watch their terrified daughter and wife executed in explicit detail. PROTIP: A terrible way to make me invested in your movie is to start with a crying preteen girl being shot in the head in front of her parents for absolutely no reason. The rest of the movie is an utterly joyless slog of equally pointless brutality, but somehow the movie is convinced it's trying to make some serious point about control or free will or what the gently caress ever. This movie is the stupidest loving waste of time I can remember and it makes me furious to remember that it even exists.
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May 2, 2013 16:56
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Someone just talked me in to watching Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning when I get home from work today.
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May 2, 2013 17:48
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david_a posted:Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning was utterly abysmal. The last fight was so boring I zoned out and started trying to research what they were thinking making this ugly, pointless, stupid movie. It starts off in the most shamelessly exploitative manner possible - the first scene is a POV of someone experiencing a nighttime home invasion by masked gunmen, in which they are brutally beaten and forced to helplessly watch their terrified daughter and wife executed in explicit detail. PROTIP: A terrible way to make me invested in your movie is to start with a crying preteen girl being shot in the head in front of her parents for absolutely no reason. The rest of the movie is an utterly joyless slog of equally pointless brutality, but somehow the movie is convinced it's trying to make some serious point about control or free will or what the gently caress ever. This movie is the stupidest loving waste of time I can remember and it makes me furious to remember that it even exists. Did you watch the movie? The home invasion was not "pointless" and it drives the main character throughout the entire movie. As for the rest of the movie, I agree with your assessment that it was not a fun action movie. This is closer to The Raid than Fast Five. I thought the apartment fight, car chase/store fight and final fights were all loving intense and way more competent then a sequel like this needs to be.
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May 2, 2013 17:51
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It's a completely ham-fisted attempt to get you to give a drat about the main character, who is otherwise utterly bland. Rather than actually do any writing they throw in a horrific scene with no context in the hope that you'll empathize with him. The final actions scenes were a total joke. Watching hordes of supposed "super soldiers" walk right into the protagonists gunfire/knife/fist got old after the first one. It's staggering to me how you can make action scenes so stupidly boring.
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May 2, 2013 18:09
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The scene is done in first person perspective - it's pretty clearly meant for that character to have "a motivation" to do what he's programmed to do, which has consequences.
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May 2, 2013 18:14
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david_a posted:It's a completely ham-fisted attempt to get you to give a drat about the main character, who is otherwise utterly bland. Rather than actually do any writing they throw in a horrific scene with no context in the hope that you'll empathize with him. Real talk, you've just convinced me to watch this movie. Hordes of 'super soldiers' that are actually cannon fodder? Sounds almost like there's some subtext there or something.
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May 2, 2013 18:19
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Universal Soldier: Regeneration is an A++ mega-great action movie that's not on Netflix streaming but should definitely be watched by anyone who enjoys action films. ANYONE. Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning starts out very nihilistic and it seems that poster david_a was turned off by this. It's not an easy beginning and I felt it was a little too violent for it's own good, but after this brief scene the movie becomes this very creepy, unique, atmospheric, and symbolic thriller-action-drama. It might not be your cup of tea but I feel like people should at least give the movie a chance. I found the parts that david_a called "a joyless slog" to be quite effective. There is a lot of understated character building and after watching the movie I realized that several events were connected but I, the viewer, had not been explicitly told or shown this. Again, I feel like it should be given a chance. I did not find the action scenes boring. I did not find the main character bland. I liked the tone and atmosphere of the film. It's not for everyone and is not a "fun" movie. I do think it works on several levels and is pretty unique, and I'm looking forward to the next Universal Soldier movie.
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May 2, 2013 18:19
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david_a posted:It's a completely ham-fisted attempt to get you to give a drat about the main character, who is otherwise utterly bland. Rather than actually do any writing they throw in a horrific scene with no context in the hope that you'll empathize with him. Well, the intro scene is supposed to be weird, manipulative, and over-simplistic because the protagonist of the movie is programmed to be living in an action movie plot.
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May 2, 2013 18:24
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