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For a couple that sits for far too long sifting through all the titles available, this thread is a godsend. Also, kind of off-topic, but of the three Netflix-capable videogame consoles, the Wii uses the least electricity by a wide margin. Handy to know if you're pinching pennies/getting raped on your utility bills. Stolen Life (Dark drama, Mandarin language with English subtitles) Yan'ni is almost run over by a charming man making deliveries on campus. They get to know each other, and she ends up pregnant--something against the rules at her university. Hot Summer Days (Romance comedy, Mandarin language with English subtitles) A brutal heatwave is the setting for this comedy composed of several intertwining stories. The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle (Indie comedy, English language) I can't even begin to explain this one. It's one of the most bizarre films I've ever seen. Outsourced (Culture-shock romance comedy, English language) Josh Hamilton plays a call center manager that is sent to India to train a batch of new recruits. Piccadilly Jim (Quirky romantic comedy, English language) Sam Rockwell (who really aught to be in more films) plays the titular Jim, a high-society man with a penchant for drinking and womanizing. When he meets the woman of his dreams, he pretends to be someone else. A goofy and frantic film--one of my favorites. New Guy (Indie workplace comedy, English Language) Gregg starts his first day at his new office job on the right foot, only to slowly come to the realization that things aren't all they seem at the office. Don't be put off by the subpar video quality. This is a weird film, but very good. I saw I Love You Phillip Morris mentioned earlier. There was a disclaimer at the end that mentioned that it was a dramatization of real events. How much of what happened in the film really occurred?
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Aug 25, 2011 19:20
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Practical Demon posted:I'll agree with that, to an extent. I think some of the show was supposed to be parodying those kinds of cliches, or at least paying tribute to them, so I didn't take it totally at face value. Here's my rule for any Netflix-hosted anime with a North American ADR team (especially Funimation)--watch one episode, then draw conclusions. Some shows are loving unwatchable because of bad dubbers. TTGL is one of them. Find it in Japanese with decent subtitlers. You'd be surprised how big a difference it can make. Rabidsamba posted:Not sure if its been mentioned, but I just finished watching Wristcutters: A Love Story on instant and was really surprised at how much I enjoyed it considering it was just a random movie I saw scrolling through the main page on Netflix. Such a stellar film. Glad you enjoyed it. Alright, tonight, we're trying this Top Gear thing you guys and gals can't seem to stop talking about. Hope it ends up being as good as you all say 
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Sep 12, 2011 02:10
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casual poster posted:Never seen it myself, but from what I've heard it is a extremely depressing anime. Very serious. Yeah, supposedly it makes School Days and Elfen Lied look like Sesame Street. It's been in our Instant Queue for a while but we haven't been in the mood to have our hearts ripped out recently. Another depressing (but not excessively so) anime available for streaming is Gunslinger Girl. It tells the story of a group of young girls that have been physically and mentally modified to be government assassins. It sounds like a stupid gimmick designed to shoehorn little girls into an action anime, but it watches like a series of case studies instead. Top Gear is ...okay. Maybe we just don't "get" it? The host is a funny guy and cars are neat but I don't see us watching any more of it. I started us at the beginning of season 3 because I read earlier in the thread that they got a new host and format for the show. It's not a bad show, just not my kind of thing, I guess. Exam is a pretty neat "psychological thriller" where a group of job applicants are put in a room together and given a certain amount of time to answer a question, only they don't know what the question is.
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Sep 12, 2011 14:02
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Speaking of awesome bad films, Evil Alien Conquerors is a 2002 sci-fi b-movie romp featuring Chris Parnell, Diedrich Bader, Michael Weston, and Phil LaMarr. It's as if they set out to capture the very essence of the b-movie, and boy, did they pull it off!
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Sep 12, 2011 15:11
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Revdomezehis posted:Just note that there are 2 seasons of Gunslinger Girl (Don't know if second is on Instant for sure, but just to be safe) and while the first season is good as you describe, the 2nd season is pretty much just gimmicky little girls anime essentially. Season 2 is available. The focus does shift to more to the girls themselves rather than the relationships between them and their handlers, but in hindsight, the first season addresses many of the socio/psychological implications of the program, so maybe the creators decided that a new approach was necessary. If you get an episode or two in and decide you don't like the new style, skip to episode 8 to see a bizarre yet soul-crushing "Scarborough Fair"-themed episode about Claes. As far as language options, Captain Stinkybutt is right. Funimation earned a reputation years ago for doing really, really lovely jobs with their dubs, but nowadays they seem to be getting their act together a little. They did well with Spice and Wolf, for instance, but stay the gently caress away from Pumpkin Scissors--their dub work makes it unwatchable. Oh, and speaking of tone changes across seasons and Spice and Wolf, if you enjoyed the emphasis on trading and negotiating in the first season, don't bother with the second. Artistically, it's very well done, but content-wise it's very disappointing. The focus shifts from trading and making deals to the main characters' relationship, and the show was already about a woman with wolf ears and a tail--adding awkward sexual tension to the mix is pandering to an audience that I want nothing to do with. Thanks for the Top Gear advice. We'll give it another try.
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Sep 13, 2011 15:20
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A Nice Boy posted:Don't worry about that one. I don't think I could ever force myself to watch something called Pumpkin Scissors anyway. That's gotta be one of those weird Japanese to English mistranslations, right? Please tell me it is. Yeah, a mistranslation, that's the ticket. Okay, I lied. It's an accurate translation. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm told that the commander formed the Pumpkin Scissors platoon to "cut through bad guys like scissors through a pumpkin." I'm still looking for it on the cheap on DVD because I've heard that it's pretty good despite having a loving silly name. My Princess (drama, Korean language with English subtitles) A girl finds out that she's a princess and is whisked away to the royal palace to be taught etiquette. Sixteen episodes of digital crack cocaine. Don't start this unless you have no important things to do for a while because you won't be able to stop!
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Sep 16, 2011 13:48
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Captain Stinkybutt posted:I think that sentence you used from the description is pretty bullshit, though. I guess there's some etiquette teaching in the show occasionally maybe that one time but it's mostly about how everyone loving hates her because they're all selfish assholes and are all plotting against her in different ways in an attempt to make her fail and refuse to accept the title of princess. Yeah, I couldn't think of an eloquent way to summarize what happens without giving too much away so I paraphrased the Netflix summary from memory. Sorry 'bout that. But, it's a good show regardless of my ineptitude and everyone should try it out!
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Sep 19, 2011 19:07
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Just to be silly, the wife put on Assault Girls last night. From the cover art, it looks like a Sucker Punch rip-off, but actually isn't. It's a film set in the near future about four players in a super-interactive MMORPG. It sounds lame, and we thought we would've shut it off five minutes in, but it was actually pretty cool. The costume design alone is worth checking the film out, and for being a low-budget production, the CG effects aren't bad at all. Be warned, though--it is a very, very slowly-paced film. (mostly) English language (with English subtitles when appropriate)
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Oct 3, 2011 14:34
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FizzyJuffoWup posted:Complete series of Malcolm in the Middle there went my workweek
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Oct 3, 2011 15:17
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Dishes sit dirty in the sink. The cat paws at us, desperately, as if to say, "Feed me, guys. I'm so hungry." Okay, after this episode, we'll take care of things. Twelve hours later, we realize that we haven't eaten. Microwave dinners, still half-frozen, in front of the TV. Malcolm in the Middle shall be the death of us all. GOTTA STAY FAI has a new favorite as of 13:47 on Oct 5, 2011 |
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Oct 5, 2011 13:36
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I'd written off Breaking Bad after seeing a .gif of a character throwing a pizza onto a roof, thinking it was yet another zany situational comedy filmed without a tripod, but holy mackerel, was I wrong. Don't let the description fool you--it is a TV drama about drugs, but neither in a "drugs are awesome" nor in a "scared straight" way. The story revolves around Walt, a high school chemistry teacher recently diagnosed with lung cancer. Knowing that his time is short, he decides to make as much money for his family as possible before he dies by secretly putting his extensive knowledge of chemistry to use--cooking methamphetamine out of an RV in the middle of a desert wasteland in New Mexico. We're absolutely hooked on this show.
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Oct 18, 2011 15:23
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Zwabu posted:I don't know if you've watched up to the pizza scene but it's one of those genuinely hilarious moments that just happened on camera. The protagonist, Walt, is played by the Malcolm in the Middle dad, who is pretty gifted at physical comedy. We're about through what's available via streaming. Maybe four episodes left? Can't say I didn't thoroughly enjoy every bit of what I've seen so far. Also, we've caught at least one actor calling Walt "Hal" (his character's name on Malcolm in the Middle) either by mistake or as a joke (Example: Walt and Jesse are stranded in the desert after Jesse leaves the keys in the ignition of the RV. Walt is passed out/sleeping in the lawn chair while Jesse is cranking the broken generator. Jesse goes to wake him up to see if they've cranked it enough, and as he approaches, he says "Hal?".)
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Oct 18, 2011 16:41
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Yeah, this has to be some kind of bug because any device we use works just fine. The Wii did have us download an update for the Netflix software recently, though--maybe they're still working the kinks out of some sort of system-wide software modification?
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Dec 1, 2011 16:58
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Prof. Numbers posted:By the way, that Wii update blows. Netflix on Wii used to have teh snappy, but the update is an order of magnitude slower. Animations stutter and scrolling through movies takes 1-2 seconds for each button press. MrGreenShirt posted:Thank you! The new update blows! Everything's all jittery and takes an extra beat or two to load. What the gently caress, Netflix? What. The. gently caress. No kidding. It's pretty terrible all around. I especially hate having to hide the Wii remote from the sensor bar while I'm watching something (if it's pointed at the sensor bar, the huge progress bar thing takes up a third of the screen).
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Dec 2, 2011 14:51
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Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations is a great show where the cynical Bourdain, a professional chef and author, traipses around the world Severance has been mentioned a couple times already but it's so great I felt the need to recommend it again.
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Jan 31, 2012 20:14
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Volume posted:The Amazing Johnathan I watched the most recent show available on Netflix and was horrified to discover that this dude is still doing that single act that he came up with in the early nineties. He's obviously a talented performer; I wish he'd have spent the last two decades coming up with new material. 
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Mar 6, 2012 17:35
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Lincoln`s Wax posted:Yeah, there are some really good ted bits and some really awful ones. Benjamin Zander's talk on classical music is good. I also really liked Mike Rowe's one as well, he's an awesome speaker. People seem to love that one with the woman talking about her stroke. It starts off cool but then she goes into all this hippie-dippy metaphysical poo poo and left brain vs right brain crap and ugggghhh. Can you point me toward which specific TED Talks "episode(s)" Mike Rowe was on?
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Apr 9, 2012 20:26
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cornface posted:The Michael Rappaport movie "Special" is on instant. It is vaguely science-fiction, and a pretty good movie all around. Just watched this for the millionth time last night. It's absolutely stellar.
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Apr 20, 2012 16:14
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Jeff Wiiver posted:How's It Made I'm usually a pretty picky guy, but I can't find a single fault with this program. Maybe I'm just a sucker for "inside looks" at how skiis, bowling pins, tractors, and chewing gum are made. If you haven't already done so, try a random episode.
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Apr 23, 2012 14:36
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Teeter posted:The only negative is the constant barrage of groan-worthy puns The puns are part of the charm  I'm shocked when there isn't a pun--the episode we just watched featured metal chains. Not a single "weak link" pun the entire time. Bleach: Memories of Nobody popped up. It's an anime film and a bit of a guilty pleasure. Japanese language, subtitled. The animation is pretty good, and the voice actors do an excellent job. The subtitles are...wonky, at times, but not cumbersomely so. If you like shounen anime spirit magic swordfighting, you're in luck.
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Apr 28, 2012 17:26
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. Aside from that it's fantastic. I've watched it on TV when I've got nothing else going on but I've killed a lot of time with it on netflix the past few nights.
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sixdeadpandas posted:I saw that "Edmond" is on there. Good movie. I don't know how to describe it other than William H Macy has this weird midlife crisis/descent to hell episode. Bizarre ending for sure. Urgh, I really didn't like this one. One of the only good things I can say about it is that Dulé Hill is in it (don't get your hopes up, he's only onscreen for a minute). William H. Macy does an okay job at being a bizarre, possibly mentally-ill guy that suffers a...breakdown? Not like Michael Douglas in Falling Down--he doesn't go nuts on convenience store clerks and racists--he just walks off and...does stuff. Hey, look--Office Space is up! Watch that instead. Ron Livingston plays an average joe that works for a software company with his friends Samir and Michael Bolton. It's often said that this film is "required viewing" for anyone entering the corporate world. It also stars Gary Cole as the worst boss ever and John McGinley (who you might remember as Dr. Cox from the show Scrubs) as an "efficiency expert." Rated R for a whole fuckton of swearing. Seriously, when this film came out, the CAP Alert guy probably shat himself. GOTTA STAY FAI has a new favorite as of 13:06 on May 21, 2012 |
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May 18, 2012 14:31
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Jibo posted:I think you mean Falling Down, not Breaking Down. Whoops! I did. Changed it. Thanks for pointing that out. Also, Cold Comfort Farm is indeed a great film.
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May 21, 2012 13:07
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Zwabu posted:I thought the "I saw something nasty in the woodshed" payoff was one of the most hilarious things I've seen in films. British humo(u)r at its finest Mousehunt is a fun slapstick comedy directed by Gore Verbinski (you might remember him as the director of some films about pirates somewhere in the Caribbean) starring Nathan Lane and Lee Evans. Two brothers inherit a string factory and an empty house, the latter of which isn't as empty as they thought (Christopher Walken also stars). Rated PG. Speaking of Gore Verbinski, another film he directed is available: The Weather Man. Nicolas Cage plays a local TV weatherman whose life loving sucks. His wife left him for another man, he only sees his kids occasionally, his father couldn't care less about him, and--to top it all off--the poor guy gets food thrown at him on a daily basis. This film is dark. Not dark as in "dark comedy," just dark. Rated R for language and general suicide-inducing bleakness.
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May 21, 2012 15:58
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WickedIcon posted:Isn't this the movie where he wants that cake, also something about rotisserie chicken? If by "cake" you mean "something to go right in his life for once," and by "rotisserie chicken" you mean "for his pre-teen daughter to quit smoking," then yes. Otherwise, no, that doesn't sound right.
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May 21, 2012 19:20
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The Safety of Objects is a fascinating film that tells the story of four suburban familes and the ways their lives are interconnected. The film weighs in at just under two hours, and I'll admit that during some scenes, I had a bit of trouble figuring out which of the seventeen main characters I was looking at (namely the husbands, because of an abundance of camera shots that obscure their faces or only show the back of their heads), but context usually clears it up. Glenn Close does a wonderful job as a single mother who is tasked with caring for her comatose son (Joshua Jackson, in some of the finest coma acting I've ever seen). War, Inc. is one of my current favorites. Look at this lineup--John & Joan Cusak, Marisa Tomei, John Goodman, Ben Kingsley, and Hilary Duff! The film is a satire in which John Cusak plays an assassin that works for a multinational private military contractor, and has been hired to assassinate an oil baron who is visiting a made-up middle-eastern nation for an arms convention. I'd say more but I don't want to ruin a single thing about this hilarious romp.
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Jun 27, 2012 13:24
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Jibo posted:I wasn't aware War, Inc. was up. It's one of those movies that is good but I probably like way more than I should. I generally just have a thing for movies that take place in weird distorted versions of the present. I'm in the same boat, here. Also, Joan Cusack is a dynamite yeller. She spends the last quarter of the film just yelling. Weird and distorted, but totally true, Rogue Trader stars Ewan McGregor as futures fraudster Nick Leeson, who in the 1990's, single-handedly brought down Barings Bank--England's oldest financial institution--though high-risk speculative trading in Singapore.
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Jul 5, 2012 19:41
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casual poster posted:Watched The Rum Diary a few nights ago, definitely worth checking out, but my opinion could be skewed because I really like HST. He still has the normal word choice of HST, with a great flow of words coming through to make a distinct HST sentence, but they don't have him act like he did in Fear and Loathing, with the wide eyed grin and stalking legs. The story is basically HST goes to Puerto Rico to work for a small newspaper but soon some big name realtors want him to start writing pieces praising their land, things go bad. Check it out. I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum--not a fan of Hunter S. Thompson or the "drug culture mystique" (for lack of a better term) that surrounds him, but I found the The Rum Diary to be thoroughly enjoyable. Giovanni Ribisi does a stellar job in the film, too, by the way. Speaking of Giovanni Ribisi, The Big White is available. Loved it. Robin Williams plays a travel agent whose brother went missing years ago. When he finds a dead body, he decides to cash in on his brother's million-dollar life-insurance policy by claiming that it's him. Holly Hunter cusses a lot (she's also in Raising Arizona, which was mentioned earlier in the thread, go watch that too because it's hilarious). Repeaters is an entertaining film about three recovering addicts in a rehab facility that begin living the same day over and over again. The premise seems trite, but give it a chance--it's an excellent movie.
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Jul 9, 2012 12:48
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Does Jim Gaffigan ever stop doing that annoying "I'm a high-pitched person from the audience responding to the comedian" bit? He'd be a funny guy if not for that gimmick.
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Jul 9, 2012 18:41
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I'll admit that I enjoy a terrible film from time to time, but jesus loving christ, that film shifted the mean against which I measure other bad movies. gently caress. It's like a high-budget Troma film that somehow was able to take itself seriously. gently caress. gently caress. Thomas Edison and George Eastman would've committed suicide if they had known that their lives' efforts would have eventually lead to this.
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Jul 11, 2012 20:14
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jase1 posted:Finders fee was a decent movie. It has Ryan Reynolds, James Earl Jones and a couple of other people I recognize but don't know their names. A guy finds a wallet on the street with a lottery ticket and it goes from there. I really enjoyed it and James Earl Jones is pretty awesome in it. It's a shame he has to act alongside Matthew Lillard in that film--Lillard isn't a fantastic actor to begin with, but he is (by a wide margin, in my opinion) at his worst in Finder's Fee. I found myself groaning and rolling my eyes nearly every time he spoke. James Earl Jones loving owns though and he's great, as usual.
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Jul 18, 2012 15:10
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What Planet Are You From? Gary Shandling, Annette Bening, John loving Goodman, Greg Kinnear, Ben Kingsley, and Judy Greer. Watch this film about Gary Shandling's humming robot penis. It's amazing. seriously it's a funny movie about aliens trying to take over earth, just watch it
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Jul 20, 2012 13:02
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OK Octopus posted:Oh my God, you guys. The post-apocalyptic DDR movie, "The FP," is on insant. Oh my god. you have got to be loving kidding me go watch this right now RIGHT NOW
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Oct 16, 2012 02:36
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Frankenstyle posted:Good lord. I'm watching Iron Sky right now Everyone should be watching Iron Sky right now. It's amazing.
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Feb 7, 2013 19:47
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Mike the TV posted:It is definitely a surprise RomCom. So absolutely get the wife/girlfriend to watch it too. I thought it was going to be a doofy thing full of in-jokes and such (because of what it's based on) but it ended up being pretty fantastic. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret is still up, and it's pretty goddamn funny. Blake Harrison steals the show right out from underneath David Cross, if you ask me.
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Mar 4, 2013 15:18
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Totally TWISTED posted:Totally TWISTED and (5) others orgasmed over your post.* sploosh Seriously, go watch Archer.
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Mar 12, 2013 02:49
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Hey, I just saw Equilibrium slide by. It's an action flick about a not-too-distant future in which mankind decides that human emotion is the cause of all war and strife, and comes up with a chemical solution to the problem--a drug that is required by law to be taken several times a day. Lots of gunfights and Christian Bale being a badass and putting the hurt on various scrubs--it's a fun film.
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Mar 13, 2013 17:54
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jojoinnit posted:Seconding this. It got overlooked on release as being a Matrix-style cash in but it's pretty good in its own right and the action style they developed for it is pretty neat. The original posters and DVD cover art didn't help this, saying something along the lines of "FORGET THE MATRIX, THIS FILM WILL BLOW YOUR MIND!"  It's really great, and Taye Diggs is wonderful as always. Plus, Sean Bean is in it, and you can't go wrong with Sean Bean, right? edit: Holy shitsnacks, look at all the new stuff! Shaolin Soccer in the original Cantonese with English subtitles on by default? Marry me, Netflix
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Mar 13, 2013 18:06
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Spuckuk posted:This is really a very good film, and for all the oddness of the premise, rather sweet as well. Agreed. I was surprised at how neat it ended up being, having just put it to have something to laugh at. Don't judge a book by its lifelike silicone covering, I guess.
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Apr 3, 2013 16:04
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priznat posted:I loving love Cabin in the Woods and wish I had seen it sooner. I've witnessed this reaction enough times to convince me to watch it myself. My friends gush about it being "an awesome horror film," but apparently I'm just not in on the joke yet 
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Apr 9, 2013 01:52
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Can someone explain to us yanks watching The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret what was so wrong with Todd's shirt in episode 3 (The Snooker Player, etc.)?
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Apr 18, 2013 19:04
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