What you watchin' tonight?

Akeldama wrote:

I'm gonna start watching the complete series of Star Trek TNG.

I tried about a year ago when Netflix first added it but couldn't get back into the groove. That show didn't really find it's footing until Season 3. If I was going to watch it again I'd start there more likely.

I've really only been watching 30 Rock and That 70's Show recently.

S.D. wrote:

Akeldama wrote:

I'm gonna start watching the complete series of Star Trek TNG.

I tried about a year ago when Netflix first added it but couldn't get back into the groove. That show didn't really find it's footing until Season 3. If I was going to watch it again I'd start there more likely.

That's a fair assessment that's about where I started to really like it.

Classic Albums: Metallica-Metallica

I'm really trying to give these dudes a fair chance.

I've got a couple of James Bond films sittin' on the nightstand so I'll probably flip a coin to decide between "Moonraker" and "For Your Eyes Only."

Got a couple of documentaries in the pipeline for the next couple of days:
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Transformers Season 3.

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Episodes 3 & 4

I was gonna watch this tonight...
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...but it's too damn late and I'm too damn tired so it can wait till tomorrow night.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I was gonna watch this tonight...
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...but it's too damn late and I'm too damn tired so it can wait till tomorrow night.

I still prefer the original version, but that one is quite good.

S.D. wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I was gonna watch this tonight...
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...but it's too damn late and I'm too damn tired so it can wait till tomorrow night.

I still prefer the original version, but that one is quite good.

I've seen the original, but it was years ago. Not sure if I've ever seen this version. Guess I'll find out tonight when I watch it and see if anything looks familiar.

I saw the 1978 version in the theater when I was a kid.

S.D. wrote:

I saw the 1978 version in the theater when I was a kid.

Watched the '78 version last night, and now I'm fairly sure I must've seen it at some point many years ago ... As soon as I saw the dog w/the human head on it, I went "OH SHIT, I remember that! It scared the hell out of me when I was a kid!" Haha

My viewing slate for the next coupla days...
Free rental from RedBox for tonight:
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From the library:
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(Haven't seen this one in years...)

Dredd was a little better than I expected...just don't look for any character development because there isn't any.

Judge Dredd might as well be a robot because they don't tell any backstory whatsoever.

I enjoyed the first hour of Amazing Spider-Man (the character development section), but once the action stuff started I lost interest and couldn't wait for it to be over.

I figure the new "Dredd" has gotta be better than the Sly Stallone version simply because there won't be any Rob Schneider in this one.

Likewise, the new Spidey flick has got to be an improvement over "Spider-Man 3," which was ten pounds of poop stuffed into a five pound bag, even for a lifelong Spidey fanboy like me. Ugh.

...by the way, if memory serves, there has never been any backstory on Dredd, even in the original comic story. When he first appeared the reader was merely dropped into the middle of the action, like "It's the future. Here's Mega-City One. It's full of crime. Here's Judge Dredd. He kills criminals. Boom."

So the new "Dredd" was simply OK. Karl Urban played him a little more true to the comic character than Stallone did, i.e. a Clint Eastwood style man of few words, who only has "the law" on his mind, so that was fine. The action was non-stop and suitably violent/gory (lots of heads gettin' blown off!), so at least I wasn't bored.

Dredd got saddled with a new partner in this one, but thankfully she was not a wacky sidekick ala Rob Schneider in the Stallone film (side note: whoever the gal is who played "Anderson," the Judge-in-Training, she was kinda hot).

However the set design and scenery in the new "Dredd" is pretty blah (as opposed to the big & flashy "Blade Runner"-ish visuals of the Stallone flick, which was one of the few things I liked about that version!)... three quarters of the new movie takes place inside one of Mega-City One's massive "City Block" apartment buildings, so you're looking at identical sets of grimy walls & hallways for almost the entire movie, over and over again.

If you could somehow splice together Karl Urban's gritty, humorless, more brutal portrayal of Dredd with the cool visuals of the Stallone version, you'd end up with a pretty bad-ass Judge Dredd movie, methinks.

S.D. sez "Judge Dredd might as well be a robot," oddly enough while I was watching this movie it occurred to me that I was reminded a lot of "RoboCop." Now that I think about it, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Judge Dredd may have inspired RoboCop to some degree. Dredd's first appearance in the British comic "2000AD" pre-dates RoboCop by at least a decade, if memory serves. (I can't believe this has never occurred to me before in all these years!!)

Yeah, I was also reminded of Robocop. It was an entertaining film, but nothing special.

The reason for enclosing the action in the apartment building was all budgetary, it saved them money on CGI and kept the budget down to $50 million.

I would not expect a sequel, it was a major flop. It only pulled in $13 million in the US, the total take including overseas was only $32 million. Since they probably spent a good $20 million advertising the film I would say it probably lost somewhere in the neighborhood of $40 million.

Quote :

The reason for enclosing the action in the apartment building was all budgetary, it saved them money on CGI and kept the budget down to $50 million.

That boggles my mind. They had $50 million to play with, and a slum building was the best they could do with it? Sheesh.

...remember when George Lucas made "Star Wars" for $10 million... and it still looks better than most of the CGI monsterworks that are made today??

ANYwhoo, movin' on to the new Spider-Man flick tonight... to be followed by my newest batch o' library pickups...

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(Reading the absolutely savage reviews of the new "Texas Chainsaw 3D" gave me a jones to revisit the one that started it all... I haven't seen it in about 20 years)

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(Haven't seen this one in a long time either. Loved it when I first saw it in the early '00s.)

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More fun from the DC Animated Universe.

Next coupla days' worth of viewing is lined up ...

"Justice League: The New Frontier"
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"Nightmare City" aka "City of the Walking Dead" - one of my favorite batshit insane grindhouse Euro-trash zombie flicks!!
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"Ed Wood"
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Fat Freddy wrote:

...remember when George Lucas made "Star Wars" for $10 million... and it still looks better than most of the CGI monsterworks that are made today??

You aren't adjusting for inflation.

$10 million in 1977 dollars is the equivalent to $38 million in 2013.

I still think Dredd could have wrung out a little more set design budget with that amount, but the opening and closing "cityscape" CGI sequences were probably a large chunk of that budget.

Argo (2012)
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Brilliant, suspenseful and highly entertaining film directed by Ben Affleck. One of those movies that completely lives up to the hype and definitely deserves to win the Best Picture Oscar. This is a real white-knuckle ride and I highly recommend it.

It was especially interesting because I vividly remember the Iran hostage crisis as it unfolded on network news.

I am dyin' to see "Argo," it looks and sounds great.

Got a few more library pickups to keep me warm:
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The library came thru with more goodies for me today:

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I rented Midnight Meat Train, because I'd heard a lot of good things about it. I was enjoying the hell out of it, until I got to the scene where Bradley Cooper is running away from the killer on the subway and THE FUCKING DISC STARTS SKIPPING. Now I'll never know