TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2014

You're Next (2011)-A girl goes to her new boyfriend's family reunion and ends up in a fight for survival when they are attacked and killed off one by one by a group of thugs wearing animal masks. Pretty run of the mill slasher flick with an interesting twist (although it has been done before) but at 95 minutes long not a time waster.

Fat Freddy wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

Blue Thunder - caught this on HDnet or Sony Movie Channel, fun movie (not great, but still fun.) Even more interesting - the "sci-fi-ish, futuristics" aspect of tech now exist.

Haven't seen that in dog years. It used to be one of my fave action flicks.

...do you remember the god awful short lived TV series, with a young Dana Carvey as "JAFO" and Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus as the Blue Thunder ground-support team?

I remember there was a show, but never saw it nor knew the cast...... Didn't Airwolf beat the pants of it in the ratings?

And how did they handle the meaning of JAFO for TV back then?

Cardinals vs Pirates

Great turn by 2B Wong to bail the Cards out of a 1st inning jam!

Alf

Yankees/Royals game.

thejokeriv wrote:

And how did they handle the meaning of JAFO for TV back then?

If memory serves, the "F" in "JAFO" stood for "frustrated" in the TV version... haha

Living in Los Angeles you get used to police helicopters flying overhead, never been through a day yet where I didn't see at least one. However, being the movie nut I am, I can't help but think of Blue Thunder EVERY DAMN TIME I SEE ONE, EVERY DAY! So basically Blue Thunder never leaves my mind, I hear a helicopter and immediately Malcolm McDowell is in my head saying "Catch ya later!"

it's......haunting.......me......

The Ruins

Fat Freddy wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

And how did they handle the meaning of JAFO for TV back then?

If memory serves, the "F" in "JAFO" stood for "frustrated" in the TV version... haha

LMFrustratedAO!!!!

S.D. wrote:

Living in Los Angeles you get used to police helicopters flying overhead, never been through a day yet where I didn't see at least one.  However, being the movie nut I am, I can't help but think of Blue Thunder EVERY DAMN TIME I SEE ONE, EVERY DAY!  So basically Blue Thunder never leaves my mind, I hear a helicopter and immediately Malcolm McDowell is in my head saying "Catch ya later!"

it's......haunting.......me......

LOL! Catch ya later SD!

S.D. wrote:

Living in Los Angeles you get used to police helicopters flying overhead, never been through a day yet where I didn't see at least one.  However, being the movie nut I am, I can't help but think of Blue Thunder EVERY DAMN TIME I SEE ONE, EVERY DAY!  So basically Blue Thunder never leaves my mind, I hear a helicopter and immediately Malcolm McDowell is in my head saying "Catch ya later!"

it's......haunting.......me......

Have you ever looked out your window to find a chopper hovering right outside it in "whisper mode?"

Alf
The Drew Carey Show: Best Of Mr. Wick

Last night I watched The Jeffersons, Sanford & Son and Three's Company.

DallasBlack wrote:

Alf
The Drew Carey Show: Best Of Mr. Wick

How is that Paul Heyman DVD?  The guy is a crappy businessman but he sure has a mind for the business.

tohostudios wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

Alf
The Drew Carey Show: Best Of Mr. Wick

How is that Paul Heyman DVD?  The guy is a crappy businessman but he sure has a mind for the business.

Very enlightening and highly recommended for wrestling fans and wrestling history buffs. As for being a crappy business man, he was actually a very shrewd and crafty one. ECW would have folded years before it did if he hadn't done some of the stuff he did.

Normally, I wouldn't be able to fit this Blu Ray in my budget, but I had some birthday money and knew this was one wrestling video I HAD to get (the DVD would have been cheaper but there were a lot more extras on the BR).

Onto the list it goes...

Red Eye

tohostudios wrote:

Onto the list it goes...

You won't regret it. One thing it does is it proves something that much hated wrestling commentator Mark Madden said, "Vince doesn't like anyone who knows more about wrestling than he does." Everyone who has had major beef with Paul (Lawler, Stephanie, Dreamer, etc.) was interviewed except Vince. Vince almost always appears on these videos with his thoughts, but he didn't show up once.

Rams vs Dolphins

Final pre-season game

Two episodes from Batman

Black Mirror - More win from the superb Charle Brooker

Smackdown

Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) -- There's a helluva lot I could write about this gem, but I'll try and keep it short. Always heard about the different (and at times clashing) stories about how this second effort from Welles went down, but this is my first viewing. For anyone who doesn't know, the original screening cut of this movie was 148m, and audience reactions were poor (stemming from both overlength and a downbeat ending, the latter not received well by a post-Pearl Harbor crowd). Welles had to film a propaganda film in Brazil prior to final cut duties, and though he was involved long-distance in editing decisions, they were mostly ignored by RKO heads who were in fear of a financial disaster. The craziest part of this all was not how the studio along with editor Robert Wise (before he started his directing career) cut a whopping 40m without Welles' approval, but how RKO President George Schaefer oversaw the destruction of said 40m of print. Sadly, because of this cruel oversight, we will never see the film Welles intended. To make matters even worse, several of the scenes were reshot by Wise, along with an alternate, upbeat ending that I'll get to in a bit (see I said I would keep this short  ). This of course destroyed Welles and he retreated from Hollywood duties for some time.

The result is an odd masterpiece of sorts that is feels underbaked, obviously. There's a great ensemble cast here - Joseph Cotten is one of my favorites and has a strong presence here; Tim Holt, who I've mostly seen in westerns, broods and sulks as the unlikable George (yet you keep hoping he spins around), Agnes Moorehead brings tons of tension to the story, and Anne Baxter is great at weaving between sugary and conflicted. The characters are all complex and well-drawn--but you get the feeling that they could pop out even more through the missing footage. In fact, there's a pall that hangs over this film: at any given point I kept wondering if a certain scene would have made more sense or a character's motives more coherent had more information been presented. In other words, it's rather uneven and unkempt. Add to this the reshot scenes, though few, completely deviate from the tone and abstenations of Welles' style--it's more than obvious when these scenes pop up.

The story, a three-act arc based on the Pulitzer-winning novel by Booth Tarkington, is character driven like Citizen Kane and even comes complete with similar tones and styles, such as heavy shadows, composite one-shots, juxtapositions, and dynamic angles. The Amberson mansion itself, a set, was built completely closed, complete with a spiral staircase, to allow free camera roaming--the ball in the first act is memorable and mesmerizing with all the acrobatics following the dynamic exchanges between characters. The allegory is a familiar one--upper classes greeting ennui with familial upheaval, the dawn of technology threatening capitalist trends, the social riches-to-rags paradigm shift--and the story itself is basic--a spoiled heir disrupts his widow mother's relationship with a past crush--but the complexity of the characters, even though lacking from the missing elements, is rock solid and intriguing .

As for the alternate ending--wow. Almost kills the preceding 80+ minutes before it. Never before have I seen such artifice and forced sentiment, except for maybe several evangelical films. Cotten's final monologue is trite and vomit-inducing. You keep waiting for Leslie Nielsen to show up with a punchline. 'Tacked on' is an understatement here; no wonder Welles cut ties with Cotten and Wise.

Overall it's worth a watch and still fascinating regardless. I really wish to god there was a way to see the whole cut, including the dreary ending (which allegedly included a roving shot through the tattered remains of the Amberson's mansion). But at least we can still see just how intuitive and poetic Welles was as a filmmaker. And by the way, his narration (including the end credits--neat!) is a huge bonus here.

Sorry that was very long, but I love this shit haha.