TODAY I WATCHED (Movies, TV series) 2014

Pawn Stars

Santa's Slay

I like how after the credits roll, Goldberg says "Who's next?!?!?!?". his tag line in WCW. 

I also love the soundtrack during the credits, "Bye bye Santa...Santa bye bye" and "Christmas in Detroit".  I like the opening credits too, showing the various pictures of "evil Santa" throughout history. 

And let us not forget Dave Thomas' "eulogy" of the dead strippers from the pulpit.  "Rest in peace Dixie Rect,  Tess Tickler..."

Hell, I love the whole damn thing!

And I usually pick up on a joke I missed all the other times I've seen this flick. This time I caught the cop thinking the Hasidic Jews were Amish.  I've never noticed that before.

Criminal Minds

Episodes of Idiotest and Family Feud.

"Hancock" with the wife.

Love when the whale get tossed into the sail boat.

Army/Navy game

I watch this every year regardless of the teams' records and as usual, the records didn't matter in this year's game either.  Navy -17, Army - 10

Dallas vs Philadelphia

Can these teams just mutually destroy each other? I hate both.

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" (2000)

Ron Howard's lavish live action adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic is an overlong, overstuffed sandwich of berserk set design, attention-deficit action scenes, shrill characters, and tons of padding to fill the story out to feature length.
Jim Carrey is fun to watch as the Grinch, but to be honest I could understand why he hated the Whos so much in this version - because they're a bunch of annoying, overbearing, narrow minded, consumerist a**holes.
I watched this one today because the kids wanted to see it, but from here on I'll stick to the great animated version by Chuck Jones.

Fat Freddy wrote:

"Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" (2000)

Ron Howard's lavish live action adaptation of the Dr. Seuss classic is an overlong, overstuffed sandwich of berserk set design, attention-deficit action scenes, shrill characters, and tons of padding to fill the story out to feature length.
Jim Carrey is fun to watch as the Grinch, but to be honest I could understand why he hated the Whos so much in this version - because they're a bunch of annoying, overbearing, narrow minded, consumerist a**holes.
I watched this one today because the kids wanted to see it, but from here on I'll stick to the great animated version by Chuck Jones.

You summed up this movie to a tee for me. We saw it in theaters when it came out (I thought it was ok) and that was enough.I don't need over 2 hrs to tell me the story of the Grinch. Give me the animated classic anyday.

Watched the Steelers beat the Falcons then Seattle knock the 49ers out of playoff contention.

Watched the Cowboys get a HUGE win in December against philly and take control of the NFC East.

The Babadook - nice to see a change of pace in the boogeyman subgenre with an intelligent, character-driven horror film complete with allegorical devices and disturbing imagery. A single mother struggles to raise her deranged son and finds themselves threatened by a mythical creature found in a macabre "children's book." Though I didn't find it nearly as scary as all the critics' hype promised, it was brimming with tension and kept me engaged. Very relevant to parents' viewing; anyone that's not a fan of children-in-peril (or animal abuse!) types of films should be very cautious going into this. Great acting all around--seriously some of the best work I've seen, even from the kid who manages a brilliant balance between darling and sociopath. EXTRA POINTS: near-complete lack of a score, which I sorely wish would be a more common exercise these days. Really enhanced the tension.

White Christmas - the most fascinating movie of the 1950's, even if it is far from a good one. I could seriously write essays on this as I've developed a bizarre fascination with it over the years. Michael Curtiz (!) directs a spotty put-on-a-show fluff that manages to pair up the most unlikely duo you could find in a song and dance flick. But here's the best thing about it--despite the title and artwork, this movie has almost nothing to do with Christmas. In fact, its predecessor, Holiday Inn--a much better movie but still fluff--was simply framed around different holidays of the year and it STILL managed to have more Christmas spirit than this one. If you remove the bookend sequences, you have, simply, an enjoyable musical that has no business carrying the title of "White Christmas." So why in the hell do I love to watch it every Christmas?? I really can't answer that. But I love Danny, I love the fact that they got him to dance like a pro, I love Rosemary's voice, and GOOD GOD THE LEGS ON VERA. And of course there's my beloved Bing--dude is a god and croons his way through some very memorable Irving Berlin numbers (and a couple of flat ones). I've always enjoyed Dean Jagger's understated (some say dialed-in) performance as General Waverly ("a JANITOR"). The dialogue is silly and snappy, misfiring oddly at some points but fun banter for the most part. The technicolor pops out nicely and some of the mattes are beautiful. But with an underwhelming story, unconvincing romance, lack of chemistry between paper-thin characters, and superfluous overlength (two hours is just...I mean, come on Paramount), it's pretty much a popular, lavishly mounted ado about nothing. And it has zilch to do with Christmas. That's weird, man. Just plain weird.

Master Chef Junior - the finale

I can't believe I got hooked on this show late in it's season run.  After the Cardinals were ousted from the playoffs in October I was left with nothing to watch on Tuesdays so somehow I stumbled upon this show.  

The extremely complex dishes these young kids make just boggle my mind.  And I can cook.  But I'm nowhere nearly as accomplished as these kids.

Meet the Feebles

Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon

Leatherface wrote:

Meet the Feebles

Love that flick! So warped!

Required Fields wrote:

I saw the godawful Edge of Tomorrow the other day and the only positive that I took from it was it put me in the mood to see this again

Idiotest

Boris2008 wrote:

Required Fields wrote:

I saw the godawful Edge of Tomorrow the other day and the only positive that I took from it was it put me in the mood to see this again

I liked Edge of Tomorrow, I thought it was quite funny and entertaining. Emily Blunt was a major part of that, she could sit in a chair for 2 hours and knit and I'd pay to see it.

Leatherface wrote:

Meet the Feebles

For the uninitiated, this is what Peter Jackson was doing before he sold his soul to Hollywood:

S.D. wrote:

Boris2008 wrote:

Required Fields wrote:

I saw the godawful Edge of Tomorrow the other day and the only positive that I took from it was it put me in the mood to see this again

I liked Edge of Tomorrow, I thought it was quite funny and entertaining.  Emily Blunt was a major part of that, she could sit in a chair for 2 hours and knit and I'd pay to see it.  

Same here, it was a refreshing change of pace for a blockbuster, and had a good head on its shoulders. Kept me thinking and engaged throughout. I wasn't big on the cartoonish spectacle climax, but the story was so strong I shrugged it off. And yes, Emily Blunt, good god.

Meet the Feebles was a helluva movie that's still hard for me to digest.

I still think Heavenly Creatures was Peter Jackson's best film by a wide margin.

S.D. wrote:

I still think Heavenly Creatures was Peter Jackson's best film by a wide margin.  

TBH I think he's almost terrible. Heavenly Creatures was too heavy handed for me. The LOTR movies were overrated gunk. King Kong was ridiculously long and bloated. The Frighteners was fun and a but misunderstood critically but could've been directed by anyone else. I've only enjoyed Meet the Feebles--which again doesn't have much of a stamp on it--and Dead Alive, which is the only movie I think he's really succeeded at leaving a unique mark on. Of course, I still haven't seen Bad Taste, which everyone keeps recommending to me.

In the end I just don't find he deserves the god-like status that's been applied to his quasi-aesthetic. He's basically a contemporary Cecil B. Demille, but even Demille had strands of genuine complexity and personal flourish beneath all that scope.