TV and Movie Chat

[Ancalagon]

Ah, Drinker... I'd buy you a cold one for the reviews of Why Modern Movies Suck. Here's another: Destroying Our Heroes

[Necron 99]

There have been a few movies I've enjoyed sitting down with, but they have been few and far between. Hollyweird has provided very little with any real staying value for years. For me, personally, what they have produced, has been 99% crap. I'm sure others may disagree, but from my point of view, I see more rehashing good movies from decades prior, terrible plot direction or changes to the story, assigning bad actors/actresses, or generally lacking any sort of originality. When they do finally put out something with originality, most often, the writing or directing is piss poor, or the overall theme just serves ideological agendas instead of trying to tell good, engaging stories. They just come off as not feeling genuine or logical.

And there again, it also doesn't help when people behind the scenes, whether cast members or other staff/crew, get onto social media and create unnecessary firestorms based on personal opinions, usually related to some current news, ongoing politics, or other non-related matter. Nothing worse than turning off potential consumers by starting or engaging in completely irrelevant drama on the interwebs.

[Necron 99]

Lol, latest South Park clip, gave me a good laugh. The "Delta Plus Rewards Program" variant.

[Ancalagon]

Haha! Its always that ONE GAWDAMNED PERSON f'n things up for everyone else, ain't it?!?...

[Necron 99]

I love how the folks mob the store and take all the TP, then you have the parents who throw their kid in front of the computer and mumble something about remote learning, before running out of the room. lol, too funny.

---
Jen and I started watching the Amazon Prime series for The Wheel of Time last night. So far, the first two episodes have been pretty good. I've never read Jordan's series, but I'm picking up on some subtle similarities to LotR. The fact that women have access to and use magic and men are more or less trained to be badass warriors is a cool premise.

The trollocs look like beastmen from the chaos armies in Warhammer Fantasy, but remind me of orcs from LotR in the way that they are used as fodder and troops by the Fade, who are also referred to as Eyeless. The Fade, remind me of the Nazgul from LotR, I mean, they are literally a cloaked, weird looking humanoid riding a horse, and they appear to be a leader type, under the command of the "Dark One", who of course, reminds me of Sauron in LotR.

Still, there are enough differences that I'm not worried about it being an LotR clone. There is a group known as White Cloaks, who appear to be a zealot faction/group, hunting down and burning women (those that use magic) at the stake, literally. I'm sure anyone who has read the series already knows all this, but it's new to me. The story is interesting enough, we'll probably watch the next two episodes tonight or tomorrow; there are only 4 episodes currently available to watch right now.

I don't know how quickly the books jump the reader into what's going on, but I will say the first episode felt a slight bit rushed. You meet the main characters and then BOOM you're off and running into a main story arch. I feel like there should have been more time to get to know the characters and learn more about them before the chaos started. If the books familiarize the reader more with character backgrounds and such, then I think the show would have benefited from it also. Otherwise, that would be my only complaint so far.

[Ancalagon]

I want to give WoT a try. I read book 1 back in the 90s and can say there are may similarities to LotR. :wink:

Jordan's idea of women being able to safely channel mojo while men are driven insane by it was a cool element well before the modern representational check box formula of movie making became common place.

Taking the time to lay the ground and learn a little about the characters helps with building future story arcs. GoT did a great job with that in its first season and the following several.

[Necron 99]

Drinker does what he does best, while discussing the abysmal garbage that is Masters of the Universe Revelations. This is the second part, but you'll get the gist of part one from this, which is probably more than enough for anyone to want to see. Good stuff. Around the 3:30 minute mark it gets hilarious.

[Necron 99]

Keanu Reeves is a cool dude.

On one of my FB groups, someone posted a message about Keanu Reeves which spoke about how great he was. I like the guy and his movies, at least the ones I've seen, but this seemed more like a string of rumors and internet chatter cobbled together, so I did some digging on the interwebs to see how much of it was actually true. Turns, out, just about all of it.

Reeves has been met with some pretty hard struggles in life, it just goes to show that no matter how successful you are in life, how much money you have, how amazing your life appears to be to others, you can still have demons you have to fight through.

His father was a largely neglectful drug addict, he struggled with dyslexia as a child, and his close friend, River Phoenix, died a very public death outside Johnny Depp’s Hollywood Club, the Viper Room. Later in life, he had a stillborn baby with his long-term girlfriend, Jennifer Syme. The traumatizing loss put a strain on their relationship and they separated, though remained friends, until her tragic death from a car accident at age 29. His sister, Kim Reeves, was diagnosed with leukemia, which devastated the actor. He took on the role of her primary caretaker for the duration of her decade-long battle with the illness and set up a charity in her honor — without attaching his name to it. Before he considered acting, Keanu was interested in becoming a hockey player. He’d apparently always been passionate about the sport and had enough talent as a goalkeeper to potentially make a career out of it. This soon faded after the star injured his knee, though. The damage was so bad that he had to reconsider his career opportunities, which is when he began thinking seriously about acting.

And even through all of that he's done some pretty damn amazing things:

• On the set of Chain Reaction, every day for the last few weeks of filming, Keanu treated the stage hands and “grunt workers” by taking them out for free breakfast and lunch.
• After spending some time talking to a set builder backstage of the Matrix, he discovered that the gentleman was having a very difficult time with finances at home. He never once asked Keanu for money, nor did he have to. Reeves personally handed him a Christmas bonus of $20,000 to help him get back on his feet again. He also was one of the only people on the set that genuinely wanted to know people’s names, would say hello and mean it, and would talk to people as they were his peers and not below him just because they were practically making nothing to build a set.
• Reeves stopped to help a lady stranded on the side of the road, tried to jump the car off, when that didn't work, called AAA for her. After the tow truck took the car to the repair shop, he then drove 50 miles out of his way to take her home and drop her off.
• One of the most famous stories surrounding Keanu Reeves took place back in 1997, when he was spotted hanging out with a homeless person. Apparently, he was just minding his own business on the streets of Hollywood and chanced upon this man. He then shared some drinks, snacks, and listened to the man’s stories, even lying down on his back, clearly interested in what the man had to say. All of this might have gone unrecorded had some paparazzis not stopped by and noticed the two deep in conversation.
• Reeves has gone down in history for generously giving up some of his salary on the Matrix movies so that the special effects team could continue as needed. That wasn’t the only time he’d taken a pay cut; both Al Pacino (The Devil's Advocate) and Gene Hackman (The Replacements) were hired on in some of his movies because he gave up millions to pay for their salaries. He literally created (and saved) jobs. Nobody asked or even suggested that he take a pay cut, these were voluntary financial sacrifices he made for the greater good of the films.
• Once while riding on the NYC subway, he was literally just sitting down, saw a woman standing, and offered her his seat.
• Reeves once stood in line outside of his own wrap party for “Daughter of God” for 20 minutes because he didn’t want to cause a scene. There had been a mix-up, but instead of going to the front of the line to complain to the bouncer, he just patiently waited his turn. In the rain. Even though, again, it was his own party. “I didn’t know he was kept waiting, and he didn’t say anything to me! He’s a very relaxed person,” the horrified owner of the club told the Daily Mail.
• When he was on set filming The Matrix Reloaded, Reeves worked very closely with his stunt crew on a daily basis, and got to know the group of men that worked alongside him, perfecting his stage presence by lending their skills to his bike stunts. When they wrapped filming, Reeves personally selected a specific Harley Davidson for each and every stunt man and gifted it to them as a thank you for their efforts.

[Necron 99]

Henry Cavill has become one of my favorite actors on scene in the last few years. From playing Superman and starring in The Witcher, to being a table-top and PC gamer who enjoys Warhammer Fantasy, he just seems like a down to earth, generally cool guy.

[Ancalagon]

Drinker does what he does best, while discussing the abysmal garbage that is Masters of the Universe Revelations. This is the second part, but you'll get the gist of part one from this, which is probably more than enough for anyone to want to see. Good stuff. Around the 3:30 minute mark it gets hilarious.

Ugh. That was just awful.