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[stePH]

We're halfway through season 1 of Bones.  I think we'll finish the season; but if it doesn't get better, we won't watch season 2.

How much is Stephen Fry in it?  He's the only thing that inclines me to look into the series (in the same way that Hugh Laurie is the only reason I watch House.

[Russell Nash]

We're halfway through season 1 of Bones.  I think we'll finish the season; but if it doesn't get better, we won't watch season 2.

How much is Stephen Fry in it?  He's the only thing that inclines me to look into the series (in the same way that Hugh Laurie is the only reason I watch House.

According to IMDB he's only in three episodes out of three seasons.  None of those are in the first season.

[Russell Nash]

update:

Added:

• Dead Like Me - Season 1
• Bitter Moon
• Shop Around the Corner - Jimmy Stewart
• Bell Book and Candle - Jimmy Stewart & Kim Novak
• The Naked Spur - Jimmy Stewart & Janet Leigh
• Call Northside 777 - Jimmy Stewart
• Ride with the Devil
• M*A*S*H - Season 1-3
• Lucky Number Slevin
• Stranger than Fiction
• Serendipity
• The Prestige
• The Spiderwick Chronicles

Reviews:

• The Iron Giant - I really liked this one.  Additional comments
• Children of Men - Pretty cool story shot with amazing long takes.  Comments and spoilers.
• The Day The Earth Stood Still - So very dated, but still good.  Comments
• Bones (Season 1) - Anthropologist with three+ doctorates, who's been all over the world identifying or determining the cause of death of victims just from their skeletons.  She's also a Kung Fu master is anerexic is played by a 30 year old actress and she's beautiful despite not caring.  It'*s a network show with all that brings.  Production is pretty good, but the stories aren't really that great.  We watch it when we have stuff to do and can't give it our full attention.  Half attention is all that it needs.  When season 2 comes out, we won't be bothering with it.
• FF2 - Rise of the silver surfer - OK comic book movie.  Spolier question: If the Silver Surfer could have destroyed this being at any time, why did 8 planets have to get blown up first?  Is this part of the lore or was this just for the movie??  It really had the feeling of just trying to set up the Silver Surfer movie franchise.
• Stardust - Absolutely fantastic.  There were so many comments about it being like the Princess Bride that I was a little shocked by all of the sex jokes.  DeNiro was a blast.

Thanks again for everyones help with my list.  Let me know if I need to add  anything else.

[wintermute]

Yeah, Stardust and Princess Bride really have nothing in common except that they're both the great fantasy movie of their generation. It's very easy for people so say "it's the next Princess Bride", but it really isn't. In fact, I can think of almost no similarities between them, beyond the fact that they're love stories set in a fantasy world.

Oh, and I want Tristan's sword. Why is no-one making replicas yet?

[wintermute]

OK, maybe they've started making them since I last googled it.

www.strongblade.com/prod/sb-sd-sword.html

Me wants!

[Russell Nash]

Two months later and I'm back to give a few more reviews.

• Smallville - Season 5 - We keep watching this, because it's good brainless stuff to help my wife wind down from a long day at work.  If there was some BTVS or something that we hadn't seen, we wouldn't be watching this anymore.  It just barely holds on.
• Clerks 2 - I groaned when I heard Kevin Smith was going back to this.  I figured it was a reflex action after Jersey Girl.  He delivered on this one.  I don't think it's better than the original, but unlike many sequels it respects the original.  The funniest joke in the whole movie went right past my wife, because she's only seen the original once.  Spoiler and offensive language in white: Randal turns to Dante and asks, "did you ask her how many guys she's blown?"
• Deadwood - Season 3 - I'll miss Deadwood and I'm annoyed there's no last season to wrap up all of the loose ends.  That said I was getting pretty annoyed at the dialogue.  It is no surprise that the producer of Deadwood also produced NYPD Blue.  There was a whole town of prospectors, Whorehouse operators, and sheriffs all talking like Andy Sipowicz.
• The Producers (1968) & The Producers (2005) - The two films should be talked about together.  Both are funny.  Both are in bad taste, but in a good way.  The first one is funnier.  The second one has a better story for how they chose their Hitler.  The second one seemed safer.  Eventhough they were basing a musical on Hitler, they didn't want to offend too much.
  Edit: I originally had the movies titles reversed, but this caused some confusion when I said first and second.  Now I have the first listed first.
• Ratatouille - Pixar, 'nuff said.  I'll buy this one.
• Escape From New York - Low budget future gloom and doom.  I have a weak spot for low budget stuff.  Maybe that's why I liked Buffy and Firefly.  This had its moments and was really fun, but it won't stand up to repeated viewing.
• Bitter Moon - Was going for a Henry and June type of thing.  Got something that was just boring and bad.  The girl in this film was drop dead gorgeous and naked for half of it, but these scenes were just dull. 
• Fight Club - Not what I expected.  Surprised me.  I don't know if it's as good as the other folks around here think it is, but it's really good.
• Superman Returns - I had seen a bit on cable several months back.  I hated it.  We borrowed the disk from a friend to try it again.  It wasn't as bad as expected, but unless you need to see every Superman movie, don't bother. 
  
  Side note: This movie demonstrates one of my problems with movies now-a-days.  It is however a bit of a spoiler.  After a scene where Superman gets the crap beat out of him and gets stabbed in the back Lois dives into the water to save him.  She is wearing a long heavy dress.  No one in there right mind would try to swim in it.  However the movie would have gotten a non-family friendly rating if she had stripped to her underwear before she jumped in.  It's OK to beat someone up and break the blade off in his back, but god forbid we know what color bra Kate Bosworth is wearing.
• Harold and Maude - Watched this one only because of the film poll.  I knew nothing about it going in.  I loved it.  I'm not going to say anything other than it's a great comedy.  I think it's best to go into it blind.
• The Lion in Winter - Another film poll movie.  Very good, but very melodramatic.  You really need to be in the right mood for this.
• The Following - Excellent film by Chris Nolan.  It tries to be as intricate as Memento ended up being, but has more holes.  There are just too many points where the plan could have gone off the tracks, but the movie acts like there was only one possibility.
• Across the Universe - Yet another great call from Heradel.  I knew nothing about this one.  The plot summary on Amazon left me thinking this was just some tiny little high concept film.  Before it was even done, my wife told me we needed to buy it.  We watched it on a wednesday.  I bought it on Ebay on saturday.  I normally hate it whenever folks try to mess around with The Beatles, but the folks that did this really have respect for the tunes.
• The Bourne Ultimatum - Unlike most action films, I didn't really need to turn up my suspension of disbelief to high on this one.  Maybe I'm giving it a slide, because I just watched Die Hard 4 a little while back.  If you want action without having your intelligence insulted, this is a pretty good choice.  Also the opening scene up to where he gets on the train was filmed in Berlin.
• 1408 - Movies based of Stephen King short stories are always better than ones based on his novels.

[stePH]

Last night I watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang on Alasdair's recommendation.  I loved it.  Downey and Kilmer both rocked every scene they were in.

[Russell Nash]

Last night I watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang on Alasdair's recommendation.  I loved it.  Downey and Kilmer both rocked every scene they were in.

Saw it back on cable.  They really played well off of each other.

[wintermute]

OK, maybe they've started making them since I last googled it.

www.strongblade.com/prod/sb-sd-sword.html

Me wants!

I forgot I'd mentioned this here, but, for the follow-up: the world's best wife got me this for Father's Day. Though it'll be a few weeks before it actually arrives.

• The Producers (2005) & The Producers (1968) - The two films should be talked about together.  Both are funny.  Both are in bad taste, but in a good way.  The first one is funnier.  The second one has a better story for how they chose their Hitler.  The second one seemed safer.  Eventhough they were basing a musical on Hitler, they didn't want to offend too much.

When you say "the first one" or "the second one", are you talking about the order they were made in, or the order you cited them in?

[stePH]

• The Producers (2005) & The Producers (1968) - The two films should be talked about together.  Both are funny.  Both are in bad taste, but in a good way.  The first one is funnier.  The second one has a better story for how they chose their Hitler.  The second one seemed safer.  Eventhough they were basing a musical on Hitler, they didn't want to offend too much.

When you say "the first one" or "the second one", are you talking about the order they were made in, or the order you cited them in?

I wondered about that myself.  I assume he meant the order of release, though I haven't seen the later release so I can't say for certain.

[Darwinist]

Two months later and I'm back to give a few more reviews.

• Superman Returns - I had seen a bit on cable several months back.  I hated it.  We borrowed the disk from a friend to try it again.  It wasn't as bad as expected, but unless you need to see every Superman movie, don't bother. 
  

I watched this on HBO or something over the weekend and couldn't believe how bad it was.  The last hour was so ridiculous I couldn't believe it.  I went in thinking it would be decent and left thinking it was one of the worst movies I've seen in quite a while.     I'm generally not a fan of superhero stuff but I though Iron Man was great.   

[stePH]

I'm generally not a fan of superhero stuff but I though Iron Man was great.   

Well, there's a simple explanation for that ...


... it is. 

[Alasdair5000]

Last night I watched Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang on Alasdair's recommendation.  I loved it.  Downey and Kilmer both rocked every scene they were in.

Oh excellent, glad you liked it:) 

[Russell Nash]

• The Producers (2005) & The Producers (1968) - The two films should be talked about together.  Both are funny.  Both are in bad taste, but in a good way.  The first one is funnier.  The second one has a better story for how they chose their Hitler.  The second one seemed safer.  Eventhough they were basing a musical on Hitler, they didn't want to offend too much.

When you say "the first one" or "the second one", are you talking about the order they were made in, or the order you cited them in?

I wondered about that myself.  I assume he meant the order of release, though I haven't seen the later release so I can't say for certain.

Oops! sorry about that.  I had these on two seperate lines then realised it made since to talk about them together.  Since I saw the new one first, it was in front.  In my "review" I was using release order.  I'll bounce back up there and add a note about that for anybody else who comes along.

Two months later and I'm back to give a few more reviews.

• Superman Returns - I had seen a bit on cable several months back.  I hated it.  We borrowed the disk from a friend to try it again.  It wasn't as bad as expected, but unless you need to see every Superman movie, don't bother. 
  

I watched this on HBO or something over the weekend and couldn't believe how bad it was.  The last hour was so ridiculous I couldn't believe it.  I went in thinking it would be decent and left thinking it was one of the worst movies I've seen in quite a while.     I'm generally not a fan of superhero stuff but I though Iron Man was great.  

I think the only reason we were able to watch it was because we knew it was bad.  The last half was really bad.  It ended up being an MST3K thing for us.[/list]

[Russell Nash]

Added:

• Flushed Away
• Logan's Run - Only became available recently.
• Darjeeling Limited
• Iron Man
• Once - Was recommended before, but it only became available recently.
• Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - I know I'm going to hate it, but I did it anyway.

[wintermute]

I'm generally not a fan of superhero stuff but I though Iron Man was great.   

Well, there's a simple explanation for that ...


... it is. 

I'm sure it's a great movie, but I'm boycotting Iron Man as a brand. Hopefully, in First Avenger, we'll see Cap punch Tony Stark in the face. That would be fun.

[stePH]

Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

[Russell Nash]

Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

You can tell how interested I am in seeing it?  I don't even care enought o spell it right.  Or is that the correct spelling for the porn version?

[stePH]

Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

You can tell how interested I am in seeing it?  I don't even care enought o spell it right.  Or is that the correct spelling for the porn version?

I thought it was "Hairy Potter" starring Tommy Chong as the title character. 

[Russell Nash]

Happy Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

 

You can tell how interested I am in seeing it?  I don't even care enought o spell it right.  Or is that the correct spelling for the porn version?

I thought it was "Hairy Potter" starring Tommy Chong as the title character. 

That one died in development when Cheech Marin refuse to be Weasley.

[DKT]

I'm generally not a fan of superhero stuff but I though Iron Man was great.   

Well, there's a simple explanation for that ...


... it is. 

I'm sure it's a great movie, but I'm boycotting Iron Man as a brand. Hopefully, in First Avenger, we'll see Cap punch Tony Stark in the face. That would be fun.

While I thought Iron Man was pretty good, I'd pay top money to Cap do that.  And wait in line opening weekend 

[Ocicat]

Harold and Maude - Watched this one only because of the film poll.  I knew nothing about it going in.  I loved it.  I'm not going to say anything other than it's a great comedy.  I think it's best to go into it blind.

Glad you enjoyed it!  And you're right, probably best not to know much about the plot or characters. 

The Lion in Winter - Another film poll movie.  Very good, but very melodramatic.  You really need to be in the right mood for this.

I guess.  Maybe I'm just always in that sort of melodramatic sort of mood.  Lion in Winter is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I've also seen stage productions of the play, which are also good - but really it's O'Toole and Hepburn's performances that make me re-watch this one so often.

[Russell Nash]

The Lion in Winter - Another film poll movie.  Very good, but very melodramatic.  You really need to be in the right mood for this.

I guess.  Maybe I'm just always in that sort of melodramatic sort of mood.  Lion in Winter is one of my favorite movies of all time.  I've also seen stage productions of the play, which are also good - but really it's O'Toole and Hepburn's performances that make me re-watch this one so often.

It's not a film to watch after a long day with the kids.  When your brain is mush and you're just tired, it doesn't work.  I guess that's why there are all types of movies.

[Thaurismunths]

• Ratatouille - Pixar, 'nuff said.  I'll buy this one.

Shwankie and I got this just the other day. We got bored half way through with how utterly predictable it all was and ended up stopping it so we could get a snack, check out e-mail, etc. I nudged her in to finishing it and you know what? We enjoyed it. It wasn't earth shattering or anything, but it was a really good movie.

• Fight Club - Not what I expected.  Surprised me.  I don't know if it's as good as the other folks around here think it is, but it's really good.

I'm a space monkey and have been for years, but I've only recently gotten Shwankie to watch it. She felt much the same as you. I think my involvement with a group that wasn't entirely unlike the Paper Street Soap Company is what moves it up a notch for me.

• The Lion in Winter - Another film poll movie.  Very good, but very melodramatic.  You really need to be in the right mood for this.

Shwankie finally bulled me in to watching it. I'm really not a fan of period movies, but I do enjoy witty and biting dialog.

• Across the Universe - Yet another great call from Heradel.  I knew nothing about this one.  The plot summary on Amazon left me thinking this was just some tiny little high concept film.  Before it was even done, my wife told me we needed to buy it.  We watched it on a wednesday.  I bought it on Ebay on saturday.  I normally hate it whenever folks try to mess around with The Beatles, but the folks that did this really have respect for the tunes.

It really isn't a very good movie. It is, at best, a string of music videos set to 60s music, with something like a plot connecting them.
That said Shwankie and I decided we needed to buy it about half way through. Really worth watching, owning, and buying the soundtrack.

[Russell Nash]

• Across the Universe - Yet another great call from Heradel.  I knew nothing about this one.  The plot summary on Amazon left me thinking this was just some tiny little high concept film.  Before it was even done, my wife told me we needed to buy it.  We watched it on a wednesday.  I bought it on Ebay on saturday.  I normally hate it whenever folks try to mess around with The Beatles, but the folks that did this really have respect for the tunes.

It really isn't a very good movie. It is, at best, a string of music videos set to 60s music, with something like a plot connecting them.
That said Shwankie and I decided we needed to buy it about half way through. Really worth watching, owning, and buying the soundtrack.

I don't know about buying the soundtrack, but all the rest of it happened to us in the same way.  I was more amused by the way they worked all of the songs in than by anything else.  I don't know how long that will last, but the images will carry it through from there.