wxactly. Realised show was getting cancelled and started tying up things a bit too quickly. 

has one of the best episodes with the maskmaker.

I think the thing is the quality drop is noticeable despite s2 being way above most tv in general. 

Some good discussion ensued!
Stanislaw Lem is a nice example of "idea scifi", especially the short stories (Cyberiad/Kyberias, Pirx the pilot, Fables etc). And it definitely is not boring, it is one of the funniest things written!
I heard they were making a movie of Fiasco. Dunno how that will work. I think the plots of such movies should not be divulged beforehand. It's the plot that is the most important thing. So it doesn't work in blockbusters where everyone knows how it starts and ends. That's also why I never read the back cover of books. The reading experience is almost totally without anticipation and surprises since the back text reveals about 70% of the plot. Same with bad movie reviews. I'm not interested in telling the plot beforehand to decide if I'm going to see the movie. I'm interested in what the movie is like, and decide on that.

There's not much stuff similar to Lem. Philip K Dick is kinda oversurreal but there are bits and pieces of insight I feel (or then I'm just too stupid for him). Ubik sucked but others have been better. Then there's of course the classics, Heinlein, Clarke, haven't read Asimov that much. Hoyle has some goodish stuff but there are a few big problems with his books (won't spoil that tho).

Star Trek is a good point of TV "idea scifi", I hadn't thought of that. I find it very boring - it's so clean and detached. Maybe the ideas would be fascinating but just not for me, or they are presented in such a extremely simplified form that they become meh... 

and Ursula K Le Guin has some society ideas though I kinda haven't decided on them, they just seem nice books for some reason. (Dispossessed and the green forest world book) 

they should just stop making any more crime shows IMHO :) 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle is mentionend on the fiasco talk page.

And yeah, Pirx, I should have mentioned those short stories. The one with the fly in the cabin of his patrol ship! 

you said that. 

Nitin's post has prompted me to say: they've just started showing The Wire in the UK, weeknights on BBC2. So what may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch the show for free if you're a Brit. The first episode was shown last night, so if you can find a copy of that online you can easily catch up and join the "shared watching experience". The second episode is tonight at 11:20. 

It is great stuff.

I haven't seen the whole series, more like bits and pieces from here and there and then maybe the last season.

In a sense, a tv series makes it possible to make a huge epic story far bigger than any movie. Whole life stories of people and examination of their changes during the years. BSG had that. Great acting and casting and enough care with the direction. Also the more "tactical" (as compared to strategic) aspects were very very well done. Camerawork, sets, overall flow.

But it has caveats - mostly with the plot this time. Probably the writers just have to drop lots of hints on the way and still eventually find that they have painted themselves into a corner and just gotta end it with some out of the left field device. Too bad. :/ As a whole there are huge glaring holes and it doesn't make a compelling coherent story I'm afraid. I will proceed to name a few.

Why the fuck is Hera so important? How many humans and cylons had tried to have sex? It seemed to have very good prognoses since in at least two of the not so many cases (3?) it had lead to pregnancy. (Mental note that it was always a human man fucking a woman cylon.) And if Hera was so important, why not jump out when she was in the ship? All the waffling about and waiting. In the end the whole plot device of the solution of the series was just the blonde angel, Starbuck, jumping to the right coordinates. And that was it.

Maybe I'm just different from the majority of audiences, but to me the worst flaws in movies and tv shows have always been in the scripts.
Considering how many millions are poured into the sets, direction, effects and actor salaries, it is mind boggling that the scripts are so inane. Huge holes of logic exist, completely amateurish plot devices, completely uncredible motivations, or often no plots at all. I still don't get it why more movies and tv shows are not made based on books - they (well, better books, but you have a lot to choose from) at least have some more thought out storylines. There were a lot of clever and compelling ideas in the series, mostly things that happened during one or two episodes, but not overall...

BSG is very very hard to top in overall quality and character. In a sense it's completely awesome. But there really could be a scifi series with an actual plot that made some sense. 

http://www.videosift.com/video/Calling-All-Sci-Fi-Geeks-James-Cameron-s-Avatar

Really shows nothing of the actual movie it seems, but I am effectively teased :P 

We know what's it like when it's a hollywood movie. The astronauts are constantly fighting and killing each other and in the end we find humanity is its own worst enemy. 

 

Anyone seen these?
I've watched both once. I'm planning on watching Martyrs again, because I'm pretty certain I think it's stupid, but maybe a second viewing will make the ending seem less goofy to me. Didn't find the torture porn aspect as hard to watch as I thought based on reviews.
[Rec] is the kind of movie that's easy to take in in one sitting, but it's fucking awesome. Great, low budget first person 'found film' style zombie flick, with the best boss zombie in a while. 

metl saw it and quite liked it form his comments, its sitting in my unwatched pile. 

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)
Absolutely fantastic. I would sign nitin's comment
http://www.celephais.net/board/view_thread.php?id=3545&start=2135&end=2135
Highly recommended.

The english was hard for me to follow though, the poor sound quality from those old times did not help that. But that's not the movie. 

what did you see it off? the US dvd by criterion has pretty good sound quality IMHO. 

Some copy... Looked like a better TV stream rip. Good to know that there is something better out there.

And now, why did they make a Into the Blue sequel without Jessica Alba. :( 

http://www.imdb.com/keyword/the-hire/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hire
Get this if you like Clive Owen (loner), fast cars (cool) and somewhat dark storylines with lots of action.
I only saw the first 4 so far, 1+2 were great, 3 a bit confusing and 4 a bit stupid (music killed the atmosphere for me). 

The later episodes get the suck (as usual when things get popular and mainstream). I#d recommend watching 1, 2, 3 though, the others if you really feel like it. 5 or 6 was kinda nice. The last one is abysmal and that's the first time I used that word. 

way behind in comments, so heres some quick one/two liners of stuff :

Traitor (2008) - very average pseudo-intelligent post iraq thriller. Only saving grace is Don Cheadle.

5.5/10


The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) - beautifully shot, epic, touching film from Powell and Pressburger that barely wastes a scene in its 160 min runtime.

8/10


A Short Film About Killing (1988) - powerful, disturbing and objective anti-capital punishment movie from Kieslowski.

8/10


Hands Across the Table (1934) - above average screwball comedy with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray making a likeable pairing.

6/10


True Confession (1937) - blander comedy with the same two stars, but Lombard doesn�t disappoint with her comic timing.

5/10


Jodhaa Akbar (2008) - stunningly shot and scored bollywood epic which will cause your jaw to drop on more than occasion from the sheer grandeur of it all. Unfortunately it is not as compelling dramatically as it is visually.

6.5-7/10


Life on Mars UK Season 1 - average police procedural with a nice but poorly executed premise. Some enjoyable characters but the plots of most episodes are pretty weak.

5.5/10 

The Browning Version (1951) - tremendous, minimalist film with a great performance by Michael Redgrave who comes to terms with his failure as a teacher after learning that his pupils and colleagues are happy to see him leave when he is forced into retirement.

8/10


Amarcord (1973) - Federico Fellini's over the top and deliberately caricatured nostalgic recreation of his own youth in a small italian town is a series of great moments in an otherwise disjointed narrative. Has spawned many imitations like Cinema Paradiso and Malena but even in its disjointed state, it is better than them.

6/10


Barry Lyndon (1975) - amazingly shot and scored and also a very ambitious period film by Kubrick with a great first half. Then it comes to a bit of a standstill which unfortunately lasts most of the second half before finishing with a strong ending that makes up it somewhat.

6.5-7/10


The Wire Season 2 - big change of scene from the Baltimore streets to the Docks and while the change allows it to explore different themes, in the end the setting is slightly less interesting than that of the first season. Still a great season of tv though, despite the dramatic shift in focus.

8/10


Bigger Than Life (1956) - nicholas ray's dark technicolor filmed melodrama explores similar areas to many of Douglas Sirk's films and is only let down by a pat ending which rings very untrue.

7/10


The Bride Came COD (1941) - surprisingly bland pairing of Bette Davis and James Cagney who fail to click in a pretty averagely attempted comedy.

4.5-5/10


Cape Fear (1961) - scorsese's version was entertaining high camp, this is an entertainingly straight old school suspense film with Robert Mitchum terrifically sinister as Max Cady.

7-7.5/10


The Chaser (2008) - extremely well made if overlong suspense thriller set in the underbelly of Seoul with various parties tracking a serial killer over the course of one night. Na Hong-jin is a name to look out for.

7-7.5/10 

Dead Ringers (1988) - original, disturbing mindfuck from Cronenberg that has a pair of fantastic performances from Jeremy Irons playing twin gynaecologists who share *everything*. Loses some momentum in a muddled third act but pretty impressive stuff regardless.

7-7.5/10


Death in Venice (1971) - some truly great scenes in an otherwise problematic and far too languidly paced adaptation by Luchino Visconti of Thomas Mann's infamous novel. The source material, a disciplined ascetic composer in his 50's on holiday in Venice finding himself transfixed with the 'beauty' inherent in the physique of a 12 yr old boy, is not really suited for a film and in the hands of Visconti falls into simplistic uncle stevie territory. But every now and then, Visconti manages to combine Gustav Mahler's music, Dirk Bogarde's acting and visuals of Venice as the main character's mental hell into something extraordinary.

6.5/10


Dinner at Eight (1933) - above average ensemble dramedy that obviously uses Grand Hotel as a template but never quite reaches the same heights. The attempted skewering of high society lacks bite but the actors still manage to pull of the mostly mediocre material fairly well.

6/10


French Connection II (1975) - not a patch on William Friedkin's great original, but a pretty good film on its own terms. The setting moves to Marseille as Popeye Doyle continues his pursuit of 'Frog 1' and the first and third acts make for a gripping thriller. The second act, however, brings the movie to a complete standstill but luckily the movie survives that to finish well.

6.5-7/10


Get Smart (2008) - hardly has any of the charm of the tv show, in fact if not for the name it could be any other spy spoof that has been made since James Bond became famous. Its not terribly funny, despite Hathaway and Carrell suiting the roles and the ramped up action is poorly staged.

4/10


Hancock (2008) - somewhere in here is a pretty good film. I would bet good money that the original draft of the script for this was darker, smarter, longer and more coherent. But you can tell that the script got tampered with, probably multiple times, because its schizophrenic in tone from scene to scene. In its current form, it�s a terrible waste of ideas and some pretty good performances from Smith, Theron and Bateman.

5.5/10


L.627 (1992) - like a movie length french version of The Wire. Superb stuff, despite an unfocused and slow start, it does a great job in examining the police fight against drugs with great use of character humour to liven up the overarching despairing tone.

7.5-8/10


The Last of the Mohicans (1992) - great music, great action scenes and nice camerawork but otherwise it�s a strictly above average historical action epic from Michael Mann with stock characters and plot. Daniel Day Lewis is surprisingly flat as Hawkeye and Madeline Stowe looks out of place. But its hard to deny that the last 20 min are anything but memorable.

6.5/10 

Pretty damn scary film. Sure, there's all kinds of humor and wacky situations that pop up as Bill Maher eloquently interviews all kinds of religious nuts, but the end result is a terrifying look into the reality of those wacky religious nuts, aka the majority of humanity. I was thoroughly entertained however, and agreed with pretty much every point made throughout the movie, and now I'm worried I won't be able to go to sleep tonight.

People he interviews range from trucker church-goers to an "ex-gay" minister who married and "ex-lesbian" woman and had 3 children (although you wouldn't be able to tell he wasn't gay anymore) to gay muslim night-club owners in (I want to say Holland, but all those northern european countries get mixed up in my mind) to ex-Mormons. It is truly hilarious and heart-touchingly sad how stupid people can actually be.

I don't have a rating system, so I would just say it was pretty damn good. 

THere is a brief segment of some really hot looking biblical-themed porno where someone was sucking on a nuns tits. Anyone know the name of that ? Maybe I'll check in the credits to see where it's from. 

Married Life (2007) - stylish, well acted 50's set drama that is predictably plotted but the performances from Chris Cooper, Patrcia Clarkson and Pierce Brosnan keep you watching.

6.5/10


Midnight Cowboy (1969) - great characters and generally well made, although it gets a bit self indulgent during at least one extended sequence and the ending (and events leading to it) is a little forced and abrupt.

7-7.5/10


The Square (2008) - well made aussie noir/thriller that borrows a bit too much from numerous better films and features a main character that is just not sympathetic enough, but overall its still a fairly enjoyable watch.

6.5/10


To Live and Die in LA (1985) - above average crime thriller which has a couple of extremely well staged action sequences (the car chase is great) but otherwise features a stock plot and characters.

5.5-6/10


Youth of the Beast (1963) - very stylish yakuza film by Seijun Suzuki which I did find distractingly confusing at times but it all comes together reasonably well if you stick with it.

6.5/10


Mongol (2008) - well made action epic about Genghis Khan's early days with a strong, understated central performance but also a ponderous and meditative tone for what really is a rather stripped down and simplistic narrative.

6.5-7/10


Wanted (2008) - above average brainless film that is enjoyable due to its sheer ludicrousness in plot and action, but is also let down by a badly attempted 'hip' attitude and some really cringeworthy dialogue.

5.5-6/10


Miss Julie (1951) - excellent, stylish film from Alf Sjoeberg Set on midsummer night of 1894 on the estate of a Count in Sweden with a very strong performance from Anita Bjork and some very good dissection of power in its various forms.

7.5/10


Old Acquaintance (1943) - well made melodrama which nicely pits Bette Davis' acting against Miriam Hopkins' mugging but some of the plot turns towards the end are badly rushed and/or highly implausible.

6.5-7/10