We watched the first series, the second series starts next week again i think. It is pretty good.

Yea, it's sort of a different type storyline isn't it?


TIS

Just finished watching "The Perks of being a Wallflower", great movie!It's a coming of age story that captures the highs and lows of growing up. It was a famous novel adapted to the big screen. The story is narrated by a teenager who is called Charlie, he describes various scenes in his life by writing a series of letters to an anonymous person, whom he does not know personally.

I highly recommend it.

I just watched Argo, and I really enjoyed it. I think it was fair and balanced, even if it was a bit over the top to be suspenseful.

And it was made in Pittsburgh!

^^^yep

In movies or on TV there frequently are restaurant scenes. While the camera focuses on the two stars eating, one can see other diners chatting. Are these other actors instructed to talk about anything they want to talk about or are their conversations scripted? Anyone Board members been in such a scene?

Looking forward to "The Following" tonight (3rd episode of the series).




TIS

BBC's Ripper Street is quite good. I've been enjoying it up to now. Only two more episodes till the end of season 1. I started watching it because of Matthew Macfadyen, but the other two leads are awesome too.

Am I the only one who prefers TV series to movies? I mean they've consistently had better writing than movies.

Hey I thought I was the only one watching Ripper Street...

You are not alone Lilo! Now if I only find someone who prefers series to movies!

I have seen the title as I scan the channels but don't know the series. Any reference at all to "Jack The Ripper?" I don't knw anything about it. AND is it a show you have to see from the first episode?


TIS

Hi TIS, it's the events that happen in the Ripper Street after those murders. It's about a detective who tries to solve crimes and sometimes catch the copycats of Jack the ripper.

Hi Afs, how are you? I'll have to check out Ripper.

Also, the BBC airs a show called "Being Human" that I watched last season but haven't seen it back yet. Our SyFy channel has an American Version which I do watch and it's very very close to the UK version. In a nutshell, it's about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost all living in the same house. LOL Sounds funny but it's not a comedy. Not as good as Walking Dead but not bad.



TIS

Thank you TIS, I'm doing fine.

Yeah, I have a friend who is very into "Being Human." I watched the pilot for both UK and US version, but didn't warm up to them. After Buffy/Angel, the only other vampire show I'm watching is "True Blood," and that's certainly a guilty pleasure. It is kind of stupid at times. Man, I miss Angel. I did like "Moonlight" just as you did, but unfortunately that got canceled.

I watch True Blood too but it's losing my interest last couple seasons. Not sure if I'll continue to watch. Some shows (I think especially this kind of show) I think it's hard to maintain a good storyline without going a little out there if you know what I mean.



TIS

No. You don't have to catch it from the first episode. There are some themes which tie together (two characters have a hidden past, which the lead pretends not to know about) but really each show is somewhat self-contained.

Thanks Lilo, sounds like something I'd like. Hopefully it's not opposite of any of my few favorite shows but I'll try to catch it. If it's on "On Demand" I can watch anytime.




TIS

I know what you mean, oli. Sometimes I'm more interested in the background people than I am in the main characters. In the 1980s my sister was selected to be in the background of a scene in the movie, That Championship Season. It took place in Scranton. She was supposed to be shopping in a mall (which was closed for the day for filming) with two girls while Bruce Dern, Paul sorvino and Martin Sheen were buying a tv. She was given a shopping bag and was told to hold it so that the word Toshiba was visible to the camera.

The scene didn't make it in the movie.

Well many years ago when I went on a Universal Movie tour they said that background people who are chatting in the background aren't really talking but only pretending to be talking, with gestures and everything. Don't know IF they do it all the time or not.

A few years ago I saw a movie being filmed in Hollywood (Ed Wood with Johnny Depp). Ed Wood (Johnny) was suppose to be getting on a bus or train. He was the main one in the scene, but extras were people walking down the street, seemingly talking, nodding, etc. They (for whatever reason)kept doing re-takes on the scene, over and over with the extras walking from around the corner talking, etc. We watched for at least an hour but damn, it took so long for one scene. We never did see if it ever was "a wrap" LOL. Then again, I wonder if the scene was cut. How frustrating.

TIS

Looks like CBS is casting for another N.C.I.S. spin-off.

So that's now what 3 shows that all technically spun off from the forgotten J.A.G.?

Up All Night star Christina Applegate is leaving the NBC comedy she helped to launch.

“It’s been a great experience working on Up All Night, but the show has taken a different creative direction and I decided it was best for me to move on to other endeavors,” Applegate said in a statement provided to EW. “Working with Lorne Michaels has been a dream come true and I am grateful he brought me into his TV family. I will miss the cast, producers and crew, and wish them the best always.”

I really liked that show when it premiered, but it sort of lost the funny once they canceled the Ava show where they characters worked. I honestly haven't watched it much lately, and I'm guessing they'll cancel it if Christina Applegate is leaving.

Me as well, very good show!

Some more canceled/renewed:

http://tv.msn.com/canceled-or-renewed/photo-gallery/?photoidx=34

Do no harm only showed 2 episodes before being pulled and canceled. I won't be surprised if Community and Up all Night joins in being canceled (that would be 3 NBC shows right there). Still surprised that Boss was canceled since Kelsey Grammer won an award for his performance.

I am very disappointed in the direction that Up All Night took this season, so I too won't be shocked to see it go.

The year that one of the guys or the show the Odd Couple went off the air was the year they won the Emmy

I just read that Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones split up.

I guess she's looking for someone a little bit older this time. Like maybe Yoda.

http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/michael_douglas_denies_catherine_hwqiLybCg25GKH18vVQW5K

Well the other day I caught A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD, and I have to say I'm disapointed. Not as bad perhaps as the critics are making it out to be, for brief moments I was entertained(if only mostly because of Willis) but yes my thumbs down joins them.

Overall this is the first DIE HARD movie where I felt truely whatever. For the shortest-running movie in the series at 90 something minutes (or about half hour shorter than the other DH movies), I wanted it to end.

All the previous DIE HARD movies, especially the original DIE HARD (one of the greatest action films ever produced) all were successful for me for their blend of successful elements:

(1) Exciting (coherently-shot) action scenes.
(2) A good narrative rhythm, patient in putting the story pieces into place before dropping the 'hammer,' or usually when the bad guys begin their operations. The second 'hammer' is when its time for Willis to start killing bad guys.
(3) Good villains, casted with good actors, with cool heist schemes and/or and/or very detailed creative plans to pull them off that always impressed me. (On an action film level at least.)
(4) A terrific sense of humor, one-liners. Usually from Bruce Willis, but not exclusively.

More or less A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD failed all at all 4. The humor is too broad, or can't hit the broadside of the barn. (But some laughs still, but not enough.)

Like too many action movies since the 1990s, we have 'post-action' cinematography, aka "shakey cam." No sense of geography, no timing, you have no idea what the fuck is happening. We have a big ass epic car chase in Moscow, countless cars destroyed (the real kind, not CGI-ed) and....I didn't care. After awhile when you get tired of trying to make sense of this chaotic mayhem, you just quit. You get detached, you get bored. (I always have this problem with Michael Bay movies.) That's disapointing.

There's no patience in the narrative, no build-up, no satisfying pay-off. I guess this is what happens when you hire the director of BEHIND ENEMY LINES and MAX PAYNE. They got what they paid for.

The villain here, for the first time in a DH movie, is shockingly irrelevant with no presence. The actor playing him has no sense to, if you will, ham it up like Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons were allowed to. He did have one good moment I must admit, suggesting he could've been a dancer instead of a terrorist. Kinda thoughtful, but wasted here unfortunately. In fact his and his team's scheme....you know, it made no sense at all to me. Not even fully sure what their objective was. (Something about Chernobyl, since every Hollywood movie in Russia has to involve that infamous location for some reason.)

Now in the Shoutbox I got into a fight with a misguided local who thought I was complaining about the logic of action scenes when I was bitching about the shakey-cam filmed action sequences. I felt truely sorry for him. DIE HARD films are exciting, thrilling, vulgar cartoons, and I view them as such. Even though the original DIE HARD mostly benefitted from being the least cartoonish of the bunch. Maybe they should try to return to that.

I admire the DH series for keeping the same actor 25 years onward, at a time when Hollywood is trigger-happy for reboots and remakes and recastings. I admired that started with Willis with a head full of hair, to him now balder than the American Eagle. And I like that. I like that two children of his in the first movie were kids, now decades later they're adults and focal points of the last two DH pictures.

In other words, I wouldn't give up on DH yet. Every franchise seems to fuck up inevitably (James Bond more than once), so I'm just saying I'm up for one more DIE HARD movie. Make it as good as possible, no shakey cam garbage. Hell John McTiernan should be out of jail by then, hire him when he gets out. It can work.

Using my star system DickNose is so obsessed over (I finally got my own sexy stalker!), I give A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD **1/2 out of 5.