I disagree most with the Jurassic Park one as 3 is much better than 2 and the first deserves to be higher.
Matrix 3 was also better than 2
T2 is awesome, even more awesome in Blu-ray. The first one fucked me right up as a small child as I'd seen T2 first so have not seen it since I was about 8.
Full Version: Media Odds and Sods
Pages: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51
QUOTE (GundamGuy_UK @ Feb 19 2009, 02:12 PM) 
To me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this, the "Star Trek trilogy" is II, III and IV.
Eh. I didn't like III much, but I loved II, IV and VI.
QUOTE (Atara @ Feb 19 2009, 09:30 PM)
Jurassic Park 3 is much better than 2
Wrong. Solid wrong.
QUOTE (Omniscia @ Feb 19 2009, 10:10 PM)
Eh. I didn't like III much, but I loved II, IV and VI.
True, but 2-4 all follow on perfectly from each-other.
Another bullshit list...
Top 25 Greatest Active Directors according to Entertainment Weekly
1. Steven Spielberg
2. Peter Jackson
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Steven Soderbergh
6. Ridley Scott
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Michael Mann
9. James Cameron
10. Joel and Ethan Coen
11. Guillermo del Toro
12. David Fincher
13. Tim Burton
14. Judd Apatow
15. Sam Raimi
16. Zack Snyder
17. Darren Aronofsky
18. Danny Boyle
19. Clint Eastwood
20. Ron Howard
21. Ang Lee
22. Paul Thomas Anderson
23. Paul Greengrass
24. Pedro Almodóvar
25. Jon Favreau
Top 25 Greatest Active Directors according to Entertainment Weekly
1. Steven Spielberg
2. Peter Jackson
3. Martin Scorsese
4. Christopher Nolan
5. Steven Soderbergh
6. Ridley Scott
7. Quentin Tarantino
8. Michael Mann
9. James Cameron
10. Joel and Ethan Coen
11. Guillermo del Toro
12. David Fincher
13. Tim Burton
14. Judd Apatow
15. Sam Raimi
16. Zack Snyder
17. Darren Aronofsky
18. Danny Boyle
19. Clint Eastwood
20. Ron Howard
21. Ang Lee
22. Paul Thomas Anderson
23. Paul Greengrass
24. Pedro Almodóvar
25. Jon Favreau
Put 22, 23 and 24 in the top ten and it becomes slightly less bullshit.
I mean, James Cameron's not directed anything in ten years, and the last thing he directed was not his best work.
I mean, James Cameron's not directed anything in ten years, and the last thing he directed was not his best work.
Only 3 'foreign' directors and 2 of them are Ang Lee and del Toro so they don't count.
QUOTE (GundamGuy_UK @ Feb 19 2009, 11:03 PM)
True, but 2-4 all follow on perfectly from each-other.
They do, and they do form a trilogy of sorts, but you don't have to have seen any of the previous films to understand what is going on in each - they still work as stand alone films.
I'm surprised the Motion Picture scored as highly as it did on that list, it usually polls very badly (undeservedly so, I feel).
I agree with number 1.
He's not my favourite director, but I still agree with it.
He's not my favourite director, but I still agree with it.
Obviously, that list is based on past films as well as present (or, at least, recent) projects, if Cameron's on there. Personally, I'd take Zack Snyder off the list and replace him with either Woody Allen or Wes Anderson.
Oh, I see now that the Woodman's at #26, and Wes is at #45, in the bottom half of the top 50.
Oh, I see now that the Woodman's at #26, and Wes is at #45, in the bottom half of the top 50.
Jon Favereu shouldn't even be in the top 100.
QUOTE (GundamGuy_UK @ Feb 19 2009, 11:03 PM)
Wrong. Solid wrong.
I hated the second one, after the greatness of the first it was a complete piss take. I think maybe by the time 3 came out I had accepted that the first one would be the only one worth ever watching again so was less dissappointed.
QUOTE (Atara @ Feb 20 2009, 08:04 AM)
I hated the second one, after the greatness of the first it was a complete piss take. I think maybe by the time 3 came out I had accepted that the first one would be the only one worth ever watching again so was less dissappointed.
But the scene with the trucks hanging over the cliff in II is far better and more tense than any part of III, and that's why I prefer it personally.
QUOTE (logger @ Feb 19 2009, 11:16 PM)
Another bullshit list...
Top 25 Greatest Active Directors according to Entertainment Weekly
Top 25 Greatest Active Directors according to Entertainment Weekly
Not sure how they worked this out. JJ Abrams! He's only released one film. Jon Favreau! Yet no room for Chan-wook Park or Michel Gondry in the whole 50.
I've no idea where this should go on the forum but here's a rather interesting video explaining the 10 different dimensions.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
QUOTE (Jimmay @ Feb 20 2009, 02:28 PM)
I've no idea where this should go on the forum but here's a rather interesting video explaining the 10 different dimensions.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
It is, my head hurt a little though.
QUOTE (Rua @ Feb 20 2009, 03:10 PM)
It is, my head hurt a little though.
It reminds me of a book that my mate told me about once that I've never had a chance to read. I may have to look it up though.
Flatland
QUOTE (Jessopjessopjessop @ Feb 20 2009, 03:32 PM)
That sounds genius.
The mate who recommended it to me is both a Civil Engineer and a Flatland BMXer and I've always wondered which route led him to finding that book. If it was the latter then I'm sure he and many other Flatlanders would be most disappointed.
QUOTE (Jimmay @ Feb 20 2009, 10:27 AM)
It reminds me of a book that my mate told me about once that I've never had a chance to read. I may have to look it up though.
Flatland
Flatland
QUOTE (Jessopjessopjessop @ Feb 20 2009, 10:32 AM)
That sounds genius.
It is genius, and it's appropriate that it came up when all the class talk has been going on in the To Think thread.
QUOTE (mcraigclark @ Feb 20 2009, 05:01 PM)
It is genius, and it's appropriate that it came up when all the class talk has been going on in the To Think thread.
*Strokes chin and stares wistfully through the window*
QUOTE (Jimmay @ Feb 20 2009, 02:28 PM)
I've no idea where this should go on the forum but here's a rather interesting video explaining the 10 different dimensions.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
Well I thought it was interesting anyway.
I once had a nasty drug called Salvia, which let me experience the concepts of the fifth and sixth dimensions. ... it was very cool, and then a few moments later very scary, when I came down... and my mind seemed to return to an alternative possible universe that wasn't the one that I'd left. ...about 5 seconds later I'd reverted back to my original plane of existence.
QUOTE (Jon 79 @ Feb 20 2009, 07:49 PM)
I once had a nasty drug called Salvia, which let me experience the concepts of the fifth and sixth dimensions. ... it was very cool, and then a few moments later very scary, when I came down... and my mind seemed to return to an alternative possible universe that wasn't the one that I'd left. ...about 5 seconds later I'd reverted back to my original plane of existence.
I bought that in Camden once (it is legal, for anyone wondering), but the guy didn't tell us how to smoke it so we just used a pipe which did nothing.
Smoking should work, are you sure you weren't just sold sage?
Possibly! We were only 15.
QUOTE (Jimmay @ Feb 20 2009, 03:27 PM)
It reminds me of a book that my mate told me about once that I've never had a chance to read. I may have to look it up though.
Flatland
Flatland
My housemate loaned me that ages ago. I should really get around to it.
Brilliant. 
Although I didn't realise it was his 10th anniversary.
Although I didn't realise it was his 10th anniversary.
Spongebob is brilliant.
Bollocks, if only I'd seen this yesterday. It's sold out now.
QUOTE (dandan @ Mar 2 2009, 11:32 AM)
Work has blocked the site. Fuckers.
i spoil you...
QUOTE ("Wednesday @ January 21, 2009 12:25 PM Troy Brownfield Bloody Blogs - Unkillable Classics")
Five Things I Love About John Carpenter
Good Lord! How long have I been gone? Well, here's the deal, Fangorians. You may or may not know that I took over as team captain for Blog@Newsarama, with my new group kicking things off on December 1st. I also made some preparations for my original site, ShotgunReviews.com, to begin celebrating its TENTH YEAR online. Needless to say, it's been busy. But I haven't wanted to neglect my Fango friends, so I've been giving a lot of thought to what to do for the third installment of this (now more) regular series. The first two go-rounds, I talked '31 Frankenstein and Dracula. I really kicked around covering Spanish Dracula, and I WILL get back to that eventually. Today, though, I've decided to cover someone that's still in the game. And I'll begin with this question: between 1978 and 1988, was there a genre director that had a better run than John Carpenter?
Consider: Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), and They Live (1988). Can you think of any other genre director that had a run like that in that period? Spielberg probably comes closest, but you have to account for 1979’s 1941, and the fact that some of his better films from that period were straight dramas (The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun). Nevertheless, I always wind up feeling somehow that Carpenter never gets his due. Here then, five things I love about Carpenter.
#1 Up-front About His Influences: Carpenter doesn’t try to hide the things that figure into his storytelling style. Instead, he tries to find a way to take a unique angle upon which to hang the narrative. Prince of Darkness is a great example of this. That film in particular embraces H.P. Lovecraft; Carpenter confirmed as much during the interviews for the book, John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness by Gilles Boulenger. Among the Lovecraftian touches? Strange activity in distant stars, changes to the world brought about by encroaching evil, powers beyond comprehension sealed off by the thinnest of prison walls, scientists helpless in the face of unimaginable power . . . it’s all there. Carpenter weaves in a faith-vs.-science debate that spins into one of his favorite narrative devices: The Siege. Which reminds me . . .
#2 As Horror Director, He Sure Loves Westerns: Western archetypes play frequently into Carpenter’s body of work. The most obvious candidate on this list is Big Trouble, where Kurt Russell basically plays John Wayne. However, you can see that loner hero attitude reflected in They Live and the later Vampires. Carpenter’s earlier Assault on Precinct 13 and later Ghosts of Mars both employ the Rio Bravo/El Dorado/Rio Lobo “prison/location under attack” routine, all of which, hey! combine to go with The Siege.
#3 Trendsetter, Not Follower: While George Lucas was basically lifting the narratives of Akira Kurosawa wholesale to fuel the Star Wars trilogy and, well, Willow, Carpenter also felt the effects of Asian cinema. Carpenter was specifically influenced by Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, directed by Tsui Hark (pronounced “Choy Hok”). Rather than simply impose the flying swordsmen and other tropes into another world, Carpenter (and the three writers on Big Trouble in Little China) make the traditional American hero, Jack Burton, both outsider and goofball. In a way, Burton isn’t just the guy the audience follows, he IS the audience. Why? As we were learning the rules of the world beneath Chinatown, so was he. He didn’t understand Lo Pan, The Storms, or Black Blood of The Earth, and we didn’t either. Carpenter used a panoramic, immersion style to make you feel like you’d been dipped in another world. And he did it 13 years before The Matrix would appropriate dozens of Hong Kong film elements and try to pass them off as new. The same notion of Trendsetter can also be boiled down to one thing: the slasher genre. Sure, there were murderer movies before Halloween, but how many were there after?
#4 The 10-Minute Fight Scene in They Live: This requires no further explanation.
#5 The Man Can Cast: Look at the great actors that Carpenter has brought into his films: Keith David, Wilford Brimley, John Houseman, Louis Jordan, Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lee Van Cleef, Robert Hays . . . seriously. He has an absolute talent for matching the player with the role. And no one embodied that in this period better than Kurt Russell. In The Thing, Russell has a more subdued performance, owing to the nature of that particular film. But in Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter and Russell work together to create two iconic action heroes of completely different flavor: Snake Plissken and Jack Burton. One is the baddest of the badass, and the other one thinks that he is. Two sides of a coin realized by one rock-solid actor envisioned by a talented director. Lest we forget, Carpenter’s first work with Russell was in the 1978 Made-for-TV film Elvis: The Movie; he transformed the former Disney child and teen star into the King of Rock and Roll, then made him into Snake. That’s remarkable.
What about you, readers? Love for Carpenter? I confined by examination to a specific run of films, but I’m also quite fond of In the Mouth of Madness. Thoughts, kids? Let’s have ‘em.
Good Lord! How long have I been gone? Well, here's the deal, Fangorians. You may or may not know that I took over as team captain for Blog@Newsarama, with my new group kicking things off on December 1st. I also made some preparations for my original site, ShotgunReviews.com, to begin celebrating its TENTH YEAR online. Needless to say, it's been busy. But I haven't wanted to neglect my Fango friends, so I've been giving a lot of thought to what to do for the third installment of this (now more) regular series. The first two go-rounds, I talked '31 Frankenstein and Dracula. I really kicked around covering Spanish Dracula, and I WILL get back to that eventually. Today, though, I've decided to cover someone that's still in the game. And I'll begin with this question: between 1978 and 1988, was there a genre director that had a better run than John Carpenter?
Consider: Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), The Thing (1982), Christine (1983), Starman (1984), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Prince of Darkness (1987), and They Live (1988). Can you think of any other genre director that had a run like that in that period? Spielberg probably comes closest, but you have to account for 1979’s 1941, and the fact that some of his better films from that period were straight dramas (The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun). Nevertheless, I always wind up feeling somehow that Carpenter never gets his due. Here then, five things I love about Carpenter.
#1 Up-front About His Influences: Carpenter doesn’t try to hide the things that figure into his storytelling style. Instead, he tries to find a way to take a unique angle upon which to hang the narrative. Prince of Darkness is a great example of this. That film in particular embraces H.P. Lovecraft; Carpenter confirmed as much during the interviews for the book, John Carpenter: The Prince of Darkness by Gilles Boulenger. Among the Lovecraftian touches? Strange activity in distant stars, changes to the world brought about by encroaching evil, powers beyond comprehension sealed off by the thinnest of prison walls, scientists helpless in the face of unimaginable power . . . it’s all there. Carpenter weaves in a faith-vs.-science debate that spins into one of his favorite narrative devices: The Siege. Which reminds me . . .
#2 As Horror Director, He Sure Loves Westerns: Western archetypes play frequently into Carpenter’s body of work. The most obvious candidate on this list is Big Trouble, where Kurt Russell basically plays John Wayne. However, you can see that loner hero attitude reflected in They Live and the later Vampires. Carpenter’s earlier Assault on Precinct 13 and later Ghosts of Mars both employ the Rio Bravo/El Dorado/Rio Lobo “prison/location under attack” routine, all of which, hey! combine to go with The Siege.
#3 Trendsetter, Not Follower: While George Lucas was basically lifting the narratives of Akira Kurosawa wholesale to fuel the Star Wars trilogy and, well, Willow, Carpenter also felt the effects of Asian cinema. Carpenter was specifically influenced by Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain, directed by Tsui Hark (pronounced “Choy Hok”). Rather than simply impose the flying swordsmen and other tropes into another world, Carpenter (and the three writers on Big Trouble in Little China) make the traditional American hero, Jack Burton, both outsider and goofball. In a way, Burton isn’t just the guy the audience follows, he IS the audience. Why? As we were learning the rules of the world beneath Chinatown, so was he. He didn’t understand Lo Pan, The Storms, or Black Blood of The Earth, and we didn’t either. Carpenter used a panoramic, immersion style to make you feel like you’d been dipped in another world. And he did it 13 years before The Matrix would appropriate dozens of Hong Kong film elements and try to pass them off as new. The same notion of Trendsetter can also be boiled down to one thing: the slasher genre. Sure, there were murderer movies before Halloween, but how many were there after?
#4 The 10-Minute Fight Scene in They Live: This requires no further explanation.
#5 The Man Can Cast: Look at the great actors that Carpenter has brought into his films: Keith David, Wilford Brimley, John Houseman, Louis Jordan, Donald Pleasance, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lee Van Cleef, Robert Hays . . . seriously. He has an absolute talent for matching the player with the role. And no one embodied that in this period better than Kurt Russell. In The Thing, Russell has a more subdued performance, owing to the nature of that particular film. But in Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter and Russell work together to create two iconic action heroes of completely different flavor: Snake Plissken and Jack Burton. One is the baddest of the badass, and the other one thinks that he is. Two sides of a coin realized by one rock-solid actor envisioned by a talented director. Lest we forget, Carpenter’s first work with Russell was in the 1978 Made-for-TV film Elvis: The Movie; he transformed the former Disney child and teen star into the King of Rock and Roll, then made him into Snake. That’s remarkable.
What about you, readers? Love for Carpenter? I confined by examination to a specific run of films, but I’m also quite fond of In the Mouth of Madness. Thoughts, kids? Let’s have ‘em.
QUOTE (dandan @ Mar 2 2009, 11:53 AM)
i spoil you...
Consider me spoiled. And thankyou.
CAn't really disagree with much there. Though I'm trying to think of someone with a better 10 year run of films. Maybe Hitchcock.
Bono calls Chris Martin a wanker
Apart from the irony of Bono calling anyone a wanker, I'm only posting this because of the way Jo Whiley apparently has to apologise for someone not liking Chris Martin. And it has a funny photo.
Apart from the irony of Bono calling anyone a wanker, I'm only posting this because of the way Jo Whiley apparently has to apologise for someone not liking Chris Martin. And it has a funny photo.
J.J. Abrams's wrote Regarding Henry?!
Woooooah. I couldn't print the thing out so just did a sketch of it and it still worked. Sooo cooool.
Some quality music videos that have been made using actual clips off youtube pasted together to make new songs. This one is great.
I've just seen that the Liam Neeson revenge fest Taken has been in the US Top 5 for 6 weeks now. Not bad for a film universally panned on it's release here (personally I really enjoyed it). The Luc Besson machine just keeps on rollin'.
QUOTE (Jimmay @ Mar 12 2009, 01:44 PM)
Some quality music videos that have been made using actual clips off youtube pasted together to make new songs. This one is great.
Cool.
chinese 'ugly betty' adaptation - 'ugli wudi' - tops online poll of worst program of 2008...
Hah - no surprise there. She is pale skinned and slender - both signs of beauty in China. People felt cheated apparently because they just got a pretty actress and gave her braces and a bad wardrobe.
Not that Hollywood does that kind of thing.
Not that Hollywood does that kind of thing.
QUOTE (Serafina_Pekkala @ Mar 20 2009, 02:12 PM)
Hah - no surprise there. She is pale skinned and slender - both signs of beauty in China. People felt cheated apparently because they just got a pretty actress and gave her braces and a bad wardrobe.
Not that Hollywood does that kind of thing.
Not that Hollywood does that kind of thing.
Ugly bitch.
QUOTE (PrincessKate @ Mar 23 2009, 12:48 PM)
Max is alright, Bob is an old mans name! Better than Sophocles though....
QUOTE (monkeyman @ Mar 23 2009, 03:09 PM)
Bob is an old mans name!
Unless it's short for 'Kate'.
Old men aren't born old men, though.
QUOTE (GundamGuy_UK @ Mar 23 2009, 08:40 PM)
Old men aren't born old men, though.
I don't like thinking of babies being called Ethel or Wilfred. It's just weird. I bet they'll come back into fashion soon enough, though.
Hugo Award nominees are out.
That's a hell of a tight shortlist.
That, too. Well, I guess except for RTD, though I didn't see that episode; is it "the usual" or better?
QUOTE
Best Novel
(639 Ballots)
* Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
* The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
* Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
* Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
* Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)
(639 Ballots)
* Anathem by Neal Stephenson (Morrow; Atlantic UK)
* The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins; Bloomsbury UK)
* Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (Tor Teen; HarperVoyager UK)
* Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (Ace; Orbit UK)
* Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi (Tor)
That's a hell of a tight shortlist.
QUOTE
Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form
(336 Ballots)
* “The Constant” (Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
* Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
* “Revelations” (Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
* “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
* “Turn Left” (Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)
(336 Ballots)
* “The Constant” (Lost) Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, writers; Jack Bender, director (Bad Robot, ABC studios)
* Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog Joss Whedon, & Zack Whedon, & Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen , writers; Joss Whedon, director (Mutant Enemy)
* “Revelations” (Battlestar Galactica) Bradley Thompson & David Weddle, writers; Michael Rymer, director (NBC Universal)
* “Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead” (Doctor Who) Steven Moffat, writer; Euros Lyn, director (BBC Wales)
* “Turn Left” (Doctor Who) Russell T. Davies, writer; Graeme Harper, director (BBC Wales)
That, too. Well, I guess except for RTD, though I didn't see that episode; is it "the usual" or better?
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