What movies (et. al.) did you watch last weekend?

Magpie

Magpie

Immortal
...which really means what visual, moving media have you watched recently or since the last time you posted?

I haven't watched much. A lot of cable tv shows are just now getting released on Netflix so we're watching the previous season of Leverage and Arrow. Leverage is predictable but I'm quite enjoying Arrow. (I won't say Leverage is the show we'd want to watch first of the new releases. The ones we want to watch first are on long wait!)

My son got me Netflix streaming (we had the DVD account for the closed captions) for my birthday. I watched a couple of episodes of Haven which was okay. I'll probably keep pecking away at it. (I watch while cooking dinner or doing dishes a lot)

Then I watched an episode of Portlandia which I thought was hilarious. Some people will compare Portland and Minneapolis so I was able to picture most of the people-types they were poking fun at. In the opening segment of the first episode, they're kind of listing all the stuff Portland has including people with tribal tatoos. I have recently been wondering what happened to all those people I saw at the Seward Cafe in the 90s with facial tattoos, piercings, and dreadlocks. It's like Vespas. Everyone had one and then no one had one. What happened to all of those facial tattoos? I really wanted to see what they looked like on 40 and 50 years olds.
 
I just finished watching this last night (the Ken Burns one).
I found it compelling viewing. It made me think about what is happening in Canterbury where I live. The area I grew up in is becoming one huge dairy farm, with the water required for such land use being pumped from the underground aquifers at an alarming rate. It is a massive change that has occurred over a relatively short time.

For some light relief my latest retro viewing has been To the Manor Born. I never watched it when it first screened on TV, as it held not interest for me at the age of 12/13. It's very funny. And Penelope Keith is brilliant as always.
 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/dustbowl/

I talked about the Ken Burns one back in Nov 2012 and wrote:

you know...I think I'm pretty much over having Peter Coyote doing the narration on these sorts of things. It's like there's five people in the world that can do documentary narration.

My interest in the Dust Bowl is partly the personal stories and partly the science of it. I can appreciate the politics and economics sides of the story but they aren't what make me want to sit down and watch.

I can remember gasping when I saw the depiction of a dust storm in Bound for Glory. I think it was the first time I got a sense of how enormous they were.
 
And last night I looked up that documentary you mentioned. I had searched fore the old thread as I remembered the conversation about the different documentaries.
So is Peter Coyote the person who did the narration in the Ken Burns one? His voice was not familiar to me.
 
Finally got around to see this. I'd give it a 'pretty good'.

It's a very sweet, innocent story that is very self-contained. The camera work and production design is gorgeous, and the script is...very Wes Anderson.

That being said, the break into the third act, and from that point until the ending, didn't seem right to me. It was the shot in the film with the Khaki Scouts chasing the main character across the field in circles. From then on, the movie was a little...off. It still ended with the resolution I anticipated, but it got there in a way I'm not quite sure of. Might have to watch it again sometime to think about it again. I'll definitely seek it out a second time.
 
And I was lucky enough to get two shows in. One was a version of Cirque du Soleil called Zarkana and the other a comedy/acrobatic show called Absinthe. Both were visually astounding and incredibly funny, and both were probably a lot better (in terms of entertainment value, anyway) than any movie or T.V. show that I've seen in the past year.
 
both on DVD.

"Tempest" is a 1980s movie inspired by the Shakespeare play. Worth watching just for the song-and-dance-with-goats number, but generally a lot of fun.

We also devoured Season 2 of "Homeland". The tension was sometimes ratcheted so high that I could hardly bear it, and had to pace about a little. Engrossing and at times draining.
 
and went to the cinema to see 'About Time' with my friend yesterday (which was very amusing to watch). [:)]

The Secret of Moonacre is very funny - I laugh every time I see Marmaduke rushing around the place, and Digweed is my favourite character because all he practically says is "That'll be _____ then, sir."
I guess Maria's uncle (played by Ioan Gruffudd) is very handsome and sweet [though I always say that about men with dark hair and stubbles] [sly]
 
Not overwhelmed, but maybe it had been over-hyped by the time I finally saw it. I don't have any strong desire to see it again. But I know a lot of people really love it.
 
to one of those classic 80's films (usually a John Hughes film) although it's much more quirky and distinct in its aesthetic. It has a similar sweetness to the story and sometimes gets a similar reaction from viewers. (No judgement here, just an observation.)

It has replay value for me, for sure. Although that objection to it I mentioned earlier really lowers my overall thoughts on it.
 
I can see this one's going to be a heart-wrencher.

I've also been working my way through "Grey's Anatomy" reruns. Didn't start watching when it started but got hooked on the reruns and am up to Season 7 now. So far have only had to shout two "Seattle native" corrections at the screen (oaks are not native trees here, people who actually live here know that we have more than 5 clear nights a year). And from my years in a hospital, I'd add that the nurses do a LOT more of the care that they have the residents doing, and Shepherd is far too sociable and normal to be a neurosurgeon, but overall, they get the personalities of the different disciplines pretty well.
 
The family was in a Marvel mood. I was off doing an art project, but I made sure to come in there in time for Heinz Kruger so I could annoy them all by yelling, "Go, Nazi guy! Go!"

[tongue] Can't help it if he's a bad guy - it's Richard Armitage! Elrond being evil is also weirdly entertaining to watch.
 
I am a pretty big history buff, & it's kinda fun to separate what's historically accurate & what's not...besides, Billy Boyd![heart]
 
The Terrible Clockman (1961). I saw this when I was seven and it gave me nightmares for months. Been looking for it for years. I thought it was broadcast by Hallmark, but turns out it was on The Shirley Temple Show. Loosely based on a Faustian type short story by Jules Verne, "Master Zacharius". Production values are rather cheap, and Ms. Temple occasionally displays why she wasn’t too successful as an actress in her adult years. Also, color TV technology is still in its infancy and there is some fuzzy lensing at the corners as well as blurring during horizontal camera movement. (These problems with a new video technology strike me as familiar somehow…) Still, the color is remarkably vivid, the supporting cast is mostly good, and some creepy moments are managed. Sadly, now that I am an adult the Terrible Clockman is so obviously a man in a gold suit with a clock mask.…

A LOTR connection: A very young John Astin (Sean’s father) has a small part as a coachman who relates some of the clockman’s horrific off-screen depredations. He’s not very convincing.
-Not recommended.

The House of the Seven Gables (1960). On the same Shirley Temple Show DVD. A surprisingly coherent 50 minute retelling of the Nathaniel Hawthorne novel. The supporting cast is remarkably effective, with Robert Culp as the romantic interest, Agnes Morehead as spooky Aunt Hepzibah, Martin Landau as the crazed Clifford, and a delightful Jonathan Harris (Lost in Space) as the villainous judge. For the most part Ms. Temple as Phoebe generally rises to the level of the cast and material. Again, this was an early color TV series and the technology is still slightly imperfect, especially if the camera moves too quickly. Still, the lensing effect is actually rather fitting, and again like with The Terrible Clockman the set designers, costumers, and lighting director make use of really vivid colors. (BTW, look for stagehands lurking in the background.)
-Recommended if you’d like a taste of the old shake-and-bake 1950s TV anthologies.

Agents of SHIELD (2013) A team made up of misfits, each of whom has A Secret. (*yawn*) There's the one who is A Lone Wolf, the one who has Lost Her Confidence, the one who has A Mysterious Past, and the one (actually two) who are Supermodel Nerds. Basically NCIS only without any standouts. Been there, done that. The one thing that puts this X-Files redux WAY above and apart is Clark Gregg as everyone’s favorite MIB bureaucrat. Now HIS Big Secrets I’m curious about: Did he really die? Is he really Coulson? Is he a Life Model Decoy? Is he The Vision? Is he a Super Zombie? Is he a brainwashed Chitauri? (They ARE shapechangers in the comics.) Are he and the cellist still an item? How does he feel about Nick Fury messing up his Captain America trading cards? Did SHIELD set up both the Avengers Initiative and the Dharma Initiative and just like Oceanic 815 everyone in Level Seven is actually dead? Hopefully there are answers to these questions and they don’t just pull something out of their ascot after the audience is thoroughly bored.

The show elevates tremendously every time Gregg is on the screen, and plunges into mediocrity every moment he is not. Best moment is when Coulson flies off in a red corvette (named Lola) that surely used to belong to Howard Stark. (Another question: Is Coulson THAT old?)

-Recommended solely due to the presence of Clark Gregg, but it’s a BIG reason.
 
Breaking Bad. I'm on Season 2 so I have to avoid the spoilers out there. I tried watching it shortly after my husband died (of cancer) but it was too soon and too dark for me at that time in my life. But now I'm really enjoying it and my husband would have loved it, too.
 
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