I like Ursula LeGuin's dragons. I like Ursula LeGuin.

Ursula LeGuin.

Just to be clear, Peter Jackson didn't make up Azog, he was one of the characters from the appendices that played a large part in the Dwarves' history. Peter Jackson did however totally fuck up Azog's backstory by keeping him alive. Tolkien wrote that he was killed in battle, and it was his son Bolg who pursued the Dwarves during the events of The Hobbit, leading up to the big battle at the end.

I know based on behind-the-scenes material that Jackson intends on including Bolg, so... he kind of has to kill Azog at some point or Bolg's character will have no motivation whatsoever to meet Thorin in battle.

I watched Skyfall. It was alright, Javier Bardem was quite good.

I've seen a lot of movies lately so if you don't want to read all of this good for you, you lovely petunia. But read it all anyway because it's probably 3 AM.

Firstly, Les Miserables. I love Les Miserables, I saw the musical when I was 12 or 13 and it really spoke to me. It told me that I need to grow up to be a swarthy disgusting Inn owner.
I saw the movie twice, once before Django and John Dies and once after. My opinion about it changed somewhat when I decided I liked Eponine's story and wasn't just bored because it was a love story. Hugh Jackman was an excellent Jean Valjean and his song and dance background totally made his casting a wise choice. I do not cry at movies, but I cried when he made his promise to Fantine and at the end. Although none of his performances really topped the opening number of Look Down, but we'll get to the opening in a bit. Easily just as good as Hathaway. Even better given the number of songs he sang. Anne Hathaway as Fantine was incredible, like I said I cried bitch tears at her and Jackman's performances, although 'I Dreamed a Dream' was probably the best individual performance in the entire film, her acting rheld the character together just as well. I hope they get married and have little operatic babies.

Sacha Baron cohen was very funny. Not a breakout performance at all, he simply filled the bitterly silly role of Thenardier to a T and brought a fairly vicious energy to the character. He's a greasy hairball and a coward but he's absolutely sinister. Helena Bonham Carter reprised her role as 'Crazy bitch who is mean to kids' and did an excellent job of it. Once again her performance wasn't particularly above the bar (especially compared to Jackman, Hathaway and Colm Wilkinson) but she entertained and gods willing that's all I'll ever ask of the Thenardiers.

Russel Crowe and Amanda Seyfried were the weakest of the lot for entirely different reasons. Crower is no singer but had a very nice way of blending some spoken word and shoutsinging into a domineering antagonist, bulling his way through some numbers with sheer acting force and ultimately winning me over. I like Russel Crowe as Javert. It was good casting. Maybe if they do a full adaption of Hugo's novel he should be recycled for it, but again, he's no singer. Seyfried played the adult Cosette, paradoxical to the actress who played young Cosette who did an excellent job Seyfried just kind of flounced around and cooed the occasional song into Marius's face. She played the role of 'Beautiful Girl' very well though. I give Amanda Seyfried in 19th century ladyclothes two thumbs way up. And also my dick.

Now that I'm done spooging over the performances, we'll talk about the film itself. It was kind of shit. Not particularly. Not even 'bad'. But so much of the movie was just closeups on the acto'rs faces for minutes at a time. It makes sense given they recorded live, but the most energetic song is a 90 second ditty by Gavroche (ALSO AN EXCELLENT PERFORMANCE!!!) where he rambles around Paris harassing rich people and giving us the roughest idea of a layout. Thus we return to Look Down. Look Down is one of my favourite songs from Les Mis. It sets the tone perfectly and the opening shot of Jackman and his other prison slaves hauling a shipwreck in is positively epic in scope. It set the mood for a cinematic musical that fell completely flat when you are spending a good 2 and a half hours staring into Russel Crowes soulless eyes.

If you like Les Miserables (and have seen the musical), see this and form an opinion yourself. If you haven't seen the musical, skip this and see it the next chance you get.

John Dies At The End
Ohhhh boy. Six years of waiting, six years of slobbering over every teaser, news slice and scrap of a screenshot I've been given, but was it worth it? Well yeah, I fucking love John Dies At The End. Are you a stupid moron or something? They change the sequence and pacing of the book to accommodate the run time, but they packed so much from the novel into it I feel that it's 2 hours worth of every penny. This is not for you if you're not into horror, but if you ARE into horror and some unique humor slam this masterpiece into your eyeballs ASAP. The one thing I missed, the one thing cut from the novel that really should have been kept in was the Cockroach man. I hope the DVD has my damn cockroach man or I'll be pissed. Still a riot and totally worth doing drugs beforehand.

Django Unchained
It was 45 minutes too long and thus I don't remember jack shit about other than Jamie Foxx's taint, Christoph Waltz stealing the fucking show, and the entire thing being worth it for the final scene. I'm tempted to say this is the one you should see out of any of these, but I'd rather you pay to support John Dies since Django will do well no matter what. Spike Lee can suck out my farts, Django Unchained rules the fucking school.

I can't wait for John Dies to open in theaters here. I'm going opening day.

Have you read This Book is Full of Spiders yet?

I don't know if I should see Django or John Dies. Help.

For some reason I thought John Dies At The End was already out.

Yep, I finished it about two or three weeks ago. I felt like the first novel was much stronger and (more importantly) funnier. After seeing the John Dies movie I think I understand what my problem with This Book is Full of Spiders was. John Dies is full of a lot of really...effects dependent scenes if you were to put it in cinematic context. The aforementioned cockroach man is a good example. This Book is Full of Spiders was a bit less populated by horrible creepy crawlies but had a good scope to it. It was neat to be all over Undisclosed at once seeing this shit happen.

The 'Alcoholic Redemption' of John Cheese was pretty god damn silly though.
Joihn Dies because
A) It's on iTunes/On Demand/SUPER SPECIAL MYSTERY MOVIE COLLECTING METHOD so you could possibly watch it right now. RIGHT. NOW.
B) Said On Demand price will be cheaper than a Django ticket unless it's Toonie Tuesday but it's not because today's Thursday.
C) You'll be supporting an awesome Horror movie maker and not god damn Quentin Tarantino. They're both good, but fuckin' Tarantino, man.
On Demand, it's in theatres on the 27th.

Give him ear piercings, a rad nose ring, etc. because anything out of the norm for a western dragon would do for me.

My eyes are bleeding over what they have just witnessed. I've just seen more set photos of the life-sized Smaug. To say it looks like shit so far would be an understatement.

I don't think making him a punk was part of Tolkien's original vision. That said, I haven't seen the set photos so perhaps it would be preferable.

I watched Ghibli's adaptation of Tales from Earthsea a few days ago. It was shit.

I just saw Premium Rush. It was quite entertaining. I laughed often at people falling off so many bikes even though much of it was cg. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is still one of my favorite actors ever since I saw him in Inception.

He was great in the new Batman, too. Also Looper, even though I didn't care too much for that movie.

So does John die at the end?

Also any Australians on here, please watch ABC3 this sunday night at 8:15.

No!

If you watch it Joe will give you a free blowjob

So I read the summary.

It sounds horrible. It sounds so horrible that I might watch it ironically because there's nothing else good on at that time.

You should. It's dark and scary and totally not age-appropriate for ABC's children's programming.

Lots of us are planning to watch it and cause it to get good ratings so that it makes it to episode 3 and permanently scars tons of kids.

It's one of the best things I've ever seen. It's also the most popular anime since NGE. This is for a reason.

Ok, I'm actually intrigued now. I haven't watched an anime since the first season of Code Geass a few years ago. I'll make sure I catch it on iView if I miss it.

Give it, oh say, three episodes to stand a head above the rest. It's definitely a slow starter.

I'll agree that it's slow for the first two or so episodes, after that though it's ahead of its game.

It sure as fuck was. It didn't even make any goddamn sense.

It's effectively an anime-fied Faust. And Faust is pretty cool.

I suppose that's a spoiler of sorts, but not an enormous one.

Oh boy, new trailer.

Oh man it didn’t click until you mentioned this but I’ve heard of this thing before and I kinda sorta am tempted to watch it at some point.

I won’t though.

Thing is...it doesn't look bad. It just doesn't look fun the way Evil Dead is supposed to be.

Manco am speedy shit.

God knows where you actually live, but if it's inside EU, you can buy it on dvd for just over £20 (Or Blu-ray for £30. I have both). Of course I couldn't possibly tell you any other places you might be able to find it because that would be immoral.

I'll watch the new Evil Dead. Not in theaters, but I'll still watch it. I had read that Diablo Cody wrote the first draft, which was an immediate repellent for me because I hate that talentless skank.

Knowing that Raimi is producing and writing is good news. There can't be executive meddling if he's the executive, and it's his baby. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping it won't suffer from too much Hollywood decay. It looks like they kept the gore, which is good. We need to get out of this awful PG-13 Horror trend.

I saw Django Unchained yesterday, it was a good movie, but fuck me, three hours? I don't think it had to be three hours at all. Wonderfully shot though, that was the redemption of the last 40 or so minutes that shouldn't have been there.

I agree that the section with the three Australian gentleman was unnecessary, and added too much bloat to the film. But I'd be hard pressed to find another scene I would want dropped.

Besides that scene, you're right. I felt the same way about Inglorious Basterds too. That is was too long, but I couldn't pick a scene that I would want cut out. Django is much better than IG, though.

Has anyone here seen Twin Peaks? Is it worth watching?

I'll tell you: That god damn scene where Christoph Waltz gobbles a pastry and the majority of the scene in the French Pub. I really wanted to like Inglorious Basterds but those two just ruined the entire experience. It's a fine film as long as you add an intermission.
Yes and yes. Be prepared to invest a fair bit of time into the whole series and let your eye wander to pick up on any of the silly details. It's on Netflix, too.

Yeah, I've scrolled past it so many times. I recall attempting the first season but gave up because I found the setup way too slow.

I'm gonna give it a shot for real soon.

I saw the first episode of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. I enjoyed it enough. It was nothing too exciting, but I want to see where it goes. It didn't feel like it ran for 30 minutes, which is a good sign.

I looked on the ABC 3 guide and it looks like this is the only episode they're airing. It looks like I have something to spend my Christmas JB Hifi gift cards on.

When I brought that show up in a conversation with Joe he didn't recommend I watch it because I hadn't seen enough magical girl shows to get the references.

Hiding something, Phylum?

twin peaks is really good in the same awful way that most David Lynch things are.

one of my friends talked me into watching dr.who.

I fell asleep 15 minutes in. she was upset.

No no no.

As I recall, I was recommending Higurashi and you noted that all the pluses I had for that you'd also heard for Madoka which also wasn't a show you intended to watch. I know enough not to push someone so I agreed that if reading up about Madoka didn't strike your fancy and you didn't have an interest in magical girl shows then while still being fantastic, it's not essential. Of course, this was before my second watch through the series where I remembered why I was impatiently waiting for every new episode while it was airing.

Also you probably already know this, but it was written by the same guy who wrote Saya no Uta.

Also Mami's theme. Way a-head of everything else on the soundtrack.

I may have played that, but I never said I particuarly liked it.