Seinfeld is great. It's just dated. That type of humor was fucking revolutionary when it first came out. Well, not really, but it was still pretty good.

I recently finished watching the first seven seasons of Seinfeld. I don't think it's that dated really, you just have to get into the way the characters work and interact with each other and get used to Larry David's rather unique look on comedy.

This twitter definitively proves that Seinfeld's formula could still be funny even in a modern setting.

God I would love to watch that episode.

All of y'all missed the point of OANST's post.

No, I did not. I haven't seen any American comedy show more recent than the nineties. I don't find the humor in Arrested Development tired. I find it clumsy, telegraphed, sterile and forced.

Okay, then. All of y'all, except for WoF, missed the point of OANST's post.

I'm aware of that. I was responding to Mr. Bungle's comments regarding Seinfeld. It didn't occur to me to be a knowitall shitter and point out that OANST was referencing TV tropes of all things.

OANST embraces multiple levels of irony here.

I'm aware of the whole Seinfeld isn't funny thing as well. I just really like talking about Seinfeld.


I'm disappointed WoF doesn't like AD, but it's not for everyone. Those particular episodes do have a lot of in your face and maybe even semi-forced jokes but the later episodes have some really subtle jokes and the show ultimately gets better.

Especially in season 2.

I'll keep on watching it until I run out of my Netflix free trial.

I just finished watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time. Over the last 5 days I've watched through them all. It would have been over 3 days, but we had a few issues getting the third movie.

I loved it. I really don't know what else to say, and I feel like I'd be here all day if I went into specifics. I wish I'd watched them sooner.

I watched Braindead (or Dead Alive) for the first time. Fuck, the zombie baby scene was the greatest movie scene ever. Funny movie, loved the gore.

The episodes with the retarded girl were terrible, and jarring. They did not belong, and I like to pretend they never happened.

They were pretty stupid and a low point for the series, but they had some hilarious moments.

So I watched The Devil's Rejects for what I thought was my second time watching it, but then I realized I had actually only seen about 25 minutes of the movie before, so it was my first time watching it through. It was a good movie, but I'm still sort of leaning towards House of The 1000 Corpses as being the better one of the two.

I hated how Rob shot some of the scenes in the movie, like seriously, what is his obsession with turning otherwise perfectly good parts of the movie into slow-motion scenes with country music playing in the background. There were some other faults too like Sheri's god awful acting near the end, I mean I was actually ok with the whole over the top laugh and her character was obviously made to be annoying, but seriously, the part where Wydell's beating them up in the house her crying and acting was so painful to watch, what the fuck.

I did enjoy it none the less, it was surprisingly different from House of The 1000 Corpses, in a good way though.

One thing I seriously didn't get though was how exactly was Cpt. Spaulding Otis and Baby's dad? In House of The 1000 Corpses Mama told one of the main characters that the dad tried to burn the house down and I got the image that the firefighter looking weirdo at Dr. Satan's lair was the father of the family. Am I missing something?

One day, long ago, I looked for meaning and continuity in Rob Zombie's movies. Later on that day I visited a Taco Bell parking lot.

Shut the fuck up, man. :(

Oh haha. Why can't I give you +rep for that, damn it.

I actually forgot that you don't know what that means.

I think you're very mean, Nep. I'm sure OANST wasn't trying being dicky

Nor was I, although now I see I may have come across as that.

Hurtful.

Nep is a monster.

Just finished watching the Afghanistan episode of Louie. Amazing.

I love the priest best. "I kick arse for the LORD!"

At the moment I'm between shows, watching bits of House, Hawaii 5-0, The Mentalist and True Blood. I saw a series called Empire which was about Octavius and Mark Anthony. I also watched a show called Touch starring Kiefer Sutherland. I wasn't quite sure of it at first, but it's quite interesting. It deals with the power of numbers and co-incidences.

The Hobbit.
Warning: impending text wall.

First, I have to say a few things about my thoughts and feelings leading up to the film. If you want to skip ahead to the part where I talk about the movie itself, just scroll down to the next bit in bold.

I went into this movie with a year's worth of behind-the-scenes footage and hype under my belt. It's risky to invest yourself in a movie before actually seeing it, because if it doesn't deliver, it's that much more of a disappointment.

Before I even entered that theater, I established with myself that if this movie sucked, I would stop going to the cinema all together. A bit extreme, you might say, but I don't really consider going to the movies a fundamental part of my life. I could probably do without the cinema-going experience entirely if not for those spectacles full of promise that come so few and far between.

So why was I such a faggoty fanboy for this film from the off? Well, it was a conscious choice. I'm not necessarily a huge Tolkien nut, and when I originally saw LOTR, I don't think I fully appreciated it. It wasn't until I grew up a little and became interested in film-making that I found myself relishing all the primo movie magic it offers.

That's why I chose to be excited for this film, to follow it closely, to get nerd boners for every new video blog or scrap of news that was released; because I missed that wholesome feeling of getting excited for something and having it pay off. It made me feel like a kid again, like I felt before I became the token cynical butthole who takes everything with a grain of salt and never lets his guard down. I made myself vulnerable to this piece of media, and I came out of that theater with a feeling of legitimate satisfaction that was wholly refreshing.

Okay, here's where I talk about the actual movie...

I saw it at the standard frame rate, no 3D, because I wanted to judge the film on it's merits as a narrative before I got all caught up on visual gimmicks. I can say without a doubt that I will be seeing this film a second time in 3D and 48fps, because there is so fucking much to take in, and that I've only seen it at half it's viewing potential has left me hungry for more. Gollum's scene in particular was mindblowing, and I want to see that little guy at the full intended frame rate.

The plot.

Not much can be said here about the overarching plot as it's taken directly from Tolkien and I'm in no position to criticize or dissect his story in any way.

There is something to be said of Jackson's interpretation of the story, and how he's folded in material from Tolkien's appendices.

Seamless. I never felt that Jackson's inclusion of the extra material was out of place or upset the flow of the main story. He also throws in a few direct references to LOTR which, while very evident, are not careless and create an added sense of continuity that was absent from the original novel.

The characters.

Martin Freeman was great as Bilbo. I feared he wasn't getting enough screen time, and that his character was being neglected a bit. These concerns were assuaged by the second half, and I look forward to seeing him grow as a character in subsequent films,

Jackson stated from the get-go that one of his biggest fears about doing The Hobbit was the troupe of thirteen dwarves. While many of the dwarves were seldom mentioned and of little consequence in the novel, Jackson knew that wouldn't fly in a theatrical format.

That being said, I think he pulled off the dwarves splendidly. There was some lack of characterization; the spotlight falling on the same three or four dwarves while the others stood around with thumbs up their asses. However, each dwarf is very distinct from the next, and you'll have no trouble telling them apart. My faves were;

Balin - the "lovable old guy". I'd say he's the dwarf equivalent of Gandalf in this dynamic. He gets plenty of screen time and some great dialogue.

Bombur - the fat one who didn't get a single line. That made me a sad panda... but he was only there for physical yucks, so whatever.

Bofur - the James Nesbitt one, whose design really put me off when I first saw it. But by god, he was just such a sweetie in the movie. It's those eyes. I melted during the scene where he says to Bilbo "you're one of us!".

Rada-fuckin-Gast the fuckin Brown, motherfucker - Probably one of the best characters in a movie ever. He doesn't even have that much screen time, but he's just super charming (especially when he takes a long toke on some o' Mithrandir's bud).

The Great Goblin - the ballsiest character in the movie. He truly was the dog's bollocks. He was nuts!
Also, he looked like testicles.

The creatures

Here's where I can imagine Guillermo Del Toro shuffling uncomfortably during the premiere.

Following the production, I've known for a while that an excess of CG was being used for The Hobbit (easily twice the amount present in LOTR). Gone are the days of PJ's trademark 'bigatures'. I'm a traditional FX loyalist, and I wasn't sure how to feel about it. I remembered how Peter Jackson made sweet sweet love to my eyeballs back in 2005 with the visuals in King Kong, so I tried to pocket my concerns. The final result was mixed, I'd say, but nothing was glaringly bad.

The newly rendered Gollum was so stunning and complex that it was fucking unsettling. Not an 'uncanny valley' unsettling where they hit the mark just shy of perfect realism. No, I was unsettled by the fact that it looked so incredibly real. Real to the point where Martin Freeman - a real person - looked more CG than the fucking CG Gollum. This is high praise, btw.

I loved the trolls. I am certain Del Taco did not. While part of me thinks they could have been realized more effectively with a blend of traditional FX and CG (as Del Toro wanted), another part of me accepts that they have to be CG to be consistent with the trolls of LOTR. And granted, the CG was great. There was a scene where Bilbo was uncomfortably close to a troll's tremendous ass, offering dangerous potential for a fart joke. Fortunately, ol' PJ went with his better judgement on that one.

The wargs I could take or leave. In LOTR, they looked more like hyenas than wolves, which I understand was the subject of nerd bile. They rectified this by making the wargs more wolf-like this time 'round, but the new design is "meh".

Azog was entirely CG. This may have been the only case where CG was completely unnecessary. PJ legitimized in multiple interviews that he used CG to make the characters less human in a way that wasn't possible with prosthetics. While I see his reasoning to full effect on other monsters, Azog just looked like a combination of the Engineers from Prometheus and this guy from 300, both of which were done traditionally.

The goblins were great, and better embody PJ's vision of creatures with impossibly non-human proportions. Most of them were asymmetrical and moved in a way that wouldn't have been possible for guys in rubber suits.

We do get a glimpse of Smaug, but only his eye and nostril. Not worth reporting on.

The music.

Howard Shore's score is what elevated the original trilogy from "very good" to "brilliant". We can watch fantastical characters spew heartfelt dialogue, die in epic battles with CG monsters, climb the highest highs and tumble to the lowest lows, and it would not mean piddly shit without the music.

I won't wax fanboy about Shore's LOTR score, because I'm sure we're already on the same page if you bothered to read this far.

Shore's score for The Hobbit is a bit flat. Many of the themes from LOTR are repeated, but again, I suppose they have to be. Not that I tire of hearing them. The new themes aren't nearly as memorable. There are a few exceptions, such as the Dwarve's theme (a brassy rendition of their "Misty Mountains" diddy which you all know from the trailers), and Radagast's theme, which is regrettably buried in the movie's sound mixing and doesn't have the same 'oomph' that it does in the album version.

In conclusion,
Fuck it. Just go see it. My head hurts from writing this.

Saw the new James Bond and I loved it, every shot was a joy to look at and the villain was great.

I saw the new Batman and Spiderman. They were both absolutely excellent, and Spider-man really surprised me, it was really funny, and the new suit looks awesome. However, the Dark Knight Rises, was amazing, Bane is such a don.

You mean Amazing Spiderman? I got the impression that it's absolute garbage, might still watch it since I did download it at some point apparently.

Nah, it's amazing, ten times better than the other ones.

I didn't think it was anywhere close to Spiderman 2 in quality but then again I saw Kirsten Dunsts boobs in this movie called Melancholia yesterday. It's about yuppies trying to cope with the fact that we're about to get hit by another planet. And then it misses us. And then it inexplicably comes back and blows up earth. End of film. It was dumb and plodding (but well shot and very atmospheric) and again, topless Dunst. I give it three half-mast's out of a boner.