Ash Ketchum

This is one reason I chose anime TV series for my challenge. I've got tons of 12- and 26-episode series I can watch in their entirety. Only the most popular, like Pokemon, Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam, etc. go on forever. Even with those, they're often grouped into shorter series (Sailor Moon R, Sailor Moon S, Sailor Moon Super S; Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Destiny, etc.).

kstublen

Chad, did you make this? If so, where did you find the letters?



So cool.

EDIT: Found 'em online.

kstublen

Speaking of 26 episodes, Cowboy Bebop is another you could get through fairly quickly. No matter what one's opinion of anime, everyone should check that show out at least once.

Trevor

Thanks David. I watched The Office S1 recently, but will check out TSCC if I can find my set.
I'm getting this way too. I only enjoy a handful of current shows, but with so many classic shows available on DVD or streaming, my backlog of seasons to watch someday is at least 500.
Have most of the Adult Swim sets, including Morel Orel, plan to watch at least one of them this month. Watched UK Office last year, and S1 of Extras, but I'll knock out S2 this month.

Thanks again for the Terriers reminder. I enjoyed the lead in House last week.
My thoughts too. I know that we need some sort of form and order to maintain the community aspect of things, but overall I favor pretty lax rules.

Travis McClain

Just finished streaming Comic Book Villains from Netflix, a first time viewing. Word gets out that a guy in a small community has died, leaving behind a massive comic book collection now in the possession of his elderly mother. This exacerbates a rivalry between an obsessive comic shop owner (Donal Logue) and a husband and wife who own another comic shop (Michael Rapaport and Natasha Lyonne) who are in it for the money. It starts off fairly nerdy and then gets awfully dark in a hurry. DJ Qualls is a likable orphan caught in the middle of it all. It's also got Cary Elwes, a personal favorite.

It's pretty predictable, but the appeal is seeing these characters interact with one another. Natasha Lyonne stole the show, I felt. This one's been in my queue for quite a while, so it was nice to finally get around to it. History Channel has a two-hour documentary on comic book characters I was going to watch, but the Reds are in Chicago and that game started at the same time as the History Channel doc. Which reminds me: next year I think I'm going with a baseball challenge, where I'll allow myself to watch games in addition to movies.

kstublen

I think I'll check that one out; I really like the cast members .

Travis McClain

Like I said, it's not astounding by any means but I found it enjoyable. I think with a different cast it's a disappointment.

As for me, my wife and I are carrying on with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) right now. The neighbor's kid's god-awful band has been practicing all fucking day and I'm getting tired of having to compete with them with the volume of the TV. I hate that damn kid's guts almost as much as I hate my own.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Just found out there's a 25 image limit to posts. Even for my tiny check marks

edit: Fine, I'll just use the powers of illusion to overcome this grave injustice.

Indy24LA

Put my comedy challenge on hold and watched Thor. If you're doing a comic book challenge, I highly recommend it.

Cardsfan111

Just returning from being out of town and being unable to watch anything for a couple of days. Instead of my initial thoughts being focused on mail, messages, groceries and laundry, I'm immediately drawn to how behind I am with my challenge pace.

davidh777

davidh777

Watching late-night episodes for my Chuck challenge is tough. So many of the Buy More guys wear white shirts that it washes out the subtitles.

Travis McClain

I'm doing a comic book challenge. I've been on the fence about Thor. On the one hand, I hear mostly positive things about it. On the other hand, I've never had much interest in Thor as a character (except Mego Thor in ToyFare, who cracked me up). If I do get out to see it, it won't be this weekend, but I've still got plenty of time before the end of the challenge.

Last night we re-watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The lip-syncing was always spotty, and the Turtles and Splinter still look like what they are: a cross between Muppets and Godzilla costumes. But the action is fun, and the writing was a lot better than I think was generally acknowledged in 1990 by critics who dismissed it as just a toy commercial for the already lucrative property. It may recycle common themes, but what story for the last 4000 years hasn't? The humor is sharp and I was astounded by how many cultural references are just as funny today as they were 21 years ago:

"A Jose Canseco bat? Tell me: you didn't pay money for this!"
"Why don't I ever dream of Harrison Ford?" (who still has that effect on women)
"I look like I just called Mike Tyson a sissy and all you can say is, 'hi'?"

Travis McClain

It took me a week to get around to it, but I finally created a banner for my list post. I rummaged around and found a photo of my eleventh birthday, with a Batman cake. Tinkered for about 15 minutes on Picasa and was able to doctor up a look that I think evokes the layout of a comic book cover. I should have used a brighter color for the "title," though. I gotta say, ever since the Horror Challenge when I began trying to use photos of myself to personalize my list posts I've found myself feeling more involved with these things.

BobO'Link

The "John Wayne - The Early Years" serial set came in. I've watched the first 2 earlier ones, "The Hurricane Express" (Airplane pilot Larry Baker goes after a mystery villain named "The Wrecker," the man responsible for a train crash that killed his father), and "The Shadow of the Eagle" (A mysterious pilot, The Eagle, attempts to sabotage a local company and sends threatening messages via skywriting).

The prints are not too bad for the age of the films and better than *lots* of PD films. While there *is* print damage, scratches, specks/flakes, etc. they are very watchable with fair black levels, etc. Nothing it too dark or washed out. Audio is practically flawless - no noise, hiss, etc., even in spots where the film shows damage which *should* reveal an audio issue. It must have been restored at some point.

Plot wise, neither are anything special and fairly typical of the era being somewhat predictable (although aren't *most* serials?), with average writing. Both have good levels of action in between the dialog/exposition parts and don't cheat as much as later serials on the cliffhanger aspects. A good example is in "The Shadow of the Eagle" in which Craig (John Wayne) and Dorothy (Jean Gregory) are in a car being chased by the Eagle's henchmen down a dirt road. They drive over an area, there's an explosion and... come back next week (or read the spoiler):

These also have some fairly good stuntwork. At least twice in "The Hurricane Express" Wayne is driving a car, catches up with another car/truck and makes a jump from the moving car to the other vehicle. Keep in mind, *he's* doing the driving and *no one else* is in the car. The car veers off. We do not see the car crash as the main action is now on the vehicle into which he jumped. He performs a similar stunt in "The Shadow of the Eagle" but this time it's a motocycle he leaps off to get onto another moving vehicle. The "skywriting" SFX in "The Shadow of the Eagle" is laughable, and I'd like to think the early movie goers thought so too, but at least it's not used extensively. I *love* the remote control airplane controls with the large knob for "Emergency Landing"!

The level of acting is fairly typical of early 30' serials. If you've seen any of the early John Wayne "B" westerns you'll have a good idea of what to expect.

I'm currently watching "The Three Musketeers" which is about the French Foreign Legion (yeah, caught me off guard too). It's a bit better than the other 2 so far with *lots* more action.

I'll post more later, but now it's time to head to the comic store for "Free Comic Book Day" 2011.

davidh777

I've always been less interested in Thor the sissy blond-haired Avenger than I am in Thor the Norse god. As a kid I went from Greek myths to Norse and wad really fascinated. As discussed in the Thor comic-book thread, I've been going through some of the Ragnarok-themed stories and recently got the Simonson omnibus. I'll probably see the movie at some point, but this is not one I'd get my kids to go with me to.

Indy24LA

I have always felt pretty much the same about Thor, saw the character more like a Shakespearean Superman until the Ultimates version. Funny thing is the best part of the movie was Asgard and Thor's supporting cast (especially Sif and the Warriors Three) which I have never cared about before.

SterlingBen

Got my computer back but also start my 7 days work week tonight so hopefully will have the list up to date in a few days.

Travis McClain

Just finished Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. I remember liking this one more than the first movie when it came out, but that perspective hasn't lasted. The things that work best about this movie are the banter between the Turtles, the seething anger of the Shredder, and Paige Turco as April O'Neil. The rest of the film was obviously much more in keeping with the tone of the animated series rather than the first film or the original comic book by Eastman & Laird. It has its moments, but it relies entirely too much on gags.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Finished my second list, BAFTA, last night with The Aviator and The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Three lists to go.

Next year I should focus on my Tivo recordings. I have a bunch of stuff from TCM that I end up having to copy to my computer to make more room to record more movies. I have about 300 TCM movies in my folder to watch.

Mondo Kane

I'll see if I can finally watch more than 2 movies (In a day) starting today.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Lagaan, the 4 hour Bollywood movie that ate up my afternoon, has burned me out. I know nothing about cricket, so it felt like watching 2 hours of pod racing and quidditch.

I need a mindless American action movie to clear my head.

BobO'Link

I finished "The Three Musketeers" with John Wayne. It was pretty good. An odd take on the classic, but it has lots of action. It's a *very* loose spin on the Dumas novel with gun runners delivering to Arabs instead of American Indians and the French Foreign Legion instead of the American Calvary. About the only thing in common with the novel is there are 3 "pals" who always win and have a 4th (the d'Artagnan character - Wayne) who bails them out and/or helps along the way.

That was a pretty good set... especially considering I picked it up "like new" for $2 shipped!

I also finished the Zorro serial set. The best of that one is "Zorro's Fighting Legion". Lots of action with Don Diego Vega as Zorro. It's a farily traditional Zorro tale done in a serial fashion. The biggest change is a "legion" (actually about 24 other caballeros) who "help" Zorro in the fight against injustice.

"Zorro's Black Whip" was better than I was expecting. Having a woman in the role of Zorro, although due to rights issues she was called "The Black Whip", was an interesting take. Her brother , a newspaper owner/publisher and the original "Black Whip", was murdered for publishing an editorial favoring the impending statehood of Idaho. She found his body and took up the mantle of "The Black Whip" to bring his murderers to justice and prevent a local businessman from controlling the territory thus stopping Idaho from being voted into statehood. Although a few suspected she was "The Black Whip" one henchman summed up most views: "She couldn't be! The Black Whip's got to be a man! He's outshot us, outrode us, and outfought us, stopped us at every turn!" This was fairly stereotypic of the overall Great American Western genre of films, but still good fun!

I think I've seen a wagon/stage coach/etc. go over the same cliff into the drink/george a dozen or more times so far...

Ash Ketchum

I have yet to start on any of the series on my "priority" list. Instead, I've been involved in five series that I picked randomly off my shelves because they were less demanding than the others. Since I tend to start these things at night, I avoid the most demanding ones then. And, of course, I've gotten sucked into the ones I'm watching and want to finish what I have of them. The fact is, they've all turned out to be quite rewarding:

Mahoromatic Automatic Maiden (female combat android works as maid to nerdy HS boy/the only one I've seen in entirety so far for this challenge)
Slayers (very funny sword & sorcery comedy)
Tenchi in Tokyo (Better-than-I expected Tenchi Muyo entry; I'm intending to see the entire series now)
Carrangers (the only live-action one so far--non-stop action and far better than its U.S. counterpart, Power Rangers Turbo)
Romeo x Juliet (swashbuckling historical fantasy romance, as only Japanese animators can do--loosely based on Shakespeare)

Travis McClain

Last night, we finished off the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3-Pak box set with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III. I've really come around on that one and now consider it superior to The Secret of the Ooze. The lip-syncing is awful, though.

Followed that up with Superman and the Mole-Men starring George Reeves, which I had never seen. It's a bonus feature on the Superman: The Movie 4-disc DVD. Aside from the crude special effects and the simplistic story, I liked it quite a lot. I go back and forth on my favorite screen Superman, but George Reeves remains my favorite Clark Kent. I wish there had been chapter breaks, though, because we had to re-start it about 15 minutes into the movie.