I'd wild card it. Some of the outfits the gangs wear are reminiscent of Alex and his droogs, but The Warriors has no sci-fi or fantasy elements ; just a street gang fighting their way home to Coney Island.

Ha! Crash is not a huge fan, but he puts up with it. All I usually want are pictures and I'm good with him taking whatever it is off (costume, headband, whatever) afterwards. So, he wears it for like 5 minutes and he's done. One year I made him an Elvis costume for Halloween. He was adorable. This winter was awful for coldness. Plus, during the worst of it we were required to keep the heat around 60 as a pipeline had burst and to make sure that everyone had some heat, we had to lower it. I ended up buying him a little black sweater that he loved. I called him "my little hipster." He wore that thing for about 2 weeks straight before it finally got warm enough for him to deal with just his fur.


Crash is not alone! His favorite is "The Jungle Book" and anything with a British accent. I'm not kidding, he'll stare at the screen as long as anyone is speaking. "Top Gear" is a favorite as well.

But back on topic: Watched the 2009 miniseries of "Alice" from the SyFy channel. Not what I was expecting when I ordered it, but it turned out pretty good. This was another modern take on the fairy tale like they did with "Tin Man." Tim Curry is in it a whopping 2 minutes, which I was a bit disappointed about as I'm a fan. Kathy Bates was the Red Queen and did a great job. Surprised to see Colm Meaney in it as well. I'd recommend at least a rental and give it 3.5 stars out of 5.

I just finished watching "Ender's Game." I had been anticipating this movie for years, having been a fan of the books since shortly after they were written. They were/are among my favorite sci-fi series. Then, it came to light that the author was a bigot and I was torn. Do I support him by going to the film...does his bigotry counteract the fact that he is a good writer? I never did see it in the theater but did end up picking up the combo pack when it went on sale. (I admit to making myself feel better by saying most of that money went to the movie studio.)

I finally put it in and I admit to those feelings still affecting me. I think I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more had the author not tainted his legacy. (That feels fairly dramatic, but I'm not coming up with better words for it.) As to the movie itself (putting the rest in spoilers just in case someone hasn't seen it yet and still would like to.)



But anyway, I guess the movie itself is not so bad, I'd rate it about a 3/5. Could be better, could've been a lot worse.

Last night I picked the worst time to get tired. When it came around 3:30 in the morning, and I was still wide awake, I decided to put on some sci-fi, after I finished a race on Roku. Well, within half an hour, I was finally falling asleep, so ended up turning it off, and just putting on some thing to veg to while falling asleep.

That is funny. My cat seems to perk up when she hears girls talking and giggling in Japanese. And I watch a lot of movies with Japanese girls kicking ass.

I took a break from fantasy/sci-fi last night, after seeing 7 bad movies in a row. I watched the Criterion edition of Eating Raoul. What a relief! Great extras, as usual. Mary Woronov made a hot nurse!

The last decent fantasy movie I saw was The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Did it bother anyone else that an entire subplot (the orcs) was a cartoon? And when they "came to life" in one scene (the attack on the house) it looked completely ridiculous? Am I nitpicking what is supposed to be an instant classic?

Thanks for the recommendation on this one. I was stuck on what to watch, and took a chance on this. It was great cheesy fun (which is one of my favorite types of fun)!

Thanks for clearing that up, Gobear. I think I'll put Deadly Eyes (aka The Rats) in that spot!

sadly like 'The Golden Compass' the movie ends on a cliffhanger that is supposed to be resolved in the next movie - which I highly doubt we will ever see.

A co-worker, who shares similar tastes in films/TV, highly recommended I watch Orphan Black a month or so back so I told her I'd wait until this month so it would count in a challenge. She brought S1 in yesterday so I started it last night.

I watched the first 4 episodes and am rather underwhelmed. It's not "bad" but just not very compelling at this point. I'll finish the season but really don't have very high expectations. I keep wondering what everyone else is seeing that I'm not as this show gets good reviews.

I definitely would not consider the two Hobbit movies to be "instant classics." I actually think they are both pretty horrendous and may not even bother with the third one. And I'm a huge fan of the LOTR trilogy.

It was hard to hold the tension in the final scene with so much horribly cheap looking CGI. CGI has come a long way, and I'm sure they WETA could have done much better than that.

All this talk about The Hobbit makes me feel a little better actually. I always wanted to buy them, but never did. After reading how bad they are, it makes me glad I never saw them.

While I've not yet seen Desolation of Smaug I wouldn't exactly call them "bad" but more misdirected in scope and execution. I recall enjoying the first film but not as much as the LOTR trilogy. Yes, there are many issues - the largest being that Jackson expanded it to a trilogy when two films would have been enough. That expansion brought additions that just don't work well in the overall story and are absolutely unnecessary - much like some of the additions/changes Jackson did to King Kong. I also think Jackson's, IMHO misguided, decision to "film" The Hobbit at 48fps digital hurt the look of the production. They can say what they will about the down conversion to 24fps not being a problem but *I* see differences in how the product looks on home video, especially when compared to the look of the LOTR trilogy. It does *not* look like film and that, too, hurts the end result.

What concerns me about the 2nd film is walletboyniac's comment:
CGI I expect but a "cartoon?" That's as heinous as the "animations" used in the "update" of Cosmos. But then I wonder if the production method caused some CGI to down convert improperly and not look as it should. Guess I'll know when I eventually purchase the 2nd film as I'm enough of a fan of the book to purchase all the films regardless, but...

I went all 80s yesterday and watched a couple of classics that I'd never seen, courtesy of a friend with a more 80s-centric film collection. First up was TRON which was bizarre and disorienting until I started to figure out what was going on and how the parallel worlds operated. Afterward, I discussed the film with my friend and said that I was certain there had to have been sequences that were cut and that the film felt a bit incomplete. She told me of the many trials and tribulations of the film's production, so it's amazing the film came together as well as it did.

Next up was WarGames which was the ultimate film to pair with TRON. Young Matthew Broderick as an astonishingly versatile hacker saving the world after inadvertently dooming it. What's not to like? I enjoyed the plethora of character actors that filled NORAD - Barry Corbin, John Spencer, Dabney Coleman, John Wood. This led me to keep remarking that to many remakes about General Whitey (Corbin's One Tree Hill character) and how if they brought Leo (Spencer's The West Wing character) back he would fix everything.

Both were great and have gone on my "to buy" list.

I went back to the 80s with my last watch myself. I was in the mood for Knight Rider, so I restarted my Season 1 set, with Knight of the Phoenix, the pilot movie.

watched this morning an utterly cheezy Disney made for TV movie:

All this bad talk about "The Hobbit." I actually kind of like them. Are they the best? Not really, but I kind of view them like popcorn-easy to watch and a bit crunchy. Do they follow the book well? eh, sort of, in a movie kind of way. Did there have to 3 of them for one book? No, but I'm not complaining. I enjoy watching them. (Though, I do think Smaug's voice sounded like he was trying really, really hard to sound like Sean Connery in Dragonheart).

I'm on a super hero kick now, so starting my mini challenge within a challenge with Superman the Movie, the Extended Edition.

Glad you had fun. It was the complete opposite of the film I watched before it, The Last Chase. Took me a few days to get through that turd.

In the non-sci-fi events of the day, I started brewing 2 gallons of hard cider

^^ That's awesome! One of my uncles showed me his beer brewing setup a few weeks ago, and now I'm interested in getting sometime like that started. Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult in an apartment with two cats and limited space.

I've been visiting friends and family this weekend and haven't been able to get any viewing in. Hopefully, I'll be able to get to some more films this week!

You can always use a one gallon glass apple juice container. I have 4 of those I keep just to do small batches to test things out in before I do 5-8 gallons. I was mainly brewing mead but the time it takes before it's drinkable is too long for me with all the bottles I haven't finished yet. Now I just want to do hard cider for me and beer for my wife.

I started watching Prometheus last night and it doesn't seem as stupid as the first time I watched it. This time I'm more accepting of the stupidity, so it's not bothering me as much. I also tried the second screen app with it, which was ok up to a point. I liked how it would play the alternate/deleted scenes on the TV in the spots where they were originally supposed to be but some of the other extra stuff was getting annoying, so I shut it off.

I like the Hobbit movies, but they're way too bloated. Two movies would have been about right.

Have relatives visiting from out of town so my viewing has crawled practically to a halt.

I like them too but at the same time, I couldn't tell you what each one was about.

After the talk about The Hobbit I really wanted to re-view it over the weekend but due to a family spur-of-the-moment cookout Sunday afternoon it didn't happen. Maybe later this week...

I *still* managed quite a few films. I finished Orphan Black and saw nothing that makes me want to continue with the series. Not that it's "bad" but that there was nothing compelling for me. They kept adding layer upon layer with little to no resolution of *anything* and the mysteries they presented didn't keep my interest. Seasons are short (10 episodes each) so if my coworker purchases S2 and insists I'm sure I'll cave and watch it to keep her happy...

Jack the Giant Slayer was much better than I'd expected, based on reviews. No... it's *not* "true to the fairy tale" but what fairy tale story is these days? I don't think today's kids would sit still for a direct telling like we got when I was a kid. I didn't watch it with any of the grandkids and will try to remedy that as I think my grandson would really like it. The giants are pretty cool and it has fun action sequences. It *could* be a bit intense at times for his sister (age 7). He pulled out his mom's copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, started it with his sister, and finished it at my house (of course we started at the beginning so I could see it all). It gave her nightmares. I should have known better than to let her join us as Frankenstein was a bit too much for her when we watched it during last year's Horror Challenge (she left the room after about a half hour or so). She also left during ...Prisoner... but it was a bit too late...

I also watched the first three films in the Gamera set I purchased. It was really nice to finally see Gamera uncut in the original Japanese. In spite of the *very* cheesy suits on the monsters in ...vs. Barugon and ...vs. Gyaos I enjoyed them too, although not as much as the original. I may try to work in the rest before the challenge is over.

Trancers was a hoot! Over-the-top acting and totally lame dialog delivered exactly as it should be delivered. Perfect camp stuff! The copy on that set I purchased was in FS and had TV style credits at the end - like it was part of a movie night program. Does this one exist in the OAR?

I watched ...Wrath of Khan theatrical version yesterday. That's *still* my favorite Trek feature film. I was surprised to notice many of the scenes where changes/additions were made for the "Director's Edition." I don't know that any really added to the film in any significant way but it was interesting in any event.

Another first-time viewing was Slaughterhouse Five (it was interesting to see in the film where the name originated). What a strange film! Except for some dialog during the first hour or so I'd have thought it a "flashback" type film rather than SF. Even then the SF part was minimal until the last act. I've never read the novel and after seeing the film doubt I ever will as I'm not a big fan of "humor" in literature. One scene that stood out was when a POW found a figurine during the cleanup following the bombing of Dresden. I'd swear I've seen that single scene (or one staged almost identically) in another film. Even though I enjoyed the film it's not one I see myself watching on a regular basis.

Another odd little film was a first time viewing of The 10th Victim. I watched in the original Italian. I didn't find it as funny as I think I was supposed to but it was still a highly enjoyable little romp. A bit of a different take on "The Most Dangerous Game" plot devices. It's one of those films I'm sure I'd have enjoyed more had I seen it during the original release as it would have been more "fresh" at that time. Nonetheless it's one I'll add to my regular Spy Spoofs viewings.

I agree, "The Hobbit" would have been better with just two movies, than three. But, I'm not complaining too much about the 3rd, just because they're still fun to watch.

"Jack the Giant Killer" was a first time watch for me too, this month. I agree. I went into it thinking it was going to be bad, but it is very watchable. I wouldn't say it's my favorite film but I'd see it again.

I saw "Wrath of Khan" sometime last year for the first time in many, many years. I liked it, but you know, the ear whig part still gives me the creeps! Pretty good for a movie that old!