April, May, June, July . . .

23 responses to “April, May, June, July . . .”

1. I love, love, love “Farthingale” and “Unfinished Business.” Oh, and Gambit is also up on Hulu, but I don’t know how long it will be there. Anyway, if anyone wants to see it for free it’s there for now.

2. I just watched The Italian Job after Alastair’s very heated “IT’s Not a Remake” comment in the chat last week. Very cool.

3. I love all the movies under Adventure! I know I own at least 3 of them. Big Trouble in Little China may or may not be recorded on vhs tape somewhere…

4. Wow, I only recognize one of those series names. Would have loved to see The West Wing included, but I’m eager to see these, since they’re all new to me!

5. Anyone in the Crusie household watching “Justified”? Because it would have made a great addition to the action-adventure/procedural tv shows you’ve got planned.

6. Oh goody – I may have to rearrange my life to join in the chat.

   @Tabs. I couldn’t get into Justified. I think I missed something critical at the beginning that would make me care about the right characters.

   Oh, a good point about series. Not everyone watches from the beginning.

7. Keith, you are about to have your TV viewing expanded.

   Justified . . . Lucy hasn’t seen it and I’m on the fence about it after watching the pilot. And we wanted series where we could talk about the development of the community over several seasons, and I haven’t seen West Wing for years. It’s one of Lucy’s faves, though, and I loved it when it was on. I still remember Martin Sheen walking in at the end of the pilot. Great finish to a great pilot.

   The reason we’re doing the pilot plus one later episode is that a good TV pilot sets up a series the way a good first scene sets up a novel. Then we’re watching one other episode to see how it pays off. But every episode should be stand-alone because people don’t always start with the pilot (sometimes the series doesn’t start with the pilot, look at Firefly).

   We’re trying to pick series now that we can tie to a craft theme. Nine month of romcom gave us a great romcom vocabulary and now we’re going for fiction in general: Plotting, Beginnings, Expectations and Endings, probably followed by a long and varied series on creating a supernatural world and writing the supernatural in general (ending on Halloween, natch). And then . . . we have some other ideas. But if the TV pilot/episode thing works, we’ll do that again with comedy to go back to some of the stuff we’re talking about now.

8. The Italian Job and Out Of Sight! Hurrah! Out Of Sight was an unexpectedly good film (at least to me) but The Italian Job is in a class of its own. More classic lines than you can shake a stick at…

   “You wouldn’t hit a man with no trousers on, would you? “

9. With the exception of In Plain Sight, everything from the “Series” & “Adventure” units are sitting on my DVD shelves (or in my iTunes…) – woot!

10. I knew you’d work “Big Trouble in Little China” in there somewhere! One of my faves. And at least you mentioned “Firefly”. I only watched it on DVD so got the pilot first and love the series. And Nathan Fillion doesn’t hurt either.

    But it’s also really strange to think that the last time I saw a double feature was 2001 – it was the Brad Pitt special with both O11 and Spy Game with Robert Redford, which I like a lot more than O11.

11. Everyone should see Big Trouble in Little China if only because it’s a treasure-trove of quotes. My fave is still “Sorry, sorry, just thrilled to be alive,” although around here we use “Sonofabitch must pay!” more often. And my default for screw-ups is, “Come on, Dave, you must be doing something seriously wrong!”

12. A couple of shows back you guys mentioned Caper movies and I really, really hoped Ocean’s 11 would be viewed. YES! 12 didn’t care too much for. 13 made me love the franchise again.

    As for Life: Why Farthingale? Just curious because the series finale still gives me chills.

    Lastly, 3 cheers for The Mummy. Love it. Tried to do it’s structure and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how the ending played into the rest of the movie. Can’t wait.

13. I went with “Farthingale” because of how well they worked together to figure things out. The series finale is, I think, the best television I’ve ever seen, but so much of its power comes from having watched the two protagonists put their lives back together over the two seasons of the show, and I didn’t want to spoil that experience for people who hadn’t see the series. The first time I saw it, I just sat and gaped at the TV while the credits rolled, and then I immediately watched it all over again. Huge, huge impact and yes, it still gives me chills, too.

14. Oh, and The Mummy has some serious flaws, but it’s still great adventure story-telling. And isolating the flaws is good story discussion.

15. The Mummy is so much fun. Because of that I will watch John Hannah in anything. And despite that fact that Beni is a self-serving, treacherous little creep I still find him hugely entertaining.

16. John Hannah has been excellent in everything I’ve seen him in. And Beni deserves everything he gets.

17. john hannah is in the mummy? how did i not know this?!?!?!?! he’s the reason i first watched sliding doors and then i found out it had some amazing dialogue. hmmmm, i know we have a copy of that around. hmmmm.

18. He plays the heroine’s brother. Comic relief, but excellent comic relief.

19. I’m really looking forawrd to this. I really like The Italian Job (Noel Coward is great and Benny Hill doesn’t offend me surprisingly). I think it will be an awesome series.

    I love The Mummy (and love John Hannah in it) and love Big Trouble in Little China if only for Kurt Russell, a little bit insane but cool. I recently saw Raiders and I almost got violent (I think it’ll be an interesting conversation, and I think people will go after me for not liking it).

    Am still really looking forward to the discussions!

20. So you’re probably not looking for further suggestions at this point, but can I agitate for a food movies series at some point? Great for looking at how to use metaphor (food!) in story. Personal favorite = Tampopo.

21. Argh. Like I don’t have enough inspiration to eat already. But we’ll put it on the list of possible future series. And then we’ll do a series of dieting movies . . .

22. “The series finale is, I think, the best television I’ve ever seen, but so much of its power comes from having watched the two protagonists put their lives back together over the two seasons of the show, and I didn’t want to spoil that experience for people who hadn’t see the series.”

    Makes sense and have to agree. That final arc made me feel these two people are going to be ok and friends. Something you wouldn’t have said that first episode. Hell, gave me more of an HEA feeling than some romances I’ve read.

    “Oh, and The Mummy has some serious flaws, but it’s still great adventure story-telling. And isolating the flaws is good story discussion.”

    This movie works because of the chemistry between all the characters. The running theme of the podcast so far. lol

23. I am so excited about your television choices! Life is one of my favorite shows of all time, ever. Such great character work, such a cool premise and you are totally right- the series finale was one of the best hours of television EVER.

    Justified is worth getting in to. The character work is just fantastic. Esp. in the first season, every character that appeared, even the one episode guys, were so fleshed out and deeply drawn that it was kind of surprising. It is a show, like Buffy, that can be harder to dive into later. My sister missed a few episodes here and there and claimed not to like it but when I sat her down and had her watch from the pilot forward, she fell in love.

    What gets really interesting about this show is that the character of Boyd takes a much larger role than I think the creators intended and once he gets rolling, the tone of the show changes to a certain degree. He and Raylan are two sides of the same coin, which makes any moralizing that Raylan does kind of funny, because you’ve got Boyd with almost the same argument for the opposite behavior.

    I love this show and hope that you’ll give it another shot. 🙂

    Can’t wait to hear all the feed back on all five shows!