Clearing the Backlog...

[Барбоса]

See, I strongly dislike going to the cinema so the thought of going 5 times in a year, let alone 50, makes me feel physically ill.

 

[Uncle Sam]

Is your local cinema shit or is it the concept as a whole?

Signed,

Someone who went to the cinema sixty-six times last year

 

[Барбоса]

Is your local cinema shit or is it the concept as a whole?

Signed,

Someone who went to the cinema sixty-six times last year

My local cinemas used to be shit but are now actually quite nice.

It is just the concept of sitting with complete strangers, who won't sit the fuck down or shut the fuck up, when I find movie-watching a personal experience.

 

[Blade]

Irish people especially seem to laugh their asses off at really inappropriate times. Comedy and slasher movies are fine to watch in a cinema, but anything with a modicum of seriousness is ruined by that kind of atmosphere.

 

[Diet Soda]

My days off work are usually midweek, so going to an afternoon showing there are usually less than a dozen people in the screen, it's brilliant.

Can't stand going when it's busy though. Some people literally haven't a fucking clue what they're doing. If you're queuing for like 10 minutes, surely you'd use that time to decide which fucking film you're going to watch and what snacks you want.

 

[Uncle Sam]

My local cinemas used to be shit but are now actually quite nice.

It is just the concept of sitting with complete strangers, who won't sit the fuck down or shut the fuck up, when I find movie-watching a personal experience.

Time was, I would go to the cinema during the day to avoid, you know, other people. Oh, those were the days.

 

[Барбоса]

Time was, I would go to the cinema during the day to avoid, you know, other people. Oh, those were the days.

The few times I have ventured to the cinema recently has been during the day but my local cinema doesn't have any viewings earlier than about 3:30, which means that the cinema is populated by the worst kind of people - children.

 

[Diet Soda]

1. American Hustle
2. Last Vegas

It was okay.

 

[Барбоса]

Albums

1. 18 Months - Calvin Harris

Or as it should be called, "the soundtrack to 18 months of nights out in Basildon". It's hit after hit, there's no doubting Harris can write a catchy tune, and I first pulled the millionaire ex (and potentially future) girlfriend listening to "We Found Love in a Hopeless Place" in Walkabout, so it was quite good really.

Listened to some of this today and while I cannot say that it was my soundtrack for anything, I actually recognised some of the songs, which is a massive step forward for me. Remove tripe like Tinie Tempah and Dizzie Rascal and I might have thought about buying it.

 

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

Since I'm an illiterate twat, I've decided to watch 100 movies this year as opposed to reading a vast amount of books (although I am still reading some, I won't set myself the challenge of reading 52)

I've decided to use this list: http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/100-movies-to-see-before-you-die-slideshow-1542/

A fair few of the movies on there I have seen before, and I'm basically going to attempt to rank them throughout the course of the year.

Will random number generate the titles tomorrow and see what I get to watch first.

Oh, and I may throw in some bonuses that the list missed, such as Clockwork Orange, Se7en, North by Northwest, Fight Club, The Shining, Spirited Away, Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future and Taxi Driver.

EDIT: I actually randomized the list myself now:

Spoiler

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
On the Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
M (1931)
Paths of Glory (1958)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
In the Mood For Love (2001)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Die Hard (1988)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The World of Apu (1959)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Blow Up (1966)
Raging Bull (1980)
Casablanca (1942)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Vertigo (1958)
Annie Hall (1977)
Titanic (1997)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
8 ½ (1963)
Blade Runner (1982)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Rocky (1976)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Nosferatu (1922)
The African Queen (1952)
The 400 Blows (1959)
Schindler’s List (1993)
The Exorcist (1973)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Matrix (1999)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Breathless (1960)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
The Godfather (1972)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The French Connection (1971)
Princess Mononoke (1999)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Duck Soup (1933)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Battle of Algiers (1967)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Chinatown (1974)
Rear Window (1954)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Grand Illusion (1938)
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Rashomon (1951)
The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The Third Man (1949)
Alien (1979)
Jaws (1975)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Graduate (1967)
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Wings of Desire (1988)
King Kong (1933)
Star Wars (1977)
All About Eve (1950)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The Searchers (1956)
Modern Times (1936)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Network (1976)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Psycho (1960)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Toy Story (1995)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)

Excellent to start and finish with films that I know are great fun. Cuckoo's Nest and Citizen Kane are also quite early which is good.

 

[Blade]

Since I'm an illiterate twat, I've decided to watch 100 movies this year as opposed to reading a vast amount of books (although I am still reading some, I won't set myself the challenge of reading 52)

I've decided to use this list: http://movies.yahoo.com/photos/100-movies-to-see-before-you-die-slideshow-1542/

A fair few of the movies on there I have seen before, and I'm basically going to attempt to rank them throughout the course of the year.

Will random number generate the titles tomorrow and see what I get to watch first.

Oh, and I may throw in some bonuses that the list missed, such as Clockwork Orange, Se7en, North by Northwest, Fight Club, The Shining, Spirited Away, Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future and Taxi Driver.

EDIT: I actually randomized the list myself now:

Spoiler

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
On the Waterfront (1954)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Blazing Saddles (1974)
M (1931)
Paths of Glory (1958)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Sunset Blvd. (1950)
In the Mood For Love (2001)
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978)
This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Die Hard (1988)
Raise the Red Lantern (1992)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
Do the Right Thing (1989)
Double Indemnity (1944)
It Happened One Night (1934)
The World of Apu (1959)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
Blow Up (1966)
Raging Bull (1980)
Casablanca (1942)
Enter the Dragon (1973)
Vertigo (1958)
Annie Hall (1977)
Titanic (1997)
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
8 ½ (1963)
Blade Runner (1982)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Rocky (1976)
12 Angry Men (1957)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Nosferatu (1922)
The African Queen (1952)
The 400 Blows (1959)
Schindler’s List (1993)
The Exorcist (1973)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
Goodfellas (1990)
The Matrix (1999)
Seven Samurai (1954)
The Lady Eve (1941)
Wild Strawberries (1957)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Breathless (1960)
The Usual Suspects (1995)
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
The Godfather (1972)
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
The French Connection (1971)
Princess Mononoke (1999)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Duck Soup (1933)
The Wizard of Oz (1939)
The Battle of Algiers (1967)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Chinatown (1974)
Rear Window (1954)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)
M*A*S*H (1970)
Grand Illusion (1938)
When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
Rashomon (1951)
The Lord of the Rings (2001,2002,2003)
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
The Third Man (1949)
Alien (1979)
Jaws (1975)
The Godfather, Part II (1974)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Graduate (1967)
Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982)
Wings of Desire (1988)
King Kong (1933)
Star Wars (1977)
All About Eve (1950)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988)
The Searchers (1956)
Modern Times (1936)
The Bicycle Thief (1948)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Network (1976)
Goldfinger (1964)
The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Psycho (1960)
Groundhog Day (1993)
Toy Story (1995)
Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1968)

Excellent to start and finish with films that I know are great fun. Cuckoo's Nest and Citizen Kane are also quite early which is good.

Off the top of my head, the list is also missing foreign gems like Oldboy, Battle Royale and Downfall. But it does have that overrated turd Crouching Tiger. Silly Yahoo.

 

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

Off the top of my head, the list is also missing foreign gems like Oldboy, Battle Royale and Downfall. But it does have that overrated turd Crouching Tiger. Silly Yahoo.

I found Downfall hilarious at times, but I still thought it was a good movie. Probably because I had the Hitler Rant Parodies on my mind whilst watching it.

[YOUTUBE]ss_y9KOEQ34[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Барбоса]

Films

First Viewing

1. Eastern Promises

Repeat Viewing

1. Zulu
2. Die Hard With A Vengeance

Tempted to make Wednesday night a 'New Movie' night with today's choice likely to be Lust, Caution.

Books

Read

1. James Bowder (ed.) Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (2012)

Some interesting essays contained in this - Martin's use of Romanticism, the treatment of female characters and 'freaks', evidence of PTSD and the psychopathy of Petyr Baelish, although it is not for viewers of the show as it contains major spoilers right up to A Dance With Dragons.

Currently Reading

1. Peter Heather Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe (2009)
2. Paul S. Kemp Star Wars: Riptide (2011)

The first of what is likely to be a sizeable portion of Star Wars EU novels appears - got a list of at least 20 to read...

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

how the hell do you guys have so much time

In my case, when you marry into a huge family that puts a premium on spending as much time together as possible, you'll find that your time management skills get exponentially better over a very short period.

I like film but I never watch any of the ones that I put on a "To Watch" list. I'm just going to skip that part. I plan on reading at least 30 books this year and listening to at least 250 classical recordings (easy to do since I can just put my headphones on at work when I'm in the zone reading various tax codes). Here are the books I plan on reading (lots of academic writings and textbooks, little in the way of fiction):

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Almost Transparent Blue by Ryu Murakami
The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche
Untimely Meditations by Friedrich Nietzsche
Human, All Too Human by Friedrich Nietzsche
The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Nietzsche
On The Genealogy of Moral by Friedrich Nietzsche
...and about 15 commentaries on Friedrich Nietzsche's various works
Sociological Theory by George Ritzer
Kuby Immunology
An Introduction To Mechanics by Daniel Kleppner and Robert Kolenkow
Introduction to Electrodynamics by David Griffiths
Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge by William Haviland

I try to work through one major philosopher a year, reading all of their important works. Nietzsche is the first true continental philosopher that I am taking on (you could call Kant a continental philosopher as well, but he's probably the greatest and most influential philosopher of all time so it's hard to pin him down as being more of one type of philosopher than of another type), so I unfortunately skipped on a lot of the philosophers that he will be directly addressing (namely, Hegel and Schopenhauer). However, this is probably for the best as it took me about a year to thoroughly read and understand Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is supposed to be about ten times harder to understand.

Yeah...I'll be the aforementioned work by Hegel plus Heidegger's Being and Time and Sartre's Being and Nothingness for retirement. I'm pretty sure reading these works will take me about four years.

 

[Барбоса]

Films

First Viewing

1. Eastern Promises
2. Lust, Caution

Repeat Viewing

1. Zulu
2. Die Hard With A Vengeance

Lust, Caution was quite good. I definitely liked the complete lack of a happy ending, although there were plenty of happy endings throughout.

Books

Read

1. James Bowder (ed.) Beyond the Wall: Exploring George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (2012)

Currently Reading

1. Peter Heather Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe (2009)
2. Paul S. Kemp Star Wars: Riptide (2011)

 

[Blade]

I can add Wolf of Wall Street to my list. It's really good.

 

[Uncle Sam]

I finished The Great Gatsby. It was good. Dare I say that it tugged on my heartstrings a bit at the end there.

Now I'm onto The Forever War, which is absolute shit so far. Lots of neat pseudoscience, very little reason to give a fuck - like an even worse Jurassic Park.

 

[Dan Severn's Moustache]

Fallout's list:

Spoiler

1: Monty Python and the Holy Grail: 85/100

Still holds up as a fun film. I wouldn't classify it in the tier of the best ever made, but it's a must watch for its impact on pop culture. On the Waterfront tomorrow, which has Marlon Brando, so that's a nice treat.

 

[Shadowmancer]

Decided I needed to read something that wasn't what I have been buying and reading a lot of, and I picked up The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. So far so good.

 

[Miko]

I am on board with this, I've got about 3 or 4 years worth of recent releases to catch up with film-wise.

 

[Diet Soda]

For some reason my local flicks isn't showing 12 Years a Slave until 2 weeks from now.

1. American Hustle
2. Last Vegas
3. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 

[Uncle Sam]

About fifty chapters into The Forever War (the chapters are about four pages long each) and it's still horrendously boring.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

For some reason my local flicks isn't showing 12 Years a Slave until 2 weeks from now.

1. American Hustle
2. Last Vegas
3. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Is it a Vue? Those fucking bastards!

 

[Diet Soda]

Is it a Vue? Those fucking bastards!

How did you guess?

I can't wait a fortnight! What if someone post spoilers on the internet?

 

[Y 2 Jake]

I want to the cinema yesterday to see it. They told me it wasn't on for a few weeks. I didn't have it in me to see anything else, so I went home.

Fuck Vue.