What have you watched recently?

Caine Mutiny sounds good there. I'm interested.

Also I can't wait for The Pacific. I hope it's a lot of pilots' stories and fighter jets because we've seen the ground battles a lot in films like The Thin Red Line (which I plan to watch soon) and Letters From Iwo Jima, which I also plan to watch soon.

I love Band of Brothers every time I watch it, but this is a good ground-forces series. And submarine movies like U-571 rock, but I'm in the mood for great air combat. I'd love to see Mustangs versus Zeros. The story can be set with the Navy in a carrier group. Marines could disembark for shore invasions of the islands on approach to Japan. So there's a lot you could do with The Pacific.

I just really don't want 8-10 episodes all set on Guadalcanal or something like that.

I too love "Band of Brothers." It's just a fantastic series; I don't have HBO, so I'll have to wait until a DVD hits for "The Pacific" but I'm still excited. The score to BOB is also top notch; very glad I bought it months ago!

two new flicks:

"New York, I Love You"- The spirited sequel to 'Paris Je T'aime' finds new characters and new stories, this time in New York City. Sadly, none of the characters or stories really compare with their Paris counterparts as none of them really stand out or have any special elements to them. Many of the actors just phone it in, like they said, "hey, an indie film about New York!" and just signed up to do it and it shows as several segments have really weak acting. I also found it distracting that so many characters were found to say, "that's why I love New York!" and "I love New York" or "that's why New York is great!" Yeah, that's nice, but don't jam an idea down our throats, just present your stories and move on. Still, the film does have a few fantastic segments: the first featuring James Caan and Anton Yelchin; the second deals with an unspoken romance between two characters (Natalie Portman and Irrfa Kahn); and the best segment in the film the whole film (which is quite beautiful and touching) featuring Cloris Leachman and Eli Wallach as a couple celebrating their 63rd wedding anniversary. Other than that, very few memorable characters (and very few ethnicities, sexual orientations, etc) are represented in this very bland, white film. I'll stick with 'Paris Je T'aime.' Rating- ** out of ****

"The Zombie Diaries"- Talk about false advertising: the DVD art for this film shows a man surrounded by zombies while carrying a shotgun, his head lowered. This gives off an idea that maybe this will be a decent zombie film, maybe with some action and commentary, but sadly, this film delivers neither (also the guy on the cover isn't in the film). It's poorly acted with no real plot or characterization. It's broken up into three segments, the first being the initial outbreak and the last two a month or so later. The film has many problems, but mainly there's just no real excitement here. The camera work is really awful and it's constantly in motion. And yes, I know that they were going for the hand cam effect here, but it's hard to see what's going on as the camera is always moving. It makes "Cloverfield" look like a steady cam film. Also, the acting leaves a lot to be desired and the scenery is repetitive with barns and farmhouses (only one scene takes place in a village that has been deserted and is full of zombies). Just a very poor film on all levels. Rating- * out of ****

:thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Tycho

Also I can't wait for The Pacific. I hope it's a lot of pilots' stories and fighter jets because we've seen the ground battles a lot in films like The Thin Red Line (which I plan to watch soon) and Letters From Iwo Jima, which I also plan to watch soon.

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I liked Letters from Iwo Jima (which portrays the battle for Iwo from the Japanese perspective) better than Flags of our Fathers (the story of the men who raised the flag over Mt. Suribachi on Iwo and immortalized in that famous photo).

If you're looking for more air combat drama, Memphis Belle (1990) is an entertaining film about the crew of the famous B-17 bomber and its 25th and final mission over Europe.

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A crazed slasher torments a young woman (Rachel Miner) with a fear of automobiles during a mountain country road trip with her therapist (Mimi Rogers) in the okay 2006 horror movie Penny Dreadful.

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Originally Posted by Jedi_Master_Guyute

IThe score to BOB is also top notch; very glad I bought it months ago!

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Funny, because I was thinking the same thing and mulling over planning to buy the soundtrack myself.

I too cannot stress how much I'm looking forward to The Pacific.

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Originally Posted by Ji'dai

If you're looking for more air combat drama, Memphis Belle (1990) is an entertaining film about the crew of the famous B-17 bomber and its 25th and final mission over Europe.

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Good suggestion. I've never seen Memphis Belle but I have a free rental I need to use this month. Sounds perfect to me.

Meanwhile, in Band of Brothers, I've just finished watching disc 2 which portrays the Allied loss in Operation: Market Garden - or part of it. This battle is best covered by A Bridge Too Far of course.

More on The Pacific:

It's based on the books With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa by Eugene Sledge and Helmet for My Pillow: From Parris Island to the Pacific by Robert Leckie.

Eugene Sledge's war experiences are also featured in Ken Burn's documentary The War (that's where his name was familiar to me when I heard about The Pacific miniseries). If you're a Band of Brothers fan or looking forward to The Pacific, I'd recommend checking out Burns' work as well.

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. Honestly, I've probably seen this movie as many times as, or maybe more than, Star Wars.

It ranks up there with The Princess Bride as one of the most quotable movies ever made.

"Want a Twinkie, Genghis Khan?"

Been catching repeats of Twin Peaks on C&I(Crime & Investigation)...so I watched the theatrical prequel David Lynch did: Fire Walk With Me on HDNet. Weird!

I watched That Thing You Do! last night, it had been several years since I last saw it but I thought its still a good movie. Plus I didn't realise that Charlise Theron was in it! (for a bit)

A brother (Ray Milland) and sister (Ruth Hussey) pool their money and buy a seaside estate haunted by the ghosts of the former tenants in the okay 1944 scary movie The Uninvited. Spectral special effects were pretty good as was the use of light and shadows to effectively create a creepy atmosphere.

I watched the Japanese film Departures. A cellist in a big-city symphony loses his job (and his cello) when the symphony is disbanded, and he and his wife move back to his small home town, where he has a little house left to him by his deceased mother. There is little or no work to be found, until he comes across a help-wanted ad for work in "departures." He assumes it is a travel agency, but it is not. He finds the job is as an assistant for a man who does casketing, hired by undertakers to perform the elaborate Japanese funeral rites (including washing the body -- done in the presence of the family, BTW).

It is funny, charming, sincere, and beautifully acted. I loved it.