Post Weekend Open Thread (01/10/11)…

Updated on January 10, 2011 By Ken Begg 22 Comments

Uhm…man, again, I didn’t do anything this weekend. And there goes all my three day ones. Let’s see, I did watch the first two episodes of The Cape last night, and they were pretty good. The obvious thing to compare the hero to is Batman, but really, he’s more of an old pulp-style hero like the Shadow. It’s funny, because I’ve been railing for a while about who superhero stuff needs to lighten up after years and years of grimness and ‘maturity’ at Marvel and DC. Yet, the only episode of whatever that Michael Chiklis family superhero show I saw elicted only a ‘meh.’ The Cape is more typically dark, but at least the first two episodes had a nice panache to them. We’ll see if they can continue to keep that tone going without alienating the audience though.

The show had enough echoes of Now and Again to make me once more mourn the entirely too early death of that fine program. I really wish they’d at least put that show out on DVD.

I haven’t seen it yet, but it’s nice to see True Grit making a decent amount of coin.

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  • Ericb

    I mostly watched Football. I also started reading “Parliaments and Politics during the Cromwellian Protectorate” which I’m sure makes everyone’s eyes glaze over before they’ve finished reading even just the title.

  • Ericb

    That bit might be in the appendix.

  • The Rev.

    I tore through my DVR and got a few things finally watched:

    The Vampire Bat: Not bad.
    The Devil Bat: Bela and that ridiculous bat make this more entertaining that it would’ve otherwise been.
    The Other: Started off a bit slow, but then picked up with weirdness and twists until the end. Good stuff; I recommend it.
    A UFO twofer, Shark Hunter and Deep Shock: Both were pretty bad. The former had the advantage of a surprise near the end, and some truly howlingly bad “underwater” scenes, so I liked it a bit better. Plus, it’s hard to screw up a shark. Those superintelligent alien dragon eels in the latter were too cartoony-looking to be a credible threat, and the movie raised too many questions that it didn’t answer (or didn’t realize it’d asked). Both had bad spacing for their kills: most at the beginning and end, with maybe one in the middle, which is the most deadly part of both movies as the stories and acting fail to keep any interest. Almost no gore, save a bit of blood in the water in the former, and one surprisingly good charred body in the latter (which only served to make even more obvious the fact that the other bodies in the facility weren’t even scorched). You’re really not missing much if you’ve not seen either one; if you have to choose, go with Shark Hunter. Deep Shock really has nothing going for it.

  • After the football, I watched a few episodes of a Biography Channel show called “I Survived.” It features people describing their near-death experiences. Kinda neato.

  • MarshallDog

    Watched the jets/colts game. Interesting to see the Payton-face used legitimately, because that last timeout called by the colts was a really bad move. Also watched the Bruins fall asleep again and hand one over. Ugh.

    Saw Hellboy 2. Much better than the first, although there were some annoying bits of “comedy” thrown in needlessly. Also rewatched the first season of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, played about four hours of Wii bowling, and got some time in on Team Fortress 2.

  • Mr. Rational

    Go see True Grit. It’s spectacular.

  • Ericb
  • GalaxyJane

    Drill weekend, so I saw nothing except the last few minutes of the Saints and Eagles losses when I got home and crashed out. The Eagles washing out of the playoffs is always enough to make me do the Happy Dance and the fact that it also means that uber-bastard hometown boy Vick doesn’t get his Super Bowl ring, just made it sweeter.

    Did get started on the 6th Harry Dresden book (Blood Rites) while standing in line all day Saturday (annual dental screening for the whole bloody battalion, LONG FREAKING DAY) but mostly just because Jim Butcher is GOH at the con I am running games at next weekend.

  • BeckoningChasm

    True Grit was excellent. Most of the Coen Brothers oeuvre leaves me cold, but this one had some believable people with creditable motivations.

    I watched “The Deadly Spawn” (really good), “The Lost Continent” (odd Hammer film that’s like three different movies), “The Relic” (might have been decent if you could see any of it) and “The Earth Dies Screaming” (lots of fun, creepy, hyperbolic title).

  • Rock Baker

    I watched my new laserdisc of Star Wars, as it was about the only way for me to get a nice widescreen print of the non-special edition version. I refused to buy the special edition because I wanted the original version for my library, so this is the first time I’ve seen ANY version of the film since I went to the theatrical run of the first special edition. It’s easy to forget how much fun the first movie is! Now I need to go and find the other two movies on laserdisc.

    Also watched Lilo and Stitch again. Fun stuff…

  • P Stroud

    “The King’s Speech”, “Fringe S2 Ep4-8” and football and football, with a little time on that old computer game favorite “Descent”. With the weather similar to Chicago’s I didn’t get out much.

    BTW, I can’t recommend TKS more highly. Nothing Jsbootu-worthy about it, except maybe a bit of Timothy Spall as Churchill.

  • fish eye no miko

    I started watching the new version of Battlestar Galactica. For the most part, I’m enjoying it, but I could do with a little less of Boobie McFanservice (a.k.a. Six)…

  • JazzyJ

    Here is another vote for True Grit. It was a great time at the movies, and Hailey Steinfeld is every bit as good as you might have heard. Loads of fun!

  • Reed

    Was at an out of town wedding this weekend, so I didn’t watch anything but the road.

    I liked the first couple of Dresden books, but it started to wear on me how Harry Dresden got more and more powerful each book. I think I made it through 5 books, and by the end of that one I was pretty sure he could destroy every other wizard in the series without breathing heavily.

    I did listen to the first Harry Potter book on CD on the drive. They are the only books on CD that I have, but I really love the way Jim Dale reads the stories. Except for the way he pronounces “Voldemort”. For the first few books he says “Voldemore” where I always heard it in my head with a hard “T” at the end.

  • Finished watching SO CLOSE, a 2002 Hong Kong movie about attractive girls who get in kung fu fights and wire-enhanced shoot-outs. Fun s tuff.

    I also went back and rewatched GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON, a film that is a testament to how much more endearing and adorable a crappy monster suit and/or puppet could be over crappy CGI.

  • Marsden

    I waited to see The Cape. I liked it. I don’t expect it to last too long. It’s nice to see an actual attempt to make a crime fighting superhero that is an original and not a remake or reboot of something else. As for originality, there has to be an overlap, but I didn’t think it was directly taking of off someone, like Batpest. He looks a bit like the Shroud, but no darkforce. The Cape itself is cool. I like the Circus of Crime people, too.

  • PB210

    Regarding the Cape:

    Come to think of it, when it comes to main network (ABC, Fox, CBS, NBC), prime-time television, the track record for costumed or masked adventurers or vigilantes has not worked out that well;

    Zorro: the Guy Williams series only lasted two years (Duncan Regehr’s series ran on the Family Channel)

    Batman: Adam West’s series only lasted two years or so
    , the 1990’s animated series only briefly ran in prime time

    The Lone Ranger lasted about nine years. Did it run on prime time television on Du Mont, ABC, NBC, or CBS or as a syndicated series?

    Not quite examples, but to cover them in case anyone brings them up:

    The Hulk: Billy Bixy series lasted four years

    Superman: Only the Dean Cain series ran on main network, prime time television; it ran for about four years.

  • GalaxyJane

    The Lone Ranger ran 5 years on ABC. It was the highest rated ABC program of the early 50s and ABC’s first hit show. (thank you, Wikipedia)

    Personally, I LOVE Duncan Regher’s Zorro series and wish someone cared enough to get it out there on DVD.

  • GalaxyJane

    Ooh,ooh,ooh! I got inspired to look up some info on the Duncan Regehr Zorro series and found out it’s coming out on DVD at the end of the month. The $69 asking price will probably make me Netflix it first, rather than buy it, but the fact that it includes the Douglas Fairbanks “Mark of Zorro” as a bonus disc as well as the trailers for all the old serials (“Zorro’s Black Whip is my personal fav) helps make it a pretty reasonable deal.

    Can’t wait to share this one with the boys.

  • Hmm. Well, it is 15 discs and 34 hours of material, aside from the Fairbanks film. It would fun to compare the various Zorros–although the Disney show is already sold out (I don’t know why Disney releases their shows in these small allotments; their Dr. Syn set sold out in like a week). For myself, though, no one will ever top Tyrone Powers.

  • GalaxyJane

    Yeah, it works out way under a buck an episode, I’ve just gotten so behind on my DVD watching that it doesn’t make sense to drop that much at once unless I know I will be enthusiastic enough to watch it all.

    I agree with the frustration with the way Disney limits all their releases, but I don’t like the Guy Williams Zorro enough to consider it much of a loss. Tyrone Powers was good, but the original Fairbanks movie will always hold the place of honor for me.