TV Discussion Fisto's Disco: The LACWAC Social Thread

Happy New Years everybody!

 

Fitness goals? #changehabits #burnmorethanueat #trackprogress #makenoexcuses #treatyourself4xmonth

Stay healthy LACWAC.

 

Here is my annual list of film scores for the year. Some great, some terrible. At least I only went to the theaters for a few of them (thank goodness for Netflix and Redbox).

1. Gravity, 10
2. 12 Years a Slave, 10
3. Frances Ha, 10
4. Inside Llewyn Davis, 10
5. Her, 10
6. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 10
7. Before Midnight, 10
8. Blue Jasmine, 10
9. American Hustle, 9.5
10. Philomena, 9.5
11. Frozen, 9.5
12. Nebraska, 9.5
13. Enough Said, 9.3
14. Blue is the Warmest Color, 9.2
15. The Spectacular Now, 9.2
16. Short Term 12, 9.1
17. The Wolf of Wall Street, 9
18. The Kings of Summer, 9
19. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 9
20. Side Effects, 9
21. All is Lost, 9
22. Fruitvale Station, 9
23. Rush, 9
24. The World’s End, 9
25. Kill Your Darlings, 9
26. Lee Daniel’s The Butler, 8.8
27. Prisoners, 8.7
28. The Heat, 8.6
29. Don Jon, 8.5
30. 42, 8.5
31. Much Ado About Nothing, 8.5
32. Captain Phillips, 8.5
33. The Way Way Back, 8.4
34. Stoker, 8.3
35. Mud, 8.2
36. Pacific Rim, 8
37. The Book Thief, 8
38. August: Osage County, 8
39. Star Trek Into Darkness, 8
40. The Great Gatsby, 8
41. Saving Mr. Banks, 8
42. Despicable Me 2, 8
43. World War Z, 8
44. Epic, 8
45. The Place Beyond the Pines, 8
46. This is the End, 8
47. Anchorman 2, 8
48. Monsters University, 7.5
49. The Croods, 7.5
50. Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, 7.2
51. Thor: The Dark World, 7
52. Iron Man 3, 7
53. Fast & Furious 6, 7
54. Now You See Me, 7
55. Turbo, 7
56. Warm Bodies, 7
57. Olympus Has Fallen, 7
58. White House Down, 7
59. The Conjuring, 7
60. The Wolverine, 6.8
61. The Bling Ring, 6.5
62. Dallas Buyers Club, 6
63. Elysium, 6
64. Ender’s Game, 6
65. Oblivion, 6
66. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monster, 6
67. Kick-Ass 2, 6
68. Man of Steel, 5
69. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, 5
70. Carrie, 5
71. The Canyons, 5
72. Red 2, 4.5
73. The Fifth Estate, 4
74. The Counselor, 4
75. The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, 4
76. Gangster Squad, 4
77. Jack the Giant Slayer, 4
78. Oz the Great and Powerful, 4
79. Jobs, 3.8
80. The Lone Ranger, 3.5
81. 47 Ronin, 3.2
82. We’re the Millers, 3
83. Only God Forgives, 3
84. G. I. Joe: Retaliation, 3
85. The Hangover Part III, 2.5
86. The Host, 2
87. The Internship, 1.5
88. Paranoia, 1
89. Planes, 1
90. The Big Wedding, 1
91. Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, 1
92. Identity Thief, 0.5
93. R.I.P.D., 0.5
94. After Earth, 0.2
95. Getaway, 0.1
96. Escape From Planet Earth, 0
97. Grown-Ups 2, 0
98. Temptation: Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, 0

 

"Come, don't be shy. Step into the light. There is something about you...something you carry...something made of gold...but far more precious."

Easily one of my favorite scenes in TDoS. CumberSmaug.

 

That scene... is just awesome.

 

I never read the Hobbit, so I was merely enjoying it on its merits as to how good the story is and how well it meshes to the other installments of the Hobbit-LOTR tale (on film). I didn't care for An Unexpected Journey at all, and had no intention of seeing Desolation of Smaug in theaters, but ended up seeing it on a spur of the moment trip to the theater with the hopes of once again seeing Wolf of Wallstreet, but having to wait an hour an a half, or going to see DoS immediately.

I thought it was a huge step up from the first film, and things like Legolas' appearance didn't bother me at all. I don't know where the film deviates from the novel and where it doesn't, but I saw no clear break in the tone of the film to make it apparent to me that any of it was original material tacked onto Tolkien's story

When it came to Smaug himself, I felt like the scenes themselves with him were good, but that they ran waaaay too long. My only other complaint about him was that I wish that Bilbo hearing him speak, that they had followed the lead of the scene earlier on with the

Spoiler

spiders, in which he can understand them when he wears the ring.

. I know that he speaks freely in the book, but it was still just a little jarring to have a talking dragon to me on film, when up til then only the human and human-like races could speak whatever the common language is meant to be. It would have been a little creative license, but I also think it would give purpose and foreshadowing to that earlier scene.

But I'm otherwise looking forward to the final installment after the absolute bore (IMO) of the first film.

 

Yeah... the forecasted low for Atlanta on Monday night is 5 degrees F.

 

Up here in chicago, the high monday is -13 degrees F

 

Supposedly on monday or tuesday in Ohio the low will be -20 with a windchill of -40. Supposedly anyway.

 

If it gets us out of classes for a day or two I won't complain.

 

I'm using the days off work that come with the cold to stay inside and work on my Fives helmet...

 

Speaking of smartphones, apparently they want to create 3D hologram phones within the next five years.

Here's how it's supposed to work:

Sounds pretty nifty. We may be able to see full-size holograms of people like in Star Wars! As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, I thought this technology wouldn't become widespread until the latter half of the 21st century, but we may be seeing this within the decade. Very exciting.

Furthermore, they claim that "in the future, we could see fully holographic rooms in which 3D objects could be viewed from every angle." Now that's the kind of technology I'm talking about! It's pretty cool how so many of the technologies we take for granted today started off as inspirations from various sci-fi franchises, like Star Trek and of course, Star Wars. This is just one example that will probably come to fruition within our lifetimes.

 

I think in one of those History Channel documentaries it was mentioned that the cellular phone was inspired by the Star Trek communicators, but I feel like that invention had a very practical purpose in being able to communicate from anywhere without being restricted to a landline.

A hologram just seems like a novelty invention. Having a Star Wars style glowing head of someone projected in front of me seems like it would have zero purpose other than "this is kind of like Star Wars, neat!"

 

I see where you're coming from, but I suspect the next major innovation in computers, maybe a decade or two down the line, will be holograms. As in, we won't be carrying laptops around -- the interface itself will be a hologram. It could be projected from a device the size of an iPhone or thumb drive. Or something installed in the walls of a house (which isn't useful outside, hence we'd need something portable...).

 

I think some of those inventions though reflect a universal desire.

I hate flying. It took me roughly 6 hours to get from Michigan to Idaho. About an hour and a half of it is layover, then the time it takes to taxi out onto the runway and to the gate, load and unload, etc.

Yeah, I wish I could teleport from point A to B and be done with it in two seconds. If someone ever invents such a think hundreds of years from now, people will probably say that it's imitating Star Trek or something, when I think such a desire would have existed regardless of Star Trek. The idea exists in Star Trek to begin with because it's reflective of a human desire, not because Gene Roddenberry was ahead of his time and envisioning technology that other people couldn't have even begin to imagine.

Same with things like warp speed/hyperspace/faster than light travel. I don't know what sci-fi franchise thought that up first, but even if Star Trek, Star Wars, and Battlestar Galactica all never existed, I think the curiosity and drive to explore and the realization that we're not going to get very far in space with current technology would cause physicists to explore such theoretical possibilities as going faster than the speed of light, because even at the speed of light, you're not going anywhere fast.

 

My best friend saw Back to the Future for the first time like 4 years ago... He subsequently bought a poster for the movie, a shirt with the Back to the Future title all across the front, a toy Delorean, and went to a Halloween party as Doc Brown.