Baseball news has been abysmally slow lately — only 23 days until pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training — and the endless debate over our prospective website name is waning (pretty much everyone has voted by now)… so… let’s take the discussion off-topic from baseball and find out the answer to the pressing question of the day:
What are you binge-watching on Netflix (or your preferred streaming service)?
My wife and 17-year-old son don’t do Netflix very often… he prefers video gaming on Steam and watches YouTube mainly, and she PVRs from satellite TV, but my 14-year-old daughter and I have been watching a lot of Netflix lately. What are we watching?
Mainly older stuff, really, of the sci-fi variety… she currently has me interested in her favourite series — Dr. Who — starting at Season 1 with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. She is somewhere in Season 4 herself, but has started over so that I can “catch up”.
In return, I have turned her into a Next Generation Trekkie, watching Star Trek:The Next Generation… also starting with Season 1.
She is truly a child of the CGI generation, though, as she constantly points to the “terrible special effects” from both series, but mainly Star Trek… then I explain that the show is pushing 30 years old, and that was cutting edge special effects technology back in the day.
So…what are all y’all watching?
With all my free time I’m watching: Justified (again), West Wing (again), and eventually I’ll start watching The Wire and possibly The Shield (loved Walton Goggins in Justified).
j/k 6 week old infant, I haven’t slept in weeks. Please send help…
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I’ve never watched West Wing…but those other three choices are of toppest quality.
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If you like politics and are interested on the absurd difficulties of the president’s staff, it’s a phenomenal series. Some caveats, almost universally any republican is going to be the “bad guy” in the show (save Vinick/Alan Alda’s character). But if you like quick/sharp humor, and possibly the greatest character introduction in TV history (first time you met the President/Martin Sheen).
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Oh, I don’t think Ainsley was presented as a bad guy. But yeah, Sorkin writes cartoon Republicans… and then real Republicans do their best to prove him right.
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Ugh can’t believe I missed Ainsley. Good call
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West Wing is one of the greatest shows ever written. That is until Sorkin left the show. You can pretty much pinpoint his final episode. Sports Night, also by Sorkin was actually better and is a great example of the horridness that is a laugh track. He fought hard to not have one, but lost in the beginning and you can see how bad it is. Then they slowly faded it away until at around Season 2, it’s completely gone and the show was MUCH improved.
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I remember liking SportsNight, but I’m reluctant to go back and re-watch it out of fear that it won’t hold up.
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It holds up pretty well actually. Very sad it didn’t get a few more seasons. Funny to watch it after I’ve watched Sorkin’s other shows (I’m a huge Sorkin fan). He certainly likes to repeat several themes and jokes in each show.
West Wing I found to be very inspiring. As long as you don’t get too worked up over politics, then it’s a lot of fun to watch. I don’t lean one way or another and I’m not very political. I draw a very clear line on each independent issue, but I tend to agree and disagree with all major parties, and eventually just get to the point where I don’t care enough to get worked up over it all.
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Yeah Sorkin also wrote in issues Democrats have “difficulties” with at the time, like making POTUS weak on military issues and putting his religion at the forefront of his character.
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Aside from my voyage through baseball movies…I had a mini-Rickman movie binge recently, watching Dogma, Galaxy Quest, and Robin Hood.
TV-wise, not much right now, but that will change soon. Agent Carter just started, Better Call Saul and Archer will be back before too much longer. I need to catch up with Children’s Hospital, as I noticed a new season of that is starting up and I’m way back in the 4th season. Also, I’d like to find time to get that first season of Ash Vs. Evil Dead in my eyeholes.
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By Grabthar’s hammer..what a savings
(I liked Bottle Shock, you should check it out)
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Last Saturday I watched a marathon of Masterchef Canada. Strangely fascinating. Way better than the US version, for sure.
Since all my friends live far away, I sometimes watch shows with them using Skype. Psych I’d always a fave.
Also, I started watching Making a Murderer and I am three episodes in. It’s pretty crazy because I remember when all this stuff went down. Manitowoc isn’t really that far from here.
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Psych is good. Monk is better.
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Monk is very good. But it’s not on Netflix. 😦
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Sherlock (again), the wife wants to see Blacklist so I’m giving that a try, waiting for the final season of Mad Men to come in, occasional bouts of Dr. Who.
If you haven’t seen “The Big Short” (we did last week end) you should. I think Michael Lewis understood what was going on in the financial world better than he really ever got “Moneyball.”
Can’t wait for baseball.
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Question, did you read the book by chance? I really like his writing, but the movies are often changed from the book.
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Yes, I have the complete collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 😉
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Funny how Moneyball is one of the most misunderstood books of our generation. Personally I blame Joe Morgan.
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Do you know a computer wrote that book?
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I love Sherlock. I’m catching up on season three.
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Sherlock is one of my favorite things going right now. Sucks it takes so long between seasons, but it’s kind of worth it.
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Reading The Big Short put me into a rage. I’m still not quite recovered.
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The movie won’t make it better.
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Don’t expect so. Curious to watch it and see how it diverges from the novel.
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Angie Tribeca – Because I love Rashida Jones and Deon Cole…and it is awesomely silly. Like the Airplane movies made into a modern cop show.
Chronicles of Shanara – Only because I really liked the first 3 Shanara books and some other Terry Brooks stuff when I was a kid. It isn’t great, but it entertains.
Fargo – self explanatory
The Bridge – DVRed from last year, still haven’t caught up.
Essentially, crap I can DVR…because I’m too lazy to watch TV when it is on.
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For me, Fargo seems to be slipping into the category of shows that Mad Men is currently the king of…things I’ve always meant to watch but never got around to
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I didn’t watch Season 1 of Fargo….I DVRed it, but never got around to watching it and decided to delete it when the DVR was getting full. I watched season 2 all in one day, the day after I totaled my truck skidding on a snowy back road into a couple of trees. The story was fun, but the acting and writing are really what carry the show…the casting was fantastic.
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There’s zero chance that I could do that. If I’m going to watch a show, I have to start from the beginning.
That’s part of the reason I never got into Gunsmoke…
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I’ve always been surprised that I’m the only one around here who watched Mad Men — and I’m apparently the least TV-watchingest person of the group.
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Mad Men is a trip back into the lost culture of my teen age years.
Two-thirds of my interest is the story. One-third is recognition of the icons; most of which they get spot-on.
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I used to watch it, but became bored of it around season 3 or 4 or so. I’d say that 98% of my interest was Christina Hendricks. Love her acting in both this and Firefly.
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Too bad. Some of her best work came in later seasons.
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It’s still on my Netflix list, so I’ll get to it eventually, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that any episode that didn’t prominently feature her lost my interest rather quickly. Also, Elisabeth Moss is about as much fun as a box of rocks. Hated her character. So fucking winy and demanding and needy.
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But, she was probably the most quintessential female on the show. I really have no idea how you get needy out of her.
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She was constantly complaining about one thing or another. Acted like the whole world owed her everything. At first she was just standing up for herself, but after a while even Don got tired of her shit. I preferred Christina’s character because she took what she wanted. She didn’t cry or complain. She just said this is how it’s going to be, because I’m a bad-ass and you know it.
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I think you kind of missed the point of the character.
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First season of The Bridge was really good, no clue about S2+.
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Yeah….S1 was fantastic….I’m on about the 5th episode of season 2…if anything, it is actually darker and more unsettling/disturbing.
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I can only enjoy Chronicles if I completely consider it to be a different universe, because they’re absolutely butchering the source material (starting with the fact that the Chosen aren’t actually, you know, chosen).
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I only ever read the first 3 and it has been 30 years….so I don’t remember anything other than I enjoyed them.
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Wooooooooo!
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Someone might be learning a lesson in leading from behind.
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Leading from behind is required when everyone is going the wrong way.
😛
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I hope you stay logically inconsistent forever, so we can always disagree (and I’m right).
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I will do my best…and of course you are.
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A haiku for the DH
Don’t wear no damned glove
Can’t field any position
Inept on defense.
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A counter-haiku for the batting pitcher:
Nervous in the box
Has no clue what he’s doing
Automatic out
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A haiku for counters:
Five syllables here
Then seven go on this line
Refrigerator
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nbjays
Bartolo Colon
Madison Mad Bumgarner
Zach Slasher Greinke
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Bartolo Colon: 18 seasons – career BA of .043, career OPS+ of -44, career oWAR with the bat of -1.1. Only spent 3 years in the NL, where his numbers are no improvement over his AL stats. His value at the plate is as a spectacle, nothing more.
Madbum: 7 seasons – career BA of .183, career OPS+ of 46, career oWAR of 3.1… but he’s only been even an average hitter for two seasons, so SSS alert. The only guy on your list who’s never been in the AL. Gets props for his hitting because he has a couple of grand slams.
Greinke: 12 seasons – career BA of .220, career OPS+ of 65, career oWAR of 3.2. Again, SSS alert as 2.7 of his WAR has come in his 3 years in LA, and that was inflated due to the anomaly of him hitting .328 in 2013. Probably the best hitting pitcher currently, although “least horrible” is the better term.
That these 3 guys are considered “damn good hitters” by the anti-DH crowd is one of the strongest arguments FOR the DH. It is a very telling stat that the absolute best hitting pitcher is a worse hitter than Juan Pierre, who amassed 18.4 WAR in 14 seasons. Most are worse than Juan Castro, who, in 17 years managed to compile -6.0 oWAR.
I’d have to do some research, but it seems the average NL pitcher is worse on offense (compared to the rest of the league) than the average AL DH is on defense.
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Oh! So now you’re gonna get all numbery on me. OK. Here’s a number. Zero. That’s how many shits I give about your numbers.
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Nice! That’s one more shit than I give about the so-called “managerial strategy” that the NL “purists” are always saying the DH ruins.
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They’re spelling it wrong. It’s supposed to be Majesterial Strategy
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Redneck haiku:
In WalMart toy aisle,
Wailing boy wants wrestling doll.
Mama whups his ass.
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I thought whup was the past tense of whoop. As in “Mama whoops his ass” or “Mama whupped his ass”, or even “Mama done whupped his ass”.
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Whoops = oops
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Oops = Upside Your Head
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1) You are too young to know that.
2) Everything’s a little bit better with a shot of Tulsa’s Own The Gap Band.
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As an alleged philiac of historios, you should know that there’s nothing wrong with having a knowledge of things that transpired before one’s own birth.
The idea of being too young to know something only applies to 5 year olds saying ‘Now go home and get your fucking shinebox’. Only then may you accurately tell that kid…you are too young to know that.
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Sorry. I’m too young to know that…
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I know you are, son.
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Does that mean you’re my mom? Ya know, a boy’s best friend is his mother.
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I’m not that old.
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I hate remakes.
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Hate leads to suffering.
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Because managerial strategery, or some shit like that. Also, the unmatched spectacle of the batting pitcher. 🙂
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It’s majestic, and everyone knows it. 😉
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strategery
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Fixed the image link for you. It’s a lame wordpress thing where anything after the .gif has to be removed or it links it instead of embedding.
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thank you kind sir
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Wooooooo is right! /does happy dance/
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Other redneck haiku
Has pickup and dog
Seven teeth and mullet
Jake Peavy approves.
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Yesssssssssssssssssssss. Our short national pastime nightmare is over.
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And What D. Fuck on Mo saying the DH is “gaining momentum”? He has a crappy offseason and then opens his piehole.
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Crappy offseason? What are you talking about? He not only landed Leake, he also got Gyorko. Looks like Plan A = Accomplished to me.
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Well, he didn’t keep Heyward, and after losing him lived up to his promise of “no dynamic signings.” And, I would have been happy with resigning Lackey for 2 years on same terms as the Cubs gave him.
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Yeah, the way the pitching market ended up playing out, the earliest birds definitely got the best worms in Lackey and Zimmermann.
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Well, speaking of, I now blame him for not getting more for Shelby Miller a year ago! I’d love to have a pre-arb Inciarte patrolling center field in Busch for years to come.
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Ah, yes. Revisionism a whole 1 year later. Miller was pretty much horrible for over a year, and was not progressing. When traded, he was 24 and had a whole 3 months of being a good starter to his name and he still had no average or better secondary pitch (he still doesn’t). Then he has some babip luck for 3 months and luck not giving up HRs and gets to face the Mets (pre-trade deadline), Atlanta, and Miami in over 1/2 his games to look better than he is…all while actually pitching a little better than before after admitting that he was less stubborn about being willing to change his approach after being traded…and then Atlanta makes one of the dumbest trades ever for him.
Also, I’d rather have the draft pick than Lackey for the next 2 years. Not a lot of 37 and 38 yr olds being better than average starters. He could be the exception. But I’ll take the pick.
I would love for the Cardinals to sign more big name FAs because, man, that is fun during the off season….but take a look at the history of being the highest bidder of FAs (especially older ones) and usually teams are glad they lost out on the bidding (Heyward being an exception because he’s still only 26).
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True dat. And, his 2015, as I’ve said before, was just 2013 redux with 20 more innings. Atlanta probably struck a bit of lightning, and the Snakes may regret the move.
That said, let’s also not forget Miller’s non-appearance in the 2013 postseason. If he was being held back as trade bait, wouldn’t you pitch him more in the postseason to showcase him?
Instead, I think there were some weird dynamics in the background already then. Whether it was more Mo having issues with Miller, or Matheny, I’m not sure. But, IMO, at least one of them, back in 2013, had issues with him.
On Lackey, still not sure on the pick, That said, if you are going to let him go, AND not resign Heyward, please, a bigger pitcher than Leake. And, on a top-notch one, given them the opt-out AND front-load the contract, to nudge them toward the opt-out.
Speaking of, I’m sure Mo never included the opt-out in the Heyward offer, and, not only that, I’m wondering if that was deliberate …
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Why would you inflict Season 1 of TNG upon anybody you A) loved, B) wanted to enjoy TNG? Season 2 wasn’t much better, for that matter. Just watch the Q episodes and “Measure of a Man,” then skip to the start of Season 3 and tell her the only thing she missed was “shut up, Wesley!”
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Nope, gotta give her the full TNG experience, warts and all… it will make her enjoy the later seasons that much more. Call it tough love ☺
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I’m fairly certain I still haven’t seen all of the first two seasons, and I’m in no rush to fix that.
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There’s something to be said for the achievement of seeing it all, even if not all is of the same quality. For one thing, you need to know Tasha, to understand Sela.
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Yes, and you need to see “Where No One Has Gone Before” to understand Wesley and the Traveler. Still, pick and choose.
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Because all of TNG is better than just about any other Star Trek out there….TOG is a close second, and DS9 was ok if you binge watch it.
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What am I watching? Besides Sunday’s football, I watched LeBron losing his coaching debut Saturday night, and watched a butterball-like cardinal at my bird feeder yesterday during the day.
Didn’t get a pic before he flew away, but DID get this one:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/43577246@N02/24480961111/in/album-72157657841335463/
That’s what I’m watching.
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You are staring blankly in the mirror waiting for the return of the sun’s warmth?
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We’ve been on a Pixar marathon. I’ve watched WALL-E 3 times this week. It pleases me greatly that the children like this movie as it is one of my favorites. The scene in which he puts the bra over his head is my son’s favorite part. The Incredibles twice this weekend. Up once. Galaxy Quest twice the past couple of weeks. Bull Durham for the millionth time. I really only watch 2 scripted tv shows with any regularity: Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black. I binged watched OITNB earlier this year when I was introduced to the show. Very addictive comedy-drama. I miss Pornstache.
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The Incredibles is the best Fantastic Four movie that’s ever been made.
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I concur. It also introduced us to Edna “No Capes!” Mode.
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I loved The Incredibles, but it pains me greatly that this is 100% accurate.
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That bug-eyed alien in the new Star Wars that runs the cantina is what Edna Mode would look like if she lived in space…
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Oh, and Wreck It Ralph. I’ve seen that movie about 10 times this off-season and it looks like it’s about to be 11, which I don’t mind. It’s a good movie. The ending credits are great. My kids quizzed me on how many video games I could recognize in the credits since these are way too old for them to know.
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I love Wreck It Ralph. It seems like one of those things that almost no one has seen, but.holy hell what a fun freaking movie. Jane Lynch is just too awesome.
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I need to see inside out. I can’t bring myself to download it, because everything I hear is it’s amazing.
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As you can see by my avatar, I like Inside Out just a little bit. I have a degree in psychology, and it has the best graphical explanation of a child’s subconscious and impending puberty that I have ever seen. Its explanation for an ohrwurm is hilarious. The area for dream sequences is another highlight. And the imaginary friend, well, I don’t want to spoil it. The people who created this movie really understood children, the human mind, and family dynamics. Ultimately, where it spoke to me the most calling for the end of the tyranny of the “happiness” crowd. While joy is a very important emotion, the movie seems to be saying that we are not complete beings without feeling the full range of all of our complex emotions.
lol. That’s a lot for a little Pixar movie, isn’t it? I love Pixar movies. Except for a few rare misses, Pixar consistently has created movies that have great mass appeal yet speak to us on a much deeper level.
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I’m kinda late to the game with Pixar movies. I pretty much wrote them off as “kids” movies for a long time, until I hanging out at my sister’s last year and she asked me to keep an eye on her kids while she made a quick run to the store for some missing dinner ingredients. She put in The Incredibles to make the job easier for me and by the time she got back about 30 minutes later, I made the suggestion that she wait a little while to finish dinner “so the kids could finish the movie”. I’m 100% certain she saw right through me, but she didn’t mind.
Since then, I’ve watched the Incredibles a few more times. Inside Out is definitely outstanding. The Toy Story movies are good, but not quite as good as those two. I haven’t seen any of the others yet…
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Pixar is great. It works because it doesn’t pander to kids so it works for adults, but also steers clear of your typical fart type jokes. They have clear messages that work for all age groups. There’s no shame in an adult watching these films without the presence of a child. I’ll give you a quick checklist since you’re new to them.
Toy Story 1-3
Monsters Inc 1-2
Finding Nemo
The Incredibles
Cars
Wall-E
Up (Dusty in here alert)
Inside Out
Also, not a Pixar movie, but I highly recommend Big Hero 6.
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I think I am the only person in the world who didn’t like Up. In fact, once was enough for me. I barely finished it as is. If it wasn’t for Kevin the bird I don’t think I would have finished it at all.
I also hate Finding Nemo. I hate everything about it. I actually got up and left the room because I disliked it so much.
But the Toy Story trilogy is golden, The Incredibles is awesome, and I’m a sucker for Tangled – I love the message of that movie, that true beauty is found inside one’s heart and that selfless love can work miracles. I also like Cars a lot – I know it’s probably the weakest of all Pixar features, but I like it. It’s cute. Anyone who grew up around auto racing like I did would probably like it a lot.
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Also, Wreck It Ralph, and Despicable Me.
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Any time I see one of the Despicable Me movies on, I’ll flip over to it. They are outstanding. There are parts of each movie that make me LOL every single time. The “I’m sorry. I did not see you there….or there.” scene is just awesome.
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Up (Dusty in here alert)
That’s slightly underselling it. Watched that movie with my wife when it came out in a theater full of 5 and 6 years olds and their parents. Completely balling 5 minutes into the movie.
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I took my niece to see UP! When we got home, she burst into the house yelling: Moooom, Aunt Laura cried at the movie! Thanks, kid.
I’m so, so, so excited to take her to see Kung Fu Panda 3 soon. We’ve been waiting for so long on that one. The messages on the first two were great, and they’re funny, and the second has a nice little nod to Chinese art in it as well. I hope the 3rd is equally well done. (And thanks for some decent female characters for her to want to emulate.)
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I didn’t see Kung Fu Panda until a year or so ago. I’ve probably watched each of the first two 5+ times now since they are on TV a lot. I agree. They are both great. The character of Po is just fantastic and realistically paradoxical.
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Sigh bawling
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Up had me tearing within 10 minutes of the beginning of the movie, and I was like “What the hell Pixar? The movie’s name is “Up”?! I’m down, way down. What kind of false advertising bullshit is this?” It’s a fantastic, touching movie. Have an adventure, kids.
I owned almost all the Pixar movies before kids were even an idea. Pixar didn’t fool me. These were children’s movies only at a superficial level.
WALL-E is my favorite. It starts a bit slow–there are no words spoken in the first 25 minutes or so–but your patience is rewarded. Its basically a love ode to this little blue orb we call home. WALL-E is a cross between Charlie Chaplin, E.T., and Johnny 5 garbage compressor robot who falls in love with a slick beautiful work obsessed Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, or EVE, who looks like something Jobs would have designed. Smooth, round, and white with no buttons. (This is why we shouldn’t give our robots AI. They start falling in love, and getting all distracted. We need them working.)
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I guess I need to find time to watch Up then, so I can find out if I’m actually human.
When my sister, her husband, and both the kids were talking about how much they all cried at Inside Out…I just kinda sat there blankly. I mean, I remembered all of the parts they were talking about, but none of it triggered that sort of emotion from me. My niece literally come over to look in my ear and inspect my hair because, as she put it, “You must be a robot.”
My niece is pretty awesome.
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Ha, too funny. I didn’t cry at Inside Out, but it did give me the feels. Perhaps a parent feels it more deeply, having transitioned out of childhood (hopefully, sort of) into the role of helping to develop a child. I thought the coming of age movie was bittersweet and lovely, and the level of complexity and sophistication– the abstract thought section, the train of thought, the long term memory, the memory dumps, the orbs, the islands–was great. The writers did their research. I did not feel as if I was pandered to, and that is rare.
SPOILER ALERT
Bing Bong was one big trigger for tears–I heard sniffles in the theater–but his tragic scene was necessary for her development. The child would have otherwise been left in a stunted state of development. It was a sweet but ultimately needed sacrifice. I didn’t see it as sad. If he lived, her personhood dies.
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You are right, Lefty, your niece is awesome! But the lack on your part is not a lack – just a difference. I’m sure you must get emotional about something sometime.
For me, currently the death of a character doesn’t get to me much because it’s become a writer’s tool. I remember when Henry Blake died though, and my sister and I just looked at each other and started bawling.
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We are living in a golden age of television even as the networks have never been more useless. There simply isn’t enough time to watch all the quality shows out there now.
If anyone is on the fence about watching The Wire, I would urge you to give it a shot. I’ve watched the entire episode run 1-60 and I’ll watch it again pretty soon. I’ve deliberately avoided it for the last few years to try and forget as much as possible.
Stand alone episodes of the show will not excite you. Most seasons take 2-3 episodes to lay the groundwork for the best storytelling I’ve ever seen in the medium. David Simon and his deep roster of writers constructed a world that was astonishingly real. Where the bad guys sometimes got away and the real money people are completely untouchable. They managed to breathe new life into a tired old trope like the cynical self-destructive detective. The show was mainly about the failure of the institutions that people depend upon and the inability to reform systems that won’t bear reform. Season four, with an overarching plot that tracked the lives of four junior high school kids remains the most powerful television I’ve ever seen.
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One of the best things about that entire series is that while the characters themselves change over time, the roles and archetypes those characters embody always remain. It all changes, but nothing changes.
The game is the game.
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The Wire has been on my to-do list for a while, and it’s really super embarrassing that I haven’t watched it considering I fucking live here.
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I watched the wire via Netflix back when they mailed you DVDs, I started after season 2 was out…after about 15 minutes of the very first episode, I was hooked. Anytime a The Wire DVD arrived, no matter what day of the week it was, I watched every episode and put it in the mail the next morning.
The story telling is just fantastic.
If you like The Wire and haven’t seen The Corner (also co-written by and adapted from a book written by Simon), you should check it out. Just as good as The Wire, but only 6 episodes. It was really like the Pilot for The Wire.
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The Corner is amazing, too. The Gary character is just haunting. “No little kid ever thought, ‘I’m going to be a junkie when I grow up.’ How did this happen to me?”
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Never even heard of this before. I’ll definitely put it on my little list of things to watch.
6 episodes doesn’t even feel like “binge-watching” anymore. It’s like a marathon runner doing a 5K…just a light little jog.
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The Wire is on Amazon btw.
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I sort of avoided Agents of SHIELD, but I actually like it quite a bit now that I’ve given it a shot.
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I’ve been watching it since the beginning. At first, it was out of hope that it would be good and not just a bridge between movies. Then it was just out of habit, because it kinda became just a bridge between movies for a while. But it’s (finally) started to find it’s own space to exist in, and there’s the potential for it to start getting really good.
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I haven’t started Season three yet, but Seasons 1 and 2 both followed the same pattern. Starts off really fucking slow and boring, then about halfway through gets fucking amazing. The payoff is totally worth it.
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Kind of crazy to have 22 episode seasons again. I’m used to them being half that long.
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Currently I’m into Justified on Amazon. They also have Transparent, which is great, and Bosch, an excellent rendition of the character. You can skip the Philip K. Dick adaptation, The Man In the High Castle – very
s-l-o-w.
Next up after Justified is either Orange Is The New Black starring Kathryn Janeway, or Orphan Black. Mr. Robot looks interesting, liked that guy in “The Pacific.”
About ten years after the end of “Enterprise” I resolved to see all Star Trek again. Could only handle a few eps of TOS. Somewhere along the way they added some modern glamour shots of the Enterprise in orbit which only served to point out how poor the original effects were, but what stopped me was the hundreds of hours I spent watching repeats as a kid – by the second episode I was delivering lines with the actors as if I was at a midnight Rocky Horror Show (another youthful indiscretion).
I moved on to TNG and enjoyed it but couldn’t last to the end. I ended up skipping eps and going for the ones I liked best.
Next up was DS9 and the difficulty was I liked the “mythology” episodes of the continuing story but too many stand alone eps got in the way, and I bailed before the third season. Sorry, Capt. Sisko! You were the only future baseball fan in the Star Trek universe!
Now, Voyager, which had the most stunning title sequence of any ST series. I had watched the original, but dropped out for at least a year and was an intermittent viewer at best so I went through the whole thing start to finish. Right from the start Kate Mugrew was the strongest command personality since Kirk – and had some great lines! (“It’s not crunch time yet, Mr. Kim”) Everyone was new and it was doubtful they would try to stunt cast with a TOS or TNG player, but when Q showed up, his interplay with Janeway took on a decidedly sexual tone. Had a great time, took like six months or so, and finished it (cried at the end). By that time, I was not ready to continue.
After a year off, I watched Enterprise, and my memory of Jonathan Archer stumbling around the galaxy turned out to be a little off. Yes mistakes were made, but I enjoyed a lot of early eps and found the Xindi season much better than I remembered. I actually came to like Commander Trip Tucker, whom I had not cared for much before.
But all that kind of cured me of the immersion form of television. I’ve got a lot of Justified to do because I can’t do a first view on fast forward. I need a couple days off between episodes so I can absorb it. Go too quickly and it’s a mish-mash. I can handle multiple episodes in a single sitting only if I’m familiar with the overall story.
Perhaps in a couple years it will be time to burn through “Lost”. A little over 100 episodes, I can do that standing on my head.
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OTNB is great if you take it for what it is and not try to read too much into it or expect hyper realism.
Enterprise started out really good. Then went too far off the deep end especially with all that time travel bullshit. The initial concept of exploring the galaxy and being the first to do so, developing a lot of the policies we grew to love like the prime directive was a great concept. Shame they completely abandoned it. They jumped the shark with the Nazi aliens bit.
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I’d go with Orphan Black. Starts off a bit slow, but gets real good real quick. Maslany should win pretty much every acting award there is. It’s hard enough to play one character convincingly, but she does 5 or 6.
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I couldn’t finish DS9. Think I quit around season 2 or 3. There was just something off about it for me. Seemed rather repetitive. We find a shortcut home, but to take it we have to do something unsavory. Ugh. We get it, you are good people. And you have a Borg chick with giant boobs. And a annoying as fuck chef. And you are low on resources. And you have a very annoying doctor. I think that was the end of it for me. Just too many annoying personalities.
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Um, you just described Voyager, not DS9. 😉
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Whoops, you are correct. Brain was thinking one thing, fingers were typing another.
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I’d like to thank you all for affirming that I do not belong at the nerd table.
Yes!
/pumps arm
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Suit yourself. We’ve got the best Hot Pockets here.
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Hot Pockets?
/shudders
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So you say Philiac. You are an honorary nerd. Because. Just Because.
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I’ll have to check out Orphan Black on Amazon. One of my best friend loves it and she’s always trying to get me to watch it.
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I haven’t watched live TV in a while now. Unless it’s sports, I just don’t bother. I used to DVR, but not I don’t even bother doing that. I just wait for a season to end then Binge watch it off Netflix, Amazon, or strait up pirated download. For some reason I feel less guilty dling a tv show than I do music or a movie
Just finished not that long ago with Gracie and Frankie (Hilarious Netflix Original that didn’t get much press) and Jessica Jones. (The BEST comic/superhero movie show to date.)
I’m about to watch the last season of Parks and Rec. Also maybe gonna get into Blue Bloods, Nurse Jackie, Sense 8, Breaking Bad, Crossing Lines, Dr. Who, Attack On Titan, Black Mirror, and The Wire are all on my next up list. I’m also currently waiting for the current seasons of Elementary, Person of Interest, and The Flash to end. Sadly I’ve given up on more and more currently running shows. Love the Flash. Hate Arrow. Arrow is just too fucking dark and broody. Flash is more upbeat and fun.
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Just finished the anime season 1 of it last year and dang, Attack on Titan is freaking AWESOME!! Currently reading the manga while waiting for the 2nd season to come. Truly recommend the anime series.
Awesome AMV!
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My anime viewing began and ended with FLCL (Fooly Cooly). I just couldn’t see it getting any better than that.
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For me it began with Full Metal Alchemist. Haven’t seen anything else that even comes close in comparison.
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Liked Neon Genesis Evangelion but went wild watching Ghost In The Shell – lots of layers in the Shell.
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Trust me on this one when I tell you to abandon all hope of Doctor Who after midway through the Eleventh Doctor’s run.
It becomes the Clara Oswald show and it is a snoozefest.
I wasn’t a big fan of Matt Smith in the first place and then this just because horrible. The Doctor lost everything that made him interesting – all of the character triumphs that you get from Nine and Ten (long live David Tennant, my forever Doctor) are gone and you’re left with a shell of a guy who is boring and cold and just…horrible?
Twelve is even worse. And Clara follows there, too. Gone are days of interesting and kick ass human companions like Martha and Rose and Amy and Rory. Clara is just… ugh. Man, words can’t tell you how much I have grown to dislike these last few series of Doctor Who. Which really sucks because I loved Nine and Ten so freaking much.
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Well if it makes you feel any better, Moffat is leaving as showrunner.
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I think I watched season 1. Although it was a long time and it was all sorts of out of order on Netflix, so who knows. 12 seasons seems like a lot to dive into though.
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Embarrassed to say, catching up on Showtime’s Episodes (even more embarrassing, I downloaded Matt LeBlanc’s ringtone as my generic ringtone…). I laugh out loud way too much at that show, scotch glass filled or not. Also binge watched the entire Gotham catalog. Any moving media with Morena Baccarin has always been watch-worthy (Firefly, Homeland for example), and Donal Logue is crustily wonderful (check out Terriers on Netflix — a hidden gem). But Robin Lord Taylor as Oswald Cobblepot (aka Penguin) and his simpering, obsequious, scheming performance are over the top delicious — my favorite TV character of the year (last year, actually — thus far Kevin Millar is my favorite of 2016, and that’s just sad…).
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Plowing through Man in the High Castle atm. It was tough going until the scene in which the Nazi tries to play catch with his (weak, doomed) son. That’s when the series really started creeping me out.
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Yeah, that series was a slog until the episode where they have that dinner at the obergrubenfurher’s(sp?) house. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, the best parts of the entire series happened during meals at his house. That bizzarro Ozzie & Harriet breakfast scene towards the beginning of the series was a good one.
Beyond that though…so much potential, so little payoff.
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So little payoff is right.
It just kept building and building and building and then… nothing. I can’t even call it a cliffhanger.
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Rectify is almost unbelievably slow paced, which pairs nicely with the laconic and inscrutable performance of the lead actor, Aden Young. He portrays a man named Daniel Holden who was released from solitary confinement after serving 20 years for the rape and murder of a young woman. DNA evidence frees him, which parallels the storyline of the recent Making a Murderer miniseries to a degree. Somehow, the low key approach works for this show.
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