Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:20 am

Because admitting that sometimes life is so shit that sometimes suicide is actually the appropriate response is too radical for touchy feely still tainted by christianity America.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:23 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Is it just me, or are a lot of medical dramas very blatantly anti-euthanasia?

In all of Green Wing I saw, it didn't come up, but that's really more of a medical comedy than a medical drama. House was as pro-euthanasia as you can really expect it to get: House was okay with it in theory, but he wouldn't do so for things that could be treated, and he wanted to find the nature of the problem first, patient's suffering/dignity be damned! Chase was okay with it in an almost casual way. Cameron seemed to be opposed to it, but arguably was opposed to the blase approach the others were taking and wished to give a lecture on dignity and such.

The episode in question ended with them confirming that the condition was inoperable and that the patient - a well-regarded doctor who was practically an expert in the field himself, and thus could be said to have informed consent - was indeed going to die a slow, painful death if they didn't do it. So they "accidentally" administered too much morphine, and everyone understood what happened and life went on (not for him).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 11:26 am

Hell, that episode had House negotiating with the guy "If you give me a chance to figure it out, then I'll do what you want me too."

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:36 pm

I remember a House episode with House explaining to the Coma Guy (who they'd woken up) exactly how to commit suicide but leave the heart intact, so the guy's heart could be given to his son, who needed a transplant.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 1:36 pm

Darth Rabbitt wrote:That Michael Bay fucks over pretty much anything he touches is a terrible movie maker doesn't mean that Pain & Gain was necessarily a bad movie.

I have no fucking clue, as I haven't seen it.

But exception to the rule, even a broken clock is right twice a day, yada yada yada.

I can forgive Michael Bay for a lot because he directed Bad Boys and Bad Boys 2, which are two of the best action movies of the 90s (even though Bad Boys 2 came out in 2003 it was still a 90s movie).

Of course, most of the best stuff in Bad Boys comes from him just letting Smith and Lawrence improvise dialog however they wanted.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 5:27 pm

Bad Boy one is really awesome. I'm less fond of BB2. But that movie is all about Will Smith and Martin Lawrence being hillarious.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 5:59 pm

I've been getting irritated with Castle lately. Was catching up on missed episodes on hulu and a few episodes ago they did one of those stupid episodes where 95% of the content is 15 second flashbacks to previous episodes.

Hate that shit, walked out and let my wife watch the rest of that episode.

I wound up not being able to watch the entire following episode either since I was still soured on them.

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 7:38 pm

Castle was always terrible.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sun Jun 30, 2013 10:53 pm

Whipstitch wrote:Castle was always terrible.

That's totally fair. I hate the cop-investigative formula. It's so damned lazy and repetitive. And when they go off the rails into something outside of their normal formula I get even more annoyed since the plots are completely absurd.

I enjoy Nathan Fillion being amusing, but he can only carry that show so much.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:11 pm

The Oatmeal accurately sums up the World War Z movie.

Seriously, that movie sucked.

shau · Post by **shau** » Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:48 pm

Shrapnel wrote:The Oatmeal accurately sums up the World War Z movie.

Seriously, that movie sucked.

I rather liked it, although the only thing it takes from the book is the title.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:21 pm

It would be okay if they admitted that it was an entirely different story, and called it something else, like There's a Bunch of Zombies and Brad Pitt has Long Hair.

It wasn't even based on World War Z. It would be a stretch to even say it was inspired by it.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Jul 04, 2013 8:39 pm

My favorite part in that movie is when

the doctor trips and shoots himself.

Seriously, I couldn't take the movie seriously after that.

shau · Post by **shau** » Thu Jul 04, 2013 9:16 pm

I went in with the understanding that it would be nothing like the book and that the author was pissed, so that might have helped. The only thing that bothered me on that front was the fact there was a at lest a couple times it contradicted seemingly out of spite. Like making cloudy eyes part of zombism instead of something that happens because zombies can't blink like in the book, or calling zombies Zeke instead of Zach.

Re Darth Rabbit's spoiler

I could not even figure out what happened at first. He's just instantly dead. Did he manage to accidentally headshot himself?

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 12:41 am

In all fairness, the plot of the book was pretty stupid.

There's a reason why zombie apocalypse stories are always small intimate affairs that focus on how it affects a small group of survivors and ignores the big picture of how it happened in the first place. Because it happening in the first place is so improbable that it murders willing suspension of disbelief.

There's no way in heck you can put something like the battle of Yonkers on screen without turning the movie into a comedy because the whole thing is farcical, both in terms of the incompetence of the military and the coordination of the zombies.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 2:33 am

A lot of World War Z (the book) is pretty nonsensical. Any time it describes any kind of major battle, it ends up being a total what-the-fuck moment. I remember my suspension of disbelief being tested lots of times, and having to cringe at lots of other things (yeah, of course the Japanese dude just happens to find a katana, why the hell not, this novel is SUPER SRS).

I remember enjoying it, but I don't actually remember why.

erik · Post by **erik** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 11:58 am

The books are entertaining if you can ignore that the only thing more implausible than the zombie existence, is the zombie threat.

The notion that humanity would be troubled, let alone curb-stomped by slow-moving, unarmed, unintelligent humans is absurd no matter how durable they are (and not very in this context). It's damned hard to gel the arguments that humanity is nearly exterminated by zombies and that you can defend your homestead by nailing boards over your stairs to create a zombie-proof 45 degree angle.

To make a zombiepocalypse to be more believable on the threatening scale, they should become more than human. Morph into scary monsters, become intangible life-sucking shadows, spread by airborne vectors, something. Looks like WWZ movie tried to give them some sort of hive cooperation mentality in addition to fast movement and coordination. Meh.

Now, if you were to do a faithful WWZ movie, it would have to be a fauxumentary. It could be interesting I suppose. I think a lot of the absurdity can be masked if you avoid actually showing the zombies, which the book did somewhat. I think we're oddly more credulous of first person accounts than of direct descriptions and illustrations.

Cynic · Post by **Cynic** » Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:03 pm

I haven't seen WWZ but a faux documentary with flashbacks to some zombie attacks might not be bad.

Really, WWZ as a true adaptation seems boring. An entertaining interpretation would probably be someone in a credible position (journalist or super-spy/UN observer) who travels around and witnesses several of the attacks happen that are based off of some of the entries in the book.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:59 am

All said, the movie is still trash. Fuck you, hippie Brad Pitt.

Edit: Regarding the book: I have a very strong sense of supsension of disbelief, fueled and trained by years of watching things like 60's Doctor Who and Sunbow cartoons, especially the D&D one, so it doesn't bother me as much (like that anti-social Japenese kid who pairs up with a blind old religious dude and manage to wipe out the all the zombies in Japan by themselves).

Also, the book isn't so much a zombie apocolyspe story as it is social commentary on the way the world is, and how different parts of the world react to large disasters.

erik · Post by **erik** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:32 am

Shrapnel wrote:(like that anti-social Japenese kid who pairs up with a blind old religious dude and manage to wipe out the all the zombies in Japan by themselves)

I don't think they ever actually meet in the book. But yeah.

The movie may be trash but the graphics are pretty good. I wonder if they'll make a MMO out of it. People running around with hordes of zombies all over the place.

It'd be funny if someone made a hopeless MMO where you pretty much ran around and got curbstomped by zombies 24-7, respawning as new people who in turn get overrun and zombified.

[edit:Shrapnel's right. It sure seems like Kondo, the kid in the first story is the Kondo of the following story with the old man. Bizarrely, I never made the connection despite the stories being back-to-back and both interviewed in the Kyoto, Japan. I just assumed for some reason they were different people.]

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 2:58 am

erik wrote:It'd be funny if someone made a hopeless MMO where you pretty much ran around and got curbstomped by zombies 24-7, respawning as new people who in turn get overrun and zombified.

DayZ?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 4:03 am

The actual large-scale military battles in World War Z are really dumb (and kind of hilarious when you realize that Brooks actually thinks he used "100% real" military tactics) but the smaller scale stories are pretty good if occasionally kind of silly.

The great thing about World War Z is the presentation; the interview format is genuinely interesting, and if you don't think a lot about how the zombies are supposed to be a threat in any way then you can get some good stories out of the survival / adventure / conspiracy (and maybe even some horror) interviews.

That's what I enjoyed, at least, about the book.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 5:53 am

Brooks thought he was using real military tactics? Fuck, the anti-zombie military tactics in Warm Bodies were more realistic. And half the zombies in that movie are cured by the power of love.

-Username17

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 12:51 pm

I liked Warm Bodies. It was a parody of the zombie apocalypse genre that wasn't just all jokes and absurd humor.

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Sat Jul 06, 2013 3:40 pm

erik wrote:
Shrapnel wrote:(like that anti-social Japenese kid who pairs up with a blind old religious dude and manage to wipe out the all the zombies in Japan by themselves)
I don't think they ever actually meet in the book. But yeah.

They did, in the bad ass old Japenese dude's story. The kid became his apprentice in slaughtering hordes of zombies. It's actually my favorite story in the book.