What was the last TV Show or Movie you saw, and did you like it?

[feudist]

Seasons 1-7 rewatch.

The premise: Since the dawn of time, the world of humans has been stalked by the forces of evil, chiefly vampires and other demonic forces. The Slayer was created in the form of one teenaged girl and given the strength, toughness and skill to fight them. Whenever she is killed-and she is always killed, always- the power immediately passes to another girl. Few make it 18. Who inherits the mantle and where is neither determined nor known by man.
An age old organization, the Watchers, tries to locate potential Slayers worldwide and train them, with limited success.
Buffy Summers is the latest Slayer at age 16. She arrives in Sunnydale, California after being expelled from her old school for burning down the gym. Her parents have divorced and she lives with her mother. This was portrayed in the 1992 movie, which can be seen as a first draft version of the series concept. Buffy is officially and emphatically retired, having both been there and done that.
But Sunnydale, oddly, has a shockingly high unsolved murder and disappearance rate that, oddly, nobody talks about.

Seasons 1-5 are pretty phenomenal. Very few TV shows can have soul-shaking horror, LOL scenes of multi-layered humor that can reach back episodes or even seasons, shocking violence and scenes of transcendent courage...in one episode. Multiple times. Ever laughed with tears in your eyes, your hair standing on end shouting YES! and thinking OMG no?
There are a couple of dozen episodes like that in BTVS.

The 2 part Pilot establishes the characters and setting efficiently and sets up the lore. The rest of the short half season has mostly standalone "Monster of the Week" episodes and is a little uneven, campy and very funny...until suddenly it becomes Dark. Black. Serious.

The Angelus arc in the incredible season 2 became simply operatic in intensity. "When She Was Bad" is one of the better depictions of psychological combat trauma and "Passion" is a portrayal of sickening evil for its own sake, and the delight it brings. Buffy learning the true cost of being The Slayer is sobering and heart wrenching. Writing, acting and character development reach a pitch rarely achieved

Season 3, featuring the fall and corruption of Faith the Slayer by the Mayor(one of the most interesting villains ever) and their twistedly heartwarming father-daughter surrogate relationship is not to be missed. "Helpless" the episode where the Watcher's Council tests Buffy is brilliant. "The Wish" where an angry young woman is granted her wish of Buffy never coming to Sunnydale offers a grim look at the life of a Slayer without friends or family. Just a desperate soldier in an unending nightly war where the only release is death in battle.

Season 4 isn't as strong, but features the addition of Spike and Anya as permanent characters, has the epic dialogue free "Hush", and the reveal of the Initiative, the government anti-demon supersoldier program, pays off spectacularly. Plus, Buffy gets laid a lot.

Season 5 builds slowly as the new Big Bad turns up way too big and a confusing, desperate situation goes from bad to worse to Gotterdammerung. Buffy matures, ages and hardens as she embraces being The Slayer. There's a scene that hearkens back to season 1, where Buffy manages to kill 3 vampires in one night after prolonged fights. In this one, she kills 8 in about 5 merciless seconds. It was kind of...appalling.
Then there is "The Gift."

Season 6 is the weakest overall season with only a few standout episodes, particularly "Conversations With Dead People" and the hilarious, unsettling musical "Once More With Feeling" that has the most horrifying reveal...well, ever.

Season 7 is uneven at first, then finds its footing (after Buffy gets the brakes beat off her ass) and proceeds to a really clever culmination of the series about "The Chosen One. One girl in all the world."

[NEPAKevin]

I've seen it dozens of times on DVD, but I was surprised how well it holds up on the big screen.

I first saw it in a ratty old movie theatre in Cambridge square where you could pay a couple bucks and watch the double/triple features as long as you wanted or until they kicked everyone out to play porn movies at midnight. IIRC the other movie was the animated version of the Lord of the Rings. Almost four decades later and I still feel that Basil Poledouris's sound track is one of the most moving I have experienced.

[GearFondler]

I first saw it in a ratty old movie theatre in Cambridge square where you could pay a couple bucks and watch the double/triple features as long as you wanted or until they kicked everyone out to play porn movies at midnight. IIRC the other movie was the animated version of the Lord of the Rings. Almost four decades later and I still feel that Basil Poledouris's sound track is one of the most moving I have experienced.

Don't think I'd want to sit in a theater that played midnight skin flicks.

[DC_P]

Don't think I'd want to sit in a theater that played midnight skin flicks.

I had the same thought. Also wondered if 'Poledouris' was really one of the porn actor's names.

[TGS]

This was a pretty bad movie, I wouldn't advise watching it unless you're on another long haul flight and you've watched everything else on the IFE....

But, with that said, props to the one notable feature that got me giddy. They very purposefully featured a Kimber 1911 SIS when arming the LAPD SIS team:



I pulled the photo from the IMFDB page, where they have some other shots. They also used the Kimber TLE/RLII for LAPD D-Platoon.

@TC215 @Elwin @rcbusmc24

[Elwin]

But, with that said, props to the one notable feature that got me giddy. They very purposefully featured a Kimber 1911 SIS when arming the LAPD SIS team:

I remember when those came out, because I was a teenager who read too much Guns and Ammo. I thought they were the coolest damn thing, too.

[Bucky]

This was a pretty bad movie, I wouldn't advise watching it unless you're on another long haul flight and you've watched everything else on the IFE....

But, with that said, props to the one notable feature that got me giddy. They very purposefully featured a Kimber 1911 SIS when arming the LAPD SIS team:

I had an SIS gun. The most useless cocking serrations ever used on a pistol.

[Bigghoss]

The other day just before Christmas, a buddy and I watched Ernest Saves Christmas and Gremlins.

Ernest Saves Christmas actually holds up nicely and even as an adult I found it funny. Probably not as funny as when I was 5 but I don't enjoy anything as much as when I was 5.

Gremlins, another Christmas classic. Also still a good movie that was fun to watch.

Just last night I decided to watch the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. I know I saw at least the first one as a kid but I can't remember any of it so it was all new to me. Not being a comic book fan I'm not familiar with the source material but the fact that the movie is based on a comic is the only explanation for how Casey Jones was crammed in there. Other than Casey feeling forced there's not much to grip about for a movie that was made in the 80s. Part I also had the hottest April of the original trilogy.

Part II was fine. But I do wonder why the ooze would cause Shredder's armor to mutate with him...

Part III: Why do the turtles look so much worse than the first two? Oh, we're time traveling now? OK, sure. I guess that's a good way to make a 3rd movie without having to bring back Shredder again. Oh, and Casey's here for some reason. Might as well I guess. I realize that an army with muzzle loaders is going to put the hurt on an army with swords and spears for the most part, so I can see why people that fight hand-to-hand would be worried about going up against them, but it feels like they were going for a guns-are-bad vibe. Maybe I'm just too old and cranky and can't help but read into things even though I know damn well better.

[Chance]

Limitless with Chris Hemsworth (Disney+) - Hemsworth undertakes an assortment of challenges to serve as talking points to various health and longevity hacks. Some of the challenges are brute force (e.g., swimming in near freezing water) and some are more cerebral (e.g., wearing an "old suit" in a simulated retirement community).

There's six episodes total, and some are better than others, but they all ended up being fairly engaging. Chris seems to be an entirely decent human being and is about as vulnerable as a 6'3" slab of muscle can be. The medical experts were usually pretty interesting too: Peter Attia appears in several episodes and BJ Miller is featured prominently in the last episode. I was especially impressed with Miller and will be paying close attention to him in the future (Miller's episode of Peter Attia's podcast is really worth a listen).

A good watch to prep for your health-related New Year's Resolutions.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Starting to watch the Righteous Gemstones on HBO. That is one bizarre show. It does have Walter Goggins, one of my favorite actors since the Shield and Justified.