What was the last film you watched?

[pcolbeck]

Point of Order (whilst noting that I basically agree with the Hon Mem's speech):
I don't think anyone in the UK remembers MacGyver. I know him/it through bazillions of references in other US popular culture that *did* reach these shores.

I do.

[ian]

Don't even mention MacGyver in the same paragraph as That Book, that's hydrazone fuelled blasphemy of the nth order.

But no one claimed that everything MacGyver did was an actual thing, but you could believe it, and no one lectured you extensively on its scientific veracity. And MacGyver could knock up a contraption within five minutes of be locked up in a garage, he didn't take thirty pages of lumbering prose to get around to some contrived solution. Give him a potato, a drainpipe, and a fire extinguisher and you'd have one stunned villain within 30 seconds. Admittedly he's shows he's a Canadian by his unwillingness to use a gun. His highlighted mullet was a splendour for which we are not truly worthy. That was the Jesus haircut.

I also hated that my brief sortie into the early chapters of That Book made science look awesomely dull and that every scientist appears to have no inner life and thinks in dull American cliché. Oh boy, that sure was dull!

[LEE]

And when's the last time you transcribed hundreds of bytes by hand without cocking it up?  While wearing a spacesuit?  It's hard enough in a computer lab.

Never. I've absolutely NEVER managed it. I used to spend hours upon hours typing in code from Commodore 64 magazines back in the 80s, and I don't think I got a single one of those programs to work. EVER. And yet I would never learn my lesson, putting myself through the whole Sisyphean rigmarole again when the next month's issue came out...

Now try the same thing but with a rubbery, and hopelessly vague, Speccy keyboard*

*That I seem to remember required more hands than I was equipped with in order to select some of the less well used commands.

Actually the ZX "Stylophone" keyboard was even worse.  Better to use a Ouija board.

[fuzzy]

It's MacGyver for the generation who don't remember mullets.  MacGyver was awesome.  Yes, he frequently got the chemistry (deliberately) wrong, and credibility was stretched several times per episode.  But the other half was plausible, and he was an all-American scientifically competent hero who brought a swiss army knife to a gunfight, and won.  Repeatedly.

Point of Order (whilst noting that I basically agree with the Hon Mem's speech):
I don't think anyone in the UK remembers MacGyver. I know him/it through bazillions of references in other US popular culture that *did* reach these shores.

Of course we were lucky enough to get the A-Team and Knight Rider 

No one in the UK remembers MacGyver? I do and so does my wife.

[mattc]

It's MacGyver for the generation who don't remember mullets.  MacGyver was awesome.  Yes, he frequently got the chemistry (deliberately) wrong, and credibility was stretched several times per episode.  But the other half was plausible, and he was an all-American scientifically competent hero who brought a swiss army knife to a gunfight, and won.  Repeatedly.

Point of Order (whilst noting that I basically agree with the Hon Mem's speech):
I don't think anyone in the UK remembers MacGyver. I know him/it through bazillions of references in other US popular culture that *did* reach these shores.

Of course we were lucky enough to get the A-Team and Knight Rider 

No one in the UK remembers MacGyver? I do and so does my wife.

I am now mystified. What channel/time was it on?

(google says it was made 85-1992ish - but I cant find  a _specific_ reference to UK broadcast. I have honestly never spoken to anyone about watching it in the UK. Stuff from the same period often crops up e.g. standups talk about the A-team. )

Clearly I'm mistaken, but I'd like to know how badly!

[fuzzy]

Got to admit that I can't remember the channel but it was an early evening thing.

I must also admit that it could have coincided with my posting to Gibraltar......

I will check with the font of all knowledge tonight.

[spesh]

MacGyver was shown on ITV in 1993-94, but only as a handful of episodes from Series 1, 3, 4 and 5. The BBC broadcast some episodes in the 90s as well.

http://www.culttv.plus.com/macgyver.html

The odd episode is currently being broadcast on CBS Action (Freeview channel 137 and Sky channel 148)

http://www.cbsaction.tv/uk/shows.php?title=Macgyver


EDIT - Found by using 'macgvyer uk tv broadcasts' as search term.

[red marley]

And when's the last time you transcribed hundreds of bytes by hand without cocking it up?  While wearing a spacesuit?  It's hard enough in a computer lab.

Never. I've absolutely NEVER managed it. I used to spend hours upon hours typing in code from Commodore 64 magazines back in the 80s, and I don't think I got a single one of those programs to work. EVER. And yet I would never learn my lesson, putting myself through the whole Sisyphean rigmarole again when the next month's issue came out...

Now try the same thing but with a rubbery, and hopelessly vague, Speccy keyboard*

*That I seem to remember required more hands than I was equipped with in order to select some of the less well used commands.

Actually the ZX "Stylophone" keyboard was even worse.  Better to use a Ouija board.

Well, if we're going to get all Four Yorkshiremen about it...

Rubber keyboard? You were lucky to have a keyboard. We'd crowd round our shared 1k ZX81 thumping the plastic membrane until we had bloody stumps for fingers. Bytes? Bytes? Height of luxury. You were lucky to have numbers at all. We had to transcribe Z80 assembler instructions as a 40 line REM statement of random ASCII characters from the pages of Your Computer. If you were lucky, you'd run the program, the computer would get hot for a bit, the screen flash white and then switch itself off. But we were happy in those days, although our computers were poor. Because they were poor.

[Hot Flatus]

Should have got a BBC Micro.  I was playing an identikit version of Williams Defender on it in...oooh........1983?

But yes.  I remember the magazine experience all too well.  And all in the hope of playing some crappy game.  Then came the cassette games where loading a game up might take 10 minutes of playing something that sounded like an extended Soviet burst transmission to its subs waiting under the arctic ice.

[ian]

My mother, nursing some stillborn dream of being a secretary, used to love typing those games. It took her days to enter them, mostly because she couldn't actually type more than two words a minute. Then I'd play them for about five minutes before thinking this is a bit shit and going out to ride my BMX into a wall/car/hole. She never played them.

Though there was a point when she became completely addicted to Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy.

I remember being angry that MacGyver wasn't shown properly in the UK (as a grown-up, I know have the entire box set, though I suspect that's my wife indulging her thing for Richard Dean Anderson, but I think it's OK for us both to love MacGyver).

[mattc]

EDIT - Found by using 'macgvyer uk tv broadcasts' as search term.

Somewhat (even further) OT:

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Just so I'm clear:

Should I read that as:
"Are you a fucking idiot? Just google it."
?

[woollypigs]

I'm going to see the Martian tomorrow and I know I'm going to enjoy it. From what I have read, and the book,  it will for sure, just sit back in a seat - old and bit worn - with plenty of leg room and rather comfy. Switch the brain off and just let the movie entertain me. The wee local cinema is a bit run down, could use a bit of TLC, but the screen is nice and clear, good size for the distance you sit away and the sound is brilliant. All for £6.

Looking forward to see the next 007 in there too.

[Ruthie]

Point of Order (whilst noting that I basically agree with the Hon Mem's speech):
I don't think anyone in the UK remembers MacGyver. I know him/it through bazillions of references in other US popular culture that *did* reach these shores.

I do.

I still watch McGyver and he's still awesome.  I'm sure I've posted about it recently???

[CrinklyLion]

But hey, it's mainstream fiction with real science (rather than fantasy science^[2] or technobabble) driving the plot.  Where engineering competence - and, indeed, failure - is celebrated, rather than feared.

More importantly, it's a book I actually finished!  And that Kim then read.  Like decoding actual ink smudges on paper.  With made up stuff in it.

That's quite unusual, I reckon.

[Kim]

More importantly, it's a book I actually finished!  And that Kim then read.  Like decoding actual ink smudges on paper.  With made up stuff in it.

That's quite unusual, I reckon.

I've managed several of Pterry's and made a reasonable dent in the endless stream of 1632 short stories since then.  As well as the *other* book with the potatoes, a half-remembered kids' book that I was able to track down thanks to the internet and a couple of lesser novels that I gave up on partway through on account of being pants.  I think I'm maybe starting to get the hang of reading fiction again.

[mattc]

I do.

I still watch McGyver and he's still awesome.  I'm sure I've posted about it recently???

Will this ever stop?

 

[Torslanda]

The last film we watched was Yellow Submarine.

We now have 9 year  old desperate to discover MOAR BEATLES MUSIC.

<Tommy Lee Jones> "Guess that means I'll have to buy the White Album again" </Tommy Lee Jones>

I think we've done OK as parents...

[hillbilly]

Automata

A European dysptopian sci-fi that puts several "inspirations" into the pot (I, Robot being the most obvious) which stars Antonio Banderas and a couple of other familiar faces (and an unrecognisable Melanie Griffiths).  It is quite well filmed, but the plot feels rather perfunctory and stutters along.  It doesn't help that Banderas is not really that interesting an actor anymore.

[woollypigs]

Just back from watching the Martian. I really enjoyed it and got as much enjoyment out of it as when I watched 2001. Yes you could probably pick holes in it, but that is not what movies for me are for. They are for totally escapism, switch off and let the story take you on a journey. And the Martian did that for me big time, so thumbs up

[David Martin]

Seventh Son. A sad indictment of what happens when the americans are let loose on decent stories. Joseph Delaney visited my kids primary school for a writing class. He must be either rolling his eyes in horror or hoping they paid him a load.

It is dire.

[Nuncio]

Saw The Martian last night. I thought it might have something more about it than the book, but it didn't. Matt Damon was OK. He wasn't Bourne yesterday.

[hillbilly]

http://youtu.be/gnPWJOJYVKc

[sprogs]

I rarely watch films as I get too restless or need a wee or a pizza or a pint or get slightly distracted...
Oh, right, yes, the last film I watched all the way through was "To Wong foo, Thanks for everything, July Newmarr"
Wesley snipes, Patrick Swayze and john Letsaveyerlegamo, or something.
I just thought it was charming. Gentle fun and obviously the cast enjoying their roles.
I might just watch it again!

[red marley]

Just back from watching The Martian.

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Sean Bean doesn't die.

[Chris S]

The Martian.

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Preferred the book. Especially the Audiobook, as narrated by R C Bray. He should have been in the film - not as Mark Watney, but someone in Mission Control, maybe.