12 posts tagged “movie”
This is what happens.
I'm going to get the mail and I hear or think I hear "Magnet & Steel" coming out of a passing car.
And then the song is stuck in my head.
And then I remember that the song is prominently featured in the movie Boogie Nights.
So I pop in the disc and watch the movie. Cuz, hey, what else am I going to do today?
So I finish the movie and I remember that the directors audio commentary is maybe the best audio commentaries every recorded.
So I watch / listen to that.
Then I say, hey, I'm still not doing anything and have some time to kill so I'm just gonna go ahead and watch the other commentary track featuring many of the actors in which Marky Mark is drunk and discusses having broken his penis (not the prosthetic in the film but the real thing.)
So I watched/listened to that.
And that is how I ended up watching a very long movie three times today because I may or may not have heard a song coming out of someones car.
(On top of that I watched One Flew Over The Cucukoo's Nest. Which damaged me for life when I read the book and saw the movie as a early teenager.)
1) Because one of the first things he talks about in his Boogie Nights commentary is how much he learned from listening to audio commentaries on LaserDiscs.
2) He's really insightful as to the craft of movie making
3) I would love to hear him discuss the making of Punch Drunk Love, what the writing process was and the score of the film and how brilliant Adam Sandler is in it.
4) I'd also love to hear him discuss, at length, There Will Be Blood.
I woke up to awesome news in my email inbox this morning: Veronica Mars will be born again!? Maybe. Kinda.
http://www.tvguide.com/News/Veronica-Mars-Movie-1001755.aspx
From TVGuide.com
Itchy journalists watching Rob Thomas present his Cupid remake had to ask: Is there going to be a Veronica Mars movie?
Yes! Thomas reported that he and Mars star Kristen Bell are both in: "For me, that's the next project [after Cupid]. But my writing it is really just half the battle," he said. "Somebody has to pay for it." Thomas indicated that producer Joel Silver is ready to green-light the film. Coupled with Thomas' obvious enthusiasm for the project, perhaps we won't have to wait too long to see a big-screen continuation of the story of the teen detective.
In all honesty I would have been happy with her returning in comic book form, like Buffy season 8. In fact, I think I'd be happier with her returning in a comic book. The serialized, pulp nature of Veronica is so much more conducive to little boxes and speech bubbles than the big screen.
I will be expecting a Veronica Mars Comic-Con panel in 2010, Rob Thomas. Don't hose this up!
It took almost too me as long to come up with the stupid title for this post than it did for me to write the whole post....
In writing this I learned that I don't know how to write about books. I can write about movies with little to no problem...but books...eh.
Anyway...
Before this week I've only viewed the world of James Bond through the
cinema. I've seen all the movies, and I'm going to be honest here,
don't really care for any of them.* They are a fun confection but once
they are gone they are gone. I don't remember most of the villains or
the girls or the ridiculous plots or gadgets or any of that junk.
It goes right out the window.
This week I listened to the most recent in a long line of novels about James Bond, Devil May Care.
It
seems that while there have been a couple dozen other Bond books since
his death, this is the first new Bond novel to carry the Ian Flemming
name and was announed on what would have been Flemmings 100th birthday.
When Devil May Care came out in May I heard a brief review and interview with the author on NPR and it caught my interest so I added it to my reading list.
I had no idea what to expect and was delighted with what I got.
The book begins with an older, beaten down Bond. He is on a forced
sabbatical after (I'm guessing) having been married in the last book
and having his wife killed and somehow being brainwashed by an
enemy(?). It was unclear, to me at least. Either way, he was in no good
place. There is a passage that describes him looking in a mirror,
detailing all the scars from all the battles past. That passage let me
know that this was a Bond based at least in some form of reality, an
alternate one certainly but maybe one just down the street and to the
left. Unlike the movies which to me feel like they take place in a
galaxy far, far away where nobody ever really gets hurt and Bond's hair
is never mussed and his shirt is always pressed.
Going in I was surprised to learn a couple of things.
Literarily, Bond is is still in the 1960's. I like that quite a bit.
One
of the things that makes me dislike the movies so much is that they,
until recently were still using ridiclous Cold-War style plots and
villains in the modern day. (Wasn't the plot in one of the recent
movies that the villian was going to shoot a big laser from space and
hold the world hostage? I'm sorry, but that just doesn't work for me.
If it were 1966 and we were all still afraid of the Russians and the
arms race and all that, maybe, but not in the 1990's.)
Bond does not like gadgets. At least in this incarnation. They get in the way. His gun, his hands and his commando knife will do him fine, thank you.
Villains of old, from the movies, exist in the books. There is talk of Bofeld and Gold Finger. I don't know why but I it made me giggle when every they were brought up.
The villain in this book was totally ridiculous; he plans to destroy England because when he studying was at Oxford a student made fun of his deformity, which is having a money's paw instead of a left hand. That being said, he's totally fun! I love the idea of a supervillian when done right. There was even an evil sidekick, complete with funny hat; just like Odd Job!
Of course there's a girl, two actually, the somewhat tellingly named Scarlett Papava and her twin sister Poppy.
We get to visit all kinds of international locales circa the late 1960's; Paris, London, Rome, Tehran, St. Petersburg...
Overall it was a fun book. If I had to compare it to the movies I would rank it up there with the early Sean Connery ones and far, far away from Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.
*There is
always an exception and I have to say that for me the remake of Casino
Royale is it. I think it's because I like Daniel Craig as an actor; and
he looks a bit like my father which might have some sort of subliminal
influence on me.
If you could, which film would you un-watch or which book would you un-read?
Submitted by Kate.
Easy, the only movie I can remember walking out on.
"Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay"
In comparison, here is a partial list of movies that I didn't walk out on.
"Super Mario Brothers" (Live action with Bob Hoskins Mario, John Leguizamo Luigi and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa.
Just look at the preview:
"Spice World". Twice. You know, the movie starring the Spice Girls. (I saw it once with my sister, then once with a girl I was seeing.)
Any number of Owen Wilson movies. That one where he's a downed pilot, the haunted house movie, those two with Jackie Chan and who could forget that steaming pile that was "Starsky & Hutch". Blech.
"Holy Man" with Eddie Murphy and Jeff Goldblum. It's a movie so bad the preview isn't even online for it.
And last but not least is everyone's favorite movie that tanked a multi-million dollar franchise: "Batman & Robin". The one with Clooney (not his fault) and Arnold (his fault, but not entirely).
These are the movies that I sat though but could not find it in myself to sit through "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay".
ETA(Or what ever those initials are for 'I added more stuff later on'):
I forgot the absolute worst movie I have seen in a number of years before H&K. "Transformers". I know, some people like that movie but those people are wrong. Trust me. Feel me on this one. It is one of the worst movies made in the last 10 years. I sat through every excruciating moment of that movie, I wanted to leave but I paid $13 to see it in IMAX and damnit I was going to get my money's worth if it killed me.
Gah. Just thinking about it makes me upset.
There are 116 movies on this list. It doesn't include movies that I've seen in theaters, DVDs borrowed from other people or movies caught on cable.
If it did we would be well over 150.
I've not only watched all of these movies I've watched and or listened to all the extra material on the DVDs; makings of, audio commentaries, featurettes...
My current Netflix Reviewer Ranking: 3,439
If you haven't already I encourage you to Make Me Your Netflix Friend.
Movies using "Instant Watching"
| An Evening With Kevin Smith |   |
03/28/08 |
| Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man |  |
03/18/08 |
| The American Hobo |  |
03/18/08 |
| An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder: Part 2 | |
03/18/08 |
| An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder: Part 1 | |
03/18/08 |
| The Future We Will Create: Inside the World of TED | |
03/17/08 |
| The Trials of Henry Kissinger | |
03/17/08 |
| Confessions of a Superhero | |
03/17/08 |
| No End in Sight | |
03/17/08 |
| Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme | |
03/17/08 |
| Queens of Hip Hop |  |
03/17/08 |
Ennui grips my soul...you would think that I'd be able to translate that into something to blog about.
You'd think wrong.
In lieu of an actual blog post I offer this...
"The King of Kong" is a triumph of the human spirit. A real life retelling of the classic underdog story; David vs. Goliath, Rocky vs. Apollo Creed, 300 Spartans vs. Persian hordes.
Steve Wiebe is a lovable loser, a man who can't seem to catch a break no matter what he does or how hard he tries. One day while unemployed he makes a life changing decision: to beat the Donkey Kong high score world record. Meanwhile the reigning champion, Billy Mitchell, lounges like a king on his throne, unworried about his title, seemingly unmindful of his possible doom.
Mitchell, who set the record in 1981, behaves as if he were giant among men; not concerning himself with what he considers to be minor irritants like flies or Steve Wiebe. There is something about Mitchell that gives you pause, something in his eyes that is reminiscent of Al Bundy. A man past his prime but still reliving glory days, bragging to his friends about four touchdowns in a single game, or in Mitchell’s case a 900,000+ score in Donkey Kong.
In stark contrast to his opponent, Wiebe spends hours on end playing Donkey Kong in his Seattle garage; facing not only the barrel throwing monkey but his own son demanding that he “wipe his butt” for him while he is in the middle of a game on track to break the world record. All of this is of course caught on tape to hilarious effect.
Soon the scene is set for a showdown, Wiebe vs. Mitchell in a live arcade duel. Will David beat Goliath?
"King of Kong" is a movie full of colorful characters, so much so I had to keep asking myself if these people and this whole movie were real. There are moments where the dramatic tension is so high you can't help but wonder if these events are orchestrated. But they're not; everything in this movie is the real deal. No matter how crazy some of these people seem they are very real, every situation no matter how ridiculous it seems is real.
This is a great movie, full of comedy, drama, tenderness and even action, albeit video game action. “King of Kong” goes beyond being a movie about just a video game and is a story about real people and their lives above all else.
Despite it's PG-13 rating (which was for one swear word), "King of Kong" is a movie for all ages and demographics. I can’t recommend it enough.
It started on Friday.
My Office Wife and my boss weren't in and consequently I spent more time than I should have goofing off on the Internet.
I don't know what made me do it but I decided I would check out the Criterion Collection website. For those that don't know Criterion releases DVDs that could be classified as "The Cadillac of Special Editions". Many of their DVD releases are of foreign and/or older movies that broke new ground and still influence people today. At the same time they've also released very nice editions of The Rock, Armageddon, Robocop and many other movies that are kind of less important.
On the front page of their site they where showing their new releases and among them was a movie called "Day Of Heaven". Made in 1978, directed by Terrence Malick, starring Richard Gere as a man on the run from the law after killing his boss. He runs to Texas and gets work on a farm with his girlfriend. Soon a love triangle forms between Gere, his lady and the farmer and things kind of go to hell.
The whole movie is like some sort of visual poem, the cinematography is stunning, the acting is perfect. The movie is just downright captivating.
One afternoon shortly after moving in together SCM and I caught it on IFC and were captivated by it. That same day we also caught Badlands, also directed by Malick, starring a young Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek as criminals sort of modern Bonnie and Clyde. Badlands is also an awesome movie, highly recommended.
Fast forward to Friday night, I'm on the phone with SCM and out of nowhere she starts talking to me about "A movie or a TV show we saw back when we first lived together, about a farmer and his girlfriend. It was really quite and pretty."
"With Richard Gere?"
"Yes!"
I then proceeded to tell her about how I had just saw that it was out on DVD that very day and what a coincidence, I had made a plan to go buy the DVD on my next trip to the store.
"OK, but you can't watch it without me."
"I can't watch it without you? That defeats the whole purpose of me going to the store to buy it!"
"Nnnno!"
"But!?"
"No! You can't watch it without me."
(For those that don't know my old lady, SCM, is currently living some 350 miles away from me right now.)
Sort of cosmic that she brings up that movie, one she hasn't seen in years, on the very same day that I come across it and make a plan to buy it, isn't it?
Video: Show us your favorite movie scene.
Submitted by Caroline.
Style Wars....
I thought about this a lot today and was looking through my DVDs when I got home from work when it came to me..Style Wars.
There is no one scene that is my favorite and thankfully I don't have to pick one because YouTube has a "best of" clip for me to share (it's nearly 10 mins long).
When I first got the DVD I watched it almost every day for two or three weeks.
When driving I always tell The Wife that I could look at graffiti all day long and be totally happy about it.
Now, I hate those little shits that just scrawl their name and crew in typewriter graff writing as much as the next guy. I'm talking about people who really write and paint.
Hip-hop has become part of the grain of pop culture and graffiti is part of that culture. Today's kids just don't understand.
For some reason YouTube won't show me this vid in my Vox search, but this is a link to the trailer for what will be my favorite movie of what ever year it comes out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8VTmy5clHk
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