Things you remember @ odd moments: The other movie we saw was Cold Creek Manor a disposable thriller starring Sharon Stone, and Dennis Quaid, who must be dying for work at this point. It’s charitable to say the film is slow; it’s more accurate to say it’s a complete waste of your time. All characters are stereotypes, and it’s overlong for what story there is.
With my day off on Friday to stay with Bella after her surgery, we got to watch lots of movies… First up was Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the hamming Angelina Jolie. It’s a beautiful film, though HIGHLY implausible. Glad to have watched it on DVD instead of the theatre. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the movie in the middle…I just can’t! Last was Y Tu Mama Tambien, which I still find to be a good movie wrapped inside a disgusting, hollow shell. At it center are the Solipsitic trio of Tenoch, Luisa, and Julio, two horny teens and a hot older woman who head for Del Playa Boca Cielo (Heaven’s Mouth Beach). Tenoch is of the Castillian upper-crust, Julio is lower middle class, and Luisa is from Spain. The film highlights the disparity in Mexico between the haves and have-nots. With a nice twist at the end.
I thought this was highly appropriate, given that I watched TRON the other day. Tron is kinda like the Matrix, and it has a sort of retro-chic to it, but there’s very little story there to hang all the SFX on.
Couple of movies this weekend: Fast Times at Ridgemont High The 70’s were over, Reagan was restoring hope, and AIDS hadn’t broken on the American consciousness. Ahhh…1982, the year Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece, Fast Times at Ridgemont High premiered. Up-and-coming cast members included Sean Penn, Judge Reinhold, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates (before ‘Gremlins’), Forest Whitaker, Anthony Edwards as a Stoner (!), and a cameo by Nic Cage. A highly watchable, if inconsequential, piece of fluff, I LOVE THIS MOVIE, if only for the reminder of 1980’s style. ...
Ah, such a relaxing weekend! The world freezes outside, and a gentle snow greeted me on my way to church this morning, consigning Thor to the garage in favor of the Pup’s winter tires and FWD traction. Whitney came down this weekend and we had great times at Ruby Tuesday’s, going to watch “The Aviator”, and then watching “King Arthur” off her Netflix queue. :-) Went bowling today and cracked 100, which is decent for me. ...
Lots of randomness today: Something irks me about “The Western Whitehouse,” George Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. The man’s the leader of the free world and commander of the most powerful army the world has ever known, but he’s still AN ELECTED OFFICIAL. We the people pay his salary, and he has a nice place to live near that’s in proximity to the rest of the government…the ACTUAL whitehouse. (Pic taken at the aforementioned WWW:) ...
Watched The Whole Ten Yards up at Whitney’s on Saturday night. It’s embarrasingly bad, as neither the plot nor characters make any sense. There were maybe two or three funny lines in the whole movie.
I’m rarely shaken by a movie, but Requiem for a Dream was unforgettable. A window into the life of four junkies, it gave me a new appreciation for how much Hell can exist on earth.
Zardoz Key learning: When your somewhat-off, reminds-you-of-your-freaky-ex-roomate friend at work says a movie is “kinda weird”, don’t watch it. Sean Connery wears a diaper (or sumo garb, take your pick) throughout, and basically the screenwriter creates a vision of “Brave New World” crossed with “A Clockwork Orange”. Definitely some cool moments, but not worth much. Thankfully, with netflix, it’s free. :D
Ronin This movie is alot of flash for not much substance, but it’s watchable, with Robert DeNiro doing his best Sean Penn impersonation and statuesque eye candy from Natascha McElhone. The car chases are incredible, and make a decent spy thriller exceptional. By the end, nothing seems resolved, save many dead, stereotype characters.
Bullitt This Steve McQueen vehicle (pardon the pun) from 1968 is a real bore, featuring an amazing, non-sequitor car chase between a Mustang with a 390 Big Block V-8 and a mean, black Dodge Charger with a big-block 440 V-8. Minus this scene, the movie is unwatchable: Slow, with under-developed characters, the film meanders from one scene to the next, with little flow. Oh, and the Dodge manages to lose five hubcaps during the chase scene. ...
Idyllic weekend spent up in Louisville, relaxing away from the hustle and bustle of life. Lovely :) Watched quite a few movies: The Girl Next Door Good, not great flick. All the players are B-list, aside from Elisha Cuthbert, but the story’s heartwarming and somewhat interesting. It’s an unoriginal rip-off of “Risky Business” in many ways. Porky’s Ah, the infamous Porky’s, the movie that reminds us why we’re really glad we’re not horny teenagers in 1950’s Florida. There is ONE scene that makes this movie watchable: The hilarious sex scene with a young Kim Catrall as Miss “Lassie” Honeywell. Aside from that, this is a diffuse, pointless, anacrhonistic period piece that tries to string together a series of moneyshot vingnettes (“Girls in the shower”, “Having Honeywell in the morning”, “Boys at the whorehouse”, “I’m just a Jew”) with the merest hint of a unifying thread. It commits the only unforgivable sin of the teen sex romp–It’s BORING! ...
Finally watched Tennessee Williams’s opus A Streetcar Named Desire. Highly affecting film. I’m calloused to drama these days: It takes an amazing story and great acting to hold my interest for long, because dramas are so darn depressing. I can make an exception. “Streetcar” was spellbinding. Brando is sheer masculinity, and Vivien Leigh embodies insanity. The movie’s not easy to watch, dealing as it does with rough people, obsession, prostitution, insanity, and rape, but it did hold me locked in place, awaiting Blanche’s next broken soliloquy and fearing Stanley’s next violent act. ...
Okay, it’s a Swedish movie (with subtitles) that describes a budding romance between two lesbian teenagers, but for some reason I love Show Me Love The film’s a grainy wisp of a story, shot hand-held with no budget, but I find both the main characters captivating in their own way: Agnes, the misfit who’s a hopeless romantic, and the instensely beautiful, utterly bored Elin. I guess the film hits home with me because of the way I fell in love with my darling, on a long cold night nearly 5 years ago. We were from two intensely different worlds, destined for two different (yet reconvergent) paths, but I can still remember the shockwave that went through me when she told me she loved me. ...
Ahh…the weekend. First, a hand-clap of praise. Bella’s sister is better, but by no means is she certainly going to make it. As ever, it’s in God’s hands. Lots of driving this weekend, over 500 miles’ worth. Moved Bella’s parents temporarily into a tenement over in Ashland. Place reeks of cheap cigars and the scuz of years of neglect. It’s not in an awful neighborhood, but i still feel for them. Still, as a place to crash, it’s okay. ...
I don’t know if I just have something for women with techno-orange hair, but Run Lola, Run was an amazing movie. Shot in realtime, we experience a frenetic run through the streets of Germany, following the main character as she tries to save her boyfriend from his destiny.
Okay, Pulp Fiction: What’s the big hairy deal? I mean, it’s okay, but why edify the movie? Quentin Tarantino is Martin Scorsese on bad drugs. A true movie nerd, he packs more inside jokes, puns, and movie references into this profane, unintelligible pile of self-aggrandizement than any director has a right to do, save Francis Ford Coppola. Ballsy, but somewhat hollow. Uma Thurman has never been more unattractive. I mean, we’re supposed to believe this drugged-out waste of 6 feet of bone is sexy enough for a man to die (or, get thrown out a window) for? ...
Watched Stargate last night. I’ve seen it before, of course, but it seemed like a neat addition to my Netflix queue. I watched the ‘Ultimate Edition’, and it should’ve been called “They didn’t edit anything” edition. Scenes dragged on and on, but overall a very worthy movie to watch if you happen to come across it on basic cable. Side note: You can see the wires they used to “fly” the model flying machines around during the blue screen scenes at the end.
Submitted for your approval: Godzilla, the 1998 remake of the 1954 monster-movie classic. It was awful…I somehow avoided seeing this disaster during the summer between my Freshman & Sophomore year of college, but I thought, “I’ve got Netflix, so why not?” In any case, I can now join in the complaints about this movie that promised so much, but delivered so little. My main problem with the film is its unoriginality: In changing nearly everything about the classic Godzilla, you’d think they’d come-up with some original stuff. Instead, you see stolen bits from other movies here: The eggs in Madison Square Garden, reminiscent of “Aliens”, the desperate escape from young that they lifted wholesale from “Jurassic Park”. And why is it raining the WHOLE TIME? I felt sorry for Matthew Broderick having to endure 6 weeks of shooting under rain machines. ...
Latest Neflix: Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) Kubrick’s satiric masterpiece, aided by Peter Sellers (a.k.a. Inspector Clouseau), George C Scott, and the unforgettable Slim Pickins, the movie delights and terrifies. Though we face a world fraught with terrorism and uncertainty, this movie is a window into the time of Mutually Assured Destruction, when the only certainty was the concept of global annihilation in 30 minutes or less. ...