largely ignored

My DVD Library

June 20, 2008 at 7:51 am · Filed under Movies, Games

Delicious Library 2.0 came out and I was able to publish my DVD library after fooling around with it (you’ve got to sort your library by title, otherwise the sort order is random when published.. The game library is published there as well.

You can check out all the DVDs I own here so you know what to steal next time you’re over the house.

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765 Movies Left Before I Die…

May 14, 2008 at 11:01 am · Filed under Movies

Kottke posted a list of movies he’s watched from Stephen Jay Schneider’s 1001 Movies To See Before You Die. He’s seen 214/1001 and I’ve seen 236/1001.

Here’s the original list and a list of additions and subtractions since that list was made. If you count the additions and ignore the subtractions, I’ve seen 248/1039.

What I’ve Seen:

Additions I’ve Seen:

I’ve been alive 9,858 days, so I’ve managed to see 1 of my allotted 1001 movies approximately every 6 weeks since birth. At this rate, I’ll live to 114! No need to rush on catching up, then.

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Jim Hill on Pixar’s Inside Jokes

December 10, 2007 at 12:51 pm · Filed under Linkdump, Movies, Disney

I am among the freezeframe geeks that spawned the creation of the Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy, so I was delighted to see Jim Hill’s vidcap-tastic review of Pixar’s many, many Inside Jokes.

I have to admit I was brimming with glee when Geri from my favorite of the Pixar shorts, Geri’s Game, showed up in Toy Story 2.

Can’t say I see the Pizza Planet truck in that Incredibles chase scene, though.

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The Three (3 1/2? 4?) New Mystery Science Theater 3000s

November 10, 2007 at 11:09 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Movies

Mystery Science Theater 3000’s premise was limitless: as long as there was bad content around, there was new material to mock. Its demise at the hands of a fickle Sci-Fi Channel in 1999, therefore, was met with much rending of garments and gnashing of teeth. It was not dead, merely resting, for it has risen, albeit it many forms from many factions.

Literally every major player involved in producing Mystery Science Theater 3000, onscreen and off, is now creating new quasi-MST3K related material aimed squarely at the MST3K fanbase. They’ve divided themselves up, and understanding the different groups might help you decide who to give your money to (although I plan on giving it to all of them as long as they turn out a quality product):

Mike Nelson (Mike), Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo 2.0 [well, 1.0 for everyone who didn’t see the show’s original Minnesota run, which is most people] ) and Bill Corbett (Crow 2.0) really never left MST3K behind. After the show ended, they took on various solo projects, but remained frequent collaborators, and stuck with what they knew: Bad Movies. hey’ve actually got two ventures in the new MST3K martket:
- Mike Nelson brought us the first MST3K-esque project last year: Rifftrax, which provides downloadable MST3K-style audio commentary for blockbuster crap like Transformers and Independence Day, beloved classics like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and most recently old awful movies like Missile to the Moon. Mike goes solo on some, but frequently collaborates with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett on others. He’s also got a few guest riffers to join him, like Neil Patrick Harris on Willy Wonka and Fred Willard on Missile to the Moon. I’ve listened to several now (even a few with my wife, who never dug MST3K’s host segments, so appreciates that it’s all movie) and have loved them all.
- Nelson, Murphy and Corbett are also collaborating on The Film Crew, a reimagining of MST3K without the puppets. While Rifftrax supplies the commentary while you supply the DVD, The Film Crew have individual episodes on DVD, complete with host segments and special features. I own all four, and have watched three of those, and it really captures MST3K perfectly. I was also subjected to Rue McClanahan stripping, but that’s just a bonus.
Joel Hodgson (Joel Robinson), Trace Beaulieu (the original Crow and Doctor Forrester), Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank), Mary Jo Pehl (Mrs. Forrester), and Josh Weinstein (the original Tom Servo and Dr. Laurence Erhardt) all left the show of their own accord well before it ended (with the exception of Mary Jo Pehl) to pursue other things. Either the pastures weren’t much greener or they needed to scratch the same itch the fans have had for so long, and they’ve come together for Cinematic Titanic. They’ve teamed up with, of all people, ILM, and are hinting very strongly that their world premiere will be the until-now rare Star Wars Christmas Special, put out on DVD with Georgie’s blessing. December 10th is the street date.
Jim Mallon (MST3K producer and the one that holds the rights to MST3K, preventing the above from recreating the show) and Paul Chaplin (MST3K writer) have teamed up to create animated episodes featuring Tom Servo, Crow and Gypsy at MST3K.com, along with a bunch of clips of the host segments from the original series. There’s only one up now and boy is it rough, but I’ll keep checking in on them.

I wish they’d all just get together for a group hug, but I guess I should also be happy that now they’ve gone from producing nothing to four different MST3K-like shows. Keep it coming guys, the wallet’s open.

Blogged with Flock

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Darjeeling Limited Prequel: Hotel Chevalier

September 27, 2007 at 2:52 pm · Filed under Linkdump, Movies

Free on iTunes: Hotel Chevalier, the 13 minute prequel to Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited. Featuring Natalie Portman nude.

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

September 15, 2007 at 7:58 pm · Filed under Movies

Rating: 4/10

I’m not sure what to make of my reaction to this movie. It flies in the face of pretty much everyone else’s opinion, at least anything I can find: It was nominated for 7 Oscars and won 4, AFI’s 73rd, IMDB Top 250: #153.

I didn’t just dislike it, though, I hated it. I considered turning it off at numerous points during the movie and I was ready to fast forward just so I could see the iconic ending. I understand some of the love: Redford and Newman give thoroughly charming performances and spout some memorable dialogue…to what end, though? The entire point of the damn movie is that these two are moving headlong into oblivion: their days are numbered, but even in their moments of desperation they’re winking and smirking like it’s a buddy cop flick. The final shot, the one that everyone raves about, going out in a blaze of glory, is completely undermined by the fact that there’s no quiet desperation to their plight, it’s just one moment of comedy after another: trapped in a canyon? Well, we gotta jump, but one of us can’t swim! Trying to go straight, but you’ve got to standoff with Bolivian bandits? Well, one of us can’t shoot!

I enjoyed the sense of encroaching doom set up at the start of the movie by the unseen persuers. Their identities are slowly revealed as Butch and Sundance’s situation grows more and more dire. This, of course, is resolved by the former comic scenario, and then is pretty much abandoned, save for a single shot to drive the plot along as the movie meanders through Bolivia.

Speaking of Bolivia, how did we get there? Ah, yes, an entirely-too-long sepia-tone photo montage of our intrepid trio (Butch, Sundance and their barely-touched-upon love interest) having a grand ol’ time in New York. Seriously? In order FOR OUR WESTERN to get to Bolivia, we have to watch a montage of our cowboys riding motorcoaches and having fun at Coney Island?! This wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last interminable montage in the film: I had already sat through a playful bicycle riding sequence set to Burt Bacarach’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and neither of these were the worst choices in the movie. Most of their time in Bolivia, where they would eventually meet their death, was glossed over in a montage (set to even more godawful music) whose point could be boiled down to: Look at these Yankees run rampant on these Wacky Hispanics! Of course, this only serves to undermine the threat these very same Bolivians pose for the aforementioned final sequence…

Is this movie held in such high regard based solely on how much fun Redford and Newman are having onscreen? If so, then why isn’t Cannonball Run considered one of the greatest movies of all time?

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Car Chase Marathon #4: Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

July 21, 2007 at 7:44 pm · Filed under Movies

The Movie: 5/10

This was an odd movie, full of odd choices. The first 1/4 of the movie features voiceovers, which isn’t odd by itself, but the way they are implemented make them very strange. The voices are of the characters onscreen, and they’re conversing with each other, referencing things that the characters are doing onscreen, but the characters onscreen are not talking in the scene. It’s as if they’re having a psychic conversation, which I don’t believe is the intention behind it. Even stranger, the movie begins to cut to scenes still featuring the characters, but the voiceovers are now from conversations happening elsewhere in space and time, despite the characters clearly onscreen, again, not talking. It’s about 20 minutes before we actually see a scene with dialogue happening in real time, with the mouths moving in sync with the dialogue.

The movie also makes use of what seems to be a staple of 70s car chase movie: the vignette. The movie will cutaway to new characters, for a scene that lasts anywhere from 5 seconds to 2 minutes, and generally ends with the person’s car being stolen or crashed into. The scenes are almost exclusively played up for comic relief (often, shockingly, ineffectually) but sometimes take an odd turn: a young couple admiring their first home are then crashed into by a police car at high speed, almost certainly injured or possibly dead. This isn’t too much of a leap to assume, since major pileups are cut back to in the movie and we see the carnage of the aftermath: a dazed young woman, her face covered in blood, staring numbly at a group of people trying to pull a man from a flaming car. How are we supposed to feel about our main character if he’s responsible for all this mayhem? I’m not giving the director credit for moral ambiguity here because even though the guy’s a car thief and supposedly a bad guy, he makes a big deal about showing him as a hero despite it: there’s a scene in which over a million dollars worth of heroin is found in one of their recently stolen cars and. despite the urging of his partner to sell it and make them all rich, our hero takes it out and burns it so the evil drugs don’t make it onto the street.

The whole thing, combined with the fact that the movie ends abruptly once the car chase has run its course, further proving the the “story” was just window dressing for the chase, is pretty bad. However…

The Chase: 8/10

If not for a few of the vignettes that dragged the 40 minute sequence down, it was pretty awesome. They even go back to the well three times for the “he’s surrounded, how’s he’s going to get out of this one?” bit and each time it’s actually pretty intense. The guy delivers on the carnage front, and the aforementioned 93 wrecked cars are each dispatched with such loving care that JG Ballard probably watches this movie while having sex. It may even be worth renting the movie and just jumping straight into the chase sequence. Trust me, you won’t miss anything.

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Car Chase Marathon #3: Vanishing Point

June 3, 2007 at 2:04 pm · Filed under Movies

Movie: 2/5

Chase: N/A

I’m beginning to think that this Car Chase marathon was a bad idea.

The Netflix summary of the movie reads like a trailer for an awful movie from the 60s: SEE! A crazy mixed up naked hippie biker chick! SEE! A blind DJ! SEE! Snake charmers in the desert! SEE! Vanishing Point! The assumption being that a movie that contains these disparate elements must be good because, well, look how crazy they are! You’ve gotta see it!

I did, and I’m here to tell you that you don’t. If I had seen this movie previously, and Quentin Tarantino had told me this was what he was shooting for with Death Proof, I wouldn’t have seen Grindhouse like everyone else.

Next Up: The French Connection. Will Popeye Doyle blow the second chance I’m giving him?

Note: In the 1997 Made-for-TV Remake of Vanishing Point, Cleavon Little was replaced by Jason Priestley.

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Apocalypto

May 20, 2007 at 4:08 pm · Filed under Movies

Apocalypto was so good that it almost made me forget Mel Gibson was a douchebag. I hope the man keeps making movies. The man knows action.

I think my enjoyment of the movie was helped in great deal by the Filmspotting review that let me know exactly what to expect. It didn’t disappoint.

I looked the movie up on IMDB and in the trivia section, there’s this:

During the scene where Jaguar Paw lands on a field full of dead bodies, while escaping from the headhunters, we can see a frame that was added completely out of context. This frame shows a man dressed like the comic character Waldo, laying amongst the dead.

I thought someone had just slipped something past the IMDB people, but I went back and checked the scene frame by frame. Not only is it there, it’s center frame at the end of the scene.

Hit the jump to see ApocaWaldo.

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100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

May 17, 2007 at 7:18 pm · Filed under Linkdump, Movies

Here’s a Youtube clip with 100 different quotes from 100 different movies featuring the numbers 1-100. How many can you get?

I generally don’t watch a movie more than once, but it’s the movies I’ve seen at least twice that jumped out instantly. Plus the ones I saw recently. I don’t think either of things is very insightful, but oh well.

Hit the jump for my guesses. There’s no answer key yet but I’m fairly confident.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Archive for Movies

My DVD Library

765 Movies Left Before I Die…

Jim Hill on Pixar’s Inside Jokes

The Three (3 1/2? 4?) New Mystery Science Theater 3000s

Darjeeling Limited Prequel: Hotel Chevalier

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Car Chase Marathon #4: Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)

Car Chase Marathon #3: Vanishing Point

Apocalypto

100 Movies, 100 Quotes, 100 Numbers

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