Monday, June 23, 2008

The latest and greatest

48. Son of Rambow
I heard about this one a few months back on AICN. I never expected a small indie british film to be shown in theaters around here and had resigned to waiting to Netflix it once it became available, but it was picked up here for a one week theatrical run. Adie and I caught what turned out to be a rather cute and quaint story that was peppered with some good comedy and some messages throughout. The story revolves around two young boys who set out to make a movie after seeing Rambo: First Blood. They devise a story about how one of them is the son of rambo and are saving him from an evil scarecrow. It ended predictably but was a fun journey getting there.

49. Jonestown: The life and death of the People's Temple
The same night after we got back from the theater, I popped in this documentary that I had gotten from the library. I was familier with the basics of Jim Jones and his Kool-Aide drinking dead followers, but this doc shed some light on how they got to that point deep in the jungles of Africa. I didn't realize that Jim Jones began his preaching career here in Indiana, and split to northern California before heading off to the jungle. Jim Jones seems to remind me of L. Ron Hubbard, just with a little more drive of crazy. Both were charismatic leaders of "churchs" that ultimatly bilked the weak of mind and heart for all they could. Jim Jones was just a bit more driven by the crazy bug and ended up killing a senator before ordering his 900 followers to poison their children before themselves.
I don't think there is a slow enough or painful enough way for him to die. He got off easy with a bullet to the temple. Asshole.

50. Get Smart
An entertaining movie that struggles with deciding if it's a big action summer movie, or a quirky comedy that tries to stay true to the TV show roots. Steve Carrell does a fine job as the incompotent agent who can't seem to do things right but always seems to come out on top. The Rock is a bit underutilized for my liking. I guess if they fully commited to an action movie he would have been in it more.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Ideas

Well, in the 13 days since my last post, I have watched 6 movies. None of them blew me away, but most were entertaining. Just so I feel complete, here is the list, with a few comments about each.

42. Meet the Spartans
Another atrocity of a spoof movie. I don't know why I've been subjecting myself to these so much. Even more pop culture references than the last one. And they keep putting Carmen Electra in them as the sex kitten, even though she's old as fuck. Kudo's to her for getting steady work, but there has to be some hotter young starlet who would work for cheaper.

43. Semi-Pro

The next installment of "Will Ferral makes a comedy about every sport" There were some funny moments, and the same funny cast ensemble that gets used in most of his movies is back and shining in their bit roles. It was worth a one time watching.

44. Horror Business

This one was on Netflix Instant Viewing list. It was about independant horror film makers and the hurdles they must face in plying their craft. While this had the potential to cover a topic that I would find fascinating, they found some of the most annoying and dim witted film makers to focus most of their attention on, and then spliced together alot of crazy images and random old movie clips to fill it out. The highlight was an extended interview with Mark Borchardt of American Movie fame as he attempted to make a new movie. He is quoted in the film saying he wanted to finish it that year (2005) And I am happy to report that accourding to IMDB he completed his latest work a short three years late.

45. Hitman

Cashing in on successful video game franchises into movies has been a long and hard road for Hollywood. You could argue that they did alright with the Tomb Raider movies. I've never seen either one, but they did make two, so it couldn't have been that much of a loss for them. Hitman doesn't require you to know dick about the games and launches into a hitman for hire story that was very reminiscant to me of the Bourne series. There were plenty of awesome kills and over the top sex and violence to keep my adolescent brain intrigued, but it also did one of the things that I hate most in movies. They open the movie showing the Hitman breaking into his main rival's house and having a conversation. The rest of the movie is a flashback to what they went through together. So even if I thought for a second that Agent 47 wasn't going to live through the film, I knew from the get go that he at least survived until they get back to present time.

46. Wet, Hot, American Summer

I can't believe that I don't own this one. I will soon enough. We watched this one with a bunch of the Waycross kids that were stranded at our house for a few nights after the floods. Yes, it captures a lot of the quirks and situations at summer camps, bit it is also filled with raunch and hilarity. And a very solid cast.

47. The Aristocrats

Another one we watched with the Waycross crew. They wanted something funny, and I threw this one in. I think the boys enjoyed it, and the girls may have been slightly less enthusiastic about a film dedicated to the grossest things people can come up with, mostly which involve vagina's in some derogatory way or another. I loved it just as much as any other time I've seen it. It also reminded me of when I saw this in the theater with Joe. There was obviously some young couple a few rows ahead of us on an early date for them. They may have read about this small independent documentary and thought it would be good culture to take in. Neither of them were prepared for what was unleashed upon them. As they left shaking their heads in disgust, I could only rest happily with the knowledge that neither one of them would regard the other the same ever again.


So that catches me up on my movie count for the year. We survived the great flood of 08 with minimal damage and heartache. Right in the middle I turned 27, which is awesome. 27 has been my favorite lucky number for a long time. Duane Ferrell wore number 27 for the Pacers in the mid 90's and I was a fan of his. He wasn't the best player or the most accomplished on the team. Mostly a bench player, I really liked how he played and adopted him as my favorite underdog player. He only played for the Pacers for two seasons, but via a quick wikipedia search, I find that he played for three teams for 10 seasons in the NBA, and is currently working as the director of player programs for the Washington Wizards. You go Duane!!!

Anyhoo, back to 27. Now that I'm my favorite number in age, I feel that this next year will be an awesome one for me. Of course it helps that I'm getting married during this favorite year, but I also think it'll be good for other reasons.

On the kitteh front, Rouge came home tonight. Either she changed a lot from the last time we saw her, or Adie picked out the wrong picture from the internet, because she looks nothing like the picture Adie pulled off. But whatever, she's a kitten and a girl and she's here now with a name, so she's not going anywhere. Gambit had been playing pretty hard for about an hour before Adie came home with her, so I thought maybe he would be pretty chill once she got here. But oh no, that was hardly the case. He chased her and tackled her any chance he got. I let them go at it for about an hour so they could get used to each other, but then decided that enough was enough and locked up Gambit in the bedroom so she could chill a little and get used to the house. Initially, she seems a bit more laid back and chill when she's not being harassed by Gambit.

So the house is now complete and our family has doubled in size in the past three weeks. Alan is in the air on his way home for about three weeks. Tomorrow we are taking our Kansas City BBQ judging class. But I'll save that story for once we have been certified.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Waiting....for pizza

The desperation is setting in. The walls seem as if they are inching closer in the night, waiting to silently crush me into powder, only to be snorted up like some kind of makeshift cocaine.

No matter how much I try, I fall farther and farther from the land of promise.

Of course I am refering to my movie quest. I have so many in the house that I've never watched. I just bought three more movies, on top of the 10 I downloaded this weekend. Torrent style.

I'm nearing the 110 mark. They keep piling up without a dent being put into them. And that doesn't include the Netflix and Library movies that I have readily available.

I've been reading a blog written by a guy who loves horror movies. He lives in LA and has ready access to many of the major studio's as well as a nice video store and home collection. He decided that he would watch a new horror movie every day and blog about what he thought. Not entirely unlike what I am attempting with my blog. But he does it EVERY DAY. And only horror movies. But he has a love for the medium and is devoting the time to it. Some would call him a madman that is entirely to wrapped up in his hobbies.

I say kudos's to him.

I watch alot of TV. I DVR reruns of Scrubs even though I have seen them all like 3 times. I'm currently watching one on TV as I type this. If I took even half that time out of my day and used it for the movie goal, I'd hit it easily.

And that's what I'm going to do.