Category: Movies

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Iraq: The Hidden Story

I don’t do this often, but the RSS feeds picked up this post today regarding a Channel 4 news introspective about the media coverage going on in Iraq. I found it rather interesting to watch, albeit nearly 50 minutes long. A lot of what it speaks about is nothing that I hadn’t already assumed, but they put it into much better words than I ever could.

If you have the time, check out Iraq: The Hidden Story. It really makes me wonder what the generations to come will say about this conflict, especially looking at the lifetime process I have given to understanding past conflicts. Even more so, there is mention of how bloggers are vital at getting information from inside the country that major news agencies have no way of gaining access to.

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It’s 27, not 23

The Number 23I keep seeing these previews for Jim Carrey’s new flick, The Number 23[imdb]. I love the fact that he’s going to be in this creepy movie. A bit of a change, and I have to say that I’m curious to see it. Opening day? Probably not, but sometime thereafter.

In the preview, they keep talking about the significance of the number itself, 23. Long story short, you divide the 2 by 3 and it’s .666. Quite evil, don’t you think? Then there is all these various examples of how it’s portrayed throughout history. When you add all the digits together of 9/11/2001, you get the sum of 23. The tilt of the Earth at its axis is 23 degrees. So on and so on.

What gets me is that they say Kurt Cobain[wiki] died when he was 23. No, he died when he was 27, and Tony Pierce would beat you up for saying different. If you go to the website, it does make the case for the digits to the years of his birth (1967) and death (1994) each totaling that magical, creepy digit.

Maybe I’ve been seeing or hearing this trailer wrong, but I can’t find proof to back this up anywhere. Rebecca swears she’s seen and heard this as well. Perhaps they pulled it once they realized the error. You can’t simply say that Cobain died at the age of 23 when you meant something completely different. It’s like how the Texas Chainsaw Massacre[imdb] is “based on true events”. It kind of is, but the story actually stems from a crazy guy, Ed Glein[wiki], from Wisconsin that also fueled inspiration for Psycho[imdb] and Silence of the Lambs[imdb], just to name a few.

Still, you can’t bend the facts about Cobain’s death to help sell a movie. Maybe some one else out there can back me up or disprove this. I’ve ventured through Google and YouTube to find no trace of the trailer I’m seeing on TV. By the way, if you want more funny numbers things to check out, see this Wiki about the 27 Club.

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Bruce Campbell

Around the age of 17, I got to know who Bruce Campbell[wiki] was. Prior to Evil Dead 2[imdb], I never gave a second thought to horror movies. Then, I understood what brilliance really was, not to mention how much the human face could really contort. Even in the spirit of the Super Bowl, in which this has been airing prior to, I could care less if this is a commercial. Bruce Campbell is just one of those guys, and I’m a big fan.

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Some things shouldn’t go to Broadway

I have an extremely soft spot in my heart for the film version of High Fidelity[imdb]. Yes, it would be in my top five, all-time favorite flicks. It’s clever, has a great soundtrack, and has John Cusack. Don’t know why, but that third ingredient always brings me to check out any project that he is involved in. I tried to read the book it was based on, but it was one of those many things that I picked up and simply failed to get past the first fifty pages. It’s not that it wasn’t any good. I just didn’t have the attention span.

But did you know that it was being made into a Broadway musical? I certainly didn’t, and it looks like not very many people will get a chance to see it.

It might not rank on the list of the Top 5 Broadway Flops, but it comes close.

Last Thursday the stage adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity opened at one of the biggest theatres on Broadway. The story of a nerdishly dysfunctional record shop assistant, the hit novel had translated into a hit film. The hit stage musical, it seemed, was assured.

But on Tuesday, after just 14 performances, the show’s producers announced that it was closing. [guardian]

Ouch. I can’t say that I’m too surprised though. For the life of me, the character of Rob singing on stage, prancing around, and singing off his top-fives just doesn’t play out well in my head. In fact, I call the images of thinking about such things to be down right scary. There are certain things that work well for musicals, but I’m not sure why someone thought this would be one of them.

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Long lost brother from Middle Earth

Lord Naslund, King of GM PlaceWe watched all of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings recently. I can’t help but see this similarity. Markus Naslund[wiki], especially with his longer hair this season and a bit of facial hair, is oddly similar in appearance to Aragorn from the films. Only if there was some elvish magic or wizardry to make pucks go into the goal.

By the way, check out the recently, redesigned Canucks website. It looks slick, and they did something to really improve the load time. The players looking at you in the upper right portion of the screen still weirds me out a little bit, but what a great way to showcase all the guys on the team. My question is how well they will update it when new guys come up or players get traded.

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The strange fate of Shoeless Joe Jackson

I was raised within an easy drive of where the Field of Dreams[imdb] was filmed, and the ballpark in the middle of a cornfield is still there, albeit a tad bit of a tourist trap.  This post on BlogCritics addresses one of the key characters of the film.  It’s an interesting background about why Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball for life.

We all remember the movie Field of Dreams. Shoeless Joe Jackson comes back from the dead to stroll around in a cornfield and play a little ball. He’d been banned from the sport in the infamous 1919 Black Sox scandal, but was now being portrayed by Ray Liotta as representing the heart and soul of our national pastime. In reality, the 1919 Chicago White Sox were one of the greatest baseball teams ever to take the field, and “Shoeless” Joe Jackson was their superstar left fielder. But when the team made it to the World Series, two gamblers — “Sleepy Bill” Burns and Billy Maharg — backed by gangster Arnold Rothstein, bribed eight players with $100,000 to throw the championship.

The fix was a success: the Sox lost, and nobody really suspected a thing until late in the next season, whereupon the eight players were indicted. Commissioner Kennesaw Mountain Landis suspended them all from baseball for life — a justified punishment, as they were all guilty. All but one, that is. Shoeless Joe, for his part, did all he could to avoid being involved He told Sox owner Charles Comiskey about the scam, but was ignored; he asked to be benched for the Series, but was refused; he even batted .375 for the Series, with the only homerun and 12 base hits (then a Series record), but was still considered guilty. The official judgment against Jackson has never been overturned and he’s still barred from the Baseball Hall of Fame — a sad fate for a player who could hit the dickens out of a Kevin Costner curveball.  [blogcritics]

Lifetime ban from baseball means lifetime.  Even after death, you can still be a star on the big screen.

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The Last Kiss goes along steadily

The one thing that Zach Braff[imdb] is going to have to deal with is everything he does, in terms of dramas on the big screen, will be compared to Garden State[imdb]. I’ll admit that I haven’t seen it all the way through, or it might be that I have but not all at once or in chronological order. Everytime I try to sort it out, I get slightly confused. I like to think that I have a good understanding of the whole movie. In fact, I’m just going to pretend that I do.

We did go see The Last Kiss[imdb] last night, and that’s something I can say with absolute clarity. It wasn’t my first choice, but I was nicely entertained by it.

A group of 30 year-olds struggle to adapt to adulthood while their aging parents face middle age. [movies.yahoo]

And that pretty much hits the nail on the head in terms of describing this film. The camera work has some great moments, and the soundtrack has so many sentiments of Garden State. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, but Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Aimee Mann, Remy Zero, and Turin Brakes had Zach Braff’s name written all over it. Also makes me think that I would get along with a guy like him.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good. The story kicks off and just keeps going. Problems arise, but I didn’t feel like I was on a ride by any means. There are “moments” that occur to make you think. I would tend to think that a movie like this would lead to a lot of couples having hypothetical, “what if” conversations about their relationship. To that, I say, tread lightly.

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‘Accepted’ was a pleasent surprise

Out of all the movies we could have gone to yesterday, Accepted[imdb] was the one that wasn’t at the top of my list. I still had some interest in seeing it though. I think it’s that part in the preview with the guy in a hot dog suit screaming for some one to “ask me about my wiener” that captured my attention. And you can go ahead and insert your joke or pun here. Moving on…

When a high school burnout discovers he’s been rejected from every college he’s applied to, he creates a fake university in order to fool his overzealous parents. [imdb]

I laughed a lot at this flick. The jokes flowed for me, even though it really is one of those stereotypical movies about college where you have one group of not-so-cool kids going against the “cool kids”. Toss in something to do with the dean, and you kind of get the idea.

AcceptedThe humor is subtle. Well, at least until Lewis Black[imdb] shows up. To say that he makes the movie might be going a little far, but he produces some great lines. And when I say subtle, I imply that as the film not being predictable. Sure, some of it stretches the imagination, but this is a movie we’re talking about. You want real life, go watch TLC or something.

I will also add that one element that isn’t subtle is the product placement. Apple computers are everywhere, and everyone loves Mt. Dew. I will go even further and say that colleges like Princeton and Yale even fall into the product placement category here. I’m not sure how licensing rights work in movies when it comes to mentioning educational institutions, but it is blatant promotion of those schools, no matter how you argue it. They are real schools, unlike the two colleges at the center of the story in the movie.

I’ve found myself often comparing seeing movies like this with my thoughts about Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle[imdb]. It works in either two ways. One, I liked it, it was funny, I saw it once, and it won’t break my heart if I never see it again. Or two, all of what I just said, but I actually wouldn’t mind owning that on DVD. You know, those mid-DVD-section impulse buys? That’s where Accepted would land for me.

I find myself wanting to watch a lot of films in the comedy genre lately. I’m not so much into the Snakes on a Plane hype, WTC does have me curious, and horror flicks alway seem like a good idea until it comes down to actually spending money at the box office. I just like being entertained. When movies surprise me and exceed expectations, that’s even better. Accepted did that.

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Clerks 2: I’m happy with the sequal

Cast of Clerks 2Last weekend, we headed down to catch the bizzarely awaited sequal to a movie that I will also lay blame to the demise of my childhood innocence, also known as those years spent in high school. It’s tough to really pinpoint that exact moment, but I’m fairly sure when the name of Kevin Smith[wiki] entered my memory banks, that had something to do with it. Not all of it. It just aided the whole process.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that I became aware that Smith was even making Clerks 2.  It makes me feel some slight shame being that one of my favorite things to do between classes during college was to cruise into the computer labs and scan the web for the latest rumors on projects coming up.  Then I took some film courses.  Suddenly movies lost their flare, but that was probably the Russian, expressionist movies from the 1920’s that I fell asleep during…  er, watched intently while taking spectacular notes in class.  Yeah…

I have to thank that time spent trying to appreciate that art.  It makes me appreciate movies like this so much more.  That’s not because you might think I have no artistic flavor in the things that I enjoy.  It’s just the simple fact that this is a funny as hell flick.  I almost go as far as to say “in it’s own way”, but if you have been paying attention to any of the previous stuff from Kevin Smith, then you know I don’t have to.

I read some reviews about the camera work, and in hindsight, I have to agree.  There is one scene where the steady-cam circles constantly during dialog, and I remember thinking how cool of a scene it was.  Give credit to smith for being subtle to break out of a mold so many people consider him to be stuck in.

The best thing to remember is to is not remember anything you’ve heard about the movie and just relax.  Enjoy it.  Movies, believe it or not, are expensively made to entertain you.  Screw what Joel Seigal or anyone else said about Clerks 2.  I just hope that there are more people willing to see this than the Waynes brothers’ flick.  Yikes.

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The spirit of MST3K lives on through RiffTrax

Via Slashdot, RiffTrax is the latest project to come from Michael J. Nelson of Mystery Science Theater 3000[wiki] fame. Imagine MST3K, but without Crow and Tom Servo, and then apply that to more recent films. Except this time, you download the audio file (for a small fee, of course) and listen to it while watching the movie on DVD, granted that you already own it or will go out and rent it.

Do you feel that some of the movies coming out of Hollywood are just, well, missing something? At RiffTrax, you can download Mike’s running commentaries and listen to them along with your favorite, and not so favorite DVDs. It’s like watching a movie with your funniest friend. And it’s easy to do. Just check out our FAQ; more than likely, you have the tools to do it already.

Don’t just sit back and take whatever Hollywood throws at you. Transform the DVD experience with RiffTrax. It’s the most fun you’ll ever have at the movies. [rifftrax]

We’ve actually been watching a lot of MST3K lately at home (read Rebecca’s post), so this was interesting news when it popped up today. It’s something me and my buddies in high school wanted to do back in the day but never got around to it. The sample of the first, and only at this time, movie, Road House[imdb], is funny, but I’m not so sure I’m sold on it yet. $1.99 to download the Rifftrax, and then I’d have to rent the movie. Makes me curious though.

And don’t get me wrong, Mike Nelson is a funny guy, but I still feel like Joel was the better of the two when it came to MST3K. And if it’s just Mike doing the commentary, that might be a little lame. Even just having more than one voice adds to the comedy, god bless Crow and Servo.