Wednesday night we finally watched Lost in Translation. We actually rented it once before but every time we tried to watch it we were thwarted. That's happened to me twice with Wait Until Dark and I've still never seen it! Anyway, it's a great movie. Way better than Sofia Coppola's other movie, The Virgin Suicides. I hated that thing.
Bill Murray is so awesome. He could've just been "that guy from Ghostbusters" for his whole career, but I'm glad it didn't turn out that way. I loved him in Ed Wood too, but then I adore that whole movie.
Thursday night we watched Top Secret. When I was about nine I was friends with a girl who liked that movie and talked about it a lot, but I never saw it until this week and I wasn't overly impressed with it. Maybe it would've been better if I was nine. The thing I enjoyed the most was all the extremely dated references, especially to things that don't exist anymore, like Montgomery Ward and East Germany. Also, Val Kilmer was like 12 in that movie. What happened to him anyway? He's practically disappeared from movies.
Friday night we watched Cradle Will Rock, which was pretty good. They don't make very many rabble-rousing "Union Yes!" movies anymore, but I guess it's not surprising that if someone was going to make one, it would be Tim Robbins. I'm beginning to suspect he's kind of liberal. The movie is a somewhat fictionalized account of a production of a very pro-labor musical called The Cradle Will Rock that was nearly put on in 1937 by the Federal Theater Project, which was part of the WPA. The Project was shut down by Congress when it was suspected that they had been infiltrated by Communists, and the government sent armed guards to shut down the play. Fortunately, the play's producers were John Houseman and some guy named Orson Welles, who wasn't a big fan of people telling him what he couldn't do and who was about 21 at the time, so he hadn't yet taken on Hearst and lost. The show did go on, performed in an ultimate act of guerrilla theater, and if the true story is anything like how it is in the movie, I'm surprised the incident isn't common knowledge. Oh, Bill Murray is in this movie too. Everyone is in this movie. Tenacious D is in there too.
After that we watched The Last Temptation of Christ, which I guess makes Friday night "Movies My Parents Would Hate Night". Hey, those are usually the best movies. This movie really knocked me out. I understand why some people were upset by it, because those particular people really enjoy being upset by things and really don't enjoy people asking questions or trying to have an intelligent discussion about the fragile, spun-sugar web of beliefs they've constructed and built their lives on. In Catholic school they drill it into your head that Jesus was supposed to be both fully God and fully human (good ol' 200% Jesus, the kids in his neighborhood surely called him), but then they totally freak if you suggest that he might have had human thoughts and impulses.
Long before the movie was released back in 1988, there was a huge controversy about its content and my parents received countless newsletters about how horrible and blasphemous it was. I was fascinated by all of it and read everything I could about it. My parents were so proud of me because I was such a good citizen, staying informed about the things Hollywood and Universal Pictures and that awful Martin Scorsese fellow were saying, but really it was my first exposure to anything that even mentioned ideas that were outside my parents' fundamentalist beliefs. Those crappy newsletters weren't a very good information source, but in a roundabout way they pointed me toward good discussions elsewhere. I got to read some interviews with Scorsese and Willem Dafoe discussing their feelings about the material and it started me on the path toward not inheriting my parents' uninformed, reactionary dumbassitude. Thanks, poorly Xeroxed newsletters!
After all this time, I still hadn't seen the movie. I figured I'd like it, but I didn't realize how effective it really is and how the elements that really should have been controversial were never mentioned by the film's opponents, probably because none of them ever bothered to see it. Now if I ever meet Martin Scorsese, I'll go nuts gushing over this movie and I'll probably totally forget until later that I also really like Goodfellas. The DVD is a Criterion edition, so there's a commentary track and other goodies on there too. I won't have time to watch it before we have to return the DVD, but it's on my "To Buy" list now anyway. Note: Bill Murray is not in Last Temptation, presumably because he was busy being in Scrooged.
Saturday afternoon I watched Bend It Like Beckham while I folded a mountain of laundry. It's a cute movie, sort of similar to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It has a great soundtrack, as does Sky High, which we just saw tonight. Good times, good times.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Last night's movies
They Live (1988) -- somebody needs to put Rowdy Roddy Piper in more movies. It's criminal that a no-talent prima donna like Hulk Hogan has his own reality show and Piper is ... wherever Piper is. Bite me, Mr. Nanny, and stay the hell off my TV. Anyway, I'd never seen this one before and I liked it a lot. The fight in the alley is awesome. You rarely see guys beat the crap out of each other like that in movies. As my husband pointed out while we were watching, it's a pretty subversive movie to unleash on Reagan's America. It would make a fun double feature with Equilibrium.
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) -- Hammer horror weirdness! Peter Cushing manages to scientifically verify something about the soul, and how it exists after death and apparently can be transferred into holding areas and other bodies. And sometimes you can put two souls in the same body. So sometimes the guy soul sharing a girl body with the girl's soul can take over and seduce and murder people he wants revenge on. Oh, weird English horror movies! I love how you just end when enough major characters are dead!
Elf (2003) -- if you hate Chrstmas movies where it's very important for families to love each other and resurrect the True Spirit of Christmas, this isn't the movie for you. It's a very uncynical children's movie, and I did like it but it's extremely sweet, like maple syrup and M&Ms on spaghetti. I'll say this though: it's probably the first post-9/11 children's film to demonize the NYPD (in this case, the Central Park Rangers mounted patrol). And I mean literally demonize, as they were presented much like the Ringwraiths from LotR. Bizarre!
Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) -- Hammer horror weirdness! Peter Cushing manages to scientifically verify something about the soul, and how it exists after death and apparently can be transferred into holding areas and other bodies. And sometimes you can put two souls in the same body. So sometimes the guy soul sharing a girl body with the girl's soul can take over and seduce and murder people he wants revenge on. Oh, weird English horror movies! I love how you just end when enough major characters are dead!
Elf (2003) -- if you hate Chrstmas movies where it's very important for families to love each other and resurrect the True Spirit of Christmas, this isn't the movie for you. It's a very uncynical children's movie, and I did like it but it's extremely sweet, like maple syrup and M&Ms on spaghetti. I'll say this though: it's probably the first post-9/11 children's film to demonize the NYPD (in this case, the Central Park Rangers mounted patrol). And I mean literally demonize, as they were presented much like the Ringwraiths from LotR. Bizarre!
Catching up the dream journal
A quick check of our movie calendar shows that I left out two selections from earlier in the month:
The Boston Strangler (1968) -- I wasn't familiar with this movie, so I didn't really know what to expect from a true crime story starring Tony Curtis as the Boston Strangler. You know what? It's worth watching. Good performances and interesting direction, including a lot of split-screen stuff that was used to good effect. This sure as hell isn't Pillow Talk. When it was released the studio apparently promoted it like an exploitation film, but it doesn't really play like one today.
The Brother from Another Planet (1984) -- our TiVo picked up this early John Sayles film from the time just after he got to stop writing scripts for Jaws ripoffs like Pirahna and Alligator and was allowed to start making his interesting character pieces. Sure, the lead character (Joe Morton) is a mute, 3-toed alien, but most of the film just follows him around New York City as he meets different people and they have very one-sided conversations with him. It's also fun for pointing at actors in small parts and saying, "Hey, it's Fisher Stevens! Hey, it's David Straithairn! Hey, it's the grandma from Family Matters!" Gather up your friends who enjoy offbeat indies and make them watch this.
The Boston Strangler (1968) -- I wasn't familiar with this movie, so I didn't really know what to expect from a true crime story starring Tony Curtis as the Boston Strangler. You know what? It's worth watching. Good performances and interesting direction, including a lot of split-screen stuff that was used to good effect. This sure as hell isn't Pillow Talk. When it was released the studio apparently promoted it like an exploitation film, but it doesn't really play like one today.
The Brother from Another Planet (1984) -- our TiVo picked up this early John Sayles film from the time just after he got to stop writing scripts for Jaws ripoffs like Pirahna and Alligator and was allowed to start making his interesting character pieces. Sure, the lead character (Joe Morton) is a mute, 3-toed alien, but most of the film just follows him around New York City as he meets different people and they have very one-sided conversations with him. It's also fun for pointing at actors in small parts and saying, "Hey, it's Fisher Stevens! Hey, it's David Straithairn! Hey, it's the grandma from Family Matters!" Gather up your friends who enjoy offbeat indies and make them watch this.
Monday, August 15, 2005
Dream Journal Update
I've gotten behind on logging our nightly movies. We've watched:
Carnival of Souls (1962) -- again, with Mike Nelson commentary. I really dug this movie. How can you go wrong with an emotionally disconnected athiest church organist who is compelled to visit a long-abandoned Mormon amusement park?
Double Indemnity (1944) -- I read the novel years ago and I'm pretty sure the ending is different, but I can't remember exactly what happens. It's always weird to see Fred MacMurray as a killer with a tendency to refer to women as "baby". He's equally evil in The Apartment, but in a different way.
Autofocus (2002) -- well, that couldn't have been any more depressing. Greg Kinnear is really good in this, and it's too bad people don't give him more credit for his acting ability. I know, I remember him as the Talk Soup Guy too. When I was a kid, my parents mentioned to me several times that one of my mom's college roommates (from the Dallas area, where he did dinner theater) went out with Bob Crane a few times. There's no way they have any clue about what he was into or they probably wouldn't think that was something to brag about, especially to a little kid. Yikes.
Blacula (1972) -- this was better than I thought it would be, with an unsurprisingly awesome soundtrack. Now we have to rent Scream, Blacula, Scream with Pam Grier, the Queen of All Women.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) -- dude, I nearly choked to death laughing at the rumble scene. How did I never hear about that? Completely unexpected. And the rest of the movie was funny too.
We also spent an evening watching my new DVD set of Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease. Stop laughing; it's good, not-boring exercise! And in case you're wondering, she doesn't get naked in the videos. I've always wanted to be healthier and a better dancer, so this is probably my only chance to realize that dream in one shot. I realize that at best, I'll probably end up with all the natural dancing mojo of Napoleon Dynamite.
It seems like we watched other movies too, but I'll be danged if I can remember what right now. It was a really weird week. We did finish watching all the episodes of Lost from last year, so we're geared up for the season premier September 21st.
Carnival of Souls (1962) -- again, with Mike Nelson commentary. I really dug this movie. How can you go wrong with an emotionally disconnected athiest church organist who is compelled to visit a long-abandoned Mormon amusement park?
Double Indemnity (1944) -- I read the novel years ago and I'm pretty sure the ending is different, but I can't remember exactly what happens. It's always weird to see Fred MacMurray as a killer with a tendency to refer to women as "baby". He's equally evil in The Apartment, but in a different way.
Autofocus (2002) -- well, that couldn't have been any more depressing. Greg Kinnear is really good in this, and it's too bad people don't give him more credit for his acting ability. I know, I remember him as the Talk Soup Guy too. When I was a kid, my parents mentioned to me several times that one of my mom's college roommates (from the Dallas area, where he did dinner theater) went out with Bob Crane a few times. There's no way they have any clue about what he was into or they probably wouldn't think that was something to brag about, especially to a little kid. Yikes.
Blacula (1972) -- this was better than I thought it would be, with an unsurprisingly awesome soundtrack. Now we have to rent Scream, Blacula, Scream with Pam Grier, the Queen of All Women.
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) -- dude, I nearly choked to death laughing at the rumble scene. How did I never hear about that? Completely unexpected. And the rest of the movie was funny too.
We also spent an evening watching my new DVD set of Carmen Electra's Aerobic Striptease. Stop laughing; it's good, not-boring exercise! And in case you're wondering, she doesn't get naked in the videos. I've always wanted to be healthier and a better dancer, so this is probably my only chance to realize that dream in one shot. I realize that at best, I'll probably end up with all the natural dancing mojo of Napoleon Dynamite.
It seems like we watched other movies too, but I'll be danged if I can remember what right now. It was a really weird week. We did finish watching all the episodes of Lost from last year, so we're geared up for the season premier September 21st.
This video makes me happy
This is a video of a guy skateboarding in a bowl (like an empty indoor swimming pool) full of blue balloons. Wheeee!
Link originally seen on Pop Culture Junk Mail.
Link originally seen on Pop Culture Junk Mail.
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