Archive for the 'Movies' Category
Thu 3rd January, 2008 07:44 » Update
Well howdy there. There isn’t really much to update I’m afraid, that is not to say that I haven’t had a good time these last couple of weeks, because I certainly have. Tina has stayed over for days on end, on several occasions during the last few weeks, and it has been really great having her here. Watched movies and played lots of WoW together, as usual — and it has been fun.
Christmas was rather uneventful. We’ve usually had a couple people from the family over during Christmas eve, but now that my dad passed away it didn’t really seem the same, so it was just me and my mom and uncle together. Strange how as a kid I was looking forward to presents like crazy, but now it’s not quite as exciting (not that I mind getting them!), and now it’s more fun to figure out gifts to give to other people instead. I fulfilled the male stereotype (i.e. being boring and unimaginative) and got Tina some sexy underwear. My oh my, did she look tantalizingly good in that.
As for new years eve, I completely slept through it, go me!
Bought myself a nice Christmas present; The EC Archives: Tales From The Crypt Volume 1 + Volume 2, along with Vault Of Horror Volume 1. I remember reading “Iskalde Grøss” as a kid (it was the norwegian name for Tales From the Crypt more or less — though it was actually composed of various other E.C. Comics series as well. A sort of potpurri of horror comics if you will), and how incredibly awesome the drawing and writing was. I was pretty young at the time (wohoo for kind parents that never really set any limits) and they scared the shit out of me, but I still read them. Ah, good times. Can’t wait to get those in the mail and reminisce.
Hmm what more? Well I’d tell you all about my awesome WoW adventures now that I’ve reached lvl. 70 (current level cap), but this post is boring enough as it is, so I’ll refrain from that.
Happy new year etc.
Wed 18th July, 2007 10:13 » Dirtiness
Our shower broke down last week, and now it looks like it won’t be up and functioning again for over a week. Needless to say, I feel pretty yucky and disgusting at the moment. Washing your hair with a bucket of water does not feel very satisfying.
Yesterday I watched Mr. Brooks, which was absolutely fabulous. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed a movie that much.
Fri 16th February, 2007 08:56 » Movie list
As you might know, I watch a lot of movies — or movi…ez as Ramzi of thebroken fame would say (while you’re at the revision3 site, you should watch my favorite show to geek out to as well: diggnation).
Ugh, where was I? Movies, right. For my birthday last month I got this book from my cousin and uncle, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. It’s a wonderful and thick hardcover book filled with a list of great movies, all in chronological order and with lots of details about each and every one. I wanted to find an easy way to check how many of these movies I had seen, so after searching on google for a bit I ran into this site where you can easily check your progress on various “best of” lists, like let’s say the infamous IMDb Top 250 for instance. I’ve previously used twofifty.org for this task, but the site is a bit bland and not updated very much anymore it seems. So when I found listsofbests.com (yea, not the greatest name), I quickly changed to that instead since you not only can check the Top 250, but it has a whole bunch of various lists, like the one I originally searched for, plus you can create your own as well. Granted, the site seems to be very buggy at the moment, going down pretty much all the time, but it gets the job done, and easily at that.
I have some gripes about it however. First off, everything links to an Amazon product detail page instead of a movie’s IMDb details (if you’re a frequent IMDb user you know how annoying it is not being able to check a movie’s details quickly). Obviously, they want to make money by Amazon referrals, but geez, a second accessible link to IMDb wouldn’t hurt. Then there’s the various issues with its perhaps ambitious, but poorly done AJAX scripting. It’s buggy as hell. You can only check off one movie at a time, and if you try for more the site will implode on itself so to speak, and the other movies you tried to check off will just stall and nothing happens, so you won’t be able to check off those movies again before you reload the page.
Pros and cons aside, it finally gave me a chance to make a list I’ve always wanted to do, but which I’ve failed at repeatedly — namely a list of my favorite movies, and in a somewhat ranked order at that. Please don’t take it too seriously, but for the first page or two it’s a pretty accurate list. Once I ended up adding the 200th movie or something, ranking every single one meticulously and precisely didn’t seem like the most important thing in the world, but again, they’re not random that’s for sure. So without further ado, my favorite movies, in ranking order (to some degree anyway).
As for those 1001 movies, I have currently seen 37% of them. Let’s hope I won’t die in the near future so I can finish the rest.
Wed 17th January, 2007 00:38 » Black Sheep
I so have to see Black Sheep when it comes out.
Fri 1st December, 2006 22:36 » The Devil Wears Prada
I saw The Devil Wears Prada yesterday. I sort of almost liked it. I am scared.
Fri 10th November, 2006 05:30 » Fury (1936)
As for the movie I saw while discovering this FAQ mystery:
Fury (1936)First of all, Spencer Tracy is a fucking badass. So naturally this movie is awesome. Now that we got that out of the way; the movie is about a guy who is mistaken for one of the criminals in a kidnapping case as he is driving through a small town. He’s put in jail while the sheriff tries to find evidence against him, but the deputy shoots his mouth off in town and soon the whole town is riled up about the alleged kidnapper. Word quickly goes around as each person adds their own rumours about him, and eventually everybody has convicted him of the crime, rally together and march off to the jail as a lynch mob.
Did I mention Spencer Tracy is a badass? If he’s in a movie, you should watch it. I gave it an 7 out of 10, but it was very close to an 8.
Fri 10th November, 2006 05:17 » IMDB FAQ curiosity
I noticed a peculiar thing on IMDB while voting for a movie I just watched: in the “Fun Stuff” section in the left sidebar there has been an addition beneath trivia, goofs, soundtrack listing, crazy credits, alternate versions and movie connections called FAQ. I’m not sure how long this has been there, but seeing as I use IMDB pretty much every day and usually check the trivia section (which is right above the FAQ link) after watching a movie and hadn’t noticed it before now, I’d say it’s a fairly recent addition.
You can reach the FAQ for any movie just like you would with the other sections, by adding a /faq suffix to the URI. For instance, here’s the link for The Godfather: http://imdb.com/title/tt0068646/faq. I haven’t actually seen a movie that has a question in the FAQ yet, so I’m not sure about what sort of stuff will be added there. I presume it will be questions that tends to get asked over and over in the forum for each individual movie perhaps, but who knows.
Thu 9th November, 2006 06:59 » Latest movie fodder
Been a while since I’ve talked about any movies, so I figured it was time to give some opinions about the latest viewings, at least the good ones. On another note, I now currently have 1919 movies (and series) rated at IMDB, so my goal is to reach 2000 by the end of the year. 81 movies 52 days. Should be doable I believe.
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)“A documentary on Al Gore’s campaign to make the issue of global warming a recognized problem worldwide”. I think that sums it up pretty nice really. I must admit I am not much of an environmentalist, and it’s probably a bad attitude to have, but I just don’t care too much of what happens to the world after I’m dead. Even so, this movie did wake me up a bit, once you see this you will surely get a wake up call about just how bad the state of our planet is concering global warming.
Charts have never been this exciting. I gave it an 8 out of 10 (fairly good by my standards).
The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat & Beers (2005)Calling this movie good might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it was sort of entertaining at least. It’s a documentary about this group of guys that has their own festival/competition weekend every year, where they drink beer and compete in different beer related events after dividing themselves into teams of two. So basically it’s extreme drinking games.
Don’t take it too seriously, and you might enjoy yourself through this. I only gave it a 5 out of 10, but I still liked it.
Infamy (2005)Infamy is a documentary about graffiti, and specifically about the current scene in N.Y. (if I remember right). This is no Style Wars (go see it if you haven’t), but I felt it was kind of entertaining anyway. There’s a lot of live action following the different artists around as they bomb the city, which is somewhat amusing to watch.
Nothing spectacular at all, but I gave it a 6 out of 10 anyway for keeping me entertained one night. That’s all I ask of a movie really.
Thank You for Smoking (2005)I can’t even remember the last time I gave a movie a 9 at IMDB anymore, but this is one of them. Damn I fucking loved this, by far the best movie I’ve seen this year I think. The movie follows a PR guy working for a tobacco company around, as he tries to do as much damage control as he possibly can for them, by essentially fooling everybody. I love Aaron Eckhart, but I’ve never actually liked a movie he was in before, now I finally have one.
As I said, a 9 out of 10, and I was even close to giving it a 10.
If you’re in the mood for something very low key and chill to watch, but still want something to keep your attention, this is perfect. It’s about an autistic woman and a guy who meet after a car accident, and he ends up staying with her for a few days. I’m not sure how to explain it, but it’s great I can tell you that. I specially loved this one scene where Weaver (playing the autistic woman) is lying on the ground with Rickman standing over her being his British self:
Linda Freeman: Have you ever had an orgasm, Alex?
Alex Hughes: It has been known.
Linda Freeman: It sounds like an inferior version of what I feel when I have a mouthful of snow.
[Shoves some into her mouth]
A 7 out of 10.
Session 9 (2001)This has been on my hard drive forever, like a lot of movies. I’m glad I finally bothered watching it, I really got into it all the way from the start. We follow an asbestos cleaning crew on a contract they just barely got, for cleaning up an abandoned mental hospital which is to be turned into some sort of offices for the state. The movie starts of as more of a thriller, and the focus is mainly on the interactions between the people working in the crew instead of the actual hospital and its history. Unfortunately the movie took a bit of a crappy turn in the second half when it started to move into the horror territory, straying away from its thriller feel and totally botching it up with this bizarre non-sensical plot twist. It would have been so great if it would just have continued to focus on the crew itself and their problems with each other instead.
Oh well, a 6 out of 10. Close to a 7 if it hadn’t been for the plot twist.
Hadashi no Gen aka Barefoot Gen (1983)I don’t think I’ve actually watched any movies about Hiroshima before, even so, I would imagine this would be one of the best of them. The story follows Gen, a young boy living with his brother, sister and parents in Hiroshima during the war. The bomb is dropped and we see how it affects his life. It’s quite graphic and doesn’t try to hold your hand during anything. What a powerful story, and so sad.
A solid 8 out of 10, I recommend you take the time and watch this.
The Man Who Laughs (1928)Wow, they just don’t manage to make movies these days that have this sort of eerie and creepy feel about them. Gwynplaine, a son of a Lord who deceits the king, has a permanent smile carved on his face by a group of gypsies who perform experimental surgery on people. The gypsies, being hunted by the people, has to flee the country, but leaves Gwynplaine stranded to himself. He then discovers a dead mother with a crying baby in her arms, which he takes responsibility for. He and the baby are eventually taken in by a travelling showman, and he grows up to become a freak attraction as a clown.
This is a prime example of why I keep watching old movies. 7 out of 10. Would have given it more, but it’s a bit drawn out and the end gets sort of silly to be honest.
The Departed (2006)I just saw this one today, I had heard quite a bit about it for a while now and I was curious to see how it was. I definitely wasn’t disappointed, perhaps apart from the end which I thought sucked. The story is about two cops, each one working undercover, only for the different sides of the law. I have to say that the main reason I liked this movie was all Jack Nicholson’s doing, god he is so lovely in this (not that there’s a movie where he is not!).
I gave it a 7 out of 10. It would have been 8 if it weren’t for the crappy ending.
Fri 15th September, 2006 12:27 » Musical adventures
I’ve been in such a hip-hop mood lately, for reasons unbeknownst to me. I guess my past is starting to catch up to me, I’ve been through so many phases when it comes to music. From plain pop ala Absolute Music albums and the likes in the early teens, then on to hardcore and rave stuff, later hip-hop, and then venturing into the metal territory. Nu-metal at first (*shudder*, my only regret), until I finally found darker stuff in death and black metal. That has basically stuck with me, and now the last couple of years I’ve sort of added to my taste by opening my eyes to other stuff while still keeping my roots firmly in the metal genre. I think I’ve more or less reached the apex of my musical taste right now.
Back to where I was initially going. A good deal of my current obsession with hip-hop I have dj BC to thank for. He basically mixes up hip-hop songs together with all kinds of classic and pop stuff, giving the most awesome result. My favorites being the Glassbreaks album, mixing up Philip Glass’ classic Glassworks album together with various hip-hop songs, and the newly released Wu Orleans album, mixing up Wu-tang Clan songs together with various old dixieland tunes.
Then came the day I thought never would come. Me liking a song with 50 Cent. Oh the horror! But dj BC and DJ Jay-R made that happen with their mix of Modest Muse - The View and 50 Cent - Disco Inferno. I can’t stop listening to it. As if that wasn’t enough, I just watched this movie a few days ago, Dead Man’s Shoes (quite alright by the way), which had a great soundtrack. One of the songs specially caught my ears, Danger Mouse and Jemini - The Only One.
Fri 15th September, 2006 11:24 » Nostalgia + DVDs
I’ve been in the nostalgic mood lately, and ordered DVDs of some of the childhood favorites. Ivor the Engine, Charlie Chalk, Bertha, and last but not least - one of the very favorites, Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends. Oh the joy! I’m locking myself up and warping back in time.