Movies Archive
These posts are all in this one category.
Saw Crank last night with some friends from work. The best non-stop action movie I can remember seeing. For us it was the perfect stress relief for our regular 60-hour work-weeks. To top it off we passed on popcorn and soda and instead picked up forties at 7-11 on the way to the theater.
I found Chev Chelios's (Jason Statham) ringtone:
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CrankRingtone.mp3
Other links are ads.
This is the download
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I just finished watching the Oscar-winning movie Gandhi.
It's amazing that a 20 year old movie about one man's work almost 60 years ago can still be so moving and inspiring today.
Wikipedia entry on Mahatma Gandhi.
It's disappointing that the problems that India faced are being mirrored today in Iraq. Like Iraq today, India suffered from insurgents, terrorism, massacres, and religious wars. Gandhi knew these violent tactics would not work again the stubborn England, which only fought back harder. His nonviolence measure eventually prevailed, bringing India her independence and peace in the country.
Could Gandhi's principles of nonviolence work in Iraqi? Do the people of Iraq need their own Gandhi to inspire them? What if America took the first step by following Gandhi's principles of nonviolence?
There's a movie in theaters now that is unlike any movie I've seen before.
It's a documentary.
About a joke.
It's about a joke you've probably never even heard before, and if you heard it for the first time, you probably wouldn't even get it.
And it was one of funniest movies I've ever seen.
The joke:
The set up is always the same - a father goes to a vaudeville talent agent and says he has a family act. The punchline is always the same "What do you call your act?" "The Aristocrats!" The act is always different, improvised, and is amazingly offensive, vulgar, downright disgusting, and described in intricate detail by comedians with perfect timing and expressions.
I have to see the movie again to catch the lines i missed because I was laughing so hard.
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Video: Trailer - safe for work
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Video: South Park's version of the joke - not safe for work (spoiler alert: this is from the film)
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Who's in it: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0436078/
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Show times from Google
If you are easily offended just stay far far away. Otherwise buy your ticket now.
Not since the Matrix have I had a movie stuck in my head for such a long time.
Primer is one of those rare science fiction movies that's centered around a mysterious story, interesting characters, beautiful cinematography, and perfect soundtrack. No high-budget special effects, well-known actors, or space aliens here.
I don't want to give away the story or premise, I think it's more interesting to discover it along side with the characters.
The movie has a web site, which has the trailer, but I don't think the trailer portrays the movie correctly. Or at least not how I saw it. Maybe that's on purpose. The site also has a message board, but don't go there until you've seen the movie.
Oh yeah, and the kicker... the movie was made for just $7000.
The DVD is now available: Primer on DVD at Amazon.com
An excellent Passover Flash, this one is a mix between South Park and Super Milk-Chan.
This one features is much better, in my opinion, than the Jib Jab Passover video just released.
Source: JewSchool.
A very quick Flash: The 60 Second Seder. When it comes up click it to start.
Saw this on JewSchool.com.
This edit of the Revenge of the Sith trailer is funny, but most Jedi n00bs won't have the haX to understand it.
Heck, even I had to look up some of the terms in UrbanDictionary.com so that i could be teh roXXorz.
UPDATE: Even better - a total spoof of the trailer! Thanks Mike!
Thanks to Cameron Reilly for pointing us to the film geek heaven Aint it Cool News' latest find: a supposed review of preview of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. There's no real spoilers that you couldn't figure out from the trailers, but the author seems daaaamn excited. Read his review here.
If that's not enough Star Wars to get you excited, Atom Films is hosting a contest for best Star Wars Fan Film. From an article on Slashdot:
Episode III will be in theaters around the world on May 19, 2005.
Three of the best entries are:
Sith Apprentice - Darth Vader and other baddies duke it out to be the Emperor's new lackey in this parody of 'The Apprentice' - very funny, and the sequence with Darth Vader's "talent" has to be seen to be believed
Tiny Toys - Where a woman must defend herself from a pint-sized army of Star Wars toys. Almost a Kill Bill parody at times... amusing; and
One Season More - a completely CGI rendition of one of the songs from the "Star Wars Musical" that's been floating around the web for a few years - some amazing animation
Arrrrrrrrrrrgh! Get your Episode III: Revenge of the Sith trailer here:
- Movie Download (at bottom of page)
- Direct Movie Download (right click, save as)
- Via BitTorrent (I use ABC)
- Tiny Flash version (thanks foO)
- MS Smartphone 2003 version (see comments)
A little note: The first half is footage from previous movies.
Then it gets good.
It's in Quicktime, so if you want to play it full screen or not suffer the problems Quicktime often has on Windows machines, I strongly recommend use Quicktime Alternative instead.
Hat tip to foO, I saw news about this on his site first.
There's still a bit of waiting to do... Episode III opens in theaters May 19, 2005, but will probably be available online at least a week before that.
Well, many of you probably won't trust my summer movie advice after my post about not liking Spider-Man 2, but let me give you a little bit of back-story::
- I saw Spider-Man 2 sober...
...and wrote the review after a night of drinking with friends. - I saw I, Robot after a fair bit of drinking...
...and I'm writing this review sober.
The comparison of Spider-Man 2 to Fahrenheit was me amusing myself with my deep dry humor.
Let me explain: The right-wingers are claiming Moore's movie contains inaccurate information and shows a one-sided biased. Duh, of course it does. I used that same strategy for my movie review. It seemed fair and balanced in a FOX News sorta way.
So, in the same semi-sarcastic vein of my Spider-man 2 review, I will now compare the current movie version of I, Robot to the original. The question here is, which original to compare to?
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I, ROBOT Book (Amazon) By Isaac Asimov
Comments: It's the original story. I read it some time in elementary school and didn't really get it. It's basically a bunch of short stories that explain why robots must follow the three laws. The picture on the front is kinda cool. I wish I had it on my Trapper Keeper back then. My rating: |
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ICH, DER ROBOT Book, German Translation by Isaac Asimov
Comments: The retro robot killing machine on the cover is kinda cool. You have to remember that back then robot killing machines used literally hundreds of D cell batteries. These would weight the robot down and add to the overall bulk. This extra bulk gave these retro robots an inferiority complex, which is what eventually lead many of them to become evil killing machines. My rating: |
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I, ROBOT Game Atari
Comments: I never played this game, but according to the flier for this game, "I, ROBOT is easy to learn, not so easy to master." I think they are hinting that, as a human, you will never be the robot's master. There many other great quotes in the informational flier (Front, Back, Inside Left, Inside Right). You should print out the pages and post them around your desk. It will make you look busy and smart. An interestingly unique fan site dedicated to the Atari game claims in the first paragraph that "it turned out to be one of Atari's biggest bombs and it did not sell well," but I think he meant that this game was da bomb! My rating:
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Abissi d'acciaio Book, Italian Translation by Isaac Asimov
Comments: I've always been told not to judge a book by its cover, but since I can't read Italian, the cover is the only thing I have to go by. As you can see, this cover has a great looking naked chick on the cover. If there's anything America is missing out on, it's naked chicks on the covers of the sci-fi books. Not since Heavy Metal in 1981 have geeks gotten this close to a drawn naked chick.
My rating:
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I, ROBOT Movie (IMDB) Wil Smith, Bridget Moynahan
Comments: The story has basically nothing in common with anything else I reviewed. It's a whole new story! So is it a good one? I enjoyed it. It was paced well, it was a murder mystery in addition to being an action flick, and it didn't try to be more than it was (a summer action movie). The special effects were amazing, mainly because the robots always looked like real robots, and not computer animation or faked robots. The "future" was well presented, with the sort of things we could realistically expect 30 years from now. There was a major problem though: The robots are trying to kill Will Smith's character, and they suck at it! They never work together or form any kind of strategy. I would think a computer-assisted brain could do better. Overall, it was so good I might even buy the DVD, if nothing else, but to see how they did the special effects and to support more movies from Asimov's work.
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The album I ROBOT from the Alan Parsons Project isn't included because, well, it didn't show up when I did the single Google search that caused this whole blog entry to be written. Sorry fans, maybe next time.
Coming soon: I actually haven't seen Fahrenheit 9/11 yet, but once I do I will post a review, or something like it.
I saw Spider-Man 2 today, and I might be in the minority saying this, but I'll say it anyway.... What a mistake.... I had a headache for the rest of the day thanks to that movie. Somehow Spider-Man 2 made Chronicles of Riddick seem like a good movie.
(Spoiler note: I tried not to say anything that wasn't in the trailers, but if you haven't seen Spider-Man 2 yet and you are looking forward to it, you should probably wait until after you've seen it and made your own opinion before reading what I've written.)
- No real story or plot. It's basically a week in the life of Spider-Man where lots of bad stuff happens. Here's the sub-plots:
- There's some sub-plot with Peter's landlord and the landlord's somewhat freaky daughter that makes no sense.
- Guess what: Aunt May has money problems (which are never solved, maybe for SM3).
- The Dr. Octopus thing, which doesn't even start until about an hour into the movie and has a really silly premise. I never read the Spider-man comic books - is the premise really that dumb? "Oh no, the Mind Inhibitor is gone!"
- SPOILER THIS LINE ONLY: Peter decides to retire as Spider-man so he can have the woman he loves - but come on, we already saw this in Superman II, and we know he's going to come back to finish the movie. Not to mention Spider-Man 3.
- Way too many lengthy closeups of characters looking scared. Picture the many Frodo closeups in Lord of the Rings, especially when he's thinking I can't do this!, and you'll know what I mean. SM2 is two hours long, surely they could have cut these down.
- For slower audience members, characters repeat the same things over and over: Octavius' invention is the greatest thing ever, Harry wants revenge on Spider-man, Peter is in love with MJ, MJ is confused about Peter, Aunt May is sad, and so forth... It's like each character has one thought that must be said and re-said.
- For a summer action movie, it's doesn't have as much action as I would expect. To me this was a good thing! I'd rather have story and characters than pointless special effects. But there wasn't much story and the characters were too one dimensional.
- Fortunately there's only a couple stupid lines! They all got groans throughout the audience. "But Peter is my best friend!" ... and I won't give away the rest of the line because it involves a nice surprise. Another ugh: "Looks like you have a train to catch!"
- Almost all of the best scenes are in the trailer. My favorite was the car smashing through the café. Even though I saw it in the trailer a dozen times and knew what was coming, it was just as cool on the big screen.
- The fight scenes with Spider-man and Octo made no sense.... I know it's just a movie, but I wish they could explain why Dr. Octo's walking shook buildings, he could hurl cars at will, and smash through walls, but when fighting with Spider-Man he couldn't break a bone or keep his grip on him.
- Dumb extras: When trouble comes, nobody runs away! Everybody stays and watches. The only person that runs away is Peter (to become Spider-Man) but somehow he never has to explain to anybody where he was. Again, I know it's just a movie, but even Clark Kent always had an excuse for Louis or his boss.
- Terrible special effects when Spider-man is swinging his way though the city.... Nothing about the buildings, vehicles, or him look anything close to real. It looks like an XBOX game. On the other end, the special effects of Doctor Oct's arms were excellent. They never looked fake.
- In SM1, the Green Goblin's mask convinced him to do bad things. In SM2, Doctor Oct's tentacles "talk" to him to get him to do bad things. Why the same concept? BTW, anybody else thing the tentacles looked and acted a little too much mini metal versions of Audry II from Little Shop of Horrors?
It's not all bad... I liked the trademark Sam Raimi Evil Dead/Army of Darkness references and camera shots, especially in the ER room. Bruce Cambel has his de facto cameo. Kristin Dunst is "girl next door" cute, (but will always be the vampire child from Interview with a Vampire, and I still see her "fangs" in her closeups in this movie), and the casting and acting is good.
A lot of people will probably this movie. It's better than most summer action flicks. Maybe I was expecting too much. I didn't like the first one for a lot of the same reasons I listed above (the "learning his powers" part of SM1 was good fun). I have no interest in the Spider-Man comics so I looked at this as a standalone product and not a conversion from the comics (I read that Raimi did a very good job with the conversion). Finally, I'm 28, so maybe I'm just a bit too old to enjoy this sort of movie and I should stick with flicks like Fahrenheit 9/11, City of God, Fog of War, and other more "mature" offerings...
Cidade de Deus (City of God) is now on DVD. I highly recommend this movie.
- City of God on Amazon
- City of God on IMDB
- Official web site
City of God is about a young photographer in Rio de Janeiro surrounded by crime, drugs, and pre-teen gangs. Amazingly it's based on a true story.
The cinematography is beautiful, the surround sound is great.
The DVD also had an excellent documentary about the favelas - the Brazilian ghettos of tightly intertwined shacks protected by drug dealers.