A while ago I discovered Lists of Bests, a site that is just what the name implies. It is a list of “bests,” whether by award or personal preference. Looking at it this weekend, I wondered if the fact I hadn’t read any of the National Book Critics Circle award winners this year [...]
October 3, 2007 – 7:48 am
In light of my recent post about modern life and dystopias, the Dystopian Movie meme I found at SFSignal seemed timely. The rule is simply to put in bold the movies you’ve seen from the following list of top 50 dystopian movies.
Metropolis (1927)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Brazil (1985)
Wings of Desire (1987)
Blade Runner (1982)
Children of Men [...]
February 3, 2007 – 8:02 pm
It is unquestionably the most frightening movie I have seen in years. It actually bordered on making me feel physically ill. This isn’t some gory horror movie or some graphic war footage. It is the Oscar-nominated documentary Jesus Camp.
The film takes us inside the homes and churches of children from Missouri [...]
October 13, 2006 – 10:23 pm
I was initially going to mention in passing another reason I gotta like John Scalzi but it’s just too good to be thrown in with other items.
I have always said Star Wars was merely a conglomeration of themes, ideas and even characters “borrowed” from great SF, westerns and almost anything else you can mention. [...]
While on the first “college shopping” trip with my middle daughter, we saw An Inconvenient Truth, the documentary of Al Gore’s mission to convince others that humans are responsible for global warming. There’s a few obvious problems with it but overall it is convincing and deserving of the praise it has received thus far.
The [...]
April 26, 2006 – 12:58 pm
I saw a reference on kottke.org to an LA Times column in which film critic Jim Emerson listed 1030 movies a person should know, “at minimum, to be somewhat ‘movie-literate.’” I decided to see how “literate” I am. Movies I’ve seen are in bold, ones in my Netflix queue are underlined and those [...]
December 12, 2005 – 7:44 am
Ben Folds and WASO - Live in Perth (2005) 3/5
Ben Folds joins forces with the 90-member Western Australian Symphony Orchestra in this 80-minute DVD of concert performances in Perth, Australia, in March. Some songs make the transition; others don’t. It’s an interesting but not awe-inspiring performance. I found it enjoyable largely because about half [...]
November 26, 2005 – 4:12 pm
Gaslight (1944) 2.5/5
This film is a good example of why I generally don’t watch classics. You know the plot and where this movie is going about 15 minutes in and not much after that comes as a surprise or keeps you in suspense. Don’t get me wrong. Ingrid Bergman, who won both the Oscar and [...]
November 16, 2005 – 12:15 pm
There’s an adage among fans of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. It’s basically that, no matter how many times you’ve seen them, the best concert you’ve ever been to is the last one of theirs you saw. That thought came to mind as I was watching the DVD of their 1975 concert at [...]
November 13, 2005 – 9:29 pm
I’m back on a foreign film binge. In case you’ve wondered, the years listed are when the film was released, not when the particular DVD came out.
Brothers (2004) 4.5/5
Just when you think this Danish film is all too predictable and you know just where it’s going, director Susanne Bier turns things upside down. The movie [...]
November 5, 2005 – 11:27 am
The little recent media viewing has been dominated by the 22 episodes of the first entry.
American Gothic (2005) 4/5
This set contains all the episodes of this genre-bending and all too short-lived series that aired on CBS during the 1995-96 television season. Put simply, Sheriff Lucas Buck (played magnificently by Gary Cole) runs the town of [...]
October 10, 2005 – 7:14 pm
Serenity fell 51 percent at the box office this past weekend. While it did remain in the top 10, the drop and total take certainly doesn’t bode well. The film has brought in $17.6 million (against $39 million in cost) over two weeks. According to The Signal, word is it will take $80 million worldwide [...]
October 4, 2005 – 12:25 pm
A Very Long Engagement (2004) 4.5/5
A wonderful and beautifully filmed French movie that reunites the star (Audrey Tautou) and director (Jean-Pierre Jeunet) of Amélie (which I admit not having seen). A Very Long Engagement somehow manages to combine the horrors of World War I with a mystery and a story of love, hope and [...]
October 3, 2005 – 6:06 pm
Serenity was Number 2 at the box office this weekend, raking in an estimated $10.1 million.
A few commentators says it’s a “tepid” opening, “one of the year’s biggest flops” and that it “pretty much kills off the Firefly/Serenity universe.” I guess box office numbers are another thing I don’t understand. As I read the [...]
October 1, 2005 – 10:49 am
Okay, I’m extremely biased. I am probably one of the few people who saw the very first and every subsequent episode of the canceled Firefly television series when they first aired. I came to love the characters so much that seeing them come on the screen in the movie Serenity was like having old, close [...]
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