Archive for tag Movies
May 23, 2008 at 10:06 PM · Posted under movies, television
RiffTrax, the successor to MST3K, seems to have slipped past Brent, so it may have slipped past you too!
RiffTrax are audio commentaries done by Mike and other stars from the show MST3K. You buy the trax and then start the trax and movie at the same time, they helpfully provide instructions on how to sync them up at the beginning of each trax.
They are all completely, wonderfully hilarious and the best part is that since they don’t need to secure broadcast rights they are free to riff on new and popular movies. Sarah and I give a big thumbs up to their X-Men rifftrax.
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May 18, 2008 at 11:41 AM · Posted under movies
Slashdot commenter Sentry21 wrote a really insightful comment on Indiana Jones that was then expounded upon by niktemadur. I hadn’t thought along these lines before, but it really rings true.
Re:That, my friends, is… (Score:5, Insightful)
by Sentry21 (8183) on 2008-05-15 14:50 (#23422252)
I saw temple of doom, hoping it would be as good, if not better, than raiders. It didn’t even come close. But it didn’t “suck”, it wasn’t heartbreaking, it just wasn’t as good as Raiders.
One thing that sort of ‘fixed’ my appreciation of the Indiana Jones moves is remembering that Temple of Doom is a prequel to Raiders. While this doesn’t make it a better movie, it does sort of make the movies fit together better.
If you consider Temple of Doom to be the first movie, Indiana Jones is playing more of the mercenary lifestyle, digging up treasure for a Shanghai mobster. After the events of Temple occurs Raiders and Crusade – both of which are similar in style and formula (globetrotting adventure).
After Indy’s experience in India and becoming a believer of Hinduism, he goes back to the states and alternates between teaching and rescuing artifacts for the museum (which happens in Raiders, which proves Judaism, and Crusade, which proves Christianity).
It doesn’t make Temple a better movie, but for me, it made it fit better in the grand scheme.
Re:That, my friends, is… (Score:5, Insightful)
by niktemadur (793971) on 2008-05-15 18:43 (#23425902)
If you consider Temple of Doom to be the first movie, Indiana Jones is playing more of the mercenary lifestyle.
Mod this guy all the way up. How did this slip by me for a quarter of a century?
“Too bad the Hovitos don’t know you the way I do, Belloq” – That’s right, Indy and Belloq used to be fellow travelers, then after the events of Temple, they developed a “difference of opinion”. Belloq is Indy five years before.
This also ties in the Crusade teaser, in a broader sense. See Indy the idealist in full force, living the first experience that will turn him cynical. Then back to Raiders, look at the way Marion receives him, with a sucker punch to the mouth – Indiana the cynical bastard we see at the beginning of Temple getting a taste of his just desserts.
Of course for this interpretation you have to discount the tv series, at least somewhat. The teenage Indiana Jones wasn’t really cynical at all. Speaking of the tv series, as long as we’re hanging out down below the main content of this post, I wonder if Crystal Skull will explain why old Indy had an eyepatch. Probably not. Here’s hoping that movie is better that it appears to be. Lucas’ cameo-tastic filmmaking (Hey look! It’s the warehouse of boxes! Oh look there! Uncle Owen!) coupled with Spielberg’s recent Spielbergness (Minority Report, War of the Worlds) makes for a depressing probability. How much you want to bet that a bunch of set pieces from the original series (e.g. the sun will hit an object like a high powered laser and point the way to treasure, snakes in a pit) will be revamped?
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May 02, 2008 at 11:54 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Watched: Iron Man
Review: 5/5
A most excellent and fantastic film. I say it’s the best Marvel film yet.
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April 18, 2008 at 10:20 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Watched: The Forbidden Kingdom (功夫之王)
Review: 4/5
Not the best martial arts movie I’ve ever seen, but highly enjoyable. This was a movie that did not set out to surprise. We know exactly where it is going and it’s a fun ride to get there.
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March 28, 2008 at 11:38 AM · Posted under books, movies, quicklinks
How awesome is it that the World War Z movie script is written by J. Michael Straczynski (writer of Babylon 5)? I’ll tell you: so awesome.
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March 22, 2008 at 11:17 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 3/5
Pretty decent. Of course it was nowhere near as good as Ocean’s Eleven and not nearly as bad as Ocean’s Twelve. While it was great to see the team back in Vegas and the heist was fun, there just weren’t as many smooth and delicious layers to the puzzle as in Ocean’s Eleven.
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March 22, 2008 at 10:27 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 2/5
While it does look great on blu-ray, RE:E never comes close to the awesome action of the first Resident Evil movie. It is much better than the second, but that isn’t saying much. There is almost no true zombie action. The big action scene is the rag-tag group fighting domesticated zombies that look like crazed janitors with their matching blue jumpsuits. I guess there wasn’t a budget for zombie costume design.
The rag-tag group are apparently the dumbest people still alive on the planet. Their plan for survival is to drive around the US taking leftover gasoline and food. And not just the US, but the desert southwest! They have no air conditioning, so their vehicles they stay in all day (with the windows up) are just mobile death traps. Are you kidding me? I can only guess that they were hoping to die somewhere warm, but miscalculated.
Many subplots are started then forgotten. There is a pointless exposition about how the Earth has dried up, but then the movie is set in what was already a desert so I’m not sure what the movie is trying to do there.
It is fun to see Alice using her magical powers, but there’s only one really cool scene. Still, at least she used her power for more than knocking over one droid at a time in a totally ineffective manner. Star Wars prequels, I’m looking right at you.
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February 29, 2008 at 10:07 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 3/5
It never hit the soaring highs of Anchorman, but this is still a worthy additon to Ferrel’s retro-70s comedy lineup.
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February 17, 2008 at 10:54 AM · Posted under movies, tech, videogames
Happy Valentine’s weekend everyone!
Sarah and I have been enjoying a leisurely move back into our “new” house. So leisurely that this is the first time that I’ve booted up my laptop since it was packed away downstairs over two weeks ago. I’ve been online of course, but only in bits and pieces: at work, at home on the XO, on the powermac connected to the tv. There is a big difference between using any computer and using my computer though. My computer at work is awesome, but it’s at work. The XO is also a fine machine, but only for its niche of cool programs and easy interface. The powermac is great, but even connected to our beautiful 40” LCD television it’s still a little squinty for use from seven feet away. My still-kicking 800Mhz G3 iBook is where its at (ergonomics be damned).
We are seriously loving our bamboo floors. It is ever so nice to be able to look in any direction and see elegant reflections and soothing wood tones instead of dingy carpet. The leisurely move is also quite fine and well recommended. Since we had to clear everything out of every room (including artwork) except for the kitchen and bathrooms and everything was moved into the basement and garage we have the opportunity to start the house over with a blank slate. We are only moving it what we need or want, just pieces at a time, and really making sure that we keep the house nice and neat while we are doing so. Every other move we’ve had has been a regular “move out and in as fast as possible”, but this is the way to do it. It also really helps to be ruthless with your culling of stuff. We have sent boxes and boxes to good will or the dump so far and don’t even really remember what exactly we’ve sent. As two packrats it was hard to get started, but after the initial break we’ve really gotten into the “use it or lose it” mindset.
Speaking of using it (oh man, I am awesome at segues): Sarah got me a Playstation 3 for Valentine’s day! With the HD-DVD format quickly dying after Warner Brothers commited exclusively to blu-ray it was time to get with the true HD movie bandwagon. After a couple days of playing with it I am forced to admit that the better format won. Whereas HD-DVD movies felt like an HD hack of the DVD format (slow menus, buggy discs, etc.), blu-ray really feels like a next-gen movie format. Of course, that impression could stem from the fact that we have a sony television and have been brainwashed by its subliminal messages (and supraliminal, it does force our XBox360’s HD-DVD player to 1080i afterall). Either way, Ratatouille and Casino Royale look gorgeous in high definition. It is a little weird to have a videogame system without any videogames, but all the best games for the PS3 are also on, and done better by, the XBox360. The 360 features better graphics, a much better controller, and achievements! It will be nice to be able to pick up the ‘Darth Vader’ version of Soul Calibur IV though. But without the achievements I might not even do that.
The PS3 doesn’t even have a single “must have” game. There are six contenders: Resistance, Motorstorm, Rachet and Clank, Heavenly Sword, Uncharted, and Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Two of those have really short playtime (perhaps good enough for the bargin bin though), one is a remake that I’ve already bought twice, and three are rehashes of game types done better by other games on other systems. The PS3 needs its own ‘Dead Rising’, ‘Mass Effect, ‘Super Mario Galaxies’, or ‘Metroid Prime 3’.
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February 03, 2008 at 01:14 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Watched: The Eye (US version)
Review: 1/5
Meh. While I sound like a snob, this was not nearly as compelling as the Chinese original. Instead of the cute relationship between the protagonist and her mildly inept therapist in the original; we have a bitter, sniping relationship between the two in the US version. Why would he risk his license for that? Mexico was an obvious replacement for Thailand, but why (and how?) would the American medical system get the eyes of a girl who died there? The biggest change was the ending, which I won’t spoil here.
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January 19, 2008 at 09:57 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 5/5
Apparently a very polarizing movie. I loved it from start to finish. I surprisingly caught up with the character story, so much that I was actually shocked when the monster action started. The movie really is presented as though filmed from a single camera. The special effects were amazing, most especially for how tightly integrated into the movie they were. It really looked like incredible things were actually being filmed by a hapless guy with a camera. So great! I loved that the camera guy was a character. Some people dismiss this movie outright because of the shaky camera, but it seriously didn’t bother me at all. I was actually expecting it to be worse than it was. There was also some wonderfully surreal intercutting between the monster movie and a film that everything was being recorded over.
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December 20, 2007 at 08:25 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 2/5
Great portrayal of a World Without Us style NYC, but unfortunately the movie gets worse the closer it gets to logical thought.
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December 20, 2007 at 08:21 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: 3/5
It’s no Fellowship of the Ring, but this was a pretty decent fantasy flick. Loved the armored polar bears, but the anti-Christianity theme seemed a little shoehorned.
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November 09, 2007 at 10:28 PM · Posted under movies, recently
Review: good stuff if you like a vampire movie. Set in Barrow, which is a great bonus for those of us obsessed with Alaska.
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