Waiting For Ben Hur IV

Hi kids.

Just got an email telling me that Ben Hur has been mailed!  Woohoo!  Soon I will begin my much delayed plan of watching the AFI Top 100 Films.  But until that happens, I will regale you with mediocre reviews (synopses? blather?) of what I've been watching in the meantime.

Watched the first two seasons of Justice League.  As a comic book nerd, these are right up my alley.  Dig 'em.  I am frustrated with Netflix for only having the first two seasons.  Gimme the other three!  (to be fair, I have to assume that this is not Netflix's problem but Warner Bros.  Seasons 3-5 aren't available for streaming (legally) anywhere I can find them.) That being said, these are pretty good.  I'm more of a Marvel than DC guy, but I still like these quite a bit.

Binge watched Hemlock Grove on Netflix.  Zzzzzzzz.  This is the worst thing I can imagine.  Let me explain.  There are three kinds of movies (or TV, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll call everything I'm talking about here 'movies'.) There's the good kind; I don't really feel the need to elaborate.  Good is good.  Good is worth watching.  Then there's the bad kind.  Some bad movies are just, well, bad.  They're not worth watching.  But some bad movies are good in a I-can't-believe-this-crap kind of way.  Others are fun to give the MST3K treatment.  But some movies are mediocre.  This, to me, is the biggest sin filmmakers can foist upon the public.  Mediocre is not good enough to be good, not bad-bad enough to just turn off and scrub from your memory, and not bad-good enough to enjoy for their badness.  Mediocre delivers just enough quality to give you hope and then they suck just bad enough to never deliver.  Hemlock Grove was mediocre.

Drive.  I've seen this one before, but I wanted to show it to a friend of mine, so watched it again.  Love it.  Five stars.  This is quality film making.  The confidence of direction to let the silences speak volumes.  Living, breathing characters who are complicated and conflicted.  Wonderful, intimate moments shattered by hyper-violence.  This movie is not for everybody, but I find it to be top shelf.  Outstanding cinema all around.

Moonrise Kingdom.  I an a Wes Anderson fan. Saw Rushmore at the dollar theater and was blown away.  I went again.  I dragged several friends to it.  I saw it there five times.  It, I thought, perfectly captured the angsty disaster that is the unrequited love of an adolescent.  And the unrequited love of a grown man who was still an adolescent.  And the feud between the adolescents.  All of this set to a cracking soundtrack.  I've been an Anderson supporter ever since.  So as I'm watching Moonrise Kingdom, I realize, at about thirty minutes into it, that I'm not connecting with these kids, Sam and Suzy, at all.  I was digging the adult roles (how can you not dig Ed Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) but Sam and Suzy were leaving me cold.  I guess I was struggling with the 'why are they behaving this way' stuff.  Was this film a misstep?   Had I lost my connection to Anderson's works?  Oh, the horror.   Then, THEN, it is revealed that Sam and Suzy are both broken, angry, disillusioned malcontents, and suddenly it all made sense.  I love how Anderson addresses important and powerful human emotions with a sense of tenderness and whimsy while still driving home his point.  This movie is really really good.  So there.

Looper is smart, inventive Sci-Fi.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt is awesome (despite some awkward and unfortunate  makeup), Bruce Willis is always good when he wants to be and here he wants to be, Emily Blunt was spot on as the emotional achor, struggling single mom, and the kid who played the kid did a very good job (I usually don't care much for child actors, but this kid is outstanding.)  Rian Wilson, writer/director, gets this story moving fast and doesn't care if you keep up.  This is an intelligent film with some crazy effects and powerful emotions.  Loved it.

John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.  They're awesome together.  Just look at the awesome that is Escape From New York.  Well, I didn't watch that (not recently, anyway) I watched Big Trouble In Little China.  A fun, occasionally ridiculous romp full of mysticism, ninjas, wizards and a long haul truck driver.  This was one of my favorite films from the 80's and thankfully it still holds up now that I'm entering my dotage.  Two things really stood out to me from this film.  Russell has always had a wonderful head of hair, and I'm always surprised when Kim Cattrall is fully clothed.  Oh, and practical effects are almost always better than CGI.  Suck on that Roland Emmerich.

Ya'll know I loves me some Quentin Tarantino.  I even like the stuff that other people think is his worst.  Yep, I liked Jackie Brown and Death Proof.  But today we're talking about Django Unchained.  Thank god my brainiac coworker hipped me to the proper pronunciation: Duh-jango.  Got it.  Thanks for that.  Later when I said "The Duh-jingos ate my baby" he didn't get that I was making fun of him.  ANYway, I get the feeling that if Tarantino somehow directed a narrative from a Chinese takeout menu, I would be enthralled.  Some directors just seem to speak my language.  Or I theirs, I suppose.  Whenever I'm two hours into a film but it feels like forty-five minutes, I know that the experience is good.  As one would expect from QT, great writing and direction, strong acting, offensive language, buckets of gore and good old fashioned revenge.  Yay!

Okay.  That's all I gots today, cool kids.

Laters.

My Spirit Animal

I once dated a semi-crazy girl and she told me that my spirit animal was a mole.

While I see her point, I can't agree with her opinion.  

So I asked my brother what he thought my spirit animal was.  He said a pot roast.

To be fair, I'm not sure he understood the question.

From time to time I tried to figure out what my spirit animal is but I never could quite figure it out.

Until tonight.  I'm sitting here eating my dinner (not a pot roast) while listening to Biz Markie and wondering if I want to keep watching Bleach or House of Cards when BLAM! out of nowhere I knew what/who my spirit animal is.

Eeyore.

Yeah.  I'm good with that.  Eeyore it is.

Waiting For Ben Hur Part III

Good news everybody!  The Ben Hur long wait has been reduced to a short wait!  I have renewed hope that I will be able to see Chuck's Chariot Chase before I die.  Well, probably.  Maybe.  Eh, who cares?  I've been having a good time watching other stuff in the meantime, so, y'know, whatever.

Here's the most recent rundown of stuff that I've been watching.

Brave.  I liked it.  Not quite the sheer bolt of awesomeness that say, Toy Story/WALL E/the Incredibles etc., but really quite nice.  Gorgeous to look at, some laugh out loud moments, and very nice voice work.  Tonally a bit uneven, but that's minor quibbling.  Will watch again.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Very, very British.  And in case you didn't know, to me, that's a good thing.  We Americans don't do much in the way of 'understated' but it is something the Brits do quite well.  Brilliant cast, complex espionage story, and ultimately, really well done.  Will watch again.

Killer Joe.  I don't know if I liked this one or not.  I mean really.  The disc was 'unreadable', so I never watched it.  Thanks a lot Netflix.  Will watch again, um, for the first time, someday.

The Bourne Legacy.  Not bad.  I expected this to not be good at all, but I was pleasantly surprised.  A smart, decently acted offshoot of some of my favorite action movies, the original Bourne trilogy.  Jeremy Renner is a fine actor, but he didn't quite caputre Matt Damon's Jason Bourne humanity.  Also, the car (and motorcycle) chase at the end was not up to snuff.  Might watch again, but...maybe not.

Hard Boiled.  I've seen this many times, but honestly I hadn't seen it since I watched my old VHS Letterbox copy in the mid-90's.  John Woo (who has a rather forgettable cameo, and I say that because I had totally forgotten about it) may have reached his zenith with this film.  Insane action, a few laughs built from character, compelling (if mostly over-the-top unbelievable) crime story.  I was pleased to see that it has held up.  Will watch again.

Holy Motors.  I...I am confused.  Here are the facts: I laughed, I was completely blown away by how good some of the scenes are, and I have absolutely no idea if I liked it.  This needs a re-watch.  My small brain hasn't processed everything yet.  Is it bad that I don't know if I liked it or not, yet already gave it a four-star rating on Netflix?  I'll get back to you on this one.  One last thing.  Even though I don't know if I liked it, I am glad that I watched it.  Does this make any sense?  No?  Didn't think so.  Sorry.

Bleach.  My old roommate Larry used to watch a lot of anime and I saw a lot of this show with him.  Lately I have found myself wondering what had happened beyond the parts that I had seen.  So I've been watching again, and I have to say that while it's not for everybody, I really like it.  It's aimed for a younger audience than I am, so sure, some parts are juvenile (meant for younger audiences, not immature work) but the fantasy elements are often awesome, the characterizations are sometimes broad, but routinely well done, and some of the animation and design work are top notch.  Not to say that there aren't some less than stellar moments, there are, but most things of an episodic nature have this problem.  I've watched 51 episodes and there are hundreds more, but I will continue to watch as long as it keeps rewarding me for doing so.

Okay kids, time for food and Bleach.

Have a wunnerful weekend,
B

Well, crap.

Roger Ebert died today and the world is poorer for it.

I'm not a sentimentalist, and I usually don't get too worked up over the death of a celebrity, which is probably not how Ebert viewed himself, but today when I saw that he had passed, I had to take a moment to breathe deeply and right myself because I didn't want to go all emotional at work.

I just tried to write a paragraph or two about how awesome Ebert was both as a critic and as a human being, and I just couldn't do it.  Nothing I wrote seemed good enough to accurately illustrate my affection for the man and the critic.  Suffice it to say that there will never be another like him, and that I shall miss him dearly.  I knew I would never meet him, but now that I have not and shall not, I'm getting a little weepy.

To Roger: Godspeed, good sir.  Be glad you have left that accursed cancer behind.  May your theater seat in heaven always be comfy, the screens large and vibrant, the concessions plentiful, and the movies, well,  may the movies all be worth five stars.

Waiting For Ben Hur Part II

Stupid Netflix.

My 'short wait' for Ben Hur has become a 'long wait'.  Bastards.

But instead of moping, I'm just going to hope it arrives sooner rather than later, and in the meantime, here's the aforementioned reviews of everything I've watched instead of the Chuck Heston chariot chase.

The Dark Knight Rises.  I wanted to like this better than I did.  Not saying it was bad or anything, but honestly, I felt it was the weakest of the three Nolan Batman movies.  Batman Begins was a believable tweaking of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One story.  The Dark Knight was a crime story with a very good turn from Heath Ledger (but with a clumsy Two-Face story shoehorned in), and The Dark Knight Rises was the war movie, I guess?  I liked Anne Hathaway better than I thought I would, but bad move getting rid of Alfred for most of the story, bad move making Bane awfully boring, and bad move by Spielberging your ending.  Didn't suck, wasn't great, but honestly I may never watch it again.  And I've watched the first two installments multiple times.

Contagion.  I felt about this the way I feel about most of Steven Soderbergh's stuff.  Nice to look at, well made, but ultimately it left me a little cold.  I liked Gwyneth Paltrow's part, I thought Matt Damon kinda phoned it in.  I liked Kate Winslet, I thought Jude Law overcooked his part.  By the end I was waiting for it to be over, but as usual, it was pleasing to my eye.  I think Soderbergh makes beautiful movies that lack heart.  That said, he's a talented director and still better than most.  I've just given up connecting to most of his stuff.  Maybe I just don't speak his language.

The Avengers.  Dig it.  Dug it.  Will watch again.  Highly recommended.  My inner nerd rejoices often that this movie hit the mark.  Joss Whedon is not infallable *cough Dollhouse cough* but he is a director that I do indeed understand the language which he speaks and he speaks it well. (that sentence was crap.)  Now.  If Shane Black's Iron Man 3 is a winner, I may just squee in public, rather than to myself while hiding in my nerd lair.  Marvel has done a wonderful job in creating its movie universe.  I wish DC/Warner Bros. would find the same success, but it hasn't worked out so well for them so far.  I hope Zack Snyder's Man of Steel is good, because if it's not, that studio could have real troubles ahead of them.

The Collector.  Bleh.  Pretty much the first line of dialogue turned me off completely.  So on the nose...so very, very bad.  Not long after that, a few characters got introduced and they were so force-fit that I was getting squirmy.  Not long after that, the drawn-out 'suspense' started to put me to sleep.  The first half hour of this thing should have taken about 15 minutes, but the ham handed attempts to create something out of nothing just kept a'comin'.  I tuned it off and was happier for it.

The Hunger Games.  I think if I was a 14 year-old girl, I would have been quite happy with this.  However.  I am a 42 year-old curmudgeon and I found it to be contrived and boring.  Also, shallow.  Also, Lenny Kravitz, have you no shame?  Also, for the amount of money spent on this thing some of the effects were crap.  Also, Wes Bentley?  I preferred your floaty plastic bag to your stupid flamey beard.  Will not watch the sequels unless mandated by law.

Resident Evil: Retribution.  I gotta be honest.  I can't tell these movies apart.  There's, I think, five of them?  Completely interchangeable.  And yet somehow I kinda like 'em.  Definitely need to turn the brain off before I watch, but they're entertaining in their own small way.  Zombies, meta-humans, Milla Jovovich in skintight pleather catsuits, carnage, mayhem.  Yes sir, I'll watch the next forty-two of them.

Skyfall.  I think I need to watch this one again.  Really liked most of it.  Kinda didn't like some of it.  I wanted to watch the director's commentary, but Netflix sent me the vanilla version so I couldn't.  Boo.  Overall, pretty good.  I liked that the villain was memorable.  That was a nice change from Casino Royale and Quantum of Snooze Button.  I liked that the story centered around M for a change, and I think the story benefited from it.  Daniel Craig continues to impress.  Sam Mendes is a fine director.  But something about it just wasn't quite right.  I'll have to watch again and give more thoughts then.

John Carter.  Nerd admission: I never read these books, so I had no real knowledge of what this movie was about.  Sure I knew a few things, but not much.  Turns out that that was perfect because this movie delivered the exact same: not much.  A few laughs (small ones), a few nice set pieces, some unbelievable 'science', some mediocre 'acting', and, uhhh...yeah.  I understand that this tanked so bad there will never be a sequel, and I can say...yay.  Good call.  No need for that.

That's all I got for today kids.  I'll be back soon with more boring reviews that aren't Ben Hur.

Peace.

Ugh, my brain...

I'm not the world's stupidest man, nor am I a Hawking-like genius, but I get by.

Some days I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, how old my brother is, or the name of that guy in that movie, you know, that guy...

But some days I am gifted with a wondrous flashback to something long forgotten, something that makes me quite happy.  Something like this...

Here's the deal.  I'm driving home from work and all I'm thinking about is getting out of my crap work clothes and into my pajamas and getting some food into my gullet, when I realize that I'm humming something that I recognize, but can't think of the artist or title, but I've got the words and then it all came flooding back into my old, decaying brain...

Seriously, I cannot tell you how excited I am to have this song back into my life.  About the video, the thing I remembered were, the Devil lady, the asymmetrical heart on the drums, his sideburns (I wanted them so bad back then, but I didn't have the facial hair to do it) and the biker dude faux-choking him.  The things I did not remember were the seemingly genuine happiness he and the old lady share, the weird instrumental break with the drum-noodling, and that in 1991 he and I dressed quite a bit alike aside from his up-around-his-sternum pants.

Anyway, I will leave you now, because I have gotten into my pajamas but I have not eaten yet, and I am hungry.  Strange that I felt completely compelled to write this first...

Adios, muchachos.

Waiting For Ben Hur

First.  To all three of my (semi-) loyal readers, sorry for not being here for you to help waste your work days. I've been eyes deep in my stupid screenplay and work and I moved a few miles and I hate winter and blah blah blibbity blah.

The good news is that spring appears to be here (fingers crossed) I like my new place, and my screenplay is done.  I missed a few (self imposed) deadlines but I finally put that ornery bastard to bed last week.  This week I have not thought about it one bit (or at least if I did think about it, I quickly changed my mind) and I have been decompressing with video games, sleep, and movies.

Second.  A few weeks ago I got an email from Netflix wherein they offered me a free month of their disc-based service.  I have had the streaming only version of Netflix for ages and I have often sighed when what I wanted to watch was not available in that fashion.  So I gamely accepted said offer and have started to get the discs again. Two at a time.  Blu Rays.  It's nice and I like it.  The caveat, you ask?  Well, in the past, when I had the disc delivery plan, sometimes I would let the discs sit on top of my TV for weeks at a time without watching them.  Sometimes I would watch them, sometimes I would mail them back unseen.  I was wasting what I consider to be a quality service.  So.  This time I decided that I would have an agenda with my selections.  I selected the AFI top 100 movies list and decided that I would watch the movies, in order, from 100 to 1.  Even the ones I've already seen.  I would intersperse these hundred movies with other, less prestigious movies so as not to feel like every disc was an IMPORTANT FILM.  I decided that I would write reviews of these movies here in this blog.  I was/am excited for this.

Except.

A Tangent.  When you select a movie that Netflix does not have a bazillion of, they inform you right there on your queue that it will require a short wait.  Year ago, I forget the movie, I had a short wait.  Netflix emailed me and said that they were awfully sorry for the short wait so instead of delivering my movie from my usual distribution center, they would send it from a different center, in Florida no less, so it would be an extra day or two before it arrived.  That kind of service and short wait I do not mind.  Apparently this is not how they deal with the short waits anymore.

Third.  Number 100 on the AFI list is Ben Hur.  I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid.  To be honest, with the exception of vague memories of chariots, I have no recollection of it and will be able to watch this movie completely afresh.  I'm looking forward to it quite a bit.  Except.  Except there is a short wait.  I have received no email informing me of it being sent from a different distribution center.  It just sits there atop my queue reminding me that I can't have it.  I expected the first two movies I received to be The Dark Knight Returns and Ben Hur.  Instead I got TDKR and Contagion.  And then the Avengers.  And then the Collector.  And then the Hunger Games.  And then Resident Evil: Retribution.

Sigh.  I mailed the last two movies on this list back today and needless to say I do not expect Ben Hur to arrive to replace them.

So as I review these films (reviews will start in a few days) I will continue to title these posts as Waiting For Ben Hur until it actually shows up and I can watch it.

Anyways, I will now bid you adieu as I will attempt (yet again) to consume my body weight in meats/carbs.

Thank you and good night.