Hell and Back Again (2011)

Nominated for Best Documentary   This was certainly the most cinematic documentary I've seen this year.  The editing and sound work were really well-put-together, especially interposing sound clips from when Sgt Harris was in Afghanistan as a voiceover to show the internal memories.  It has a real shot of winning this category.

That being said, I hated this movie.  I thought it was going to be this year's Restrepo but it's more like The Hurt Locker part two.  Sgt Nathan Harris is a Marine infantryman who was injured in Afghanistan and is sent home to recover.  He goes through rehab and tries to adjust to civilian life.  He joined the Marine Corps at 18 because he flat-out wanted to kill people.  This is an asset in wartime but it does tend to mean you have a certain disposition.  Eight years later at 26, his priorities have somewhat shifted but his stated aim is to recover from his injuries and go right back out into the field.  I suppose someone's gotta do it.

If I seem callous it's because I've known too many guys like this.  They talk real big about how they're going to be fine and they're not affected, but deep down they are scared shitless because without the military they have no job skills and can't stand the thought of being permanently disabled.  Also, the paranoia exhibited by this man is appalling.  In a war zone, carrying a loaded weapon with you only makes good sense.  Carrying it with you to the grocery store is unbalanced.  Constantly flashing it towards your wife is just idiotic.  The entire movie I was waiting for him to shoot her accidentally.  And you can chant "PTSD" at me all you want.  I've had PTSD.  The quickest way I've found to diffuse it is to stop trying to make a safe environment into a dangerous one.  You have to keep those worlds separate.

Rio (2011)

Nominated for Best Original Song    This was a cute little animated film, although it apparently wasn't good enough to get nominated in that category.  The song is called "Real in Rio" and I couldn't tell you what part of the movie it played in.  At one point the main character, Blu, says that all samba music sounds the same and it's pretty much the same with the music of the film.  I'm sure the city is lovely and that samba music is very nice but I don't think The Muppets should be worried about losing this category.

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) is the last blue male macaw of his species and lives with his human, Linda (Leslie Mann), in Moose Lake, Minnesota.  An ornithologist from Brazil comes to Minnesota and convinces Linda to breed her bird with the last surviving female in Rio de Janeiro.  Jewel (Anne Hathaway) is a wild bird and has absolutely no wish to be caged or to have anything to do with Blu, who can't even fly.  Then they are both birdnapped by a gang of exotic bird dealers which includes an evil molting cockatoo named Nigel (Jemaine Clement).  The macaws escape but need some help to remove the chain binding their feet together.  Rafael the toucan (George Lopez) knows a mechanic named Luis (Tracy Morgan) who can get the job done.  Meanwhile, Linda and the professor search for the missing birds on the eve of Carnivale and Nigel has his disreputable gang of marmosets out for the same purpose.

Visually, the movie is beautiful and the animation is very typical of the studio.  It's a little juvenile for repeat viewings; I think it's probably best as a movie you put on for your kids and then go do something else.

If a Tree Falls (2011)

Nominated for Best Documentary    This documentary explores the motives and personalities of several ELF members who were arrested for arsons committed in 1997.  I remember when "eco-terrorism" was the new buzzword.  People were just starting to really get into modern environmentalism.  At the time I didn't really give a shit and I mostly still don't.  I understand the idea and I get how certain types of people will always radicalize  any movement, no matter how peaceful its goals.  I don't agree with the ELF's training or methods since it seems to cause nothing but negative feedback and makes it harder for people with peaceful intentions to get their message heard.

The documentary focuses on the house arrest of Daniel McGowan, an ELF member who was arrested after participating in two arsons of a professor's office at the University of Oregon and a poplar farm.  Daniel doesn't deny the arson at all and his entire aim is to avoid a life sentence plus 335 years without having to testify against his fellow arsonists.  There is a lot of discussion of the semantics behind the word "terrorist" since that is what Daniel and his friends are labelled.  Their rationale is that terrorists kill people and in 1200 arsons the ELF has claimed there has been no loss of life.  You could certainly argue that if terrorism were a scale with Homeowner's Associations at 1 and Al-Qaeda at 10, the ELF would be towards the low end.  But the definition of terrorist is one who seeks to inspire terror.  If all terrorists was kill people we'd just call them murderers.

I'd say this documentary falls into the "Inform" category, not the "Persuade" category.  I didn't feel any more sympathy towards the ELF when it was over than I did when I started it, which is to say none.  Especially after it was revealed that the two burned buildings were targeted based on bad intel.  That does not inspire goodwill.

The Iron Lady (2011)

Nominated for Best Leading Actress and Best Make-up      This should get Meryl an Oscar easy.  Even though I didn't like the movie (I know, what a shock) she's got my vote hands down.  As for the make-up, definitely a win.  Amazing job.  They took Meryl Streep who looks like this:

and turned her into Margaret Thatcher's clone.

That's pretty good but then they aged her another thirty years.  I've watched Face/Off on SyFy.  Age makeup is hard to make natural looking but they totally did it.

Compared to that, the rest of the movie isn't really interesting.  I know who Margaret Thatcher is academically but she was out of power long before I was aware of international politics.  The movie briefly hits the high points of her time as Prime Minister:  the end of the Cold War, the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the Falklands War but doesn't really dwell on them so much as it does a dotty old Margaret Thatcher reminiscing on being in power while having long conversations with her dead husband (Jim Broadbent).  Seriously.  The only thing I took away from the film (other than the makeup was fantastic) was that getting old sucks.  It's a good thing that woman is dead or she might have sued them for libel.  I wouldn't want my twilight years being paraded about interspersed with moments when I basically ruled a country.  Fuck that.

The Maltese Falcon (1931)/Satan Met a Lady (1936)

  Yep, that's right.  The super-famous 1941 version is a remake.  In a way it's almost comforting that Hollywood has always been allergic to new ideas, as opposed to becoming money-hungry bastards only recently.  And it's almost a shot for shot remake, too.

There are a few key differences in character portrayal, however.  In the original, Sam Spade (played by Ricardo Cortez) is much more of a ladies-man than Bogey played him.  Now whether or not that's because this pre-dates the Hayes Code I don't know.  But in this one, Archer is aware that Sam has been sleeping with his wife, which adds a new element to his later murder.  The feel of the movie is much different, much more light-hearted than the '41 version which probably reflects the general mood of the public at the time.

Honestly, if you were going to own one, I'd say stick with the Bogart classic.  This one is really only notable as a piece of trivia.

  This was on the same disc because it's basically the same movie except that it's the horn of Roland instead of a falcon from Malta.  Bette Davis plays the femme fatale and she's much more of a spitfire than Mary Astor or Bebe Daniels.  Honestly, this was probably one of those "we don't have the copyrights so we're just going to change a couple of the names enough so we don't get sued" things.  If you'd never seen either version of the real thing it's pretty good but I wouldn't watch them back to back if you can help it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

Nominated for Best Leading Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing  The original Swedish version of this has been sitting in my queue for ages.  I read the book and was not impressed, but everybody kept talking about it like it was the greatest thing ever so I thought "maybe I'm missing something".

I wasn't.

The opening titles were incredibly badass.  Everything after that was all downhill I'm afraid.  If it wasn't for the graphic rape and torture scenes, this movie would have been incalculably boring.  With them, this movie was boring and disgusting.  Rooney Mara does do a very good job of playing the brilliant-yet-damaged Lisbeth Salander and she deserves the nomination.  Of course, I haven't seen any of the other contenders yet so it's hard to say whether she deserves to win.

Fresh off a recent libel conviction, disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig) is made an offer of refuge in the north of Sweden by former industrialist tycoon Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer).  Ostensibly, he is there to write Henrik's memoirs but he's really supposed to bring the old man a measure of peace by investigating the disappearance and probable murder of Henrik's great-niece, Harriet.  During a summer vacation in 1966, Harriet vanished from the Vanger family island and was never seen again.  And yet, every year, Henrik receives a pressed flower for his birthday-- something only Harriet would know about.  Or her killer.  Mikael must interview the disreputable Vanger family members, which include antisocial drunks and Nazis, to determine who killed 16-year-old Harriet but he needs help in the form of a research assistant.  Enter Lisbeth Salander, a pierced, tattooed ward of the state with a host of personal problems but a genius with computers.  Together, the two embark on the trail of a decades-cold serial killer.

The movie is very faithful to the book and by that I mean that I hated them both.

Trading Places (1983)

  I hadn't seen this movie in years and maybe never outside of the edited version on TNT.  It's still hilarious.  Back when Eddie Murphy wasn't trying to play every single character in a movie and was content just to be funny and when Dan Aykroyd was still skinny.  Oh, the good old days.

Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) is a product of the very best breeding and education America has to offer.  Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) is a con man living on the streets, a product of the negative environment in which he was raised.  After a chance of fate brings these two men into contrast, Winthorpe's bosses, brothers Mortimer (Don Ameche) and Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) Duke, decide to engage in a little social experiment on nature versus nurture.  They have Winthorpe disgraced, fired, and arrested and raise Valentine up to his former place, giving him a butler (Denholm Elliott) and all the trappings of wealth.  With no money and no hope, Winthorpe falls into poverty buffered only by the kindness of a street-wise prostitute (Jamie Lee Curtis).  Valentine, meanwhile, learns of the bet the two Duke brothers have made and decides to take steps.  When the two men team up to try and keep the millionaire from cornering the frozen orange juice market, things get crazy.

Like I said, I don't know if I've ever seen the unedited for TV version of this movie.  For example, I was not aware that Jamie Lee Curtis gets topless.  Although I fully approve.  Other than the nudity, there's really nothing here that would cause censors to freak out.  It's definitely not as ribald as Coming to America, which was also directed by John Landis and features a cameo by the disgraced Duke brothers.

Oscar Nominations 2012

The nominations for the 84th Annual Academy Awards are as follows:

Best Picture

The Artist
The Descendants
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The Help
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
Moneyball
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Leading Actor

Demian Bichir for A Better Life
George Clooney for The Descendants
Jean Dujardin for The Artist
Gary Oldman for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Brad Pitt for Moneyball

Best Leading Actress

Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs
Viola Davis for The Help
Rooney Mara for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady
Michelle Williams for My Week with Marilyn

Best Supporting Actor

Kenneth Branagh for My Week with Marilyn
Jonah Hill for Moneyball
Nick Nolte for Warrior
Christopher Plummer for Beginners
Max von Sydow for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Best Supporting Actress

Berenice Bejo for The Artist
Jessica Chastain for The Help
Melissa McCarthy for Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer for Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer for The Help

Best Director

Woody Allen for Midnight in Paris
Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist
Terrence Malick for The Tree of Life
Alexander Payne for The Descendants
Martin Scorsese for Hugo

Best Original Screenplay

The Artist
Bridesmaids
Margin Call
Midnight in Paris
A Separation

Best Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants
Hugo
The Ides of March
Moneyball
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Animated Film

A Cat in Paris
Chico and Rita
Kung Fu Panda 2
Puss in Boots
Rango

Best Foreign Language Film

Bullhead (Belgium)
Footnote (Israel)
In Darkness (Poland)
Monsieur Lazhar (Canada)
A Separation (Iran)

Best Cinematography

The Artist
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
The Tree of Life
War Horse

Best Editing

The Artist
The Descendants
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball

Best Art Direction

The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Part 2
Hugo
Midnight in Paris
War Horse

Best Costume Design

Anonymous
The Artist
Hugo
Jane Eyre
W.E.

Best Make-up

Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Part 2
The Iron Lady

Best Original Score

The Adventures of Tintin
The Artist
Hugo
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
War Horse

Best Original Song

The Muppets  "Man or Muppet"
Rio  "Real in Rio"

Best Sound Mixing

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Moneyball
Transformers:  Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Best Sound Editing

Drive
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Hugo
Transformers:  Dark of the Moon
War Horse

Best Visual Effects

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:  Part 2
Hugo
Real Steel
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Transformers:  Dark of the Moon

Best Documentary

Hell and Back Again
If a Tree Falls:  A Story of the Earth Liberation Front
Paradise Lost 3:  Purgatory
Pina
Undefeated

Best Documentary Short

The Barber of Birmingham:  Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement
God is the Bigger Elvis
Incident in New Baghdad
Saving Face
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom

Best Animated Short

Dimanche
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
La Luna
A Morning Stroll
Wild Life

Best Live Action Short

Pentecost
Raju
The Shore
Time Freak
Tuba Atlantic

Can I just say that I think it's a travesty that films like X-Men:  First Class and Thor were passed over for awards while Transformers 3  is nominated for THREE MOTHERFUCKING OSCARS.  What the fuck is that?  There were a lot of shitty films this year, granted, but to only have two nominees for Best Original Song?  They couldn't have thrown Gnomeo and Juliet up there just to give it a little more oomph?  It just irritates me.  Other than that, I can see I'll have my work cut out for me trying to get any of these watched.

Thumbelina (1994)

  This is one of the best offerings from Don Bluth animation.  The colors aren't quite as crisp now but the music and animation still hold up really well.

Based on the Hans Christian Anderson tale, this is the story of Thumbelina (Jodi Benson), a girl no bigger than a thumb who meets and falls in love with a fairy prince (Gary Imhoff).  But, before they can marry, Thumbelina is kidnapped by Mrs. Toad (Charo) who wants to capitalize on Thumbelina's singing voice and marry her to Grande, her repulsive son.  Thumbelina escapes but is now far from home.  She gets help from Jocquimo (Gino Conforti), a French swallow, who promises to look for the prince but then gets waylaid by a further series of misadventures.

It has the voice talents of Gilbert Gottfried, John Hurt, and Carol Channing and the music was written by Barry Manilow so there's quite a pedigree here.  I would rank it with many of the Disney animated films for quality.

Bella (2006)

  I have no idea why Netflix lies to me.  It gets me to add movies to my queue by cleverly suggesting that I will like them and then I watch them and think "What the fuck is this?  How would this be in any way worth 3 stars to me, Netflix?"  Because it's all lies.  Horrible lies.

This is the incredibly boring story of Jose (Eduardo Verastegui), who accidentally mowed down a three-year-old with his car on his way to a press conference celebrating his professional soccer debut.  After four years in jail, Jose works as a chef in his brother's restaurant but walks out one day to chase down a waitress his brother fired for being late.  Turns out the waitress is pregnant, thus explaining her tardiness, and is trying to cope with the idea that she is both pregnant and unemployed.  Jose spends the day with her out of a sense of misplaced guilt that if he can somehow convince this woman to not get an abortion it will make up for the kid he decorated the grille of his car with.

This movie was so boring I stopped it halfway through and surfed the internet for two hours looking for funny articles to send to my cousin while she was at work.  I went back and finished it but it was an effort.  I'm giving it the foreign tag because it's about half in English and half in Spanish.

Three to Tango (1999)

  I haven't seen this movie in several years.  I remember that I used to really enjoy it or I wouldn't have kept it but having just seen it again I'm not sure why.  I think I've possibly outgrown this movie.  That's kind of sad in a way.  I've had it for over ten years now. 

Oscar (Matthew Perry, sporting a godawful dye job) is an architect bidding on a reconstruction project worth $90 million.  Charles (Dylan McDermott) is the head of the company and mistakenly thinks that Oscar and his partner Peter (Oliver Platt) are gay.  Because he's a selfish scumbag, he gets Oscar to spy on his mistress, a free-spirited glassblower named Amy (Neve Campbell).  But the more time Oscar spends with Amy the more he comes to care for her.

The movie sets itself up to be about gays but it's really not, even though just about every other member of the cast is playing one.  I think it's supposed to be about accepting people for who they are and not expecting them to play some sort of role in public but it's really just about a guy pretending to be gay so he can get with a chick that is so far out of his league ordinarily he'd need a telescope just to see her.  So I think it's time for this movie to be quietly retired to Amazon and it's proceeds put towards a new book for my Kindle.

District 13: Ultimatum (2009)

  This is the sequel to French action extravaganza District B-13, one of my favorite films.  I was worried it wouldn't be as good, since the original had some problems with preachiness, but it far exceeded my expectations.  This is definitely one to buy.

It's been three years since the events in B-13.  Despite all its promises, the government hasn't made much of a difference in the lives of the inhabitants.  They haven't even taken the walls down.  Leito (David Belle) still lives inside, apart from but friendly with the five major gangs that inhabit the high-rises.  Damian the supercop (Cyril Raffaelli) is still doing his master-of-disguise thing, taking down criminals in the heart of Paris.  That is, until he is framed for narcotics possession and arrested.  Meanwhile, Leito is handed an SD card with a video that incriminates the DISS (like Homeland Security) in the deaths of three police officers who were later dumped in B-13.  The two men must join forces once again to protect the people of the district and preserve the ideals of the Constitution.

Like I said, I enjoyed the first one tremendously and this one managed to get rid of the one piece I didn't like which was the overt sermonizing.  It's action porn at its Frenchest.

The 3-Penny Opera (1931)

  This is my second time viewing this movie.  I watched the original German version first and this time I went back and watched the concurrently-filmed French version.  Of the two, I found the French to be much more preferable.  I'm not 100% convinced I should keep this movie, even though it's a Criterion Collection.  It's interesting to watch but I'm just not sure I like it.

Mackie Messer (Albert Prejean in the French version) is a gangster in London who has risen to the top of the Soho heap.  He wants to marry Polly Peachum (Florelle) but her father, the King of Beggars, doesn't approve.  So they get married anyway.  Her father threatens the Chief of Police that if something isn't done about Mack the Knife (yes, that's where the song comes from) he and his beggars will disrupt the planned coronation ceremony of a queen who is unnamed in the film but is probably Queen Victoria.

The character of Mackie is supremely unlikable.  He's an asshole to all his subordinates, marries Polly and then immediately goes back to the brothels, and doesn't have a single kind word for anyone.  Despite this, people fall over themselves to help him out.  I find that baffling.  It is billed as a musical but most of the music has nothing to do with the plot, it's just a way for characters to sing.

Slaughter in the Snow (1973)

  This rounds out my Mikogami trilogy.  I have to say, you could probably watch all three films back-to-back and feel pretty satisfied with yourself.  One of the other girls at Krav Maga told me once that she and her boyfriend have "Bad Movie" nights. Depending on whether your criteria is legitimately shitty movies (anything with Seth Rogan or Kate Beckinsale) or just old crappy exploitation films, this could be a contender.  Get a few friends over, load them up with snacks and sake, and let the fun begin.

In the final part of the trilogy, Jokichi is on the road looking for the final boss that killed his family.  While stopped for a mid-day meal of pheasant, he is a surly bystander to a couple being threatened.  See, the guy is from the samurai caste and the girl is from the hinin caste.  By running away together to elope they have brought shame upon their families.  The guy's father paid some people to chase them down and kill them before they married, thus erasing the shame.  The guy immediately turns on his girlfriend, offering to kill her instead but gets killed by the goons.  They then decide to rape this poor woman before killing her as well.  They notice Jokichi just hanging out, not saying or doing anything, and tell him to get lost.  Then and only then does he get up and kill all the goons.  The woman is understandably upset by this since she had been begging for help and he ignored her.  So she starts following him.  They carry on to a waystation where a drunk ronin is trying to molest a woman.  He is stopped by some other guy named "Windmill" Kobunji, a master knife-thrower.  After Kobunji fucks up the ronin, he notices Jokichi and they talk.  Kobunji happens to be a knife for hire and has recently been hired by Chuji, the man Jokichi is looking for.  Both men start planning for their duel while headed towards a mountain pass.  Unfortunately for everyone, the ronin who got knifed was under the employ of Boss Tozo who puts a hit out on Kobunji.  He doesn't really care since he's already dying of tuberculosis but gets really upset when Jokichi takes him to the inn owned by the woman he saved after he collapses from the strain of traveling.  Jokichi nurses Kobunji back to health so they can have their duel but Boss Tozo kidnaps Ohara, the innkeeper, forcing Kobunji to come after her.  Oyae, the woman Jokichi saved who hates him, tells him about Tozo's plot before getting stabbed.

Whew.  There was a lot going on in this one.

These movies all look like they were filmed at the same time, considering that the first two both came out in '72 and this one the following year.  That probably explains why the continuity is so good.  I would have liked to see an actual conclusion but I suppose they were leaving it open for further installments.

The Fearless Avenger (1972)

Or in Japanese:  Mushukunin mikogami no jokichi:  Kawakaze ni kako wa nagarata

Wow.    This one picks up exactly where Trail of Blood left off, with Jokichi getting the snot kicked out of him by yakuza goons.  They smash two of the fingers from his left hand as payment for the insult he gave them and then he leaves to go back home where he finds the dead bodies of his wife and son.

Okay.  So then he tracks down one of the henchmen and finds out who was behind the killing.  He sets off to find and kill the bosses and tracks them to a memorial for some dead guy.  I probably should have been paying more attention but I was prepping a new cross-stitch.  My bad.  Anyway, Jokichi tries to call out Chogoro but the other ten bosses at the table don't take too kindly to this.  It's about to be a very short movie when one of the bosses, "Thunder", stops the others from turning our hero into a tasteful red smear on the zen garden.  Dejected, Jokichi recuperates and then sets off once more to try and catch this cat, Chogoro.  Yet another boss offers him a super-easy gig for some quick cash:  take Thunder's runaway daughter back home to her daddy.  You can guess what happens next.

No, they don't sleep together.  Perverts.

Yes, she dies.  Yes, it was Chogoro's men.  Yes, Jokichi goes apeshit.  It's awesome in that 70's exploitation kind of way.

Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967)

  Apparently this was nominated for 7 Oscars and won one for Best Original Score. That's pretty impressive for a goofy little musical.

I think I was really expecting Sweet Charity to be more like this movie, madcap and zany, as opposed to what it was.  This is my second time watching and it really is just the cutest little candy floss of a movie.

Millie Dilmount (Julie Andrews) is determined to be a Modern Woman of 1922 which means flapper dresses, bobbed hair, and absolutely no looking for love.  She is planning to marry her successful boss...as soon as she gets a job.  She lives at the Priscilla Hotel for Unmarried Young Ladies, run by Mrs. Meers (Beatrice Lillie) who uses it as a front for her white slavery operation.  I'm not kidding.  On her way home one day, Millie runs into Miss Dorothy Brown (Mary Tyler Moore) a newcomer to the big city, pretty but almost terminally naive.  They go to the hotel where Dorothy, excuse me, Miss Dorothy unwittingly makes herself a target to Mrs. Meers by mentioning that she has no family.  At a friendship dance that evening, Millie meets Jimmy Smith (James Fox), a cute young man who delivers paperclips.  Despite her very stringent protests that she plans to marry her boss, Jimmy continues to court her, even taking her up to Long Island to visit a kooky society dame (Carol Channing).  Meanwhile, Mrs. Meers has her eye on Miss Dorothy.

The costumes and art direction were both nominated for Oscars, as was Carol Channing for her portrayal of Muzzy Van Hossmere.  The music is fun and catchy, matching the colorful bubbly tone.

Apollo 18 (2011)

  I don't know why Rob owns movies.  Seriously.  He got this one and told me to please watch it while he was asleep because stuff like this freaked him out.  Well...then...why own it?  Baffling man.

Anyway, this is one of those "found footage" types that tries way too hard to be Alien meets The Blair Witch Project.  It's not particularly good and I can now understand why AintItCool.com put it on their list of Worst Movies of 2011.  Honestly, I had forgotten it was even made until Rob mentioned it.

The Apollo moon missions after 17 were cancelled due to budget reasons but three astronauts receive secret DoD (Department of Defense) orders that Apollo 18 is a go.  Their families are told that they are going on training missions but they're really going to the moon.  Once there, a guy is left in the space shuttle and the other two go down to the moon's surface.  They are there to plant cameras all over the moon but stumble across an abandoned Soviet landing module.  They go inside and discover that it is completely trashed and that the lone astronaut is dead in a nearby crater.  Also, their camera equipment fritzes a lot.  Freaked out, the two guys continue with their mission while their flag is stolen and tracks are left around their equipment.  Then the leader gets attacked from inside his space suit and develops some sort of alien disease.  The remaining healthy astronaut has to figure out a way to get off the surface of the moon alive.

**SPOILERS FOLLOW**


Do you remember when Jack Sparrow was hallucinating at the beginning of Pirates of the Caribbean:  At World's End?  He was basically in Hell killing himself over and over when the rocks turned into crabs?  That's what's on the moon.  Rock crab aliens that give you the Hanta virus.  It's not scary.

**END OF SPOILERS**


I am not a fan of the fake handy-cam stuff.  I'm especially not a fan of static, which this movie seems to confuse for dramatic tension.  Utterly not worth watching.

The Ides of March (2011)

Nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay    I have to say, I didn't really love this movie but this is one of the best posters I've ever seen.  It just looks great.

I found this movie to be predictable in every way so it felt really short to me.  That's not to say it's a bad movie.  It's packed to the gills with star power and everybody does their job very well.  Like watching professional dancers do a well-known routine.  You know it's flawless because you're already familiar with every step they're going to take.  There are no surprises here.

Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling) is a rising star as a staffer for presidential hopeful Governor Mike Morris (George Clooney).  He's young, idealistic, and fully committed to his job.  In politics, this is what they call "terminally naive".  Stephen has no idea what he's getting into by agreeing to meet with the head staffer for the opposition (Paul Giamatti) while his supervisor (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is out of town.  From that point, things spiral quickly for the kid until he is faced with a huge decision:  his morals or his career?

Marisa Tomei, Evan Rachel Wood and Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leitner from Casino Royale) co-star.  It was nominated for four Golden Globes this year and will probably end up getting nominated for some Oscars as well.

Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)

Sorry, guys.  This was supposed to have been posted yesterday but I'm trying to make the transition from nights to days in preparation for my return to the work force on Wednesday and this one just kind of fell through the cracks.  We'll just call this a bonus due to the holiday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  This is one of my favorites in the series.  This is number four of the six and, like the other sequels, doesn't so much focus on the mystery as it does the characters. 

Nick (William Powell) and Nora (Myrna Loy) Charles are still very much happily married, living in California with their son, Nicky.  Nick adjusts to fatherhood with relative ease, reading his son fairy tales culled from the local racing form.  A trip to the track yields more than a winner, however, when a jockey who had previously thrown a race is found shot in the shower.  Nick reluctantly investigates another death of a newspaper man named Whitey (Alan Baxter) when his friend Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson) is framed for it.  To figure out how the two murders are related and clear his friend's name, Nick must wade through the dealings of a local crime syndicate operating out of a wrestling arena.

This was the last Thin Man movie made before Pearl Harbor so the costumes and sets aren't nearly as lavish as previous ones, as the US was undergoing rationing.  I couldn't point to a specific thing in the movie that made it so appealing to me when I sat down and thought about it.  Maybe because of the horse race angle.  My mother always had horses and, even though I'm not terribly fond of the beasts themselves, I do appreciate all of the associated events.  Especially when they involve my favorite married detectives.

69th Annual Golden Globe Awards (2012)

Well, the Hollywood Foreign Press' annual dinner party went off last night with only a very few hitches.  Ricky Gervais abided by the rules he was given (mostly) and as the alcohol flowed freely, you realized who was actually funny (George Clooney) and who only thought they were (Jimmy Fallon).

It was a night of mermaid dresses, penis jokes, and the French.  Some people looked amazing (Jane Fonda) and some people looked horrible (Piper Perabo).  Idris Elba, who won Best Actor in a Mini-Series for Luther, wore bedazzled Keds proving that Ricky Gervais was absolutely spot-on when he said the Golden Globes were to the Oscars as Kim Kardashian is to Kate Middleton.  We also saw once again that being a great actor/actress does not translate into having teleprompter-reading skills, although props to Julianne Moore and Rob Lowe for cold-reading off the script when their prompter had problems.  Still, the best presentation had to be Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy who sang a little song to the Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Musical TV Show nominees.

So who won what?

Best Supporting Actor: Christopher Plummer, "Beginners"
Best Actress TV Series - Comedy: Laura Dern, "Enlightened"
Best Miniseries: "Downton Abbey"
Best Actress - Miniseries: Kate Winslet, "Mildred Pierce"

Best Actor TV Series - Drama: Kelsey Grammer, "Boss"  --He was one of the very few people who got on stage and didn't seem completely flustered.  
Best TV Series - Drama: "Homeland"
Best Original Score: Ludovic Bource, "The Artist"
Best Original Song: "Masterpiece," Madonna from "W.E."  --I wish I could say Madonna showed better but, except for her robot arms, she didn't really stand out at all.  Apparently, fellow nominee Elton John didn't give much for her chances.  Catfight?
Best Actor - Miniseries: Idris Elba, "Luther"
Best Actress - Musical or Comedy: Michelle Williams, "My Week With Marilyn"
Best Supporting Actor - TV Series, Miniseries, Movie: Peter Dinklage, "Game of Thrones"
Best Animated Feature: "The Adventures of Tintin"
Best Screenplay: Woody Allen, "Midnight in Paris"
Best Actress TV - Drama: Jessica Lange, "American Horror Story"  --I was really disappointed in how bad Jessica Lange looked.  Holy crap.  She looked like she had parachuted into the hotel from a funeral and didn't have time to fix her hair.
Best Foreign Language Film: "A Separation"
Best Actress TV - Drama: Claire Danes, "Homeland"  --She completely fell apart on stage and the longer she talked, the more worried I was that she was going to hyperventilate.
Best Actor TV - Comedy: Matt LeBlanc, "Episodes"  --Is it just me or is Matt LeBlanc looking more like Jerry Lewis now?
Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, "The Help"
Best Director: Martin Scorsese, "Hugo"
Best Comedy Series: "Modern Family"
Best Actor - Musical or Comedy: Jean Dujardin, "The Artist"
Best Actress - Drama: Meryl Streep, "The Iron Lady"  --She was the only winner who had to be bleeped and they very nearly didn't make it.  She apparently forgot her glasses and couldn't read her notes.  George Clooney tried to pass them up to her (he's such a gentleman) but by then she was on a roll.
Best Picture - Musical or Comedy: "The Artist"
Best Actor - Drama: George Clooney, "The Descendants"  --Apparently, Michael Fassbender has a really large penis and George likes it.  Or something like that.
Best Picture - Drama: "The Descendants"

Cecil B. Demille Award: Morgan Freeman

Only two more weeks til the Oscar noms come out!

After the Thin Man (1936)

  This is the direct sequel (the first of five) to The Thin Man.  It's not quite as good a mystery as the original but it has all of the humor and sparkling performances from William Powell and Myrna Loy.

Nick and Nora Charles are home in San Francisco for New Year's when they hear that Nora's cousin Selma's husband has disappeared.  They track the wastrel down to the Lychee Club to try and get him to go back to his wife but he blows them off.  Later that evening, however, he ends up dead.  A number of people had it in for this guy, especially Selma (Elissa Landi).  Finding his killer among all the suspects is no picnic for Nick, since it means dealing with Nora's moneyed relatives who had their own reasons for wanting him gone.

Again, the costumes in this movie are fantastic and if I ever got to be super-rich I'd have replicas made.

10 Things I Hate About You (1999)

  This movie was the first to introduce a handful of stars like Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Gabrielle Union all at the same time.  Except for poor Larisa Oleynik, everybody's careers took off from this point.  It is a good movie, for all that it's a high school retelling of The Taming of the Shrew.

Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) is a ball-busting braniac.  Her sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) just wants to date the popular boy.  Their father, an overworked Ob-Gyn, flat out refuses to let Bianca see anyone until Kat does.  So, new guy Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his friend Michael (David Krumholtz) hatch a plan to get Kat out of the way by paying local bad boy Patrick (Heath Ledger) to woo her.

They handled all of the Shakespearean touches with tongue-in-cheek humor, which I always appreciate, from the high school being named Padua to Kat's best friend (Susan May Pratt) being obsessed with Romeo and Juliet.  It's an easy, fun movie to watch.

Top 10 for 10,000

10,000 of you have read my blog.  Or one of you has read it 10,000 times.  Either way, it's cause for celebration!  So I thought I'd do a top ten of your most favorite posts.

10.  Zombieland

9.  (tie)  Inside Job and Oscar Night 2011

8.  Doll Face, The Great Gabbo, and The Dancing Pirate -- This was a little surprising to me, considering how old these movies are.  Makes me feel better for forcing myself to watch 50 of them.

7.  I Am Love

6.  Oscar Nominations 2011 -- I do love doing the Oscar posts every year (this will be the third, coming up on the 24th of this month) and I'm so glad you guys seems to share my enthusiasm.

5.  Golden Globe Nominations 2010

4.  Juno -- I am shocked that this one has remained as popular over such a comparatively long time.  I originally posted this in September 2010 and it was already three years old by then.  You guys really love your pregnant Ellen Page.

3.  TRON Legacy -- Armenians!  You loved some Tron Legacy, didn't you?  You may have been the only ones but you got this post up to number one for the longest time, bless your hearts.

2.  Red Riding Hood -- I don't know what to think here.  I balls-out hated this movie, but you people still click on it week after week.  I don't know if that means that you liked it or just liked that I made fun of it or, as I suspect, you just liked the picture of the bronze bull at the bottom of the page.  Whatever your reasons, this is the second most popular post I've got.

/drum roll

1.  Golden Globes Nominations 2012

Ta da!  Hopefully, this bodes well for the coming year.  My little stats counter bar keeps going to higher average numbers so more of you are reading this than ever before.  Spread the word, click the follow button to your top left over there, and keep reading because I'm going to keep watching movies and telling you what I think about them.  Thanks, everybody!

Tank Girl (1995)

  I like this movie.  Makes me wish I had seen it when I was in middle school.  It would have redefined my idea of 'cool'.  And possibly have driven my parents insane.  Missed opportunities.  /sigh

The year is 2033.  A comet has hit the earth, destroying pretty much everything and it hasn't rained in eleven years.  Water, therefore, is an extremely precious resource controlled by mega-corporation Water & Power.  A few brave souls steal water, living in communal facilities out in the desert.  Rebecca (Lori Petty) is one of those, until W & P raid her house, killing her boyfriend, and taking her sister Sam (Stacy Lynn Ramsower) prisoner.  Rebecca is also taken but, due to her fighting spirit, is kept alive by the chairman of Water & Power, Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell).  He puts her to work in the mines until her spirit breaks.  Aided by another lost soul, Jet (Naomi Watts), Rebecca plots to escape and find the nigh-mythical Rippers, genetically engineered rogue killing machines and then rescue her sister and bring down the evil corporation.

It's a fun little movie based on a cult British comic and it has a kick-ass 90s soundtrack.

Sweet Charity (1969)

  This movie was such a disappointment.  I've always heard the music, which is great, and I always imagined the choreography would be good since it's Bob Fosse, and it is, but the story sucks. 

Charity Valentine (Shirley MacLaine) is a total idiot when it comes to men.  Granted, she doesn't meet very many sterling examples in her job as a "dance hall hostess".  Men pay for the women to dance with them, which basically means they get groped for half an hour.  She is constantly telling her co-workers about how great all these men are and they constantly tell her she's full of shit.  She doesn't even have any luck when she meets her idol, Italian movie star Vittorio Vitali (Ricardo Montalban), right after he's been dumped by his bitchy, high-class girlfriend.  He drags her around all night and just when it starts to look like she's hit the big leagues, the girlfriend shows back up and Charity spends the entire night in Vittorio's closet while he has sex with his ex.  Awkward.  Undaunted, Charity decides she is going to better her life and tries to get a respectable job but gets laughed out of the temp agency and ends up stuck in the elevator with a cute, if claustrophobic and panic-stricken, insurance actuary (John McMartin).  For once, she doesn't get treated like crap in a relationship and it looks like everything is going her way...until he mentions how he's so glad she hasn't succumbed to the moral decay of the big city.

**SPOILERS BELOW**

Here's where the movie totally loses me.  She comes clean about her job and Oscar the insurance guy tells her that none of it matters anymore and he wants to marry her.  Well and good, until her co-workers decide to throw her a surprise engagement party.  Despite the fact that these are lovely people who genuinely care about Charity, Oscar gets all freaked out about it and tells her at the county clerk's office that, despite what he said earlier, he cannot go through with the marriage.  Despondent, Charity wanders through Central Park until some hippies wake her up in the morning with a flower.  Then, suddenly, she smiles and goes about her merry day.

This bugs me.  One:  it's a musical and I expect a happy ending to go along with my jazz hands and two:  what kind of stupid broad bounces back that fast?  I tend towards the 'anger' side of the emotional spectrum rather than 'sad' and I have had my share of break-ups.  I would have easier accepted her throwing herself off the bridge in despair or, and I think this is healthier, paying some thug to break Oscar's legs.  Instead, she just shrugs and accepts it as her lot in life.  That's fucking pathetic.  It is not hopeful and it is not heart-warming.

It's based on a Fellini film called Nights of Cabiria which would explain a lot.  Somehow, I'm guessing this movie is probably better in Italian.

Heart and Souls (1993)

  The first Christy pick of the new year.  Let's get this over with, shall we?

Romantic comedy?  Check.
From the 90's?  Check.
Stars who should know better but needed a paycheck?  Double check.

Thomas (Robert Downey, Jr.) is a hard-charging yuppie in charge of high-class business liquidation.  So he's an asshole.  His girlfriend (Elizabeth Shue) can't understand why he won't make a commitment.  What he doesn't realize is that his four imaginary friends from childhood (Tom Sizemore, Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, and Charles Grodin) are actually the spirits of four people who died in a bus accident the night he was born.  Their time is almost up and they need Thomas to help them with their last wishes.  So they materialize in front of him and tell him that he is going to help them whether he likes it or not.

I suppose it's to Downey's credit that he is able to mimic the characters that are supposedly possessing him but I found it cringe-worthy.  Other than that, it's a lot like Scrooged in that this douchey guy learns what it means to be a nice person by helping others against his will.  Except that movie was funny.  The only part I liked was when they all sang "Walk Like a Man".  It was pretty decent harmonizing considering that none of those actors are known for their vocal skills.

The African Queen (1951)

  This poster is awesome.  It makes the movie look much more dreamy and romantic than it actually is.

Based on the 1935 book, this move stars Charlie (Humphrey Bogart) as the captain of the steam-powered hunk of junk The African Queen, which he pilots up and down the river in East Africa from a mine where he works as a machinist to a small village with two English missionaries.  On his last trip, he warns the brother-sister duo that mail might be a bit scarce since the Germans moved in, seeing as how World War I was declared.  The missionaries are affronted, even more so when said Germans come to their village, press-gang all the natives, and burn all the buildings to the ground.  The brother (Robert Morley) is heart-broken and succumbs to fever, leaving sister Rose (Katherine Hepburn) alone.  Charlie comes back after the mine has been emptied and offers her a ride to somewhere they can wait out the unpleasantness.  Rose, however, has no intention of sitting out this round and comes up with a plan to sink the Louisa, the German boat that is protecting Lake Congo.  To get to the lake, they must forge a hitherto uncharted course down the river contending with rapids, storms, leeches, and mosquitoes.  It is insanely difficult and dangerous, plus there's an enemy ship with a six-pound gun waiting for them if they even make it.

The scenery is beautiful, actually having been filmed in Africa, and the entire film was restored in 2009 so it's as clear and bright as possible.  It's even in color.  It netted Humphrey Bogart an Oscar for Best Actor and was nominated for Best Director, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay.  My only criticism is that I would have liked some subtitles on the German speakers.

Strictly Ballroom (1992)

  I lurves this movie.  Having no soul myself, I find it impossible to pursue anything creative but I do so love to see artists at work.  Especially dancing.  I love watching movies and TV about dance, dancing, and dancers.  I find it amazing to see what beautiful things people are capable of doing with their bodies. 

This was one of the very first films that I ever watched featuring ballroom dance.  It's about Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), a young dancer who is a serious contender in the Australian ballroom world until he bucks tradition and dances steps of his own design in competition.  It's like if people were only allowed to paint in blue.  There can be a lot of skill that goes into that, a lot of technical mastery, but it's not going to get the same effect if somebody brings a painting that has a full colored landscape.  So the president of the Australian Dance Federation, Barry Fife (Bill Hunter) is willing to do whatever it takes to shun Scott back into toeing the party line.  Unfortunately for Barry, Scott has just found a partner willing to not only indulge his habit, but encourage it in Fran (Tara Morice), an outcast from his mother's dance studio.

One of the things I really liked about this movie is Fran's transformation.  She starts off godawful looking but by the end of the movie has morphed into, if not a hottie, an attractive woman.  The changes are fairly subtle and nothing about it is mentioned.  There's no big Walking Down the Stairs Slowly She's All That kind of moment where everyone realizes that the Nerdy Girl has become a fox. It's much more natural and I liked that a lot.  This was the first of Baz Luhrman's Red Curtains trilogy and it's still one of my favorite Australian movies.

The Pillow Book (1997)

  Don't let that poster fool you.  This is not "richly sensual" nor is it a romance movie so, ladies, step along.  Much like Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, I thought this movie was going to be hot.  It's not.  There's a lot of nudity but it's all male and since it isn't a porno, it's sad floppy penises.  Nobody wants to see that.

This woman (Vivian Wu) likes being written on.  Specifically, she likes calligraphy to be painted on her naked body.  Now I can get behind that.  Partly because I've had that done and it's fantastic and partly because I think people should be free with their kinks.  As long as it's not hurting anybody, I say go for it.  Anyway, she gets tired of trying to find that perfect mix of sex skills and penmanship and begins looking for people she can write on.  That being accomplished and really enjoying the way her finished project looks, she starts searching for a publisher who will make a book out of the photographs she's taken of naked men she has written all over.  She turns to her father's publisher (Yoshi Oida) but he only publishes people he's fucking.  So she does what any well-adjusted sane person would do and seduces his young lover (Ewan McGregor) so that she can get her book published.  This actually works until she gets jealous of her boyfriend spending so much time with his boyfriend and breaks up with him by painting other dudes.  Again behaving like a rational person, he commits suicide in her apartment.  She paints a book on him and has him buried.  The publisher has him dug up, skinned, and made into a book that he frequently rubs all over himself.  Because that's what normal people would do.  She is super-pissed about the corpse desecration and starts sending the publisher young men with books painted on them in the hopes that he will suddenly give up a lifetime of douchebaggery and give her back her dead boyfriend's skin.

I can't even begin to describe the levels of weirdness this movie blows through.  It took a fairly sexy concept and slingshot it into Do NOT Want.  On top of that, the editing was insane.  Half the movie is picture-in-picture the size of a postage stamp, it's in a mix of Japanese, English, and French, and the cinematography is crap.  The whole thing was a huge fucking mess.

Storm Riders (1998)

  This was not a good movie.  It is, however, a very popular movie apparently.  It's based on a series of anime which I've never read so it could be that I am judging it too harshly because I am not familiar with the source material.  Entirely possible.

However, I have seen a lot of movies and a lot of Asian films.  I am not an expert but I am not a slouch either.  The CGI in this movie is along the level of some bad video games, the editing is psychotic, and the fight scenes are a jumbled mess.

Lord Conquer (Sonny Chiba) is an autocratic warlord poised on the edge of world domination.  A prophet named Mud Buddha tells him that his continued invincibility will be with the help of Wind (Ekin Cheng) and Cloud (Aaron Kwok) and hands him their birth charts.  So Conquer hunts them down and kills their families then raises them as his own.  Wind grows up to be kind and conscientious while Cloud is emo and moody.  Both of them are in love with Charity (Kristy Yang), Conquer's daughter.  Conquer gives her to Wind but Cloud tries to run off with her on their wedding day.  This results in a fight and Charity jumps in front of a bolt her cheating dad throws and dies.  Cloud takes her body and runs off.  Conquer finds out that if Wind and Cloud ever team up and become a storm, he's screwed so he sends Wind off on a suicide mission.

This is what happens when you're too Type A.  If he had just left things alone, Wind probably would have hated Cloud for that whole "you stole my woman" thing, but by meddling he guarantees that they'll have a common enemy.  You have to learn how to stay out of your own way if you're going to rule the world.

This was one I inherited when I lived with Brianne.  It was one of her husband's and when they got divorced she ended up with it.  She didn't want it and now I can understand why.

Death Proof (2007)

  Okay, so when we have guests we let them pick the movies, in case you were wondering why there have been so many of my personal movies in a row instead of the Me-Netflix-Rob order I have been doing lately.

You didn't notice?  Okay, well, moving on...

I saw the Grindhouse double feature of Planet Terror and Death Proof when it was released to theaters and I preferred Planet Terror.  Then, when they were released separately onto DVD, I watched them both again and found that I really liked the additional footage added to Death Proof.  So this is the only one I own.

Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) is a psychopath who murders women with his stuntcar, which has been tricked out so that the driver can survive pretty much anything.  He stalks and plays with a group of women in Texas (Sydney Poitier, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Monica Stagg, and Rose McGowan) before moving on to another group in Tennessee.  Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), and Kim (Tracie Thoms) are all off for the next three days from their various jobs on a film and have gone to pick up their friend Zoe Bell (playing herself), a stuntwoman.  Zoe has one dream while in America:  to find and drive the Vanishing Point 1970 white Dodge Challenger.  There just so happens to be one for sale in town.  But can these beauties survive out on the road with a maniac?

I found the first half of this movie to be slightly boring, but that may just be because I was anticipating all the stuff that happens in the second half.  There's an 18-minute-long car chase for starters.  There are no bare boobs in the movie but there are a lot of ass-shots.  Tarantino probably really enjoyed filming this movie.  The style is intentionally bad, with lots of grainy camera work, doubled lines, and loss of color at one point.  Apparently, that's not super-obvious from the title "Grindhouse" so I'll mention it here.

Coraline (2009)

  The holiday season has been super-busy so far.  Rob has had three sets of guests:  one pair just after Thanksgiving, one around Christmas, and now one for New Year's.  Since he has to work at least one day during the latter two stints and I don't, I have taken over hosting duties and I gotta say, I would make a shitty tour guide.  The only thing I can think of to do with people is take them to the movies so I've now seen The Muppets twice.  I don't know if that's what they wanted to see or if they were just humoring me, but I took them to it anyway.  Last night, I let his friend Drew pick a movie from my collection and he chose Coraline.  I hadn't seen it probably since it was in theaters since I bought it after I had already passed the C's and was going to wait until they came back around, and he'd never seen it so we were good.

The DVD comes with two pairs of 3D glasses in case you want to watch it that way.  Cute idea, but I can't stand 3D so we went with flat.  I really wish now that I had somehow known I was going to get a blu-ray because I bet this movie would look a-maz-ing.  The colors are so saturated that the animation is like a constantly shifting jewel.  Christy is of the opinion that it is thematically too creepy to be entertaining and especially shouldn't be considered a kid's movie but I disagree.  It shouldn't be a young kid's movie but over the age of 9 is probably okay.

Coraline Jones (Dakota Fanning) and her mom (Teri Hatcher) and dad (John Hodgman) have just moved into a new place.  Bored by the rain, her dad sets her to counting all the doors and windows in their new place.  During which time she finds a tiny door set into the wallpaper.  During the day the door opens onto a brick wall but at night, there is a tunnel leading her to a mirror world where her Other parents dote on her, the weird neighbors are actually awesome, and everyone can pronounce her name correctly.  But soon she starts to realize that not everything is as it seems.

This was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Film in 2009 (lost to Up) and it won the AFI Film of the Year.

Still Crazy (1998)

  This is one of my favorite British comedies.  I've never seen This is Spinal Tap so I'm not sure how it compares (it's in my queue, I'll get to it).  On the surface it would seem to be quite similar since both movies are about British rock bands who are past their prime.  When I see the other one, I'll be better able to tell.

Strange Fruit was a band in the 70's who were poised to make the big leagues until internal problems and a disastrous show combine to derail them.  Now, 20 years later, the bandmates are all working regular jobs and have mostly given up on fame and fortune until the keyboardist, Tony (Stephen Rea) has a chance meeting with the son of the producer who gave them their last show.  Reunion tours are the thing to do now so he goes around trying to get everybody back.  He starts with Karen (Juliet Aubrey) a former groupie who was in love with troubled lead guitarist Bryan, and with her on board moves to grab the others:  the lead singer (Bill Nighy) who is still trying to hold on to his former glory, the bassist (Jimmy Nail) who still hates the lead singer for being a replacement for the original lead, Keith, who died of an overdose before they got famous, and the drummer (Timothy Spall) who is on the run from the Inland Revenue.  Can these aging rockers rediscover what talent they had or is it all over for good?

This is just one of those solid British comedies that's not too weird, not too indie, and not too un-funny to appeal to the majority of people.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

  I hadn't seen this movie in ages.  Probably not since middle school. 

Bill (Alex Winters) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) are high schoolers convinced that their band, Wyld Stallyons, will be the Next Great Thing.  As soon as they can get Van Halen on guitar.  Oh, and possibly learn how to play themselves.  But things do not look rosy as they are about to fail their history final and if they do, Ted's father (Hal Landon, Jr.) is sending him to a military school in Alaska.  Not to worry, though, because the boys are getting a little help from the future in the form of Rufus (George Carlin) and his time-traveling phone booth.  See, if Wyld Stallyons gets broken up, the future he comes from will not exist.  So the guys zip across space-time, kidnapping historical figures like Socrates, Billy the Kid, Napoleon, and Joan of Arc (Jane Wiedlin).  But will time run out before they can give their report?

I never noticed when I watched it as a kid that all the "historical" figures were restricted by language.  Socrates only speaks Greek, Napoleon only speaks French, Freud speaks English and German and so forth.  It's a small detail but a cute one and bravo to the film-makers for including it.  Granted, this movie is just a harmless piece of 80's frippery and you should definitely not expect mind-blowing things from it but it is still fun to watch.  There were a couple of lines that startled a laugh out of me but I'll admit that I'm not the target audience, nor have I ever been.  This was purely nostalgic for me.

Stigmata (1999)

  I always had a weird mystical streak, even as a kid.  I would go into flights of religious ecstasy and I would have done anything to get stigmata...despite the fact that I was raised Baptist.  I never let a little thing like that get me down.  This came out when I was in the eleventh grade.  I remember because some poor idiot took me to see it for a first date.  He found it creepy and off-putting.  I was enthralled.  I can't get back that feeling of the world unfolding before my eyes, that first bright, heart-cracking rush of joy but, for the time it takes to watch this movie again, I can remember it.

Frankie (Patricia Arquette) starts developing strange wounds after she receives a package containing a rosary that belonged to a dead Brazilian priest.  An atheist, Frankie has no idea what is happening to her.  The doctors think she's suicidal or possibly epileptic.  Her friends think she's losing her mind.  She has an attack on the subway where she is scourged with an invisible whip right in front of a priest and two nuns.  The priest forwards the video to the Vatican where Cardinal Houseman (Jonathan Pryce) assigns Father Andrew Kearnan (Gabriel Byrne) to investigate.  Father Andrew strikes up a rapport with the afflicted and becomes convinced that she is trying to relay a message.  A message that certain Church officials believe to be dangerous.

I'm actually reading a translation of the Nag Hammadi gospels in between all my silly fantasy novels.  Every once in a while, I make myself get a non-fiction book on the basis that it will make me smarter.  Or at least more pretentious.  I try and read stuff that I am actually interested in.  I wish I could say the Nag Hammadi books are worthwhile, but they're really dry.  Mostly they're from a fringe Christian group in the 2nd Century AD.  For some really entertaining reading, I suggest the Book of Enoch.  That one is much cooler.

Big (1988)

  This is one of those movies that is embedded in popular culture for some reason.  I never saw the fascination personally.  It's a cute movie, I'll grant you, but it's not an Oscar winner.

Nominee but not a winner.

Honestly, the fact that it was nominated for Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay just points toward a mass hallucination brought on by the 80s.

Josh is a twelve-year-old boy who makes a wish at a carnival to be "big".  The next day he wakes up and has transformed into a 30-year-old man (Tom Hanks).  He tries to go back to the carnival but it, and the magic Zoltar machine, are gone.  He goes to the city and gets a job as a data processor in a toy company while he's waiting for a request he filed with the city for the locations of all the carnivals and fairs with a Zoltar machine to come through.  His parents believe he has been kidnapped and the only person who knows the truth is his best friend Billy (Jared Rushton).  He manages to impress his boss (Robert Loggia) with his intuition of children's toy preferences and is promoted to Vice President.  He also begins dating a co-worker (Elizabeth Perkins).  Eventually, however, the six weeks are up and he finds there's a Zoltar machine nearby.  Now he just has to choose between going back to being a kid and staying an adult.

Here's my problem with this movie:  it would have been completely different if the character was a girl. No chick in her right mind would ever choose to go back through puberty, especially not if she could jump into having a Manhattan high-rise.  It would be stupid.  Think about it.  The odds are against you ever being able to get a job that good once you'd technically become eligible which means that you'd always have the memory of making more money doing less work, which would only make you bitter and resentful.  And, yeah, you could make the argument that he was missing out on all the growing-up between 12 and 30 but you'd also miss all the shitty parts.  And what about from his girlfriend's perspective?  Are we really saying that, as women, we wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a grown-ass man and a child?  Or that subconsciously we want our men to be children so we can mother them?  That's disgusting.

Now that I've completely overanalyzed that movie, I'm going to go eat chocolate and watch something else.