Tag: movies

movies

When Grown-ups Went To See Films About Grown-ups

Posted on

The NYT Magazine had an article about how divorce sucks much more than how popular culture is now representing it few weeks back and it included an interesting sidebar about one of the most famous divorce movies ever – “Kramer Vs. Kramer”
The net/net is that it seems that we’ve regressed a bit, which is pretty obvious if you look at fashion these days: 50 year olds and 15 year olds are both in jeans and sneaks.

“Of the many notable things about ‘Kramer vs. Kramer’ – nine Oscar nominations, five wins – perhaps the most surprising is this: It was the highest-grossing film of 1979.” To repeat: ‘Kramer vs. Kramer,’ a film about divorce, was the highest-grossing film related that year. To further illustrate how tastes in blockbusters has, er, evolved, here are the five top-grossing films of 1979 and the five top-grossing films of 2010:”

1979 2010
“Kramer Vs. Kramer” Toy Story 3
Rocky II Alice in Wonderland
Star Trek – The Motion Picture Iron Man 2
Alien The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Apocalypse Now Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1

‘Nuff said.

movies

Too Many Fall Movies 2010

Posted on

I still haven’t really seen any of the movies I wanted to watch for over a year now but they just keep cranking them out. In no order, here is what I want to see: Catfish, Devil, Leaves of Grass, The Town, Enter the Void, Red, Howl, The Social Network, Tamara Drewe, The Hungry Ghosts, Black Swan, How Do You Know, True Grit, The Debt, Wall Street.

movies

The Future is Now

Posted on

5 HOURS POST POSTING UPDATE: Before you read the post below, please know that I now know I was had.

It’s always scary when things that seem at one time so far away actually arrive because it shows how fast time can move. To quote a poem I wrote awhile ago, “I merely blinked and then years had passed by.”
I’m sure that this speed issue came into play for those who watched “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the late 1960’s and lived to see the year 2001 arrive. I’m sure they were shocked at how little overall things had changed. Yes, technology had advanced but not to the tune it was prophesied in that movie.
While I wasn’t around in the 1960’s, I was around in 1989 when I watched Marty McFly traveled forward in time at the urging of Doc Brown to help his future self with his future kids. The date that he chose to travel to 21 years ago? Why, it’s today silly! Check out the Delorean’s controls below:
BTTF2
So, where is flying car and hoverboard?!
As an aside, my friend Erik and I worked at Topps Appliance City in Westbury, Long Island together during the summer of 1997 and watched this movie four times a day during our eight hour shift at the electronics counter. At one point I had the movie completely memorized and one of the best quotes from it is an exchange between Old and New Biff that I’ve listed for you below. Enjoy!

Young Biff: Why don’t you make like a tree and get out of here?
Old Biff: It’s *leave*, you idiot! “Make like a tree, and leave.” You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong.
Young Biff: All right then, LEAVE! And take your book with you!

movies

Too Many Summer Movies 2010

Posted on

Just in time for the summer blockbuster season is my list of movies that I will hopefully see either in the theatre or much more likely on my television screen at home. This is the fourth time I’ve made such a list and its been very helpful in remembering what movies I (at least at some point) wanted to see.
In updating these previous posts to cross off the movies I’ve actually seen, I was disappointed to note that I only saw 1 out of the 11 films I wanted to see over this past holiday season. Also, in the process of checking up on my viewing progress, I decided to rename two previous posts where the word “Winter” was replaced by “Holiday” as these movies covered the 2009/2010 holiday season and not winter (which is technically December 21st through March 21st).
So, here in order of release, here the 37 (!) films that I would like to watch this coming summer season: The Infidel, Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, Babies (playing at “The Paris” – I hope to see it there as I’ve never been to that classic movie house before), Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, After the Cup: Sons of Sahknin United, Holy Rollers, Macgruber, Perrier’s Bounty, Solitary Man, Sex and the City 2, Agora, Micmacs, The Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Get Him To The Greek, Killers, Whiz Kids, The A-Team, Jonah Hex, The Last Airbender, Twelve (must read book first), Cyrus, Despicable Me, Predators, Inception (new by Christopher Nolan – one of my favorite directors), Dinner for Schmucks (also known as any holiday meal – I kid, I kid…), Life During Wartime, Centurion, The Other Guys, Animal Kingdom, Down Terrace, The Expendables (starring Sly Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke – I am not making this up), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, A Film Unfinished, The Freebie, The American, Born To Be A Star

art

Pixel Perfect

Posted on

When you receive a video from two different people who found it on two different sites, you know its probably going to be good. That’s what happened today with the video “Pixels” by Patrick Jean which is embedded below.
First, I received an email from a friend with a subject line that read “Very cool video” but I was too busy to watch. Then, later while at work, I received a company-wide email that was sent by a co-worker which only had a subject line that read “Pixels.” Someone responded a few minutes later with “That was dope” so I watched and agreed – it was dope. After watching the video, I then went back to my buddy’s email and sure enough, it was a link to the same thing.
So, check out the video below and let me know what is your favorite part. Mine is the Tetris scene. ‘Nuff said.

PIXELS by PATRICK JEAN.
Uploaded by onemoreprod. – Discover more animation and arts videos.
UPDATE: My RSS feed had an article from the NY Daily News about how Pixels is burning up the Net
Via Neu and Erick

humor

Batman owns Superman

Posted on

Recently it was called to my attention that this blog hasn’t had a picture attached to a post in quite some time and after doing some digging, it turns out that the last time that I actually posted a photo was back in February. It’s time and boy do I have the pic.
You’ll need to click on it to see it in all of its beautiful late 90’s animated gif style glory.

Thoughts on super heroes
Thoughts on super heroes

Let’s just say that if you love super heroes and/or find Christian Bale’s intensity assuming or just flat out love to laugh, then this pic is especially for you. It’s time consuming but worth it.
Via Chris

movies

Too Many Holiday Movies 2009

Posted on

Just in time for the holiday season is my list of movies that I will hopefully see either in the theatre or much more likely on my television screen at home. This is the third time I’ve made such a list and its been helpful in remembering what movies I at least at some point wanted to see. I add “at some point” because Speed Racer was on my “Too Many Summer Movies 2008” list and I do not think that I will ever watch that drek.
So, here in no particular order are the 11 films I would like to watch this coming holiday season: The Fourth Kind, The Men Who Stare At Goats, Precious, Pirate Radio, Up in the Air, The Slammin’ Salmon, Avatar, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Sherlock Holmes, Me and Orson Welles, The Book of Eli.
The two that I’m most excited are Avatar because I just cannot wait to see if/how James Cameron transformed the movie experience (which is something some critics are saying he did – I mean, he did make Aliens, T2 and Titanic) and The Slammin’ Salmon because its from the “Broken Lizard” comedy troupe who also made Super Troopers, Club Dread and Beerfest, some of the funniest movies that have been made over the last decade.
Like how I’ve done it in the past, when I see a movie, I’ll cross it off the list and possibly write a review blurb as well.
UPDATE: I went to see an Avatar 3D IMAX showing back over the holidays and it just blew my mind. I literally needed about a day to recover. Ever come in from the backyard into a house on a really bright, sunny day and feel that everything in the house is just washed out colorwise? Things look faded, not as sharp, and it takes your eyes a few minutes to adjust to the dimmer indoor light before you see that the couch is still the same, the carpet is still the same, etc. Well, after witnessing this 3D extravaganza, I looked at the real world for about 24 hours the same way – it felt washed out and faded. I basically had to strong arm my buddy Erik to come along with me (and boy was he glad he did) and while the movie had been out for weeks already, when we got there about 45 min early there already was a ridiculously long line. After seeing the movie, I could understand why and I feel that the hype, and ticket sales, were justified. James Cameron is responsible for about 12 billion dollars of movie ticket sales with just two movies – Avatar and Titanic. Sick.

art

Today in Flux

Posted on

On today’s date 54 years ago, Dr. Emmit Brown was standing on his toilet seat attempting to hang a clock in his bathroom, when he slipped and slammed his head on the side of the sink (11/5/55 for those too lazy to do some simple mental math). Upon regaining consciousness Brown reported having “a revelation, a picture, a picture in my head.” A picture which he crudely scrawled down on a piece of paper and subsequently spent 30 years of his life and family fortune to build: the flux capacitor.
As evidenced by three movies, two theme park rides and countless exclaimations of 1.21 gigawatts!The world has never been the same since.

literature

Iron Man on Ice Coming Soon

Posted on

There are so many different and funny ways of announcing that Disney is buying Marvel for $4 billion. I was trying all morning to think of something catchy to say like how io9 wrote “The House of Mouse eats the House of Ideas” but sure enough my good friend and frequent lead generator for this blog Mr. Neu trumped me and gave me the title for this post.
I wonder if the Marvel Islands of Adventure theme park is going to be shut down now as its run by Universal and not Disney. I wonder how badly the X-Men would crush Captain Hook and his band of pirates. I wonder what the Incredibles would look like if that movie was remade with the actual Fantastic Four replacing the pseudo-F4 that starred in that movie. I can go on and on but I won’t – I’ll just wait to see how this plays out .
The goal of the sale according to the call that was held to announce the sale “is not to rebrand Marvel as Disney but to shine a spotlight on the Marvel brand.” I sincerely hope that is the case.