tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1191405677441952652024-03-13T18:34:52.398-04:00My Life in FilmMy trip through time, as I watch and re-watch the top films since 1981.Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-15557394897312791052021-04-25T00:21:00.004-04:002021-04-25T00:22:34.244-04:002021 Oscar Predictions & Thoughts<p>Over the past few months, I've been thinking about restarting this movie blog I created 10+(!) years ago, and while having two kids would make it pretty hard to keep up with, I did start writing a Facebook post about Sunday night's Oscar Ceremony. It quickly turned into more than a simple post, and so I figured why not post something here just to see what kind of comments I get. No clue if anyone even still uses Blogger or not, but here it goes...</p><p>This year marks the third year in a row I was able to see every nominated film before Oscar Night. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but check out this <a href="https://letterboxd.com/movieboymarc/list/2021-oscar-nominees/" target="_blank">Letterboxd List</a> to see how many you've seen.</p><p>And so, while no one asked for it, I figured I may have some unique insight on what might happen tonight (looks like after editing, I'm going to be posting this a little after midnight). I'm giving a prediction for each category along with who I'd vote for if I were in the Academy (Will vs Should)</p><p><b>Best Picture</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmIVKuWvLA-B8-tA888BPOn3l-ssTBk4ZQsCOHhE-Sytwk0rP8iTsFJGDHpMps9lVPdmdIvqqSf8yIradBSOxUbPyBWyDP82iS6dxv7D9YYRhG-gsFJnip2fh2GYGxb-0YD5OrqwF9YYs/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.07.39+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nomadland" border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmIVKuWvLA-B8-tA888BPOn3l-ssTBk4ZQsCOHhE-Sytwk0rP8iTsFJGDHpMps9lVPdmdIvqqSf8yIradBSOxUbPyBWyDP82iS6dxv7D9YYRhG-gsFJnip2fh2GYGxb-0YD5OrqwF9YYs/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.07.39+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJmszj3mDv2o1hWMEFKPpH2ZrtdCX7duNKaK8k-qVME6BaVYZgOY77ZeXXDaFuHS4RTG5rQoebP4IsXFMOUaGYMnVqabN2TIU65VtpauGLsyLmD4wtBUgV63qDFuQ8VrRflu9k4AJU6M/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.08.05+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Minari" border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTJmszj3mDv2o1hWMEFKPpH2ZrtdCX7duNKaK8k-qVME6BaVYZgOY77ZeXXDaFuHS4RTG5rQoebP4IsXFMOUaGYMnVqabN2TIU65VtpauGLsyLmD4wtBUgV63qDFuQ8VrRflu9k4AJU6M/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.08.05+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;">Will: <i>Nomadland</i><span> <span> <span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span><span> </span></span></span></span>Should: <i>Minari</i></p><p>Minari was my <a href="https://letterboxd.com/agrajag/list/agras-2020-ranked/" target="_blank">#3 film of 2020</a> (behind <i>Hamilton</i> & <i>Derek Delgaudio’s In & Of Itself</i>—both of which are filmed stage productions and not really movies). <i>Nomadland</i> was actually my least favorite of the 8 Best Picture nominees, so if/when it wins tonight I'll be pretty sad.</p><p><b>Best Actor</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0p8zZ5tk3HyYeeAf0f__TjJiF9XUW72B3iJD9aobY5w6wWJvB2No2af_YUEJ6hAYSYApkL_bu4_SH9YFYa7ZBJ3GdZIU1agXLnbzelVZbOOQq4NaBQUMLIYQ0dSJpZPNKacjFSKZPC5Q/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.14.18+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Chadwick Boseman" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0p8zZ5tk3HyYeeAf0f__TjJiF9XUW72B3iJD9aobY5w6wWJvB2No2af_YUEJ6hAYSYApkL_bu4_SH9YFYa7ZBJ3GdZIU1agXLnbzelVZbOOQq4NaBQUMLIYQ0dSJpZPNKacjFSKZPC5Q/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.14.18+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeddamhBESHOTqpZZhYj1NnpP6z_OUmW1pDeWyvhvnHU5wocbLlvf8bYM2-UD40evDa-2Cg2U6AFJ_Ow_-GC5yDKY2eE7ceSUFD_jTD8sIm3v5enTBOErKIIbrzNdGpBUlrKBTdBzWZw/s401/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.15.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Anthony Hopkins" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeddamhBESHOTqpZZhYj1NnpP6z_OUmW1pDeWyvhvnHU5wocbLlvf8bYM2-UD40evDa-2Cg2U6AFJ_Ow_-GC5yDKY2eE7ceSUFD_jTD8sIm3v5enTBOErKIIbrzNdGpBUlrKBTdBzWZw/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.15.43+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div><p>Will: Chadwick Boseman (<i>MRBB</i>)<span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span>Should: Anthony Hopkins (<i>The Father</i>)</p><p>Choosing Hopkins over Boseman for my Should was a very difficult choice. Boseman was fantastic in <i>MRBB</i> (even more so knowing he was silently struggling with cancer during filming) & I am gutted that we won’t see him in any more roles, but Hopkins did such a great job portraying the horrors & confusion of dementia. I won’t be upset if/when Boseman wins posthumously though. </p><p><b>Best Actress</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdCp7i4H4rM3vRZRfcbRf1acGaDmDSEGL83oe_DSsb2szThUJOZhm3bEE1Dd10obB-t4s1K_IbukupL4a1tB6w_Xns8DEiS-5heX6WVDwIAi3-MxZTzuuQrFpOWOPN1HzvnpbFLM_TWg/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.20.30+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Viola Davis" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmdCp7i4H4rM3vRZRfcbRf1acGaDmDSEGL83oe_DSsb2szThUJOZhm3bEE1Dd10obB-t4s1K_IbukupL4a1tB6w_Xns8DEiS-5heX6WVDwIAi3-MxZTzuuQrFpOWOPN1HzvnpbFLM_TWg/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.20.30+PM.png" width="200" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-V0u4AMgbCBmAcUgyESUo6wbteSlFT1x32Vt7M4pQaAQZZebc6AF1F2szA9gEdzqMfljAwIEepCcc21umH3jmjXoZoj9lCteERHkoXJ5Zn2gVIkiO3SXoUhgRFwNaxs8dWRS9SHrFrFs/s401/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.21.08+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Carey Mulligan" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-V0u4AMgbCBmAcUgyESUo6wbteSlFT1x32Vt7M4pQaAQZZebc6AF1F2szA9gEdzqMfljAwIEepCcc21umH3jmjXoZoj9lCteERHkoXJ5Zn2gVIkiO3SXoUhgRFwNaxs8dWRS9SHrFrFs/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.21.08+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div></div><p>Will: Viola Davis (<i>MRBB</i>)<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> <span> </span></span>Should: Carey Mulligan (<i>PYW</i>)</p><p>Another very difficult choice—for both Will & Should this time. Davis did great again in another fantastic August Wilson adaptation & I fear maybe she won’t win again (despite this role being nothing like her role in <i>Fences</i>). I’ve loved Mulligan ever since<i> An Education</i> & <i>Never Let Me Go</i> and her performance in <i>PYW</i> is spectacular. Day is the one good thing in <i>The United States vs Billie Holiday</i> (that voice!) and Kirby made losing a child feel all too real in <i>Pieces of a Woman</i>. Even though McDormand stood out a little around her <i>Nomadland</i> co”stars,” she’s still Frances m-f-ing McDormand! The best slate of nominees this year—all very deserving!</p><p><b>Best Supporting Actor</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0qs-Oebdbny8mlclpbLGbJRG39rqrNTD-THLKOxnScsQ7WygAc1XqjyepsW4GBDI30jI-RdcKc7ERvRtIpIDGi2ihvxsX9os_nyNq-bIs9PZAl5txtXdSvq_JySV5mpXIp3Rln_kwno/s401/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.25.56+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Daniel Kaluuya" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy0qs-Oebdbny8mlclpbLGbJRG39rqrNTD-THLKOxnScsQ7WygAc1XqjyepsW4GBDI30jI-RdcKc7ERvRtIpIDGi2ihvxsX9os_nyNq-bIs9PZAl5txtXdSvq_JySV5mpXIp3Rln_kwno/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.25.56+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBBaZ3wacN4pmtskUvzI38diiVkVU4jGHLycIdxwQrxXCXuLOH4EaxIIvtCFwKiuH-HHrfmrhFTpX0vIEHKmNZEgkcD2-_tcieDoWdcm3PLbTFjTjnFWa6MP3k13GOs0oy8-aMm2hL-w/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.31.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Paul Raci" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTBBaZ3wacN4pmtskUvzI38diiVkVU4jGHLycIdxwQrxXCXuLOH4EaxIIvtCFwKiuH-HHrfmrhFTpX0vIEHKmNZEgkcD2-_tcieDoWdcm3PLbTFjTjnFWa6MP3k13GOs0oy8-aMm2hL-w/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.31.20+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><p></p><p>Will: Daniel Kaluuya (<i>J&tBM</i>)<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Should: Paul Raci (<i>Sound of Metal</i>)</p><p>Listen, Kaluuya is great as the charismatic & influential Fred Hampton but then I found out that Hampton was 21 when he was murdered by the FBI & Chicago police and Kaluuya is 30+. I wonder how much more powerful the film would have been with age-appropriate actors. Raci just blew me away in the center third of <i>SoM</i> (and he’s the perfect age for a fictional character!) </p><p><b>Best Supporting Actress</b></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvx-mSBo1e2rdkuGNbn_tDuX3ePo51L8jvs4jzRFgbJnWqo-Xe3xbRw6nXkr7pUAkSFPITZqciBQwsQ6AQJiUWd1WrT24hvBZtJkhZtiH3hLYLBwdZn8ArBT3YgtxHckOJwNR_i7WWbcg/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.35.49+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yuh-jung Youn" border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvx-mSBo1e2rdkuGNbn_tDuX3ePo51L8jvs4jzRFgbJnWqo-Xe3xbRw6nXkr7pUAkSFPITZqciBQwsQ6AQJiUWd1WrT24hvBZtJkhZtiH3hLYLBwdZn8ArBT3YgtxHckOJwNR_i7WWbcg/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.35.49+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmurG0qsWg91CddlSA06GlGDKM7A753-4d0fnB27bLzsr-9PGO5HDUkrO8IuxG5XZ7WmQhcS65qRD50EST5MF8CD9DbVYGE5Dg3rzQk2I9F2OAQeqRc5THr5LhL2wv_I9qL5rrmM6A2N0/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.35.36+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yuh-jung Youn" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmurG0qsWg91CddlSA06GlGDKM7A753-4d0fnB27bLzsr-9PGO5HDUkrO8IuxG5XZ7WmQhcS65qRD50EST5MF8CD9DbVYGE5Dg3rzQk2I9F2OAQeqRc5THr5LhL2wv_I9qL5rrmM6A2N0/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.35.36+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>Will: Yuh-jung Youn (<i>Minari</i>)<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Should: Yuh-jung Youn (<i>Minari</i>)</p><p></p><p>Bakalova was fantastic in <i>Borat 2 </i>& I hope this nomination gives her more opportunities in Hollywood, but Youn was even better as the comic relief in <i>Minari</i>. She steals every scene she’s in (in a fantastic way).</p><p><b>Best Director</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9K-VmA-BIH_i3JZhoShD6Wvl3OJdCBaU9LIAstUhcFwCIzzB3BJUhcwZUq5kZYej5HLwFVP5JN_w0RrA47j0cYU74LGBE9fxLdKR22p-AGI8sjvAJ4Yi7Kdjx7ysdk1ryVm65vx5UeMA/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.42.20+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Chloe Zhao" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9K-VmA-BIH_i3JZhoShD6Wvl3OJdCBaU9LIAstUhcFwCIzzB3BJUhcwZUq5kZYej5HLwFVP5JN_w0RrA47j0cYU74LGBE9fxLdKR22p-AGI8sjvAJ4Yi7Kdjx7ysdk1ryVm65vx5UeMA/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.42.20+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U6Y-LE-ybRB82KOplygQkDWQt_kMSXLubkCe6ISdJCVH_pbj2tMORavdFl2ZJagmINoqJhRdBFfPaOTcKtJDiN_Npc7VZpABAh9fKw-U31u2Cvb3mTieLKlCxrC-RGic-iIA0_AGYSs/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.42.29+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Lee Isaac Chung" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-U6Y-LE-ybRB82KOplygQkDWQt_kMSXLubkCe6ISdJCVH_pbj2tMORavdFl2ZJagmINoqJhRdBFfPaOTcKtJDiN_Npc7VZpABAh9fKw-U31u2Cvb3mTieLKlCxrC-RGic-iIA0_AGYSs/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.42.29+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>Will: Chloe Zhao (<i>Nomadland</i>)<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span>Should: Lee Isaac Chung (<i>Minari</i>)</p><p>Zhao’s the overwhelming frontrunner here and she did great directing so many nonprofessional actors & producing a very pretty film, but it was such a slow, boring film that could not keep my attention. Chung, however, directed some great performances from children (just as difficult as nonprofessionals) & created a fascinating story of family struggle </p><p><b>Best Original Screenplay</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirucPAFjpmteRuJ551um1jswXCd45tSBkY_S_-CJu5sBPgCCLKB6jmtn1c9rUF_gVMY5fa6n_pQ1wKrKKAkzSLn4q3HS8YR4MlmO3KE6P_D9kAGvRm8qv7r7DmWzwJpBREMW0HZsSlS7s/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.46.54+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Promising Young Woman" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirucPAFjpmteRuJ551um1jswXCd45tSBkY_S_-CJu5sBPgCCLKB6jmtn1c9rUF_gVMY5fa6n_pQ1wKrKKAkzSLn4q3HS8YR4MlmO3KE6P_D9kAGvRm8qv7r7DmWzwJpBREMW0HZsSlS7s/w200-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.46.54+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SnZkGFCFgUk8GCVZ3YQx32_XkekjohDsUspyM4URu7SKazvHb3EforXEqyErjxQcWqiZZhImMq2KlH42bl7DNaYhuoyfGzGccB7Tajr3DiHY8KQ7wAT0XQWGAgTXo0pmY79QZCzO0fE/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.47.04+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Minari" border="0" data-original-height="398" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3SnZkGFCFgUk8GCVZ3YQx32_XkekjohDsUspyM4URu7SKazvHb3EforXEqyErjxQcWqiZZhImMq2KlH42bl7DNaYhuoyfGzGccB7Tajr3DiHY8KQ7wAT0XQWGAgTXo0pmY79QZCzO0fE/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.47.04+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><br />Will: <i>Promising Young Woman<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Minari</i><p></p><p>This is a coin toss for me on Should—I’ve already said <i>Minari</i> was my #3 film of 2020 and <i>PYW</i> was my #5 (with the animated film, <i>Wolfwalkers</i> in #4). I had seen a website several weeks ago that had all ten nominated screenplays available for download—I wish I had the time to read all of them since screenplays are often very different from the final film. However, with <i>Minari</i> & <i>PYW</i> both being written by their respective directors (Emerald Fennell & Lee Isaac Chung, respectively), I have to imagine the final films have to be pretty close to their original scripts.</p><p><b>Best Adapted Screenplay</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2da01EwrBxBzHS01sJBTzuDQ6SKEYobhN8OrYN4WoEYpbB5MUe6iPs_dN-KqelhTjokOGEGgGGn-SxVX505xh-V_eSchwxgJcWLU7zg9C6969XEqg1rXV-V0zLzGrYrSWSOTlJWSZeE/s403/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.51.28+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Father" border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2da01EwrBxBzHS01sJBTzuDQ6SKEYobhN8OrYN4WoEYpbB5MUe6iPs_dN-KqelhTjokOGEGgGGn-SxVX505xh-V_eSchwxgJcWLU7zg9C6969XEqg1rXV-V0zLzGrYrSWSOTlJWSZeE/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.51.28+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvl6uLsLcFTbysYz-33BW43aoAOHXM6yKXVKLBe4LeBWhjEGl9O022dB1Q30sbWFuh9KZAbsIN21ASddnSsE82OGECYCzYIRY_CoZAL5-I0RVb2KkWj-p8kSGqInz9CJ2-uTxk94tZ4ls/s403/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.52.16+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="The Father" border="0" data-original-height="403" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvl6uLsLcFTbysYz-33BW43aoAOHXM6yKXVKLBe4LeBWhjEGl9O022dB1Q30sbWFuh9KZAbsIN21ASddnSsE82OGECYCzYIRY_CoZAL5-I0RVb2KkWj-p8kSGqInz9CJ2-uTxk94tZ4ls/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.52.16+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div><p>Will: <i>The Father<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>The Father</i></p><p>The conceit of <i>The Father</i> (showing what it's like to suffer from dementia by having all the supporting cast, set design, and timeline change scene by scene) seemed so obvious, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen or heard of anything like it before.</p><p><b>Best Cinematography</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOypcpE91uE0Ise8a1MU3JyiYKdISziW6fmqJoFXJOkbXdZSvmkmR0zkC-LnbDm17jqV-lY-yDD2oJ9iVOBgY5hdFD_lCHZKSkhJj1m2k_ARXgUOrlaUiMAr-qHklVbAfAJ1LXanOhmE/s965/0219_nomadland-fern-3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Nomadland" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="965" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOypcpE91uE0Ise8a1MU3JyiYKdISziW6fmqJoFXJOkbXdZSvmkmR0zkC-LnbDm17jqV-lY-yDD2oJ9iVOBgY5hdFD_lCHZKSkhJj1m2k_ARXgUOrlaUiMAr-qHklVbAfAJ1LXanOhmE/w400-h166/0219_nomadland-fern-3.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Will: <i>Nomadland </i>Should: <i>Nomadland</i></p><p>The one thing <i>Nomadland</i> had going for it was the sheer beauty of the American landscape. Even the scenes set in an Amazon warehouse or a beet processing plant looked great.</p><p><b>Best Editing</b></p><p>Will: <i>The Trial of the Chicago 7</i><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span><span> </span></span>Should: <i>The Trial of the Chicago 7</i></p><p>I had issues with the ending and some of the direction, but the editing (especially some of the cutting between trial and protest) was fantastic.</p><p><b>Best Production Design</b></p><p>Will: <i>Mank<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>The Father</i></p><p>How <i>Mank</i> got so many nominations I’ll never know! (I guess the Academy likes movies about making movies.) It’s pretty and made me want to rewatch <i>Citizen Kane</i> but <i>The Father</i> literally had to do Production Design 3 or 4 times on the same set to keep changing the layout on poor Anthony Hopkins.</p><p><b>Best Costume Design</b></p><p>Will: <i>Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom</i><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i>Should: <i>Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom</i></p><p>First, shout out to Trish Summerville for this:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ-_OotJjzwhr_nVo7Ntlm9YkUIEq_AKRZvrIutpIPOFzgahTtoDHrV7ugCboIZYK5gWbeFpqb8uPjxVeI093hil34pHAbMlkrpEOli55wfNtSKgDf0iWhBAsC0C-t44Ny2WC1bgoS3M/s1664/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.59.59+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Amanda Seyfried in Mank" border="0" data-original-height="1402" data-original-width="1664" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimQ-_OotJjzwhr_nVo7Ntlm9YkUIEq_AKRZvrIutpIPOFzgahTtoDHrV7ugCboIZYK5gWbeFpqb8uPjxVeI093hil34pHAbMlkrpEOli55wfNtSKgDf0iWhBAsC0C-t44Ny2WC1bgoS3M/w320-h270/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+10.59.59+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p>If the award was for Best <b>Single</b> Costume, she’d definitely win it. Also, <i>Emma</i> and <i>Pinocchio</i> both had some gorgeous costumes, but only <i>MRBB</i> made me horny for an $11 pair of shoes. </p><p><b>Best Sound</b></p><p>Will: <i>Sound of Metal<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Sound of Metal</i></p><p>It does amazing work (I can only assume) recreating the main character’s slow loss of hearing. I mean, it’s right there in the name! Maybe next year someone will make <i>Picture of Metal </i>to win Best Picture.</p><p><b>Best Makeup/Hairstyling</b></p><p>Will: <i>Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom</i></p><p>I wish I could see before/after shots from each film showing off the makeup. I saw some amazing work in <i>Pinocchio</i>, and the <i>Hillbilly Elegy </i>team did amazing work making Glenn Close look like the real person she's portraying, but I'm sticking with <i>MRBB</i>.</p><p><b>Best Original Score</b></p><p>Will: <i>Soul</i><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><i> </i>Should: <i>Soul</i></p><p>Howard's score in <i>News of the World</i> was the only one that made my 240-character Twitter review (but it was also the only one of the five I watched AFTER the nominations were announced). I wish I had time to listen to each score in its entirety. Some excerpts from <i>Minari</i> sounded great but I'm going with Reznor, Ross, & Batiste. </p><p><b>Best Original Song</b></p><p>Will: "Speak Now" (<i>One Night in Miami</i>) <span> </span>Should: "Husavik" (<i>Eurovision...</i>)</p><p>"Speak Now" is a gorgeous song, sung beautifully by Leslie Odom Jr. but "Husavik" is beautiful, yet haunting, yet funny. It's a shame <i>Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga</i> was so hit or miss (most of the misses coming from Ferrell)</p><p><b>Best Visual Effects</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKmr9QWcvtE7luKQgPhwWhjOtNpNiUtG60MirE8ZaCj2DncTrgLUgIAIa2culUabyQrGIrt_Q16cJecldqEJ2vaPYvdTXTptKBapEGeRrJk9DlJ9d8b3CqMOuzX_tgHYZdRA4UImqEmk/s700/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.14.23+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Tenet" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="700" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJKmr9QWcvtE7luKQgPhwWhjOtNpNiUtG60MirE8ZaCj2DncTrgLUgIAIa2culUabyQrGIrt_Q16cJecldqEJ2vaPYvdTXTptKBapEGeRrJk9DlJ9d8b3CqMOuzX_tgHYZdRA4UImqEmk/w400-h229/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.14.23+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><p>Will: <i>Tenet<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Tenet</i></p><p>Regarding the time-inverted special effects in <i>Tenet, </i>Christopher Nolan was so preoccupied with whether or not he could that he didn't stop to think if he should. But were the effects worth failing to write a good story or pay for decent sound mixing if it wins his film an Oscar? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ </p><p><b>Best Documentary Feature</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUfTX8B-Nda4g9p3tOhU9GYSdXMRzm-isWQ9k557u6qAetLFLrW6bc779W123I5oSceLr43ii_ktQUBx4r9kRNBvRIbZKyUI0nME6O2RHypT3DrZGlsXUOIrP_H3NgU-tK8lF5Gs0VcHA/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.19.31+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="My Octopus Teacher" border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUfTX8B-Nda4g9p3tOhU9GYSdXMRzm-isWQ9k557u6qAetLFLrW6bc779W123I5oSceLr43ii_ktQUBx4r9kRNBvRIbZKyUI0nME6O2RHypT3DrZGlsXUOIrP_H3NgU-tK8lF5Gs0VcHA/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.19.31+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZyWl7Uoe4cfoVLV-M-KOKi11z8E9Ce6p9baRU23F2Tq8ksDLj7xDxNv41MoqLnEXw3-el0aoTKchagKtwNTBmOeGJpMVpV7C4NRkovI3OeMKZqfvk6HoNGEO5vu-6wUO7Hs4NNxu2ntg/s401/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.19.43+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Collective" border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="400" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZyWl7Uoe4cfoVLV-M-KOKi11z8E9Ce6p9baRU23F2Tq8ksDLj7xDxNv41MoqLnEXw3-el0aoTKchagKtwNTBmOeGJpMVpV7C4NRkovI3OeMKZqfvk6HoNGEO5vu-6wUO7Hs4NNxu2ntg/w199-h200/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.19.43+PM.png" width="199" /></a></div><br />Will: <i>My Octopus Teacher<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Collective</i><p></p><p>Last year's <i>Honeyland</i> got noms for Best Doc & Best Int'l Feature just like this year's <i>Collective</i>, but it went home with nothing & I fear <i>Collective</i> may follow... However,<i> Collective</i> was my #6 of 2020 & I think it deserves to win best Documentary. Unfortunately, <i>My Octopus Teacher</i> is probably going to win despite it being the 11th <b>worst</b> film I saw in 2020…</p><p><b>Best Documentary Short</b></p><p>Will: <i>A Love Song for Latasha<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Colette</i></p><p><i>A Love Song for Latasha</i> is sadly ever-relevant but <i>Colette</i> was my favorite of this year's slate. I had no idea I was sitting down to watch a short film about the horrors of the Holocaust when I watched it during a lunch break. That was the most I ever cried during lunch!</p><p><b>Best Animated Feature</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXbOrkRM-NsZSWsEo11YI3CUzV9CYwJ9YayBiHRD5_OUyie6j8wUfcptagR2B4pSgvsl7_HHC-rVU0ii5nPsPWq17GE15-Ld_MjjUofXQMovo3Og43UxAY34huyGUYjpk9JaMG9yMwa8/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.30.40+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Soul" border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYXbOrkRM-NsZSWsEo11YI3CUzV9CYwJ9YayBiHRD5_OUyie6j8wUfcptagR2B4pSgvsl7_HHC-rVU0ii5nPsPWq17GE15-Ld_MjjUofXQMovo3Og43UxAY34huyGUYjpk9JaMG9yMwa8/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.30.40+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjl42fp40qad2z_0eU3ui-U1QPC3qHE3w5PQtiIuI4coQygnfyCCi5V_3-Z6U8-Vj-jI3ifDPHO_4mBvqmoqQ7Jmz7htJcw6q-TT6eBCd8-l3h31jVL6KQsI4b_aPWkp8pXxD-cADmBA/s400/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.31.01+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Wolfwalkers" border="0" data-original-height="399" data-original-width="400" height="199" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQjl42fp40qad2z_0eU3ui-U1QPC3qHE3w5PQtiIuI4coQygnfyCCi5V_3-Z6U8-Vj-jI3ifDPHO_4mBvqmoqQ7Jmz7htJcw6q-TT6eBCd8-l3h31jVL6KQsI4b_aPWkp8pXxD-cADmBA/w200-h199/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.31.01+PM.png" width="200" /></a></div><p>Will: <i>Soul </i>Should: <i>Wolfwalkers</i></p><p>Pixar's <i>Soul </i>is great (my #12 of 2020) and while <i>Wolfwalkers</i> is also a 4.5* film along with <i>Soul</i>, I think it's just a little better (#4). The hand-drawn animation style took some getting used to (a lot of the backgrounds are sort of flat—it's a weird perspective thing) but the story is as good as any Pixar/Studio Ghibli film. If you have Apple TV+, give it a watch!</p><p><b>Best Animated Short</b></p><p>Will: <i>If Anything Happens I Love You<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>Opera</i></p><p><i>Opera </i>is a fascinating little short that I immediately rewatched after it finished. There are dozens (hundreds?) of little details crammed into 9 minutes, and I feel like every repeat viewing would just uncover more things I didn't catch before. Very ambitious—I wish I could see it on repeat on the big screen. But, I won't be upset if/when <i>IAHILY</i> takes home the Oscar.</p><p><b>Best Live Action Short</b></p><p>Will: <i>The Letter Room<span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span><span> </span></i>Should: <i>The Present</i></p><p><i>The Present</i> was a fascinating look at the struggle a father & daughter go through to do some shopping on the other side of a checkpoint. I know very little about the ins & outs of Israeli/Palestinian relations, but damn if this short didn't make me hate walls & border crossings. There's some buzz around <i>Two Distant Strangers</i> possibly winning, and if it does I'll be so pissed. I have no idea how a 0* "film" got nominated. It's just an exploitative P.O.S. with good acting from the lead (and no one else). Here's hoping Oscar Isaac's star power wins it for <i>The Letter Room</i> instead.</p><p><b>Best International Feature</b></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizskHx870kFVDb0RodpXJTaVvLXkPMmev5w6ngSaXOtoR9_ussGFIRff5DbC3ht9ekA0SGjT0I4to-eM-GAp4eDVlgEYKkFOAriNq1FmxRl8Rcpl-0YbY1pzXOYsdQMDjXfawmUreuhpY/s794/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.47.38+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Another Round" border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="794" height="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizskHx870kFVDb0RodpXJTaVvLXkPMmev5w6ngSaXOtoR9_ussGFIRff5DbC3ht9ekA0SGjT0I4to-eM-GAp4eDVlgEYKkFOAriNq1FmxRl8Rcpl-0YbY1pzXOYsdQMDjXfawmUreuhpY/w400-h201/Screen+Shot+2021-04-24+at+11.47.38+PM.png" width="400" /></a><br /></div>Will: <i>Another Round</i> Should: <i>Another Round</i><p></p><p>This is the only time I'm saying I think a film Should win when it wasn't the highest-rated film of the nominees. I think <i>Collective</i> is a better film (my #6 of 2020), but I also feel like it's more deserving of the Best Documentary award, while <i>Another Round </i>(my #15) is the better International film. <i>Collective</i> felt like a fascinating documentary that just so happened to take place in Romania. <i>Another Round</i> felt like a fantastic Danish film (if that distinction makes any sense). Plus, it's got Mads Mikkelsen experimenting on how day drinking helps him & his friends perform better as teachers! </p><p>If you've made it this far, thank you! I have no idea how right or wrong I'll be but it was fun to write a little more about these films before the ceremony. Feel free to leave a comment about who you think will/should win below!</p><p></p>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com1Allentown, PA, USA40.6022939 -75.471409812.292060063821154 -110.6276598 68.912527736178845 -40.3151598tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-90479638063236715322011-11-01T08:00:00.000-04:002011-11-01T08:21:17.415-04:00Fatal Attraction (1987)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1987 Box Office: Gross $156,645,693</span></b></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNTR-_gCSL8MKzMP3yeSk4d5TxmbJGpaPF67F5uOdA05b_EDhxaZrnkt504Dfmg6TT2ma5XRSiw2MSJnfb-FlZXRNkrQBl5rrUgdI54l1WP3RVW4Mnuti5iJEix21SQol48IjN2w6ZYI/s1600/FA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfNTR-_gCSL8MKzMP3yeSk4d5TxmbJGpaPF67F5uOdA05b_EDhxaZrnkt504Dfmg6TT2ma5XRSiw2MSJnfb-FlZXRNkrQBl5rrUgdI54l1WP3RVW4Mnuti5iJEix21SQol48IjN2w6ZYI/s320/FA.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A look that led to an evening</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Adrian Lyne directs this thriller about infidelity. Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is a New York lawyer with a wife (Anne Archer) and young daughter. When the girls leave for the weekend, he has a short affair with Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), whom he met at a work party. However, Alex doesn't want the affair to end when Dan's family returns. She slits her wrists, tries to buy his affection with opera tickets, stalks his family and even kidnaps his daughter for a day out at an amusement park. Dan moves out of the city, changes his number and tries to ignore Alex, but sometimes affection becomes obsession and you can't outrun crazy.<br />
<a name='more'></a>Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Spent eight consecutive weeks #1 at the Box Office, eventually being knocked to #2 by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/"><i>The Running Man</i></a></li>
<li>Glenn Close still has the knife she used in the movie hanging in her kitchen</li>
<li>Alex Forrest suffers from an obsessive condition known as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Cl%C3%A9rambault%27s_syndrome">de Clérambault's syndrome</a></li>
<li>Maurice Jarre's score doesn't kick in until almost a half-hour into the film</li>
<li>After poor audience reaction to the original ending, in which Alex kills herself but frames Dan for her murder, it was decided that the ending would be re-shot</li>
<li>During the re-shoot, Close suffered a concussion from one of the takes when her head smashed against a mirror. When treated at the hospital, she discovered she was several weeks pregnant</li>
<li>At the beginning of the film, Dan & Beth's daughter Ellen (Ellen Hamilton Latzen) is watching <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078714/">"You Can't Do That On Televsion"</a></li>
</ul>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv__wAPygQTj3z5x8JeSuFmfv5twexVcJqjMo2NYTMa2jLG132CNdrlEHQR7Aql0MKmW283ezyk9GUcDYjX4Q4HcQ6zxtLB4QyOtKdHtM1rLd7pRCW1PFQhyphenhyphensV5oGT80-3f1IKMMFa1C0/s1600/FA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv__wAPygQTj3z5x8JeSuFmfv5twexVcJqjMo2NYTMa2jLG132CNdrlEHQR7Aql0MKmW283ezyk9GUcDYjX4Q4HcQ6zxtLB4QyOtKdHtM1rLd7pRCW1PFQhyphenhyphensV5oGT80-3f1IKMMFa1C0/s1600/FA.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You must have to be discreet
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The film starts out interesting—here's a story about some very extreme consequences of a one-night stand. Written in the mid-'80s, it's hard not to imagine this as a parable against the AIDS epidemic. However, as the film reaches its third act, it becomes more of a horror story rather than a psychological warning against sleeping around. The villain actually (SPOILER) pulls a Jason/Freddy/Michael and comes back for one last scare! I think the original ending (talked about above) sounds more intriguing to me. Why should Dan not have to pay for his infidelity? Also, Archer is excellent with what little she's given to do. I really longed for more scenes between Dan and his wife discussing what happened, but the film is too busy rushing toward its ridiculous ending.<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyBWr0_l_2wzI1tExiUO8uXB01IRfhg-pnIjhFEO5hBYLgT6wyhOXbk5TlE3ZR_zsNSrpmZHd7eug5ap_Y6TH6iH3bNCyI7U7jzgBc8KmU5zUhbiygT1u2ssgzHbmL4FDj0tAx43oRcQ/s1600/3-stars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfyBWr0_l_2wzI1tExiUO8uXB01IRfhg-pnIjhFEO5hBYLgT6wyhOXbk5TlE3ZR_zsNSrpmZHd7eug5ap_Y6TH6iH3bNCyI7U7jzgBc8KmU5zUhbiygT1u2ssgzHbmL4FDj0tAx43oRcQ/s1600/3-stars.jpg" /></a></div>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-69832732344001291132011-09-27T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-27T08:00:16.638-04:00Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1991 Box Office: Gross $165,493,908 </span></b></div>
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_40019400" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="137" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUpGNKE_LKgeF3eQGMgjm1nMeXt7BYUI7zC3Z-DDnREKw79I4n98auDyrYlQm6HWmi-t666JqDk8aET7NGx8nsbWhXIgsWaEQQKxm6R8pqcxj83ijzp5LeWtq6g-IZajOg1LvlZNzgkLg/s320/RHPoT.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102798/">Sometimes the only way to uphold justice...is to break the law</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
During a prison escape with his friend Peter, Robin of Locksley (Kevin Costner) saves the life of Azeem (Morgan Freeman) and the two survive thanks to Peter's self-sacrifice. Azeem follows Robin back to England to pay back the debt of saving his life, however Robin's homecoming is tainted by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman) who has killed Robin's father. Robin meets Little John (Nick Brimble), Will Scarlet (Christian Slater) and a bunch of other Merry Men in Sherwood Forest and soon leads them to fight against the Sheriff, who himself has begun to aggressively court Marian (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), sister of the dead Peter, who Robin promised to protect. <br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li> In its opening weekend, the film earned $25,625,602 and held the #1 spot for two consecutive weekends, being knocked into 2nd place in its third weekend by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102510/"><i>The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear</i></a></li>
<li>When the Celts are attacking Sherwood, nearly every Celt who is hit by an arrow and killed is played by stunt coordinator Nick Gillard</li>
<li>The shot of Robin shooting the flaming arrow was shot at 300 frames per second (normal scenes are shot at 24 fps)</li>
<li>The scene where Azeem first shows Robin his telescope is similar to a scene in <i>Dances with Wolves</i>, also starring Costner </li>
<li>"Sadiq," the name that Azeem calls Robin, means "friend" in Arabic</li>
<li>The songs the characters sing and hum within the film are actual Medieval
melodies. For example, the song Friar Tuck sings is set to the tune of a
song called Bacche Bene Venies, from the 13th century Codex Buranus </li>
<li>Cary Elwes was offered the lead role but turned it down because he thought the movie's plot was too contrived. He did however portray the character in Mel Brooks' spoof <i>Robin Hood: Men in Tights</i></li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg52Zoc60enGprJgleyNhecJXCexCLRIcnAWQF17f1xjOLvLyUiJtHPrv5xH3M2nt_H3zPsp4jyu40ZccqbzJdoE4HPV4heuHXiXyuJtr6a9HUkGYIRE5gTkAD2cZ-Wjd45rttKzQTfU-w/s1600/RHPoT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg52Zoc60enGprJgleyNhecJXCexCLRIcnAWQF17f1xjOLvLyUiJtHPrv5xH3M2nt_H3zPsp4jyu40ZccqbzJdoE4HPV4heuHXiXyuJtr6a9HUkGYIRE5gTkAD2cZ-Wjd45rttKzQTfU-w/s1600/RHPoT.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Alan Rickman sure does know how to play a baddie—whether it's as Hans Gruber in <i>Die Hard</i>, Professor Snape in the <i>Potter</i> films, or the Sheriff here, he perfectly oozes evil in every scene. Unfortunately, the film isn't <i>The Sheriff of Nottingham: King of Douches</i>. Costner, as an American-voiced Robin Hood is pretty boring—the story is kind of muddled (I didn't even realize Marian was Peter's sister until reading the Wiki page earlier!) and the action isn't anything special. If anything, I enjoyed this film for the way it made me appreciate <i>Robin Hood: Men in Tights</i> more—the "I'm drowning!" joke in <i>MiT</i> never landed for me, but now I understand why it's there. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029843/"><i>The Adventures of Robin Hood</i></a> from 1938 is a much grander adventure and at nearly an hour shorter, it was much more enjoyable than this mess.<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-24698085511420969492011-09-20T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-27T07:49:28.878-04:00Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1985 Box Office: Gross $150,415,432 </span></b></div>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1047965762" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho3ml_4uCM4-j8FLSxMQFr3r3A74Yk5EMeZXoqxG7yoeA33cDt6YTqiJ9cRulYksBbR0kFaacdQm8Ns-mfJSLNB86EY-nkvl3W17R-THQdiE-4_s25TNC5ywNp5oRU93oHFAqHHPo4AXE/s320/Rambo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089880/">What most people call hell, he calls home</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
George P. Cosmatos's film opens with John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) in a labor prison camp, presumably convicted for the events of <i>First Blood</i>*. He is visited by Col. Trautman (Richard Crenna) who offers him a way out of prison, with a full pardon. A bureaucrat named Murdock (Charles Napier) wants Rambo to parachute into Vietnam and do reconnaissance regarding American POWs—but under no circumstances is Rambo supposed to engage the enemy. This is simply a fact-finding mission. However, Rambo loves his country too much to let other US soldiers be tortured and killed and so he soon becomes a one-man army fighting the Vietnamese, Soviets, and even the Americans who sent him on the impossible mission. <br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>First film to appear in over 2,000 US theaters</li>
<li><i>Rambo: First Blood Part II</i> earned $300,400,432 in the worldwide box office. <i>Rocky IV</i> (also released in 1985) earned $300,473,716 worldwide. These two films mark Stallone's highest grossing films, worldwide</li>
<li>*<a href="http://www.allmovietalk.com/?p=55">Certain movie franchises</a> have taken unique steps in naming their sequels, but this series is one of the silliest: 1982 introduced us to the character of Rambo in a film titled, <i>First Blood</i>. Three years later, we get <i>Rambo: First Blood Part II</i>. However, in 1988, the producers pull a fast one and release <i>Rambo III</i>! Flash forward to 2008, and you get the fourth movie in the series, titled simply <i>Rambo</i>. And currently in development is a fifth film, tentatively titled, <i>Rambo: Last Stand</i>.</li>
<li>Co-writer James Cameron claims that he only wrote the first draft of the script and that Stallone made many changes to it, commenting that he only wrote the "action" and that Stallone wrote the "politics"</li>
<li>James Cameron's original screenplay began with Col. Trautman finding Rambo in a psychiatric hospital instead of a prison. This concept was recycled in Cameron's <a href="http://cdn2.screenjunkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Terminator2.jpg"><i>Terminator 2: Judgment Day</i></a></li>
<li>The total body count of the film is 67—57 of which are killed by Rambo himself (the total body count of <i>First Blood </i>is 1)
</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir, do we get to win this time?</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>First Blood</i> interested me—it was a film about a haunted and terrorized vet. The small town he stumbled upon treats him horribly, so he retaliates. The end, with Rambo's histrionic speech, feels a little too pointed, but overall it was an enjoyable film. <i>Rambo: First Blood Part II</i>, however seems entirely too pointed and political. I don't even really understand the point Murdoch was making in throwing Rambo back into Vietnam (if someone can clear it up for me, please do). The action is over the top, and some of it is enjoyable (e.g. explosive tip arrows), but the montage of Rambo taking out the Soviets in the jungle was laughable—he went from stalking one soldier to covered in mud and hiding against a wall in seconds! I suppose had I seen these types of films when I was younger, I might have more of an affection for it, but I was kind of bored and counting down the minutes till the ending (and might I point out how pissed I was when he and the POW weren't picked up by the helicopter in the middle of the film?!? I honestly thought the movie was nearly over, but nope! Still 45 minutes to go!)<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-74067324262726126912011-09-15T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-27T07:49:16.832-04:00Forrest Gump (1994)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#1 - 1994 Box Office: Gross $329,694,499<br />
</span></b></div>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_909341168" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiF05I3XJlEjamgw5ANfTDizAWxkgWYQAhACxxWZiSTAGLRyfomyLQCqtG89E87nP9FGvdNTobK06BbIJpq0sRW7Qoxsy5GHAUKo1uNEVcWSNkQStCOj7nhqGp90G8lmpeU8PiYPQ5x54/s320/Forrest.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109830/">The story of a lifetime</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Robert Zemeckis directs this adaptation of Winston Groom's 1986 novel, which tells the story of a simple man (Tom Hanks) who travels across the world, unwittingly finding himself in the middle of major historical events of the 20th Century. Whether it's at the integration of University of Alabama or a protest rally headed by Abbie Hoffman at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Gump finds himself meeting Presidents and influential people throughout his life. However, he almost always is drawn back to his childhood friend, Jenny (Robin Wright) who never judged Forrest. He spends some time in Vietnam and makes a lifelong friend in his Lieutenant, Lt. Dan (Gary Sinese). Sally Field plays his long-suffering mother while many other famous figures (e.g. <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/12/ForrestGumpJFKScreenshot.jpg">JFK</a>) costar thanks to Industrial Light & Magic.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>The fastest grossing Paramount film to pass the $100-, $200- & $300-million marks (as of its release) </li>
<li>For the first ten weeks of its release, the film held the number one position at the box office and the film remained in theaters for 42 weeks</li>
<li>Winston Groom had a 3% share in the film's net profits, however
despite earning over $300 million at the box office, Paramount claimed
that they were still at least $60 million out of profit due to the costs of
promotion, distribution and interest. When Paramount came to Groom for
the rights to his sequel, <i>Gump and Co.</i>, he <a href="http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/features/6-things-the-film-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about.php">reportedly</a> replied, "I cannot, in good conscience, allow money to be wasted on a failure."</li>
<li>Bill Murray, John Travolta and Chevy Chase turned down the role of Forrest </li>
<li>David Alan Grier, Ice Cube and Dave Chappelle turned down the role of Bubba</li>
<li>The necklace worn by Lt. Dan is a rosary with a St Christopher medal,
inscribed "Protect Us In Combat." It was worn in Vietnam by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000641/"></a>Sinise's brother-in-law, Jack Treese, in 1967-68</li>
<li>The first boy in the school bus who refuses to let Forrest sit next to him is played by Alexander Zemeckis, director Robert Zemeckis' son</li>
<li>While playing at the nightclub, Jenny goes under the name of <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2utyfmcUdOcUF4cio5hJfM-sRV-krlMxtdO4otZd31wyp4KG8cmRzNPSqoM_x3gWVMwXzz0ht5V-m_dQems51G_J3Z5GJ7BeTabDvsYOV0BqCfhkXhBeybrwxjSF6YArDbIHKb814hSuF/s1600/Forrest+5+Guitar.jpg">Bobbie Dylan</a> and sings "Blowin' In The Wind" by Bob Dylan</li>
<li>With every transition of Forrest's age, one thing remains the same- in
the first scene of each transition he wears a blue plaid shirt</li>
<li>Sally Field is only ten years older than Tom Hanks</li>
<li>The traffic flow around squares in Savannah is normally
counterclockwise. The flow was reversed for the movie in order to have
the bus doors open into the square</li>
<li>Every still picture of Forrest during this film shows Tom Hanks with his eyes closed (<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkFklj87unlVhG1pg_ITWDQAYxnUFC8hBISZc3QH55vz7VoGPUcP59qW9IhA44Uzc1JrUm8jsCFyD1KFK0Uxquy2B6TaTQ1UgwHQ-OZ96C1tOM1Htj8NRbdtVa5ptpvElkkvpE8Dy1WR8/s1600/earl+eyes+closed.jpg">sounds familiar</a>)</li>
<li>Forrest's awards and decorations, as worn in his Class A uniform are:
the Medal of Honor, Purple Heart, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense
Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Republic of Vietnam Campaign
Medal, Infantry Shoulder Cord, Combat Infantryman Badge, Expert Badge and Meritorious Unit Commendation</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOwfJveNOsC6Ko2XAcdnSO-KP5QN50guZ9ejMQ6KuhjyiKJrmEvMnUY-FyNmW0dW4O_rSu__ejmEfmDuVnOHcz8Z249_QEZMWfwk548xKVliahPvYGczOwyYRD8TuesQLUV5kEZn9RigM/s1600/ForrestGump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOwfJveNOsC6Ko2XAcdnSO-KP5QN50guZ9ejMQ6KuhjyiKJrmEvMnUY-FyNmW0dW4O_rSu__ejmEfmDuVnOHcz8Z249_QEZMWfwk548xKVliahPvYGczOwyYRD8TuesQLUV5kEZn9RigM/s1600/ForrestGump.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You died on a Saturday morning...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some may view <i>Forrest Gump</i> as silly, manipulative drivel. I, however, am always amazed at the vastness of the story. From Elvis Presley to John Lennon, JFK to Watergate, Apple stock to Sh!t Happens bumper stickers—this film somehow ties the most random pieces of pop culture together like Billy Joel did in "We Didn't Start the Fire." And speaking of music, the soundtrack is fantastic—The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, KC & the Sunshine Band, more The Doors, The Byrds, etc.—it almost feels like an entire generation's music put on film. In researching this blog, I've read there are many differences between the film and the novel (Forrest becomes an astronaut?!) and I'm tempted to seek out this book and its meta-referential sequel. Although I don't know how I'd be able to read the novel without seeing Hanks' top notch performance throughout... Despite its somewhat heavy material at times, this movie just makes me happy whenever I see it. I can't think of anything wrong with it!<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-70197975286063264952011-09-06T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-06T08:09:06.790-04:00Alice in Wonderland (2010)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 2010 Box Office: Gross $334,191,110</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You're invited to a very important date</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
At a lavish garden party, 19-year-old Alice (Mia Wasikowska) struggles to meet the expectations of her friends and family. In order to escape an unwanted marriage proposal, Alice chases a rabbit in a waistcoat (Michael Sheen) and falls down a large hole. Here, she reenters Underland, a world she visited when she was six and always thought was a dream (calling it "Wonderland"). The characters from her dream are all here—Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp), Cheshire Cat (Stephen Fry), Caterpillar (Alan Rickman)—and they tell her she is destined to slay the Red Queen's (Helena Bonham Carter) Jabberwocky (Christopher Lee) and help the White Queen (Anne Hathaway) return to power.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>It is the second Walt Disney Pictures film ever to surpass the $1 billion mark, after <i>Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest</i></li>
<li>On its first weekend, the film made $210.1 million worldwide, marking the largest opening ever for a movie not released during the summer or the holiday period<i> </i></li>
<li>Stayne (Crispin Glover) has only one eye, symbolising his being a representation of the <a href="http://lparchive.org/NIER/Update%2048/79-jack-hearts.png">Jack of Hearts</a></li>
<li>Although Rickman was filmed while recording the Caterpillar's voice in a studio, his
face was not composited onto the character's face as originally planned</li>
<li>Director Tim Burton developed the story because he never felt an emotional
connection to the original book, with its series of events about a girl
wandering from one weird character to another</li>
<li>Burton had lavender lenses fitted into his glasses to counteract the effect of constantly shooting on a <a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_G-VVT2mlw1E/S7UhG5kYSBI/AAAAAAAAANk/1AZXwt8sK4E/s1600/Alice-Book-02.jpg">green screen</a></li>
<li>Before its release, Cineworld and several other UK cinema chains planned to boycott the film because of a reduction of the interval between cinema and DVD release from the usual 17 weeks to 12</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQpc51T0Iwz0rzzs-hq8JJModeQZiP2cumwq-s2jx6qRgyO76DRhJF3kVJW8bAxCjqbnL4TMEKEZELTiwvdaz6XOUufqrbKW5cWpx8E2s4i7Ll9ZsBYzdSitQFQ8yx2ZPGqbwLwZOD3-w/s1600/Alice.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQpc51T0Iwz0rzzs-hq8JJModeQZiP2cumwq-s2jx6qRgyO76DRhJF3kVJW8bAxCjqbnL4TMEKEZELTiwvdaz6XOUufqrbKW5cWpx8E2s4i7Ll9ZsBYzdSitQFQ8yx2ZPGqbwLwZOD3-w/s1600/Alice.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Curiouser and curiouser</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Tim Burton definitely has a style all his own. When this was released last year, I saw it on the big screen and was amazed by its effects. However, I was bored by the story—there was about 15-20 minutes in the middle here on the rewatch I apparently slept through in theater. And the second viewing wasn't any better than the first. I see what Burton was attempting to do, creating an emotional connection, but it just didn't work for me; I was bored throughout. The acting was decent—Lucas stood out in his amazing double turn as <a href="http://dinorentosstudios.com/images/P/157tweedledee%26tweedledum_1499_general.jpg">Tweedledee & Tweedledum</a> and Bonham Carter & Wasikowska were both great, however Depp's wacky Mad Hatter wasn't exactly my cup of tea.<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-68602173889185479932011-08-30T08:00:00.006-04:002011-09-05T14:48:55.805-04:00Toy Story 3 (2010)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#1 - 2010 Box Office: Gross $415,004,880</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No toy gets left behind</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen), Jessie (Joan Cusack) and the rest of the toys return for part three, as Andy (John Morris) prepares to head off to college. A mixup leads the toys to believe Andy wanted to throw them away, so they escape to Sunnyside, a local daycare center. Here, they're welcomed with open arms by Lotso (Ned Beatty), Ken (Michael Keaton) and several other new toys. However, they soon realize their warm welcome is simply because their presence allows present toys to escape the horrors seen in the youngest room. Woody, found and taken home by imaginative young Bonnie, employs the help of her toys—Mr. Pricklepants (Timothy Dalton), Trixie (Kristen Schaal), Buttercup (Jeff Garlin), et al—to return to Sunnyside, break his friends out of their prison and return to Andy before he leaves for college...<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>The first animated film to make one billion dollars at the worldwide box office</li>
<li>Broke <i>Shrek the Third</i>'s record as the biggest opening day for an animated film (unadjusted for inflation) </li>
<li>Blake Clark became the new voice of Slinky Dog, replacing Jim Varney, who died in 2000</li>
<li>The first Pixar film to be released in IMAX</li>
<li>Barbie's blue workout outfit is based on the 1984 "Great Shape" Barbie Doll. The Ken doll in the movie is modeled after "Animal Lovin'" Ken from 1988</li>
<li> Director Lee Unkrich voiced the Jack in the Box that yells "New toys!" to Andy's toys when they arrive at SunnySide</li>
<li>A version of Chuckles the Clown appears in <i>Toy Story</i> on <a href="http://i38.tinypic.com/4rx0.png">the last present</a> as wrapping paper, except he's smiling</li>
<li>1225 Sycamore St (Bonnie's house) and 234 Elm St (Andy's house) do exist together in two cities: Cincinnati, OH and <a href="http://thegospelaccordingtorichardcroft.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/denton-usa.jpg">Denton, TX</a>. In Cincinnati, the streets are very far apart, though they intersect in Denton </li>
<li> The first sequel to be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar without any of its predecessors being nominated</li>
<li>Totoro (from Miyazaki's <i>My Neighbor Totoro</i>) is featured as one of <a href="http://www.geekosystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/totoro-in-toy-story-3-550x264.jpg">Bonnie's toys </a></li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUx8GqwDYkiCY0_dah3S8eBy6GEoPSR1xlPFDTDLmUXAunifyjbwDfYZtyPDENIOJG50PN0kFM1xPRJtyOBOI07_pechRKgG_peHhmcYzEHdN0MZMIJ9Ai8hKLpoXglPv9sLSnuHx0-Y/s1600/TS3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqUx8GqwDYkiCY0_dah3S8eBy6GEoPSR1xlPFDTDLmUXAunifyjbwDfYZtyPDENIOJG50PN0kFM1xPRJtyOBOI07_pechRKgG_peHhmcYzEHdN0MZMIJ9Ai8hKLpoXglPv9sLSnuHx0-Y/s1600/TS3.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="st"><i></i>¡Buzz Lightyear al rescate!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Pixar took 2.5 years to write and storyboard this film, apparently because first-time solo-director, Lee Unkrich didn't want to create Pixar's first "dud" (apparently he never saw <i>Cars</i>). I think this was time well spent. It's pretty standard that sequels get progressively worse, and yet here is a film that holds up and is better than <i>Toy Story 2</i> (which I admit I haven't seen in years)! Some of the plot points are recycled from previous films (Buzz thinking he's a real toy and acting as an antagonist, the toys being separated from Andy and trying to get home), but I guess the saying goes, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." I think there are enough touching additions to make it worthwhile. Whether it's the inclusion of neighbor/bully Sid (in his same skull t-shirt) as the garbageman, or the sweet love story between Spanish Buzz and Jessie, there's just something that feels nice about this film. And, even on my second viewing, I still got a little teary-eyed at the end. Just like the first time I saw it, I got more emotional during the incinerator scene than the final curtain call given by Andy to Bonnie. The first time, I actually thought the toys were going to burn up because of a review I listened to pre-viewing that mentioned "I don't know how they'd be able to make a <i>Toy Story 4</i> after this ending," but even knowing they make it out okay, there's something super emotional about watching Bullseye struggle on the pile of glowing trash, then suddenly stop and realize, with the rest of the toys, what his fate is. As the toys hold hands and slowly sink toward the inevitable, they all close their eyes in the heat, leaving <a href="http://curzonproject.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/toy-story-incinerator.jpg">Woody as the last to stare</a> into the fire. I'm getting a little verklempt just writing about it... ANYWAY, there are rumors Pixar is going to come out with <i>TS4</i> and I'm unsure how I feel about it. Surely, Pixar will eventually come out with a flop worse than <i>Cars</i>... won't they? It's inevitable... right? I would think so, but they've proven otherwise so many times before. Still, it would be a shame for a fourth film to ruin what is quite possibly the best trilogy of all time.<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-18933743342262396012011-08-23T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-05T14:49:39.416-04:00Batman Forever (1995)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1995 Box Office: Gross $184,031,112</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-u6wYQbD3r7sTP52x1rojWe0d6usPU4Ka7bj7wpyit3p_juTxgKK4Ea4UMIEPzv3KRFxM6Fc8DCwcyLo-UiuoEV-OOfhPfz2nBz4oL2peh7uss2jCQEt8bZedDg8hd9wjlVI_LguzlU/s1600/BatmanForever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="163" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv-u6wYQbD3r7sTP52x1rojWe0d6usPU4Ka7bj7wpyit3p_juTxgKK4Ea4UMIEPzv3KRFxM6Fc8DCwcyLo-UiuoEV-OOfhPfz2nBz4oL2peh7uss2jCQEt8bZedDg8hd9wjlVI_LguzlU/s320/BatmanForever.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courage now, truth always....</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Joel Schumacher directs this second sequel to the original <a href="http://ponchslifeinfilm.blogspot.com/2011/03/batman-1989.html"><i>Batman</i></a>, where Bruce Wayne (now played by Val Kilmer) has to deal with disfigured D.A Harvey Dent & super-villain Two Face (now played by Tommy Lee Jones). Meanwhile, Wayne Enterprises employee & genius Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) invents a way to connect people's brains with their television sets. Realizing he can steal people's intelligence with his device, he becomes The Riddler. Two Face crashes a circus charity event attended by Bruce & love interest Dr. Chase Meridian (Nicole Kidman), demanding Batman reveal himself or else a bomb will explode. Bruce fails to catch his attention under the din of the crowd, but The Flying Graysons, a family of acrobats, attempt to get rid of the bomb. The youngest, Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell) succeeds in destroying the bomb, but only after Two Face kills the rest of his family. After teaming up, Two Face & The Riddler find out Batman's secret identity and destroy the Batcave. Dick also finds out Bruce's secret and Bruce himself admits his identity to Chase. With his secret identity not much of a secret anymore, will Batman be able to save Gotham from The Riddler's brain drain?<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li><i>Batman Forever</i> opened in 2,842 theaters in the US on June 16, 1995, making $52.78 million in its opening weekend—holding the highest opening weekend of all time up to that point<br />
</li>
<li>While learning to twirl a cane, Jim Carrey reportedly broke around a dozen prop canes and some of his trailer furniture</li>
<li> Rene Russo was originally cast to play Dr. Chase Meridian when Michael Keaton was still attached to the project as Batman. However, when Keaton dropped out of the project and was replaced by Val Kilmer, Russo was deemed too old to play his love interest and was replaced by Nicole Kidman</li>
<li>In the original <i>Batman</i>, Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams. Williams accepted the role with the knowledge and expectation that Dent would eventually become Two-Face. He reportedly had a clause put into his contract reserving the role for him in any sequels, which Warner Bros. had to buy out so they could cast Tommy Lee Jones</li>
<li>Val Kilmer learned he was the new Batman while he was literally in a bat cave in Africa, doing research for <i>The Ghost and the Darkness</i> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.npr.org/programs/wesun/puzzle/shortz.pm.gif">Will Shortz</a>, Puzzle Master on NPR and editor of the NY Times crossword puzzle, created the Riddler's riddles</li>
<li>The Batmobile was usually driven by stunt drivers, but Chris O'Donnell insisted on driving it himself in the joyride scene - but he crashed it into a curb and dented a fender</li>
<li>Jim Carrey's original idea—to shave a question mark into his scalp—had to be scratched as he was due in court to finalize his divorce</li>
<li>R&B group En Vogue cameo as street walkers who appear after Dick steals the Batmobile and takes it for a joyride</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoTcakQrRxvdXuG1Npo8v9HZLdBjErGEmUizmf9eGECmN7PCHY07IJblug3Dqzp9FumonLCk0Cuk6tQIbNuOt4_Ye0cs7GgUSTTHJ8HUCifyRwUpO4VmSOiF5ja_q1R_gSNC_BH0gv_nM/s1600/BatmanForever.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoTcakQrRxvdXuG1Npo8v9HZLdBjErGEmUizmf9eGECmN7PCHY07IJblug3Dqzp9FumonLCk0Cuk6tQIbNuOt4_Ye0cs7GgUSTTHJ8HUCifyRwUpO4VmSOiF5ja_q1R_gSNC_BH0gv_nM/s1600/BatmanForever.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riddle me this. Riddle me that. Who's afraid of the big black bat.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Schumacher receives a lot of crap for ruining the <i>Batman</i> series, but on my rewatch of the original <a href="http://ponchslifeinfilm.blogspot.com/2011/03/batman-1989.html"><i>Batman</i></a>, I couldn't help but find Burton's vision mediocre (especially after comparing it to <i>The Dark Knight</i>). That film had the redeeming performance of Nicholson, and this film basically has the redeeming performance of Carrey. I've always been a huge fan of The Riddler—from the original "Batman" TV series, through the 1966 film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060153/"><i>Batman: The Movie</i></a> and even in the various cartoon series I watched when I was younger, I always enjoyed the (usually clever) riddles left behind. It was long enough between viewings of this film that most of the riddles seemed new to me and I enjoyed trying to figure them out. Plus, Carrey really seemed to enjoy playing the manic E. Nygma, but the rest of the cast—scenery-chewing Tommy Lee Jones, coma-inducing Val Kilmer, horribly whiny Chris O'Donnell, and somehow unattractive Nicole Kidman—were painful to watch.<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-11077636557480484162011-08-16T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:49:52.585-04:00Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1993 Box Office: Gross $219,195,243</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">She's a blessing... in disguise.</td></tr>
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Daniel (Robin Williams) and Miranda Hillard (Sally Field) have been married 15 years, but their marriage is in trouble. After Daniel quits his job in voice-overs and throws a large raucous birthday party for his son, Miranda has had enough and files for divorce. Job- and home-less, Daniel fails to win custody of his children: Lydia (Lisa Jakub), Chris (Matthew Lawrence) & Natalie (Mara Wilson). Lost without them, Daniel applies to be the family's nanny, creating the character of Euphegenia Doubtfire with the help of his makeup-artist brother Frank (Harvey Fierstein). Able to see his children every day, Daniel falls deep into the character of Mrs. Doubtfire, creating a loving home where the children succeed at school, Miranda comes home early from work to spend time with the family and things seem good. Miranda even starts seeing a client and old friend, Stuart (Pierce Bronsan). However, things come to a head at a restaurant where Mrs Doubtfire and Daniel run back and forth between the family table and the table with TV-station CEO Lundy (Robert Prosky) where Daniel is trying to pitch a new TV show starring himself.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Spent 5 non-consecutive weeks at #1 at the US Box Office and 11 straight weeks at #1 or #2</li>
<li>Was ousted from the #1 Box Office spot by four different movies (<i>Wayne's World 2</i>, <i>The Pelican Brief</i> (two weeks), <i>Philadelphia</i> (two weeks) & <i>Ace Venture: Pet Detective</i>)</li>
<li>It took about 4.5 hours each day to transform Robin Williams into Mrs. Doubtfire</li>
<li>The scene where Daniel knocks down the prosthetic mask and it goes flying down into the street, required over 50 takes</li>
<li>The prosthetic mask used by Robin Williams in the film was actually a prop; the real makeup was made up of eight separate pieces</li>
<li>Chicago was the studio's first choice for filming. However, two new television shows ("ER" and "Chicago Hope") had a lease with the city around the same time period, so the studio eventually went with San Francisco</li>
<li>When Anne Fine was approached to make a movie out of her novel, her original choice for the lead role was Warren Beatty. Because of Beatty's reputation as a great womanizer, she thought it would be hysterical to see him dress up and pretend to be a woman</li>
<li>The character Mrs. Doubtfire was first performed by Robin Williams at a show Andy Kaufman did at Carnegie Hall. Williams pretended to be Kaufman's grandmother</li>
<li>In real life Robin Williams divorced his wife in order to marry his nanny. In this film he divorces his wife and becomes her nanny </li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It was a run-by fruiting...</td></tr>
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Director Chris Columbus, is probably best known for his family fare—<i>Adventures in Babysitting</i> and the first two <i>Harry Potter</i> <i>& Home Alone</i> films. This PG-13 rated film is a little less family-friendly, mostly due to a lot of Williams' somewhat inappropriate improvisations but still does a decent job tackling the issues involved in a broken family. The storyline is ridiculous at times, especially the two scenes showing Williams changing back and forth between Daniel and Mrs. Doubtfire, but his performance—both as serious father figure and funny-voiced actor—makes up for it. I do applaud the movie for tackling an unorthodox ending, however... I read that during pre-production, the studio wanted and tried to create a happy ending where Miranda and Daniel get back together. Obviously, they went back to the original ending which is pretty satisfying in a non-cliché way.<br />
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<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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<br />Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-2111837264628666702011-07-26T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:50:09.157-04:00Spider-Man 3 (2007)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#1 - 2007 Box Office: Gross $336,530,303</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One man will fight to find the hero within</td></tr>
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Things are good as Sam Raimi's <i>Spider-Man 3</i> begins—Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has finally learned how to balance his personal life and the responsibility of being Spider-Man. He's actually about to propose to Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst)—who herself has finally landed a starring role on Broadway—when Harry Osborn (James Franco) attacks. As New Golbin, Harry attempts to avenge his father's death once more, using equipment he has found in his father's house. After a blow to the head erases Harry's recent memory, the two become friends once more. More conflict arises however, with not one, but two more villains—an alien symbiote called Venom leeches onto Peter and makes him stronger while an escaped convict (and Uncle Ben's actual killer), Flint Marko (Thomas Haden Church) gets caught in a particle accelerator and becomes The Sandman. Marko goes on a crime-spree, attempting to get money for his daughter's medical treatments, and Spidey turns black as Venom turns him vain and vengeful. Eddie Brock (Topher Grace) and Gwen Stacy (Bryce Dallas Howard) join the adventure; he, a rival photojournalist and she, a new love interest to Peter. After mistakenly striking Mary Jane, Peter realizes that with the extra power Venom gives him, comes extra responsibility. He ditches the new suit, but Venom soon finds Eddie and transforms him into a super-villain. Meanwhile, Norman (Willem Dafoe) appears to Harry and urges him to remember what Spider-Man did to him. Will Spider-Man be able to face off against all three at the same time?<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Set a new record (since broken) with $59,841,919 for its opening day in US theaters</li>
<li>Set a new worldwide record (since broken) for an opening weekend, with a total of $382 million</li>
<li>The film's IMAX screenings reached $20 million in 30 days, faster than any other 2D film remastered in the format (at the time)</li>
<li>Ground corn was used as sand because it reflected well on camera</li>
<li>All of the screams Kirsten Dunst had for this film were recycled from <i>Spider-Man 2</i></li>
<li>The photograph of Mary Jane next to Peter's police scanner is the picture he took of her at the science exhibit in <i>Spider-Man</i></li>
<li>The font of Venom's web message is the same font used for the title of the comic, Sensational Spider-Man</li>
<li>Bryce Dallas Howard performed her own stunts during the crane accident scene, unaware that she was pregnant at the time of filming</li>
<li>Sam Raimi is the first director to helm all three installments in a superhero franchise. Bryan Singer made 2 X-Men movies and Tim Burton only did two Batman movies. This will change in 2012 when Christopher Nolan completes his Dark Knight trilogy</li>
<li>Sam Raimi is the first director to helm three installments of a superhero franchise (Bryan Singer and Tim Burton each only made, respectively, two <i>X-Men</i> and <i>Batman </i>movies). This will change next year after Christopher Nolan completes his <i>Dark Knight</i> trilogy</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I am the best thing about this movie....</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's almost too trite to mention, but once again a superhero sequel tries to add more villains to make a more exciting film. Unfortunately, more villains means less story dedicated to any of them. Green Goblin and Doc Ock in the first two films were well-formed characters, each with their own struggle between good and evil. Here, you get a glimpse of Sandman's good-natured side (he's just trying to help his daughter and he seems to show real remorse for accidentally killing Uncle Ben), but his plotline is crammed into just a few minutes of screentime. Eddie is an interesting foil to Peter at the start, but he soon turns into a plagiarizing douchebag and quickly becomes this strange alien who still looks a lot like Spider-Man. The set pieces are pretty boring (Mary Jane in danger again?!) and this film, sadly, introduced us to Emo-Spidey. I applaud Maguire for his dedication, because there were several scenes that were actually a little painful to watch as he acted smug and aloof. The story presented in this final part of Sam Raimi's trilogy probably could have made a decent 6-hour miniseries, but with a runtime of 139 minutes, it lacked what made the first two films great—characters you care about, heart and intentional humor. <br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-70162617831367308012011-07-12T08:00:00.003-04:002011-09-05T14:50:21.551-04:00Spider-Man 2 (2004)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 2004 Box Office: Gross $373,585,825</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Sacrifice. Destiny. Choice.</td></tr>
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Sam Raimi's sequel picks up two years after the first ended with Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) trying to balance his everyday life with the great responsibility he has as Spider-Man. His childhood crush—Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst)—has a starring role on Broadway, his best friend—Harry Osborn (James Franco)—is convinced Spider-Man is responsible for his father's death and after the death of Peter's uncle, his Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) faces foreclosure. Meanwhile, one of Oscorp's nuclear scientists, Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina), suffers a terrible accident causing intelligent robotic arms to weld themselves onto his back and into his mind. Dubbed "Doc Ock" by the vociferous <i>Daily Bugle</i> editor, J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons), Spider-Man has a new enemy who threatens to destroy the city with a huge fusion reactor. Parker's powers falter and after a visit with a two-armed doctor, he believes the reason his powers aren't working is due to the stress of protecting the city. And so, he decides to be Spider-Man, no more. Doc Ock needs Harry's help with his reactor so Harry asks Ock to bring him Spider-Man to avenge his father's death. MJ gets kidnapped, Peter has to become Spider-Man once more and try to save the city and himself.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Took the record for biggest opening day ever with $40.4 million from its predecessor <i>Spider-Man</i></li>
<li>Sam Raimi officially signed on to direct this sequel more than a month before <i>Spider-Man</i> opened and filming began in 2003 before an official script was finished</li>
<li>The opening credits feature artwork by artist Alex Ross, which recaps the events in<i> Spider-Man</i></li>
<li>Alfred Molina gave names to his four mechanical tentacles—Larry, Harry, Flo and Moe. Flo was the top right tentacle, because it was operated by a female grip and that particular tentacle was the most motherly, removing his sunglasses and giving him sips of his drink</li>
<li>As a vegetarian, Tobey Maguire ate a tofu hot dog during the scene where police cars zoom by</li>
<li>The lines of poetry Peter quotes to MJ ("Day by day he gazed upon her / Day by day he sighed with passion") are from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "The Four Winds"</li>
<li>While filming <i>Seabiscuit</i>, Maguire suffered back injuries serious enough to cause the studio to negotiate with Jake Gyllenhaal to replace Maguire. Maguire recovered enough to play Peter Parker, once more, however the "My back!" joke after Peter falls from the roof was purely coincidental, having been written into the script before Maguire's injuries</li>
<li>The man who steals a slice of pizza dropped off on a rooftop while Spider-Man does some hero stuff is played by Scott Spiegel, who co-wrote <i>Evil Dead II</i> with director Sam Raimi</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You have a train to catch...</td></tr>
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Not very often do you get a sequel that outperforms the original, but there are so many things to love about this movie. First, there's the wonderful comic-book-esque opening credit sequence created by Alex Ross that tells the story of <i>Spider-Man</i> rather than wasting any time having the characters retell the important parts. Then, you have the wonderfully created villain of Doc Ock. Willem Dafoe was great as the Green Goblin—loved his arguments in the mirror, but his villain was often subconscious and hid behind a green body suit. Here, Molina gets to have a similar internal struggle between his good-natured scientist and the evil robotic arms, but you get to see the villain at every turn (and he's pretty sarcastic and funny to boot). Then, there's just the campiness of certain scenes—when the doctors try to saw the arms off of Otto, the scene goes to <i>Evil Dead</i>-like levels of "horror" and I loved every second of it! <br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-87086196506497919742011-06-24T08:00:00.002-04:002011-09-05T14:56:13.958-04:00SouthSide Film Festival (Part 2 of 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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First half of my Festival reviews can be found <a href="http://ponchslifeinfilm.blogspot.com/2011/06/southside-film-festival-part-1-of-2.html">here</a><br />
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<u><b>Thursday Night (cont'd)</b></u><br />
After the shorts finished, I watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130965/"><i>The Athlete</i></a>, a biopic about Abebe Bikila, an Ethiopian who ran the 1960 Olympic Marathon barefoot and won the Gold. Four years later, in Tokyo, he became the first to win consecutive Olympic Marathon Golds (this second time, with shoes). Tragedy struck before he could try for a third Olympic Gold in Munich when a car accident left him a quadriplegic. Still, his determination (and an operation) upgraded his status to paraplegic after which he proceeded to participate in the 1968 Paralympics in archery and win as a dog sledder in Norway. The story was inspiring and the cinematography was outstanding, but the movie was a bit disappointing. This was the only talk back I was able to attend—star & co-writer/director Rasselas Lakew was present and gave some great insight to the film. His answers definitely made me appreciate the film a little more, but I wasn't able to stay for the whole talk back because I had to run to see... ***<br />
<br />
...a documentary called <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0840358/"><i>Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone</i></a>. If you're like me (and probably most of the world), you've never heard of Fishbone, however they've influenced dozens of bands you <i>have </i>heard of (e.g. No Doubt, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, etc.). Formed in 1979 Los Angeles, Fishbone was a black rock band that fused ska, funk, metal and punk in an amazing way. The music of this film is great and the story of one of the most influential bands of the 80s is intriguing. However, the middle drags on a bit too much ***1/2<br />
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<u><b>Friday Night</b></u><br />
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Missed the first hour+ of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1403177/"><i>Hesher</i></a>, but the last half hour of this Joseph Gordon-Levitt film (that will hopefully be released some time soon) was pretty intense. Luckily, it's not really a film whose ending can be ruined, but it was difficult to get too into the ending seeing as I had no real idea how the characters related. The publicity materials listed JG-L and Rainn Wilson as the two major stars of this film, but Natalie Portman showed up as well. This is definitely getting added to my Netflix Saved Queue on the likely chance it gets a limited release I don't hear about. Can't give a rating to an incomplete film<br />
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Every year, there's a midnight movie that has a little bit of cult status. Last year (I believe) the film was 1977 Japanese horror film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076162/"><i>House</i></a> which was an absolute trip. This year's film was an encore showing of last year's opening night film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1465522/"><i>Tucker & Dale vs. Evil</i></a> which was preceded by a short film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735985/"><i>Hello Caller</i></a>. A simple story about a suicidal woman who calls a Suicide Hotline and receives some unexpected advice and hilarious results. ****1/2<br />
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Starring Alan Tudyk & Tyler Labine, <i>T&DvE</i> is a horror comedy that takes the cabin in the woods genre and spins it on its head. Tucker & Dale are two friendly hillbillies enjoying a weekend at their vacation home (it's a fixer upper). Meanwhile, a bunch of college kids come across them and imagine the worst. Through some hilarious misunderstandings, the kids keep accidentally killing themselves while the ones left are convinced Tucker & Dale are murdering them one by one. Start at the 2m13s mark in the trailer below for an idea of the <i>Evil Dead</i>-like comedy throughout (the first 2 minutes show trailers for <i>The Last Mountain</i> and <i>Der Sandmann</i>). ****<br />
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After the midnight film, several SSFF patrons (and a few filmmakers) hung out at The Funhouse. SSFF Director Graham Stanford picked up several pies from Lehigh Pizza and bought a couple of pitchers of beer for all to enjoy, but silly me stopped by Sotto Santi for a slice first and then bought my own beer at the bar before ever venturing out to the patio to join the other SSFFers. There were a few friends there so we talked a little about films and life, but before I knew it, it was 2:30 and we were getting kicked out. Little did I know that on the drive home, I'd get a flat tire on 78 at 3am, then have to wait until 5am for the Roadside Assistance to finally get there and fix the tire. Since my night was already shot, I decided to drop the car off at the body shop and walk home where I finally got into bed around 6am (this is relevant later, trust me).<br />
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<u><b>Saturday</b></u><br />
The first film of the final day, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1679594/">Imani</a></i>, began with a quote from Paul Thomas Anderson's film <i>Magnolia</i>: "And the good book says, 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'" Similar to that film, this one follows a day in the life of three random people in post-war Uganda—a former child soldier, a maid and a hip hop dancer. Unlike, <i>Magnolia</i>, however this film doesn't take too much trouble to connect the stories outside of a simple theme. Getting only about 4 hours of sleep Saturday morning before the day's screenings (I told you my story'd be relevant) combined with the general slowness of the film made it a big struggle to stay awake. **1/2<br />
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Next, I had to decide between <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1674068/"><i>I Am</i></a>, a documentary about gay and lesbian families in India, and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1498878/"><i>The Whisperer in Darkness</i></a>, an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation about aliens in Vermont. I chose the latter (and wonder if I chose poorly). It started out strong—a 2011 movie adaptation of a 1930s short story, shot to look like a 1930s' horror film. The film captured the feeling of films like <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still</i> really well, but shortly after folklore professor & narrator, Albert Wilmarth gets to the small VT town to research the legend, things got a little boring. ***<br />
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Didn't have time to catch another full film because of <i>The 39 Steps</i>, but I was able to catch a few more shorts.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602099/"><i>Always Somebody's Baby</i></a> brought documentary writers/directors A.J. Wilhelm & Jason Orfanon back to SSFF (they were here last year for their film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1387472/"><i>The Steps</i></a> starring Jason's brother Billy O). This documentary short tells about the connection between parent and child. It's sweet and funny and features word on the street interviews (a bunch of random people all answering a similar question) which I love! ****</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1757649/"><i>1989 (when I was 5 years old)</i></a> is a neat experiment in animation, narration and sound design, telling the story of the memory of a 5-year-old Danish boy who was in a car accident with his father ****1/2</li>
<li>I'm unsure if <a href="http://southsidefilmfestival.com/festival/2011-festival-films/monolith">Monolith</a> is a music video for the Soars song of the same name, or a short film using "Monolith" as its soundtrack. The animation is very choppy, using odd dolls but the story behind it is decent enough **</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1709146/"><i>The Birds Upstairs</i></a> was an interesting animated short featuring two aristocratic birds who long for a child, only to be granted a baby causing a lot of complications. Beautifully shot and designed, the animation intrigued me (was it stop motion or some type of advanced computer animation?) but the story just didn't click ***</li>
<li>Giving new meaning to the word "short," <a href="http://southsidefilmfestival.com/festival/2011-festival-films/euthanized"><i>Euthanized</i></a> is a 1-minute film about a woman, a man and a clarinet. Films like this really make me wish I had a video camera, some film-loving friends, the creativity to write clever little shorts and the time to actually shoot some movies... ***</li>
</ul>
And with that, the middle of Shorts Block #2 (<i>Irasshai</i> which I saw Thursday night) started and I had to leave to make it for <i>39 Steps</i> call. I did make it out to the Closing Night Party which had some nice food at The Gander Room. However, I'm too introverted to actually talk to anybody, so I just ate and drank in silence as I made some eye contact with other SSFF regulars but did little more than a tiny head nod of recognition... I was able to see $95 worth of films on my $75 All Access Pass (not to mention free covers into The Funhouse, free pizza and beer (which may have been offered to non-lanyard holders) and a bunch of food at The Gander Room) so I think I made the most of my money. If I didn't have other conflicts, I could have seen $125 worth of films, but I'm still pretty happy with this year's showing. Hopefully next year I won't have a show the same weekend and can see a lot more!<br />
<ul></ul>
Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-72022290823194492502011-06-21T08:00:00.000-04:002011-09-05T14:56:27.613-04:00SouthSide Film Festival (Part 1 of 2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Jeez... It's been nearly a month since I've posted a MLiF blog! For my handful of followers, I'm sorry for the delay. Life got quite hectic, but I should be able to do weekly reviews again now that <i>The 39 Steps</i> closed (that is until <i>Wedding Singer: The Musical</i> rehearsals become every night).<br />
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However, I'm still not able to start back with a MLiF blog because I'm only halfway through <i>Spider-Man 2</i> but I should hopefully get that up next week. However, I figured I should post SOMETHING since this blog has been dead for so long, so I figured I'd give a recap of the SouthSide Film Festival.<br />
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South Side Bethlehem has apparently been presenting a Film Festival for the past eight years, however last year was the first I heard of it. Apparently, each year there is a Cultural & Genre Highlight and 2011 focused on Africa & Folklore. That isn't to say there aren't a bunch of other films from other cultures or genres, but a good portion of the films fall into one or both of these.<br />
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This year, I went with an All Access lanyard, and while I didn't get to use it as much as I'd have liked to (closing weekend of <i>The 39 Steps</i> sort of interfered), I did see more than enough films to make it worthwhile.<br />
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<u><b>Opening Night</b></u><br />
Every year, there's an opening night party and this year's was held at Home & Planet, a nice little shop on E 3rd St. It was catered by Alando's Kenyan Cuisine and sponsored (I assume) by Samuel Adams because they had several beers available, all for free (even for non-lanyard holders!). I ran into several theatre friends there while noshing on some tasty cuisine and listening to some African rhythms from the Lehigh Valley Drum Circle. Even met a Yale (or was it Harvard?) grad student living in Bethlehem this summer writing her dissertation on post-industrial Bethlehem... I had hoped to run into her again later that night or some time this weekend, but sadly, that didn't happen.<br />
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After the party ended, we walked to Broughal Middle School for the opening night screenings. <a href="http://southsidefilmfestival.com/festival/2011-festival-films/tord-and-tord"><i>Tord and Tord</i></a> is a Swedish animated short about a fox named Tord who accidentally enters the apartment next to his, where he meets a rabbit also named... Tord. It's a nice enough looking short, however it was nearly impossible not to compare this choppy animation to the slicker <i>Fantastic Mr. Fox</i>. I'm not sure if I was sick or tired or just distracted, but I couldn't help but think that the audience was laughing waaaay too much at this film. My normal star ratings are a little too large to place inline with text, so I'm going old school with some text ratings: **1/2 (out of *****)<br />
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Then, the opening night film, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1429313/"><i>Africa United</i></a>, started. This tells the story of three Rwandan children who travel 3000+ miles to South Africa for one to have the chance to show his futbol skills before the World Cup audience. The film is led by a brilliant young actor, Eriya Ndayambaje, and features some interesting animated sequences inside a decent road trip story that definitely takes an interesting and unforeseen twist at the end. Overall, the film was maybe fifteen minutes too long (and with a running time of 88 minutes, that's bad) ***<br />
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<u><b>Wednesday Night</b></u><br />
Block 1 started with an African short, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1508328/"><i>Pumzi</i></a>, which chronicles the day of a scientist in a post-WWIII (the water war) world. After receiving a mysterious package of dirt, she does some testing and realizes that the world outside her bunker might not be as radioactive and dead as everyone assumes. This little sci-fi short has some nice cinematography and a really interesting story (if maybe a little disappointing of an ending) **** [Available on <a href="http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Africa_First_Volume_One/70181832?trkid=2361637">Netflix Streaming</a>]<br />
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<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1801808/"><i>Der Sandmann</i></a> is a Swiss romantic fantasy that tells of a man losing sand and the one ugly girl who might be able to save him. It's such a sweet story about romance, coffee and music. It takes the sandman mythos and puts a really interesting spin on it. ****<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Your father didn't die for a flag. He died for the symbol that the flag represented, which is the freedom to burn the flag.</td></tr>
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The highlight of the festival was definitely <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179947/"><i>American: The Bill Hicks Story</i></a>. Bill Hicks was a comic whose name I had heard countless times before but whose comedy I had never sampled. This documentary tells from his days as a teenager cutting his teeth on the Houston comedy scene to his final stand up performance. The story surprised me because I knew he died before he should have, but had no idea why or when he died. So, while watching him struggle with drugs and alcohol, I wasn't sure if he was going to die shortly of an overdose, later of a suicide or some other tragic method (it's not very often documentaries can have surprise endings!). The film also cleverly avoids talking heads that are too prevalent in documentaries, but rather features a steady string of narration from his friends and family over top of picture-animation (a technique you can sort of get a feel for in the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2896796953/">trailer</a>) ****1/2 [Available on <a href="http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/American_The_Bill_Hicks_Story/70126749?trkid=2361637">Netflix</a>]<br />
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To close out Wednesday, I watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1787816/"><i>The Last Mountain</i></a>, an environmental documentary detailing the way mountain top removal coal mining has destroyed and is destroying Appalachia. Robert Kennedy Jr. shows up for the last half of the film politicking against the mining companies. Like <i>An Inconvenient Truth</i> and <i>GasLand </i>before it, <i>The Last Mountain</i> makes you realize that our world might not be around for our grandchildren or great-grandchildren. I wish there was more I could do (this film seriously made me wish I could participate in some civil disobedience). ****<br />
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<u><b>Thursday Night</b></u><br />
Missed the first half of Short Blocks 2 (because I stupidly left my lanyard at home despite being in Bethlehem around lunchtime) but I was able to catch more than half the films in this block:<br />
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<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1670658/"><i>Irasshai</i></a> is a cute animated short about some pieces of sushi that try to make a break for the exit door before getting eaten. ***1/2</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1735351/"><i>Enrique Wrecks the World</i></a> is another animated short that started strong but gets a little too silly. After accidentally killing a bird with his slingshot, Enrique notices bigger and bigger destruction that eventually (SPOILER!) destroys the world. **</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1378642/"><i>Cigarette Candy</i></a> held an extra friendly surprise as it featured several friends as extras! Apparently shot in Allentown two years ago, this SXSW Narrative Short winner tells of a young Marine whose homecoming doesn't exactly go as his father had hoped ****</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1603322/"><i>The Advantage of the Hitman</i></a> is a Spanish short narrated by a El Salvadorian hitman living in Spain. The ending confused me (not sure if the "twist" that was there was trying to be situational irony or dramatic) ***1/2</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1157608/"><i>August 15th</i></a> (shockingly) is based on real life events about a young Chinese woman taking a bus with her boyfriend to meet his family. The bus is overtaken by crooks and things take the worst possible outcome ****</li>
<li><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1894493/"><i>Little Horses</i></a> was one of the best shorts this year and I'm really disappointed I didn't get a chance to attend a talk back with the director who was present. A divorced postal worker tries to win his family back by getting his son a pony for his 8th birthday. A simple story wonderfully written, shot and acted. ****1/2</li>
</ul>
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And because it's already after midnight and I still have about a dozen more movies to review, I figured I should split this recap into two parts... The second half should be done by Friday morning and I hope to return with a MLiF blog next Tuesday.... Thanks for your patience if you're still following me. I hope you don't mind this detour from my MLiF project, but my life has a lot of film in it!Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-82094234706248668442011-05-31T08:00:00.003-04:002011-09-05T14:50:36.980-04:00Spider-Man (2002)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#1 - 2002 Box Office: Gross $403,706,375</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Does whatever a spider can</td></tr>
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Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) is an average kid who lives in Queens with his Uncle Ben (Cliff Robertson) and Aunt May (Rosemary Harris) next door to his high school crush Mary Jane Watson (Kirsten Dunst). He's too shy to talk to Mary Jane, but at least has a best friend in Harry Osborn (James Franco), son of weapons mogul Dr. Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe). On one school trip to Columbia University, Peter is bitten by a radioactive spider and overnight becomes a little less average. His eyesight improves, his body becomes toned and muscular and he seems to have gained some new skills from the genetically engineered spider. He can shoot webbing from his wrists, he has amazing speed, strength & agility and also has a new "spidey" sense (a type of premonition of things to happen). In order to impress Mary Jane with a new sports car, he enters a wrestling match promising $3000 to the winner. The owner gyps him on a technicality and in a selfish act of revenge, Peter lets an armed robber escape with all of the owner's money. In a cruel twist of fate, this same robber kills Uncle Ben in a carjacking, and Peter soon decides to use his powers responsibly in an effort to honor his uncle, becoming Spider-Man. Meanwhile, in a lab experiment gone wrong Dr. Osborn gains a maniacal new personality who will do anything to have his company succeed, going so far as killing the competition and those who disagree with him. Local newspaper editor J Jonah Jameson (JK Simmons) dubs this killer the Green Goblin and sells newspapers by milking the public's fear of both the Goblin and Spider-Man. Will Peter be able to convince the public he's trying to do right? Will he be able to save his best friend's father from the evil that lives inside him? Will he be able to get the girl? Will I ever figure out how to end these synopses without a list of rhetorical questions?<br />
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Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li><i>Spider-Man</i> was the first film to earn $100 million dollars in its first weekend </li>
<li>Peter Parker and Norman Osborn each wear their enemy's costume colors during the Thanksgiving dinner scene. Harry Osborn wears all of the colors—a green shirt, red tie and blue coat</li>
<li>Zach Hudson, the stunt double for Tobey Maguire, fractured his leg after a stunt went wrong and he slammed in to a brick wall [perhaps this was the inspiration for Julie Taymor's <a href="http://www.broadway.com/shows/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark/">Broadway production</a>]</li>
<li>Several Spider-Man costumes were created at a cost of up to $100,000 each. Four were stolen from the set in early April of 2001 and Columbia Pictures posted a $25,000 reward for their return (the costumes were not returned)</li>
<li>Tobey Maguire had to have his Spider-Man outfit slightly remodeled as the original design had not made any allowances for when the actor needed a bathroom break</li>
<li>One of the chief difficulties that Tobey Maguire experienced in the now-famous <a href="http://www.how-to-kiss.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/spiderman_kiss2.gif">upside-down kissing scene</a> was that his sinuses kept filling up with water as it was performed in driving rain</li>
<li> The interior of the visit to Columbia University was actually filmed in the main rotunda of the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles. The large electron microscope in the center of the set was actually made of plywood, plaster and fiberglass, concealing <a href="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/5266217343_28259aaa4c.jpg">three 16-foot bronze statues</a></li>
<li>The original <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc0eP7ausWE">teaser trailer</a> depicted bank robbers escaping in a helicopter but getting caught in a spider web suspended between the Twin Towers. After the September 11, the trailer was changed</li>
<li>The scenes where New Yorkers throw trash at the Green Goblin from the bridge and Spider-Man perches next to the American flag atop the Chrysler Building were added after September 11 to reflect the city's sense of unity and patriotism </li>
<li> The smoke in the lab during Norman Osborn's transformation scene was originally white but was then digitally altered to green. Director Sam Raimi wanted to use real green smoke, but went with the CG effect when prop designers could not create a colored smoke that was non-toxic</li>
<li>Bonesaw, the wrestler Spider-Man fights for money, is played by real life wrestler <a href="http://www.gunaxin.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/macho-man-randy-savage.jpg">"Macho Man" Randy Savage</a>. Early in his career, Savage wrestled under the name The Spider</li>
<li>The <a href="http://richards-outpost.com/artists/richard/images/diners/Moondance-Diner-NYC.jpg">Moondance Diner</a> where Mary Jane Watson works is the same one that Rent creator Jonathan Larson worked at prior to quitting to pursue a career writing musicals</li>
<li>The scene in which Peter Parker catches Mary Jane's lunch on the tray involved no CGI </li>
<li>Bruce Campbell, star of director Sam Raimi's <i>Evil Dead</i> trilogy, cameos as the wrestling announcer</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ATJpPx_Vi-BRlDar9lFlxaZOsCUHzq5neLuHnng05rHWy9Vw4PkWgSzcF3_JwxTUBVVNp1WVFzfPK0uOX-pBXrof8HM-szwbKNSNDqofQ65La8IpKE4OO_AGGmR9xJoxCBUqskrPn84/s1600/SpiderMan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6ATJpPx_Vi-BRlDar9lFlxaZOsCUHzq5neLuHnng05rHWy9Vw4PkWgSzcF3_JwxTUBVVNp1WVFzfPK0uOX-pBXrof8HM-szwbKNSNDqofQ65La8IpKE4OO_AGGmR9xJoxCBUqskrPn84/s1600/SpiderMan.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Remember, with great power comes great responsibility</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's amazing how time can affect how you see a film. I don't recall, when seeing this back in 2002 (or maybe '03 if I saw it first on DVD) how obvious the CGI effects were. I have the two sequels on deck for my next two reviews and I feel like the sequels had such advances in technology that I retconned (comic book reference!) the effects back to this original, however on another viewing, it's sad how cheesy some of the scenes looked. Nonetheless, Raimi does a decent job creating a franchise (even if it's already lined up for a reboot next year) and Maguire does a great job creating a character (even if he did sort of derail in <i>SM3</i> with Emo-Spidey). Dafoe is, as per usual, fantastic—the scenes he does against himself in the mirror are brilliant! It's hard to tell (with the editing) if his switch from confused Norman to psycho Norman was as immediate as the film shows, but even if they were done in different takes, the performances were great to watch. The Times Square concert with Macy Gray was ridiculous, but it's pretty easy to ignore that and just enjoy the movie for what it is—the foundation for (if memory serves) an excellent sequel...<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-17558976252697225272011-05-10T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:50:48.985-04:00The Sixth Sense (1999)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1999 Box Office: Gross $293,506,292</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOc_OVLSyKTuolwAsUsirfsh9n-Vzpi9_VGd2q_cgQHaG5cnfCteHAyuMN-o65wAnA4g6nGcPgRxZALIjWUQOIHEn5dAf0YFB2PsZ0UZzxePniNj1RlgiW3Fi-OIW9-FMz8D9sr15WkV8/s1600/sixthsense.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOc_OVLSyKTuolwAsUsirfsh9n-Vzpi9_VGd2q_cgQHaG5cnfCteHAyuMN-o65wAnA4g6nGcPgRxZALIjWUQOIHEn5dAf0YFB2PsZ0UZzxePniNj1RlgiW3Fi-OIW9-FMz8D9sr15WkV8/s320/sixthsense.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not every gift is a blessing</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is an accomplished child psychologist who, with his wife Anna (Olivia Williams), is confronted by Vincent (Donnie Wahlberg), an ex-patient who has broken into their home one night. Vincent blames Malcolm for never helping him and proceeds to shoot Malcolm in the stomach and then kill himself. Months later, Malcolm begins to work with Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osmont), a shy and fearful 6-year-old living with his single mother, Lynn (Toni Collette). At first, Cole doesn't trust Malcolm but soon confides in him, telling him he has the ability to see dead people. Malcolm believes Cole to be delusional, however notices a lot of similar tendencies between Cole and Vincent. He decides to do everything he can to help Cole in an effort to make up for his tragic failure with Vincent. His devotion to Cole causes a chasm to grow between him and his wife, however. She starts taking anti-depressants, rarely talks to Malcolm and starts flirting with a coworker. Meanwhile, Malcolm starts to believe Cole's visions might be real and encourages him to listen to the spirits who might just be looking for help. Will Malcolm's suggestion help Cole deal with his terrifying visions? Will he be able to help Cole where he couldn't with Vincent? Will he be able to move on and mend the relationship with his wife?<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li> Grossed $26.6 million in its opening weekend and spent five weeks as the #1 film at the U.S. box office</li>
<li>The movie was rented by 80 million people in 2000 - making it the year's top-rated tape and DVD title</li>
<li>One of only three horror films to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture; the other two were <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/"><i>The Exorcist</i></a> and Best Picture winner <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102926/"><i>The Silence of the Lambs</i></a> </li>
<li> Willis is left-handed but he learned how to write right-handed so that viewers wouldn't notice that his wedding band was no longer on his hand in close ups of his writing</li>
<li><a href="http://cdn.blisstree.com/files/2011/01/sixthsense2.jpg">Donnie Wahlberg</a> lost 43 pounds to achieve his character's emaciated look</li>
<li> The color red is intentionally absent from most of the film, being used prominently in shots where the real world has been tainted by "the other world"</li>
<li>The voice on the tape of Vincent's session is speaking Spanish; the person is saying: "Please, I don't want to die Lord, save me, save me."</li>
<li>Opened on M. Night Shyamalan's 29th birthday</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghc5pXuQHBlGKBlCplTX-BP9-HuDh3h8LoX8yLb0D_DT_jaEvK33TyJaEUJNA-MtL28aZksUmjTjyRXGDc7Grp0TYaz93NWiu8YiPBm9XLiaTS4NRwIdW5dKRrT88L4u3XVln2Pt409Qc/s1600/sixthsense.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghc5pXuQHBlGKBlCplTX-BP9-HuDh3h8LoX8yLb0D_DT_jaEvK33TyJaEUJNA-MtL28aZksUmjTjyRXGDc7Grp0TYaz93NWiu8YiPBm9XLiaTS4NRwIdW5dKRrT88L4u3XVln2Pt409Qc/s1600/sixthsense.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I see dead people...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
M. Night Shyamalan became an international sensation with this film. Its shocking ending created a kind of wildfire of ticket sales that helped propel this film to #2 for the year (second only to the behemoth that was <i>Episode I</i>). The movie proceeded to do well on DVD and everyone seemed to adore Shyamalan for his direction and clever writing. I've never been the kind of person to penalize a film because I spotted the twist on my first viewing—I just try to enjoy the ride the writer & director create for me. But even after you know the twist, this film holds up extremely well. As Shyamalan made more movies, most people started to lose interest in him but I remained a Shyamalan apologist (up to a point). I went back and watched his little-seen first film <i>Wide Awake</i> about a boy searching for God after his grandfather's death (4 stars). A year after <i>Sixth Sense</i> came out, he released <i>Unbreakable</i>, an unconventional comic book movie which I never thought had much of a "twist" ending (4.5 stars). Then he released <i>Signs</i>, an alien sci-fi film that focuses on family rather than effects (4 stars). In <i>The Village</i>, he introduced us to the beautiful and talented Bryce Dallas Howard, and despite criticism over its ending, I enjoyed the story and acting throughout (4 stars). I think <i>Lady in the Water</i> marks the spot where most fans gave up on Shyamalan, but I've watched it multiple times and loved the bedtime story he created each and every time (Howard's presence again doesn't hurt either - 4.5 stars). Then came <i>The Crappening</i>. I admit, I have yet to see this a second time, but man was I disappointed when I saw it in theaters. The acting was worse than wooden and the writing was horrible—even the presence of beautiful Zooey Deschanel couldn't bring this above (1.5 stars). Last year's <i>The Last Airbender</i> wasn't horribly written (although given the amazing source material, it definitely was a disappointment), but his direction of the actors was mediocre at best (2.5 stars). Even if his last two films were disappointing, I still argue that he's made some great movies, none better than this one.<br />
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<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-58688416121308050422011-05-06T08:00:00.074-04:002011-09-05T14:50:59.998-04:00Men in Black (1997)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1997 Box Office: Gross $250,690,539</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzPXwKATTWpTOCU8uYYFC1qrdY-pab4f5n6Fd6BogTwtwxB_amzVeg7JqzoJSk7Feu2LNFJQ0dHovIUU87_Dp8XnmNdh3r8RUIrXNa0By0WhIpiB1uC68rK4sPo34McWp1v-cI6_XPms/s1600/MenInBlack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvzPXwKATTWpTOCU8uYYFC1qrdY-pab4f5n6Fd6BogTwtwxB_amzVeg7JqzoJSk7Feu2LNFJQ0dHovIUU87_Dp8XnmNdh3r8RUIrXNa0By0WhIpiB1uC68rK4sPo34McWp1v-cI6_XPms/s320/MenInBlack.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Protecting the Earth from the scum of the Universe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The Men in Black are a top secret organization that monitors and polices alien activity on Earth, keeping regular humans completely in the dark about both their & aliens' existence. After NYPD officer James Edwards (Will Smith) crosses paths with a very acrobatic alien who can climb up the side of the Guggenheim, MiB agent Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) is sent to erase his memory. However, he's impressed when he finds out James ran down the Cephlapoid on foot and convinces his boss Agent Zed (Rip Torn) to invite him to an MiB recruiting test. James' unorthodox methods help him pass and he becomes Agent Jay. Soon Jay and Kay are stuck in a galactic game of keep away. An entire galaxy was being hidden on earth, and a species of Bugs are after it. One Bug kills a farmer (Vincent D'Onofrio) and uses his skin as a disguise as he searches for the galaxy. The galaxy's protectors decide it'd be better to destroy the Earth than let the energy within this galaxy fall into the wrong hands. Will Jay & Kay be able to find the galaxy before the Bug does?<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>The film grossed over $587 million worldwide against a $90 million budget; it was followed by a 2002 sequel (<i>Men in Black II</i>), an animated series (Men in Black: The Series) as well as a second sequel that will be released in 2012 (<i>Men in Black III</i>)</li>
<li>The known aliens visible on the screen inside MiB headquarters include Al Roker, Isaac Mizrahi, Danny DeVito, director Barry Sonnenfeld, his daughter Chloe Sonnenfeld, Sylvester Stallone, Dionne Warwick, Newt Gingrich, Anthony Robbins, George Lucas, and executive producer Steven Spielberg</li>
<li>The space ship flies over Shea Stadium in Queens NY and the player that gets hit on the head with a fly ball is then Mets outfielder <a href="http://www.patrickfloodblog.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Bernard-Gilkey-MIB-e1294969848764.png">Bernard Gilkey</a></li>
<li>MiB headquarters are located in the ventilation tower of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which connects Manhattan with Brooklyn</li>
<li>Henrik Thor-Larsen, the designer of the <a href="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/2008_11_7-ovalia-2.jpg">Ovalia Egg Chair</a>, received punitive damages from the film studio after they copied his chair without permission in order to have enough of them for the scene where the recruits assemble at MiB headquarter </li>
<li> In order to achieve his character's distinctive walk, Vincent D'Onofrio wore knee braces so he couldn't bend his legs and taped up his ankles</li>
<li>The noise the neuralyzer makes when it flashes is the sound of a strobe flash reloading</li>
<li>After K neuralyzes James, the scene cuts to a diner where K is telling the punchline of a joke. Unlike other films that create fake jokes (e.g.<i> The Breakfast Club</i>'s naked blonde, dog, salami) this one actually <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119654/trivia?tr=tr1199114">exists</a></li>
<li>The sunglasses used in the film are <a href="http://www.eyesave.com/images/products/RayBan.Predator2RB2027.3470.jpg">Ray-Ban's Predator 2 glasses</a>. After the film was released, Ray-Ban reported that sales of these glasses tripled, from $1.6 million to $5 million </li>
</ul>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojm-LT4O-WbtCdD8mLbE-6SPmvriMO55G3Qc8WF7drCMtaPiDwxiwn_Oo127cVSyHgusv-mHP-qxdfXaRhFNyI8CYkvuXlV4h5NRMZ6-6gu8tZrblAJ2tVblRr0R3PQnqfGCbUXnpET4/s1600/MenInBlack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojm-LT4O-WbtCdD8mLbE-6SPmvriMO55G3Qc8WF7drCMtaPiDwxiwn_Oo127cVSyHgusv-mHP-qxdfXaRhFNyI8CYkvuXlV4h5NRMZ6-6gu8tZrblAJ2tVblRr0R3PQnqfGCbUXnpET4/s1600/MenInBlack.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You know the difference between you and me? I make this look good.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I started watching this movie and had a double take (listen?)—is this a Danny Elfman score?! Then (as if there was any doubt) came his credit... I thought "This ought to be fun!" And then the opening scene (which also sort of disappeared from my memory banks) played out and I realized <i>Men In Black</i> opens with a scene featuring an illegal alien hidden amongst illegal aliens. So meta! The movie isn't anything too wonderful, but it delivers what it promises. It posits that certain celebrities (e.g. Stallone & Dennis Rodman) are really aliens hiding in plain sight and in the end reveals that our entire galaxy is nothing more than the core of another <a href="http://d2o7bfz2il9cb7.cloudfront.net/main-qimg-0dd3441424cf9e152080a79c9d59e854">alien's marble</a>. Director Barry Sonnenfeld took the source material (from what I hear, a sort of dark Marvel comic book) and with the help of screenwriter Ed Solomon, adds plenty of one-liners and funny alien effects. The actual plot of the movie is a little hard to summarize—I had to go back and edit Rip Torn's character into my summary above, and just couldn't figure out a simple way to mention Linda Fiorentino's role as coroner Dr Laurel Weaver (well... I guess I did just now). The "climax" of the film is over pretty quickly—in my search for trivia, I read that the original ending was a dialogue scene between Kay and an animatronic Bug, however this was scrapped late in production and replaced with the fairly expensive CGI battle that's there now. I guess when your script is written without a climax, it's hard to shoehorn one in there. But it's easy to look past the problems given the chemistry shared by Smith and Jones (Lee Jones?). The two are sort of a modern day/sci-fi version of Abbott & Costello. Jones plays the straight man well to Smith's crazy rookie, and the pairing was good enough for two sequels! And that's good enough for me!<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" /></a>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-46359451702290212572011-05-03T08:00:00.004-04:002011-09-05T14:47:46.781-04:00'Crocodile' Dundee (1986)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1986 Box Office: Gross $174,803,506</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3G6fSsUWJOrry-YbkeWURGEs27JLtFTmjh2SDVJd7smYfhyphenhyphenGmcGICFP6G4N9t24zFIkjt2Vr5k1ku3Qk2BMWe0kpLPX-JsiTq9DAeT9yf_k97nyy6ylKg0SAFKyFbnLJUse_Uj_umVgs/s1600/CrocodileDundee.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3G6fSsUWJOrry-YbkeWURGEs27JLtFTmjh2SDVJd7smYfhyphenhyphenGmcGICFP6G4N9t24zFIkjt2Vr5k1ku3Qk2BMWe0kpLPX-JsiTq9DAeT9yf_k97nyy6ylKg0SAFKyFbnLJUse_Uj_umVgs/s320/CrocodileDundee.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He's survived the most hostile and primitive land known to man.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now all he's got to do is make it through a week in New York.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Newsday</i> reporter, Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski) had been sent to Australia by her editor/boyfriend Richard Mason (Mark Blum) where she hears of legendary Michael 'Crocodile' Dundee (writer, Paul Hogen), a man who lost his leg to a crocodile attack in the Outback. Sensing a great story, she hunts him down only to find the story was greatly exaggerated—Mick still has his leg, with a scar. With some time on her hands, she decides to hear his story and travels the wilderness with Mick and his assistant, Walter (John Meillon). Mick amazes her by soothing a savage buffalo, telling time by looking at the sun and shaving with his large Bowie knife. One point, while bathing, Sue is attacked by a crocodile, but peeping Mick comes to her rescue and kills the beast. An attraction grows, and wanting more time with the man, Sue invites Mick back to New York, where fish-out-of-water craziness ensues. Mick gets scared by an escalator, confuses an African-American limo driver (Reginald VelJohnson) for a tribesman, grabs a transvestite's crotch to check if she's a man, and confuses a cocaine user's sniffles for a cold, mixing his cocaine with hot water to create a steam bath. Richard begins to feel threatened by Mick, Sue begins to question her true feelings for both men, and Mick continues to try and fit in despite his obvious out of placeness. Will Mick decide to go back to Australia while on walkabout around NYC? Will Sue make up her mind in time before losing Mick to the Outback forever?<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>While only #2 in the US Box Office, this film went on to become the #1 film worldwide at the box office</li>
<li>The quotes in <i>'Crocodile' Dundee</i> were added for the American release to ensure people didn't think that Dundee was a crocodile</li>
<li>The wild and ferocious buffalo that Mick Dundee pacified was drugged</li>
<li>Paul Hogan helped paint the <a href="http://www.happyhotelier.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/sydney-harbor-bridge.jpg">Sydney Harbour Bridge</a> (which is visible through the hotel window behind Sue when she is on the phone with New York) before he started his life as an actor</li>
<li> The only film in the trilogy rated PG-13 in the United States; the other two received PG ratings</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQF4aJ-0me4jkbzLY1kwJ_55rcJ8LquL1Ju7tJZGULQqIAImJHstpREPOQZ3E_earj7U3u6IGfjTgi6cjSZbyKl_W9VlLGqiPyowdQjn4FYozwSVxvRGXWZ1v-ba7Ey5_H6IB1LqZs2E/s1600/CrocodileDundee.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZQF4aJ-0me4jkbzLY1kwJ_55rcJ8LquL1Ju7tJZGULQqIAImJHstpREPOQZ3E_earj7U3u6IGfjTgi6cjSZbyKl_W9VlLGqiPyowdQjn4FYozwSVxvRGXWZ1v-ba7Ey5_H6IB1LqZs2E/s1600/CrocodileDundee.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Now <i>that's</i> a knife!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Never before saw this film and I actually (mistakenly) thought that the Mick visiting NYC plot was something in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092493/">the sequel</a>. Due to this, I was sort of treated to two movies—Sue meeting Mick in the Outback and Mick meeting civilization in NYC. I enjoyed the story and applaud Hogan for his (seemingly) innate acting and writing ability. No idea how much of Mick's awkwardness was real or acting, but Hogan played some of the smaller funny bits really well. I'm reminded of how he silently asks Walter for the time while Sue is walking toward him and then pretends to be able to read the sun and tell the time to the minute. Or the scene where he's using a disposable Bic razor blade to shave, but quickly switches to his Bowie knife when Sue approaches. There are some other bits that are a bit cheesy (e.g. using a kangaroo carcass to attack poachers or the final scene in the subway station), but overall, the film was enjoyable enough. Not quite enjoyable enough for me to seek out either of its sequels though (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0231402/"><i>Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles</i></a>?! Really?!?)<b> </b><br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q-HfZEaRDldr_AmbO1INkK6kSeZLSH4_kOCR92djqWO9loB5I0ZTMASKVc1xmuT1FD6jLOysHFxkFxPxVuhrKiEA2OZy4bitMm4Opou0a9D_0CL-jzM8wwSsqeZ25NBFkP_lsSQAJi4/s1600/3.5-stars.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Q-HfZEaRDldr_AmbO1INkK6kSeZLSH4_kOCR92djqWO9loB5I0ZTMASKVc1xmuT1FD6jLOysHFxkFxPxVuhrKiEA2OZy4bitMm4Opou0a9D_0CL-jzM8wwSsqeZ25NBFkP_lsSQAJi4/s1600/3.5-stars.jpg" /></a></div>
Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-30526302429190297622011-04-26T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:51:13.742-04:00The Lion King (1994)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1994 Box Office: Gross $312,855,561</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Id13vaqWgY1aSUCZn4XHZXOhnXtwSNiDOPxDHNcN3tHX_hOqiee_z8HKUgYZYgbFTdiNkZEKZHFPMyNRM-ZO7ZE-B94o9tIts4U-J4eeqfnGjmOk1iz6qh5kVPMpaeiRCVq_fUegAO8/s1600/LionKing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7Id13vaqWgY1aSUCZn4XHZXOhnXtwSNiDOPxDHNcN3tHX_hOqiee_z8HKUgYZYgbFTdiNkZEKZHFPMyNRM-ZO7ZE-B94o9tIts4U-J4eeqfnGjmOk1iz6qh5kVPMpaeiRCVq_fUegAO8/s320/LionKing.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Life's greatest adventure is finding your place in the Circle of Life</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
"Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba." And with this Zulu chant, our film opens as every animal across the African plains comes to Pride Rock to witness the birth of Simba (Jonathan Taylor Thomas), son of the current king and queen Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and Sarabi (Madge Sinclair). Every animal is overjoyed by this addition to their circle of life except for Mufasa's brother, Scar (Jeremy Irons), since the birth of his nephew dashes any hopes he had of gaining control of the kingdom. In a scheme that feels somewhat Shakespearean, Scar uses his hyena minions to create a wildebeest stampede to kill Simba and Mufasa, leaving the kingdom (and Sarabi) in his hands. Simba, however, wasn't killed in the stampede but is driven out of the Pride Lands where he grows up (now voiced by Matthew Broderick) among new friends Timon and Pumbaa (a meerkat and warthog voiced by Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella, respectively). Scar's reign nearly destroys the Pride Lands while Simba lives with "No Worries" on the edge of the kingdom. Will the pleas of childhood friends and a message-in-the-stars from his father's spirit be enough to convince Simba to return home and take back his kingdom?<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>The highest grossing motion picture of 1994 worldwide </li>
<li>The fourth highest US grossing animated film and the highest US grossing hand-drawn animation film</li>
<li>One of the bugs that Timon pulls out of a knothole during Hakuna Matata is wearing Mickey Mouse ears</li>
<li>The 2.5 minute wildebeest stampede took Disney's CG department approximately three years to animate</li>
<li>The Broadway production of <a href="http://disney.go.com/theatre/thelionking/#/home/">"The Lion King"</a> opened at the New Amsterdam Theater on October 15, 1997, has run for 5573 performances and is currently the seventh longest-running show on Broadway (as of April 17 2010)</li>
<li>This is the second movie in which James Earl Jones (Mufasa) and Madge Sinclair (Serabi) perform together as an African King and Queen. Jones and Sinclair were also King and Queen in <i>Coming to America</i></li>
<li>While <i>The Lion King</i> is supposed to be Disney's first animated feature to be based on an original story, there is some controversy over the similarities between this film and a Japanese anime television show <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kimbasimba.JPG"><i>Kimba the White Lion</i></a></li>
<li>When writer Irene Mecchi came on board, she was told that the story pitch was "<i>Bambi</i> in Africa meets Hamlet" </li>
</ul>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeemn8ROTcOod-_Xyae5T23hfJecY1LW9pU_b5Vreubopot9sP9gCxFQnA6yrHlqOav16aAuOCKIcaL9aiiUn60_3ZRJDdu6YpcdrsYgNqvOYrxHsvfGjFRLy8fb3cmvX3QlSIwDamHI/s1600/LionKing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLeemn8ROTcOod-_Xyae5T23hfJecY1LW9pU_b5Vreubopot9sP9gCxFQnA6yrHlqOav16aAuOCKIcaL9aiiUn60_3ZRJDdu6YpcdrsYgNqvOYrxHsvfGjFRLy8fb3cmvX3QlSIwDamHI/s1600/LionKing.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hakuna Matata Hakuna Matata... </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Walt Disney Feature Animation studio films lost interest for me right after <i>The Lion King</i>. I've never seen <i>Pocahontas</i>, <i>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</i>, <i>Hercules</i>, <i>Mulan</i>, <i>Tarzan</i>, <i>Atlantis: The Lost Empire</i>, <i>Lilo & Stitch</i> or <i>Treasure Planet</i>. I did catch <i>The Emperor's New Groove</i> in theaters in 2000, but it wasn't until <i>Brother Bear</i> in 2003 when I started watching Disney films again and to be honest the quality dipped down. Not counting Disney/Pixar films, the seven WDFA & Walt Disney Animation Studios films from the past 8 years that I've seen have an average rating of under 3 stars (and I'm sure the adorable <i>Tangled</i> helped bring up that average). Do I love films like this and <i>Aladdin </i>simply because they came out when I was younger or has Disney dropped down in the quality of its films? I'm sure I should try to see some of those nine films that came out in my decade of no Disney to see if they show any promise, but I feel a little jaded based on films of late. These older great films have songs like "Circle of Life," "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," "Hakuna Matata," "A Whole New World" and "Friend Like Me" and I feel like they were part of pop culture outside of the films (maybe I'm wrong having seen the films). I'm pretty sure I've never heard "Colors of the Wind" (the Oscar-winning song from <i>Pocahontas</i>), "Go the Distance" (nominated from <i>Hercules</i>), "You'll Be In My Heart" (another Oscar-winning tune, this one from <i>Tarzan</i>) or any of the other non-nominated songs (well, I'm assuming <i>Lilo & Stitch</i> has an Elvis-filled, ineligible soundtrack, but I never heard their versions) and none of those films really hold any interest to me. And seeing how poor Disney has done recently (with <i>Tangled</i> being the exception that proves the rule), I'm not running out to see any of them. Do you really like any of these films? Are there any I should add to my Netflix Queue?<br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" /></a>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-67974008342616114472011-04-20T08:00:00.003-04:002011-09-05T14:51:29.541-04:00Iron Man (2008)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 2008 Box Office: Gross $318,412,101</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-cgD8g_AFrnFQ-K12zEG-A1psvXCAvld_qvOS_U5VsVM77G2NiHS6HQINvq98tQkW-LmDlU0iLmS7gsOw3OxCXC5QeCqqu33F_wVpsY2CaRKIPA8hAjn11Hi9B5fFOClwO02WuJAkqto/s1600/Iron-Man.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="120" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-cgD8g_AFrnFQ-K12zEG-A1psvXCAvld_qvOS_U5VsVM77G2NiHS6HQINvq98tQkW-LmDlU0iLmS7gsOw3OxCXC5QeCqqu33F_wVpsY2CaRKIPA8hAjn11Hi9B5fFOClwO02WuJAkqto/s320/Iron-Man.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heroes aren't born. They're built.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Jon Favreau directs this comic book adaptation which opens with billionaire and weapons engineer Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) demonstrating his company's shocking and awesome new Jericho Missile in Afghanistan. As he and best friend James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) travel away from the demonstration, Stark's vehicle is attacked with his own technology, leaving him near death (as Rhodes escapes unharmed). Stark awakens to find he's being held by terrorists who want him to build them their very own Jericho Missile. His fellow captor has implanted an electromagnet into Stark's chest to keep the shrapnel from destroying his heart, and soon the two secretly build a suit in which Stark can escape. Back home in his mansion, he's able to fine tune his heart magnet and perfect his suit with some help from assistant and sometimes love interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Stark begins to dissolve his father's company having found out his weapons are being sold to both sides of almost every war, but his father's business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges with some of the <a href="http://www.sliceofscifi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/jeff_bridges.jpg">most evil hair</a> I've ever seen) wants to continue the business as is. Meanwhile, the Afghan terrorists are trying to reverse engineer the destroyed suit they found in the desert which Stark left behind after he escaped. Will self-centered Stark have a change in heart regarding his role in his father's company? Will he be able to keep his ego in check with his new found identity? Who will win the final battle of Iron Man vs iron man? <br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>In its opening weekend, <i>Iron Man</i> grossed $98,618,668 in 4,105 theaters in the United States and Canada, ranking number one at the box office</li>
<li>At the time of its release, it had the second-best premiere for a non-sequel (behind <i>Spider-Man</i>) and had the fourth-biggest opening for a superhero movie </li>
<li>Marvel Studios' first self-financed movie</li>
<li>The script was not completely prepared when filming began (since the filmmakers were more focused on the story and the action) so the dialogue was mostly ad-libbed throughout filming</li>
<li>According to composer Ramin Djawadi, Tony Stark's different moods (as performed by RDJ) were the inspiration for his score</li>
<li>Tony Stark's computer system is called JARVIS (an acronym for Just A Rather Very Intelligent System). This is a tribute to Edwin Jarvis, Tony Stark's butler in the comics. He was changed to an artificial intelligence to avoid comparisons to Batman/Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred</li>
<li>JARVIS is voiced by Paul Bettany, who has said he had little idea of what the role was even as he recorded it, simply doing it as a favor for his friend, director Jon Favreau</li>
<li>Ghostface Killah, a long-time fan of the Iron Man comics (having used "Ironman" & "Tony Starks" as aliases, titling his 1996 album "Ironman" and sampling clips from the 1966 TV series "Iron Man"), got a cameo as a Dubai tycoon, however, his scene was cut from the final film</li>
<li>In the scene where Pepper discovers Tony removing the damaged Iron Man armor, you can <a href="http://www.pinkkryptonite.com/images/pinkkryptonite/SHIELD-1.jpg">see Captain America's shield</a> on Tony's workbench</li>
<li>An early draft of the script revealed Tony Stark to be the creator of Dr. Octavius's tentacles from <i>Spider-Man 2</i></li>
<li>During the highway battle with Iron Monger, a building can be seen in the background with a Roxxon logo. In the Marvel Universe, Roxxon is a notorious conglomerate known for illegal activities, agents of which were responsible of the death of Stark's parents</li>
<li>Just before the final press conference, Tony Stark is reading the newspaper with a <a href="http://www.comicmix.com/media/2008/06/20/iron-man---newspaper.jpg">grainy, amateur photograph</a> of Iron Man on the cover. The picture was taken by onlookers hiding in a bush during initial filming, that appeared on the Internet in 2007</li>
<li>For home releases of the film, the above scene had to be <a href="http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/3263/imwhoispaper1080pzr1.jpg">altered</a> due to a lawsuit filed by Ronnie Adams, photographer who took the photograph which had been used without his permission </li>
<li>One of the cars in Tony Stark's garage is an all-electric <a href="http://imcdb.org/vehicle_158360-Tesla-Roadster.html">Tesla Roadster</a>, which had not yet been released during the film's production</li>
<li>Stan Lee cameos as a man in a red bathrobe with three blondes, whom Stark mistakes for Hugh Hefner </li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's how Dad did it, that's how America does it, and it's worked out pretty well so far</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's scary how bad my memory is (or how fluid my feelings on movies are)... As I sat to watch this, I remembered really liking the film and in the end was a little disappointed. However, as I went over to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/">IMDb</a> to update my rating, I noticed my new rating was higher than my previous one! Looking further into the matter, when I first saw this in theaters, I gave it 3 stars; on my first DVD rewatch it bumped up to 3.5 and yet for some reason I thought I loved this and assumed it used to be 4.5... This is why I try to rate everything on IMDb so I have record of what I actually think of a movie so I don't have to be bothered with actually remembering it or my thoughts about it. Complaints that I had with it on first viewing have turned into things I find humorous and enjoy (Stark's interaction with his robots). And things I enjoyed at first are still great (if not better): the effects (even 3 years later) are amazing—I can't imagine how many scenes with the suit are CGI but they all feel very real. Also, the film is extremely well-paced; at over two hours, the story clips along at a very good speed and it never seems to drag. RDJ is fantastic as Tony Stark (I'm sure some of his own personal demons informed his performance) and Paltrow is positively phenomenal as Pepper Potts (despite not getting all that much screen time). <br />
<br />
<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEzSSIA3GT1oVRI6V7tbFKq3etX-jBVNYEmtcQdVMWrFxrD_ubX4dBJLhXLYfmyDQCot_lRdPzASK4B4BwHML5dT6_iXmoV1GpieSRdP9zyvrOBQ4Fu5KO2Voou9tvX6d7BCyI7-Iv5Y/s1600/4-stars.jpg" /></a>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-47365294224739000602011-04-05T08:00:00.019-04:002011-09-05T14:51:48.298-04:00Beverly Hills Cop (1984)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#1 - 1984 Box Office: Gross $234,760,478</span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXJo2U-6TV5LBQSYgY_AcjMKCYkTFW6pe0bohsVV23emNrIypFSDQQZVxFngI4XLLU9TNNHfpt6cw7mXhJ9ow-XsB-XOknLtIrhQdOHF25arL90QUwKtFmJiHNRIFR60_t3ckoS5g9Rc/s1600/BHC.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidXJo2U-6TV5LBQSYgY_AcjMKCYkTFW6pe0bohsVV23emNrIypFSDQQZVxFngI4XLLU9TNNHfpt6cw7mXhJ9ow-XsB-XOknLtIrhQdOHF25arL90QUwKtFmJiHNRIFR60_t3ckoS5g9Rc/s320/BHC.gif" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">He's been chased, thrown through a window, and arrested.</td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Eddie Murphy is a Detroit cop on vacation in Beverly Hills.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy) is a Detroit detective who often plays by his own rules, which does not put him in good standing with his boss. And so, after an old friend visits Axel and is killed right in front of him, Axel isn't allowed to investigate. Knowing his friend had spent the past six months in California, Axel decides to go on a (semi-forced) vacation to see if he can determine why his friend was killed. After a little sleuthing, he finds out local art dealer Victor Maitland (Steven Berkoff) isn't all he seems, but local police have their hands tied since cops go by the book in Beverly Hills. Sgt. Taggart (John Ashton) & Det. Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) are assigned to watch Axel, who often gives them the slip and eventually convinces them, that while his methods are unorthodox, they get results. The three work together in an attempt to get to the bottom of a conspiracy involving drugs and murder, all the while avoiding any Beverly Hills police who are still upset at Axel's techniques.<br />
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<a name='more'></a><br />
Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>The film had a $15.2 million opening weekend, but thanks to good word-of-mouth, its largest weekend wasn't until its fourth, when it earned $20.1 million</li>
<li>This was the highest grossing R-rated film in the U.S. until <i>The Matrix Reloaded</i> came out in 2003<i></i></li>
<li>Spent 13 consecutive weeks at #1 in the box office (a record only beaten by <i>Titanic</i> which had 15)</li>
<li>Axel's boss, Inspector Todd, was played by then Detroit City Commissioner Gilbert R. Hill</li>
<li>The song which plays during the strip club scene, Vanity 6's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvDh1zHLAjU#t=0m19s">"Nasty Girl,"</a> was recommended by the real-life stripper who was hired for the scene</li>
<li>When trying to find Foley and Rosewood, the Beverly Hills Police use a "satellite tracking system" (similar to modern-day GPS). Such a system did not exist at the time and was made up to advance the plot</li>
<li>Police Chief Hubbard walks into his first scene carrying some rolled-up sheets of paper—this is actually one of many reworked scripts, which was given to him to memorize and rehearse only minutes before the shooting of the scene started</li>
<li>The first film to be shown at over 2,000 theatres in the U.S.</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tell him that Ramon went to the clinic today, and I found out that I have, um, herpes simplex 10</td></tr>
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This movie is quite funny and it's good to see Eddie Murphy in his prime (not sure why he went from R-rated classics like <i>BHC</i> and <i>Trading Places</i> to family fare like <i>The Nutty Professor</i>, <i>Meet Dave</i> and <i>Daddy Day Care</i>), but one thing that always bugged me was the ending. The movie opens with a car-truck chase, but the whole time Axel is sort of just flailing around the back of the truck—it doesn't seem that serious. The movie proceeds to be a pretty good comedy, but then the final act culminates in a huge action-movie shoot-em-up scene. To me, this always felt a little out of place. One thing I love about Murphy's '80s' films is that he took his unique characters and just inserted them into his main role (e.g. Ramon, pictured above, is just one "disguise" Axel uses) whereas lately, Murphy feels the need to put on a fat suit and play multiple characters which never seems to work (although I have never seen <i>Coming to America</i>, so maybe it can work). The theme, Axel F, is just great as well—<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3xuk03KFqY">Heh heh heh-heh heh-heh heh heh, Heh heh heh-heh heh-heh heh, Heh heh heh heh-heh-heh, and then another Heh heh heh-heh heh.</a> I don't think I've ever seen either of the sequels in full (<i>2</i> featured a final act in an amusement park, no?) but I assume they only get worse like most other action sequels. Am I right?<br />
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<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-32023751304785583522011-04-03T19:51:00.001-04:002011-04-03T19:52:37.547-04:00Want to see the newest Walkman technology?So a friend of mine runs this running blog and apparently he's more important than I ever knew! Sony contacted him to get him to review their new Walkman and he wrote up a blog about them.<br />
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It's pretty interesting to read and if you exercise, you might want to check out <a href="http://another-mile.blogspot.com/2011/04/gear-review-and-giveaway-sony-w-series.html">his blog</a> to see this new music player (no more annoying arm bands!).<br />
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Beyond just spreading the news about this new player, he has TWO of them he's just giving away. So, spread the news (or don't if you want to better your odds) and GLWACOY.<br />
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Since this is a movie blog, I figure I should have some Walkman movie connection:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXJIcu6O-Uz7F9DT-oYDpgFrbvNJeURiyuIP5GKc7wQUohTey9HAuSUZFa7fOMRC0L3QG6mEMfeb2tUuV9zyZaSM3rfyXhkseDfdU-QYNbQ2gLrw7y0DuAD1R2lbS9xt45MJQGhbOU8c/s1600/Walkman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyXJIcu6O-Uz7F9DT-oYDpgFrbvNJeURiyuIP5GKc7wQUohTey9HAuSUZFa7fOMRC0L3QG6mEMfeb2tUuV9zyZaSM3rfyXhkseDfdU-QYNbQ2gLrw7y0DuAD1R2lbS9xt45MJQGhbOU8c/s1600/Walkman.jpg" /></a></div>Do you like Phil Collins? I've been a big Genesis fan ever since the release of their 1980 album, <span style="font-style: italic;">Duke</span>. Before that, I really didn't understand any of their work. Too artsy, too intellectual. It was on <span style="font-style: italic;">Duke</span> where, uh, Phil Collins's presence became more apparent. I think <span style="font-style: italic;">Invisible Touch</span> was the group's <span class="posthilit">undisputed</span> <span class="posthilit">masterpiece</span>. It's an epic meditation on intangibility. At the same time, it deepens and enriches the meaning of the preceding three albums. Christy, take off your robe. Listen to the brilliant ensemble playing of Banks, Collins, and Rutherford. You can practically hear every nuance of every instrument. Sabrina, remove your dress. In terms of lyrical craftsmanship, the sheer songwriting, this album hits a new peak of professionalism. Sabrina, why don't you, uh, dance a little. Take the lyrics to "Land of Confusion". In this song, Phil Collins addresses the problems of abusive political authority. "In Too Deep" is the most moving pop song of the 1980s, about monogamy and commitment. The song is extremely uplifting. Their lyrics are as positive and affirmative as, uh, anything I've heard in rock. Christy, get down on your knees so Sabrina can see your ass. Phil Collins's solo career seems to be more commercial and therefore more satisfying, in a narrower way. Especially songs like "In the Air Tonight" and, uh, "Against All Odds". Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word "artist." This is "Sussudio", a great, great song, a personal favorite.Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-58691297346860761022011-03-30T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:52:05.392-04:00Cast Away (2000)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 2000 Box Office: Gross $233,632,142</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">At the edge of the world, his journey begins</td></tr>
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Robert Zemeckis brings us the tale of Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks), a FedEx Systems Analyst who will absolutely, positively do anything to get your package there overnight. In fact, he often flies around the world to assist other FedEx hubs, leaving his girlfriend (Helen Hunt) at home to deal with dinner parties and holidays on her own. One Christmas, he's called off to Malaysia but leaves a ring box with Kelly, promising he'll be back to officially present it to her on New Year's Eve. Unfortunately, his plane approaches a violent storm, tries to fly around it, but crashes hundreds of miles off course. Chuck is the only one to survive and floats to an uninhabited island where several packages have washed up on shore. He opens most of the packages, finding some make-shift tools and a volleyball who becomes his only companion—Wilson—but leaves one, with a pair of wings stamped on it, unopened. After a few failed attempts to signal other planes or ships, he makes fire, sets up a camp and tries to build a raft to escape. But the tides prove too strong, so he settles into life as a castaway. Four years pass—he becomes an excellent spear fisherman and has frequent conversations with Wilson. But when something washes up on shore that might help him get past the tides, will Chuck leave his island home to deliver the one last package? Will Kelly still be waiting with the unopened engagement ring? Will Chuck remember how to hold conversations with people who talk back?<br />
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Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>To make himself look like an average, out-of-shape, middle-aged man, Tom Hanks didn't exercise and allowed himself to grow pudgy for the first half of shooting. Production was then halted for a year so he could lose fifty pounds and grow out his hair for his time spent on the deserted island. During this hiatus, Robert Zemeckis used the same crew to film <i>What Lies Beneath</i> </li>
<li> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=119140567744195265&postID=5869129734686076102" name="#tr0643288"></a> The license plate on Chuck's car reads: KAZ 2AY (which sounds similar to <i>Cast Away</i>)</li>
<li>Virtually all sound, including dialog, in the scenes on the island (about an hour and a half of screen time) had to be replaced in post-production. The nearby surf made it impossible to get usable sound while filming</li>
<li>Actual lines of dialogue were written for Wilson the Volleyball, to help Hanks have a more natural interaction with the inanimate object</li>
<li>Robert Zemeckis was asked at a USC Q&A session what was in the unopened packaged. He jokingly replied, that it contained a waterproof, solar-powered, satellite phone</li>
<li>Fred Smith, founder and owner of FedEx, makes a cameo appearance in the film</li>
<li>Chuck draws several pictures, including a few of his girlfriend Kelly (Helen Hunt) on the wall of a cave. In the movie <i>As Good as It Gets</i>, Simon Bishop tells Carol Connelly (also played by Hunt) "You're the reason cavemen chiseled on walls"</li>
<li>To see the island that <i>Cast Away</i> was filmed on, put -17.609277,177.0397 into <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-17.609277,177.0397&aq=&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=18.613243,55.019531&ie=UTF8&ll=-17.608684,177.039185&spn=0.010881,0.026865&t=h&z=15">Google Maps</a>. The beach that Tom Hanks writes HELP on and sees from the peak is the eastern most part of Monuriki, Fiji</li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You wouldn't have a match by any chance would you? </td></tr>
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Had no idea Helen Hunt was in this film as well... Interesting pairing along with <i>Twister</i>. I knew the basic set-up of this film—FedEx worker stranded on an island—but had no idea there was so much story before and after the island. It makes sense though; watching Chuck survive alone for two hours would be pretty boring probably. I really enjoyed the final act of this film after Chuck gets home. I don't want to spoil the film more than I already have, but Hanks' one scene (a 3-minute long take monologue in front of a fireplace) is an amazing bit of acting, as is his solo stuff on island. Hunt does well too as the ever-suffering girlfriend, but it's Hanks who owns this film. Besides his <i>Da Vinci Code</i> films, I wondered where this Hanks had disappeared to. Then a friend pointed me toward the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi2139135257/">trailer</a> for <i>Larry Crowne</i>. I thought <i>Charlie Wilson's War</i> was pretty decent at the time but have since forgotten a lot of it. Let's hope this new collaboration between Hanks and Julia Roberts will succeed!<br />
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<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-18186756714215426782011-03-24T08:00:00.031-04:002011-09-05T14:57:16.867-04:00Best of 2010Well, it's nearly April and I bet you're wondering "What movies did Ponch think were the best last year?" Well, you don't have to wait ANY longer... :-/<br />
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Life is crazy. I've already fallen behind in my weekly <a href="http://ponchslifeinfilm.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-film-project.html">MLiF</a> blogging, but I figured if I wait much longer this list will be COMPLETELY pointless (perhaps it already is...)<br />
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Since the posting of my <a href="http://ponchslifeinfilm.blogspot.com/2011/02/worst-of-2010.html">Worst of 2010 list</a>, I saw five more 2010 films (four new ones along with one repeat) to end up with 199 different 2010 films vying for my "coveted" Top Ten... In the end, I had 20 different films rated at 4.5*, so in an effort to be as climactic as possible, I'll list the other 4.5* films that almost made my Top Ten (and possibly could have, had I written this any other day).<br />
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In alphabetical order, the films that earned 4.5* but aren't listed below are:<i> All Good Things</i>, <i>City Island</i>, <i>The Fighter</i>, <i>The Kids Are All Right</i>, <i>Nowhere Boy</i>, <i>Red Cliff</i>, <i>Toy Story 3</i>, <i>True Grit</i> and <i>Waiting for "Superman"</i><br />
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Astute readers may notice that there are only nine films here but I said I had 20 4.5* films... Well, it wouldn't be a Top Ten without a cheat which leads me to:<br />
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#11 - <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305806/">The Secret in Their Eyes</a></i><br />
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This actually won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film last year since it was technically released in 2009. However, that was its original country's release and it didn't get its US (limited) release until April of 2010. So for people in the US, it's a 2010 film, however the IMDb and Academy voters consider this a 2009 release. If I didn't have 20 films to choose from, I probably would have pushed harder to put this in my Top Ten, and honestly it would have probably made the Top Five. But with so many films to choose from, I'm putting it here in the #11 spot. It's a beautiful Argentinian murder mystery where a elderly lawyer writes a novel about an unsolved crime from his thirties. The time shifts and plot twists are amazing, as is a beautiful 5+ minute-long shot at a soccer stadium. Available on Netflix Streaming, I highly recommend you check out this film.<br />
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#10 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1071812/"><i>Mao's Last Dancer</i></a><br />
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I really had wanted to try to catch <i>Black Swan</i> one more time before making this list, but I never found the time. On first view, I only rated that film 4* but I feel it probably could have taken this position on my list. Instead, I'm filling the 10 spot with this other amazing ballet film from last year. Based on a real story, <i>Mao's Last Dancer</i> tells the story of a young Chinese village boy who gets the opportunity to study dance in Beijing. After growing up, he gets the chance to travel to the US to join the Houston Ballet troupe where he falls in love with an American girl. His original Chinese handlers want him to show allegiance to Mao and the Party, however he likes the freedom found in America. It has an odd political Act III after the Chinese Embassy pretty much kidnaps him, but it is an amazing story with some beautiful dancing. My gut still tells me <i>Black Swan</i> probably deserves this spot, but that might just be my memory of certain scenes from that film bolstering its rating. :-)<br />
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#9 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1542344/"><i>127 Hours</i> </a><br />
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Another true story, this film basically earned its 4.5* from James Franco's wonderful performance. As loner Aron Ralston, he hikes along an isolated Utah canyon where a slip leaves his arm pinned between a boulder and the rockface. With limited food and water, Ralston is left alone with his camera which he uses to document his struggles to get free. Parts of the film are very frenetic (thanks to director Danny Boyle), but the story and Franco's performance are truly mesmerizing. Lizzy Caplan is totally wasted as Aron's sister (I believe all her speaking scenes were cut to make the film more Aron-centric, which makes sense but I love her and wanted to see more of her). <br />
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#8 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1559549/"><i>Restrepo</i></a> <br />
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Not based-on, but an actual true story, and the first of three documentaries to make my Top Ten, <i>Restrepo</i> follows a platoon of soldiers stationed in the most dangerous valley in Afghanistan. Named for one of the outposts being defended in this valley, which was itself named for a Private First Class who had lost his life before filming began. Directors Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger join the soldiers as they build and defend OP Restrepo, try to negotiate with & earn the trust of local civilians and eventually execute Operation Rock Avalanche in an attempt to take control of this valley from the Taliban. The film is intercut with present day interviews with the soldiers as they remember their deployment and leaves you asking why our soldiers were even defending this valley. A war movie unlike any you've ever seen before.<br />
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#7 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1326733/"><i>The Art of the Steal</i></a><br />
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Documentary #2, this film tells the story of the Barnes art collection (valued around $25 billion) and the struggle to own it after its owner's death. During his life, Albert Barnes collected thousands of pieces of modern and post-impression art, including 181 Renoirs, 69 Cézannes, 59 Matisses, 46 Picassos and many more. He took his collection and founded The Barnes Foundation, an educational institution in the Philadelphia suburb of Merion. Philadelphia officials wanted this collection brought into the city, however Barnes wanted to keep his collection for educational purposes, allowing the public to view it only two days a week. Here, we see the legal struggles the city went through trying to break Barnes' will, which detailed his wishes of what should be done with the collection after his death. As an art lover, part of me wishes the collection could tour the country and be seen by all, but as a person, it breaks my heart to know that with enough money and power, your will can become null and void after you die.<br />
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#6 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985694/"><i>Machete</i></a> <br />
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This film is a total premise achiever; Robert and Álvaro Rodríguez took their joke trailer from 2007's <i>Grindhouse</i>, and created an actual film around it. I was amazed at how they took every ridiculous scene from the trailer and somehow made a cohesive story out of it all (well, maybe the machine gun-motorcycle jump seemed a little tacked on). The only complaint I had about this film was Lindsay Lohan. What happened to the girl I saw in <i>Mean Girls</i>?! If anyone else would have filled her role, I think this might have been in the Top 5. Here's hoping<i> Machete Kills</i> and <i>Machete Kills Again</i> are just as good and tongue-in-cheek as this one was!<br />
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#5 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/">Exit Through the Gift Shop </a><br />
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2010 was a fantastic year for documentaries—four made my Top Twenty! This doc was directed by Banksy, an anonymous British graffiti artist who may have tricked the world with a mockumentary (but does that really matter?). The film introduces us to a French immigrant, Thierry Guetta, who lives in LA and carries a camera around wherever he goes. The boring minutia that is his life soon becomes something more when he learns his cousin in Paris is known as "Invader," a well-known street artist. Using his own personal camera, Guetta lies and tells his cousin he's a filmmaker and is introduced to dozens of other world-famous artists who all believe he's making a documentary. Eventually he meets Banksy, is invited into his inner circle and eventually gives up on his film because he wants to become an artist himself, taking the name "Mr. Brainwash." Banksy then (supposedly?) takes over, pieces the footage already shot with footage of his own and creates a fantastic piece of art that studies what art exactly is. Whether Guetta honestly became a street artist or the whole film was a set-up, it still is an interesting look at street art and asks some great questions.<br />
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#4 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1504320/">The King's Speech</a> <br />
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I'd like to say that Best Actor Colin Firth made this film, but honestly the film is much more than just his amazing performance. He does do a fabulous job making the simple act of stuttering seem real and sad and frustrating and funny, however the story and supporting cast are all great as well. The Oscar-winning script was written by David Seidler, who himself suffered from a stutter in his childhood. This fact allowed him to bring a lot of truth to the scenes between speech therapist Lionel (Geoffrey Rush) and King George VI (Firth). I think the main thing I loved about this film is that it's a biopic that never really felt like a biopic. Besides the obligatory fight-and-then-make-up section, the story is just a great story of one man's struggle. The fact that's it's all (mostly) true is besides the point—we're given amazing characters portrayed perfectly all around.<br />
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#3 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/">The Social Network</a><br />
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This was one of those movies I had to rewatch in the past few weeks. When I first saw it in theaters, I was a little disappointed in Sorkin's writing—I had hoped for and expected something better, so my disappointment ranked this at 4*. However, as I was collecting my thoughts, something was nagging at the back of my brain. There were so many great scenes and I felt like I needed to give it another chance (I felt much the same way with <i>Black Swan</i> but sadly never got a chance to rewatch it). On second viewing, I greatly enjoyed almost everything this film offered. Eisenberg is fantastic at portraying an asshole you actually want to root for; the supporting cast (Mara, Garfield, Timberlake, Hammer & Hammer, Jones, Minghella, et al) all give great performances; the writing is sharp and fast and witty (not sure why I was so disappointed on first viewing) and the story-telling is just superb. Fincher's direction, Sorkin's Oscar-winning screenplay and Baxter & Wall's Oscar-winning editing were amazing to watch—the story jumped between flashbacks and two different depositions and somehow two lawsuits about the making of Facebook was a gripping drama!<br />
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#2 - <span id="goog_1079934368"></span><a href="http://www.blogger.com/">How to Train Your Dragon <span id="goog_1079934369"></span></a><br />
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Most people would probably expect <i>Toy Story 3</i> to be up here near the #1 spot, and while I did enjoy (and even cry at) the latest from Pixar, Dreamworks' <i>How to Train Your Dragon</i> is my favorite animated film of 2010. I saw both films two times, but this film really grew on me and I wished I had seen it a third time. The voice acting is all fantastic (most notably Baruchel, Ferguson and Miller & Wiig) and unlike <i>Toy Story</i> the 3D effects were wonderful and actually added something to the film (which can rarely be said for any 3D movie). The writing was great as well—I loved the opening and closing narrations and was surprised at how the film tried to tackle the idea of "Is my enemy really my enemy?" You have a great story here about prejudice, violence and fear that ends in a pretty atypical manner.<br />
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#1 - <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/">Inception</a><br />
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I'm not sure how any other film could be #1—<i>Inception</i> provoked so many conversations; almost no one who saw this didn't run to Twitter or Facebook to find out what other people thought the ending meant. I think the true test of a great film is the conversations it starts and <i>Inception</i> started plenty. Nolan's story about dreams within dreams within dreams seems like it could be quite campy and ridiculous, but instead he created a series of rules and wrote an amazing story that broke nearly all of them. The Oscar-winning imagery and effects are superb and the fact that Nolan's team did most of the effects in camera is amazing in this day of CGI. I could tell you what I think the ending meant and you could disagree with me, but in the end I think that's what makes this film so great—there's no one answer. I believe Nolan left it purposefully ambiguous so each viewer can draw their own conclusions. What does it matter what happens after the screen cuts to black? The important thing is the journey you took up to that cut, and this is a journey I could take many more times...<br />
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So there you (finally) have it. My favorite films of 2010. Sorry it took so long (I originally started writing this 10+ weeks ago!).<br />
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Which of these films have you seen? Do you disagree with any of my choices or is there another film you can't believe I left off? Leave your comments below...Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-51873510108964622632011-03-22T08:00:00.001-04:002011-09-05T14:52:15.815-04:00Twister (1996)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1996 Box Office: Gross $241,721,524</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Don't Breathe. Don't Look Back.</td></tr>
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<i>Twister </i>opens in 1969 as a family takes shelter from a coming F5 (worst of the worst) tornado. The father, to protect his wife and young daughter Jo, attempts to keep the cellar door from blowing off, himself getting sucked out into oblivion. Nearly 30 years later, we meet an older Dr. Jo Harding (Helen Hunt) and her husband Bill (Bill Paxton) who have separated. Bill tries to get Jo to sign their divorce papers so he can marry his new therapist girlfriend (Jamie Gertz), but Jo (still in love with him) stalls. Jo leads a group of storm chasers (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Alan Ruck, Jeremy Davies, Todd Field, et al) who all attempt to use some of Bill's ideas to gather meteorological data from inside a tornado, hoping to create a better warning system for families like Jo's. They hope to do this with "Dorothy," a device they hope to place in the path of a tornado which will transmit the data as it gets sucked up into it. A better-funded group of scientists, led by Dr. Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes) has a very similar piece of machinery and plans to beat Jo and Bill to the data, earning a lot of money in the meantime. However, Jonas' group doesn't have the instinct Jo and Bill have and are rarely in the right place at the right time. Several tornadoes (even another F5) follow, blowing farm animals, gas trucks and entire houses around. Will the excitement of chasing twisters reignite the passion Bill and Jo used to share?<br />
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Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Warner Bros. moved up the film's release date from May 17 to May 10 in order to give it two weekends before <i>Mission: Impossible</i> opened (<i>M:I</i>'s opening weekend was about 10% higher than <i>Twister</i>'s but ended up earning only $180,981,856 and placed 3rd for 1996)</li>
<li>"It sucks" was originally going to be used as one of the taglines for the film, but the producers felt that it worked too much to the advantage of disappointed audiences and critics</li>
<li>On March 26, 1997, it became <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/dvd/schedule1997.php">one of the first movies</a> to be released on DVD in the US. On May 27, 2008, it became <a href="http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates_historical.html">one of the last movies</a> to be released on HD-DVD</li>
<li>The drive-in is showing <i>Psycho</i> (a Universal release) and <i>The Shining</i> (a Warner Bros. release) because this film was a co-production between the two studios</li>
<li>Many of the news reports throughout the movie feature actual weathermen from Oklahoma news stations, including Gary England, chief meteorologist at KWTV in Oklahoma City. The 1969 footage of Gary England giving the televised tornado warning to Jo's family was actual archived footage of him issuing a tornado warning, however, Gary England did not join KWTV until 1972</li>
<li>Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were both temporarily blinded by the bright lamps used to lower the exposure to make the sky behind the two actors look darker than it actually was</li>
<li>After filming in a ditch that contained bacteria, Hunt and Paxton both had to have hepatitis shots</li>
<li>The instrument the storm chasers use in the movie, called "Dorothy", is an homage to the device real tornado researchers placed in the paths of tornadoes in the 1980s: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOtable_Tornado_Observatory">TOTO</a> </li>
<li>On May 24, 1996, a tornado destroyed a drive-in theater in Canada which was scheduled to show the movie <i>Twister</i> in a real-life parallel to a scene in the film in which a tornado destroys a drive-in during a showing of <i>The Shining</i></li>
<li>On May 10, 2010, a tornado struck Fairfax, Oklahoma, destroying the farmhouse where numerous scenes were shot<i> </i> </li>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's starting to turn. / Where? I can't see it... / You will!</td></tr>
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In my memory, I loved this film. In fact, my old IMDb rating was 4.5 stars. However, as I rewatched it, I grew tired of some of the craziness the story threw at me. Most notably, I just laughed at our heroes running yards away from an F5 tornado which had winds ~300mph—there have been times I've been outside in gusts maybe up to 60mph and I've nearly fallen down, yet these two can dodge debris and come out unscathed?! Also, the story gets a little <i>Final Destination</i> cliché-ish, throwing every possible problem at the characters—Want to drive away? Not if there's a tree under your axle! Wait, you get the truck off the tree and want to drive down this road? Not if the tornado throws every piece of farm machinery you've ever thought of at you (and yes, that includes a combine)! Want to take shelter in this barn? How about we throw every sharp tool (scythes, axes, machetes, etc.) in this barn instead?—it all got a little ridiculous. The actual action scenes and the acting in the film are still pretty good, however (this is the director who got a believable performance out of Keanu Reeves in <i>Speed</i>), and the soundtrack is pretty awesome in a '90s-nostalgia sort of way. I'm not sure if my rating is a little too harsh (because it really disappointed me in the third act) or if this is a reasonable ranking for this summer blockbuster. What do you think?<br />
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<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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</a>Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-119140567744195265.post-41976903663247493252011-03-17T08:00:00.002-04:002011-09-05T14:52:31.107-04:00Ghostbusters (1984)<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">#2 - 1984 Box Office: Gross $229,242,989</span></b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They ain't afraid of no ghost</td></tr>
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Ivan Reitman’s <i>Ghostbusters</i> opens with some poor librarian at the New York Public Library getting her socks scared off her by a free-floating, full-torso, vaporous apparition. After the main titles and a song that sounds a little reminiscent of “I Want A New Drug,” we meet Drs. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (co-writer, Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (co-writer, Harold Ramis) as they investigate the paranormal activity. The encounter doesn't quite go as planned (the three run from the library screaming) and all of these extracurricular experiments get them kicked out of their university jobs. With little else to do, they decide to create a team of "ghost busters" who vow to investigate any strange activity ("We're ready to believe you," their commercial boasts). After quite some time, they finally get their first customer (and Peter gets a love interest) when Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) sees a burning building and hears a ghost chanting “Zuul” within her refrigerator. It isn't until the three actually capture a ghost (Slimer) at a fancy hotel that their business takes off. They hire a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) and the following montage shows how they become city celebrities. However, the fun and games soon end—the head of the EPA (William Atherton) tries to shut down the Ghostbusters' presumably unsafe ghost containment unit, Dana gets possessed by Zuul, her nerdy neighbor (Rick Moranis) gets possessed by the Keymaster and after the two meet, the release of the Sumerian god of destruction, Gozer the Gozerian, makes for an exciting Act III.<br />
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Trivia <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(mostly courtesy of the IMDb)</span><br />
<ul>
<li>Until the release of <i>Home Alone</i> (1990), this was the highest-grossing comedy of all time</li>
<li>Eddie Murphy was originally offered the role of Winston but did <i>Beverly Hills Cop</i> instead. That film ended up beating this one as the year's highest grossing film</li>
<li>Had Murphy been cast, Zeddemore would have been hired much earlier in the film, and would have accompanied the trio on their hunt for Slimer at the hotel and been slimed in place of Venkman </li>
<li>Dan Aykroyd's original draft of the movie was going to take place in the future where teams of Ghostbusters were as prevalent as paramedics and firefighters. According to Reitman, such a film would cost "at least $300 million in 1984 dollars," so Harold Ramis was brought in to rewrite the script and bring it into modern times</li>
<li>Dana's apartment building (at <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=55+central+park+w+ny&aq=&sll=40.719697,-74.00661&sspn=0.007465,0.013797&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=55+Central+Park+West,+New+York,+10023&t=h&z=16">55 Central Park West</a>) is actually only 20 stories high. For the film, matte paintings and models were used to make the building look taller</li>
<li>Exterior scenes of the Ghostbusters' headquarters were shot at the Hook and Ladder #8 Firehouse located at <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=14+N+Moore+St+in+TriBeCa+NY&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=14+N+Moore+St,+New+York,+10013&z=16">14 N Moore St</a> in TriBeCa NY </li>
<li>Scenes in the montage sequence of the Ghostbusters running around New York and driving the Ecto-mobile were done on the first day of filming, mostly without film permits</li>
<li>Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. (who later settled out of court) claiming Parker's song "Ghostbusters" infringed on the copyright of Huey Lewis & the News' hit "I Want a New Drug"</li>
<li>The first film to officially be released on a USB flash drive</li>
<li>The scene in which Peter tests two students' ESP abilities with Zener cards mirrors real-life experiments—the ESP testing itself from the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parapsychology#Rhine_era">Rhine Experiments</a> and the electroshock loosely mirrors the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiments">Milgram Experiment</a></li>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicXaN5Pw3Vk_JzuEaaMk9gyX_yEXN4nNLDIkeJNa92nrZU3obKZEUc0_6lp5QaMqdggAvRwwZHLmOSX_xeNKS52CULkBHrRmXHaecDNHCCb1PqBHgivvBV9X16xLxnJ0DKohEXvt71-s/s1600/gb.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiicXaN5Pw3Vk_JzuEaaMk9gyX_yEXN4nNLDIkeJNa92nrZU3obKZEUc0_6lp5QaMqdggAvRwwZHLmOSX_xeNKS52CULkBHrRmXHaecDNHCCb1PqBHgivvBV9X16xLxnJ0DKohEXvt71-s/s1600/gb.gif" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Are you a god? </td></tr>
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<i>Ghostbusters</i> is a film I can watch whenever it comes on—it has so many classic, quotable lines (mostly from Bill Murray) and is a pretty fun action movie to boot. On the DVD copy I own, some of the special effects look quite dated (the matte paintings used to extend Dana's building are painfully obvious), but this doesn't detract too much from the greatness that is <i>Ghostbusters</i>. I've only seen this film, maybe half a dozen times, but it deserves to be watched many, many more. There are a bunch of throwaway lines that either aren't very memorable or simply go unheard in the first few viewings but are still hilarious (e.g. the supposedly ad-libbed response to "Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?", "That would have worked if you hadn't stopped me"). In fact, part of me would rather watch this AGAIN instead of the next MLiF DVD I brought with me to California... But I suppose I should push forward and get ready for next week since I'm so far behind. What are some of your favorite <i>Ghostbusters</i> lines or scenes?<br />
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<b>Ponch's Rating:</b><br />
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Ponchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09972322797644160766noreply@blogger.com4