Is that against all rational hope and expectations I am looking at this teaser for a trailer and really wanting to see this movie.
The danger of being a dreamer…
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Category Archives: Movies
The Wicker Man
Last March one of my Sunday night Movies was The Wicker Man a film I have enjoyed since I saw it on HBO back in 1979. Now when I watched it last year it was the ‘director’s cut.’ In actuality I’m not sure if this represents the director’s true visions but I know it is the closest surviving print of that version. Sadly, the studio accidentally destroyed the negative this cut was made from a 1″ videotape duplicate, so the visuals suffer.
Late laste year or early this year I picked up the theatrical cut on DVD so that I could have all the bonus material. (the boxed set I had purchased seven or eight years ago came with two discs, one with teh bonus material and the theatrical cut and the second disc with this ‘director’s cut’, sadly only one disc worked.)
Of course I had to watch the theatrical cut in addition to the bonus materials.
I am so torn. In a perfect world there would be a high quality print with material from both cuts. I can’t honestly say if one is better than the other. Each stresses different points, and each omits scenes that I think are really really important.
(Ignore the fact that there was an American *ah hem* remake. That was pure garbage and ignored the themes of the film replacing them with its own misogynistic malevolence.)
I doubt that there are many fi any people reading my blog who has seen both, but if there are, do you have a preference and if so why?
What I am really excited about is next year….
I’m there
No Sunday NIght Movie this week
Yesterday afternoon I had a friend over and we watched a film he had never seen, Lawrence Of Arabia. That was quite enjoyable, but as the afternoon went on I started to get a stronger and stronger sensation of pain in my throat. I went to be early and did not watch a film in the night time.
This morning my throat was so bad that again I could not work. ( speak constantly at work something that does not mix well with a sore throat.) I stayed home and did pretty much nothing the entire day.
I feel so lazt.
A new link in my sidebar.
So over there on the right side of the page you’ll see I added a link to the website, Darths and Droids. It is a web comic satirizing Star Wars as a loosely run RPG.
This web comic is not for everyone, but man I have found it hilarious. I was pointed towards it by my long time gaming buddy Tom. (not my brother Tom, or my nephew Tommy, or my brother-in-law Thom, or even my other gaming buddy Tom.)
If you have done a lot of RPGs, and I mean table top not on a computer screen, and have endured the Star Wars prequels, then this web comic is likely to hit your sweet spot. This fictional RPG game actually make much more sense than the prequels ever have.
If you decide to give it a spin it really is best to go to the archives and start from the beginning. I did and in two days I burned my way to current.
A new video blog from the set of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
This was an odd video
Just a few tidbits
So I started a new work schedule at my day-job this week. Instead of working 8-5 I will now be working 7-4. Getting home earlier is nice, but my body hasn’t yet adjusted to getting up a little earlier. As such I’m a little fogged of mind and will not likely be doing any writing this week. (Also there is a convention, World Fantasy here in San Diego, starting on Thursday.)
It’s a shame about the writing as I just cracked a plotting problem for my SF noir idea. (Currently titled in my head “The Long Night.”) I did not want my lead character to be a cop or P.I., but rather someone not normally seen in the role of unraveling a mystery. I’ll make sme notes but not much more tonight.
Here are my latest movies on blu-ray.
A first rate superhero film and an excellent lead into next years The Avengers.
For the price I couldn’t turn down a blu-ray set of all three films with bonus material. (My set does not have the swag, it’s just the three discs. I dislike unusual packaging as it never fits well in my cases.)
Politics and Rocky Horror PIcture Show Memories
Way back in the 1980s, when life was rough and fun at the same time, I got involved with a local Rocky Horror Picture Show group. For those not in the know The Rocky Horror Picture Show is a campy failed musical film that found a second life as a midnight movie. During the presentations fans would dress up as the characters and mime out the film in front of the screen, while the audience participated with MST3K style lines shouted back in response to dialog and events in the story. The story is one of mad science, aliens, Rock and Roll, and of course, Sex. The costumes for the film are outlandish, daring, and ignore normal gender roles. Continue reading
Sunday Night Movie: Cloverfield
I have always been a fan of the giant Monster movies. I can remember being bitterly disappointed when Godzilla vs The Smog Monster came out and I did not see the film in the theater. Given that background it is a little strange that I missed Cloverfield during its theatrical run. The truth of the matter is that life gets pretty busy these days and the film slipped past me. (It’s amazing just hwo fast a film disappears from the theaters now. I can remember E.T. and Raiders Of The Lost Ark both playing for more than a year at theaters in Sand Diego.) So Cloverfield is a film I have only seen on home video. However I think home video is the right medium for this movie.
Cloverfield is a ‘found footage’ film. The best know example of this style of film making is The Blair Witch Project, a film that is supposedly cut from the film shot by documentary filmmakers who had vanished in the woods and years later the footage is found. The most recent example of this is Apollo 18 which is supposedly made from stolen classified footage. (However it clearly impossible by the events of the film that this footage ever reached Earth and there the whole conceit is thrown into abject stupidity. Apollo 18 is a film to be avoided even on home video.) I have rarely fully enjoyed a found footage film because too often the ending does not work. It is very difficult to craft a satisfying one. Cloverfield is the exception to the rule.
I watched this back in 2009 on blu-ray via Netflix and throughly enjoyed the experience. The hand-held shaky camera worked very well on the small screen and may have been too much for me personally on the big screen.
The setting is simple. New York, May 2008, a Godzilla-class monster shows up and starts tearing death and destruction through the metropolis. Instead of an objective viewpoint, we see the entire night’s events from one hand-held camera that start the film documenting a going away party. Cloverfield isn’t really about the monster, but rather it is about love and loss and what are you willing to do for love.
The film did stir some controversy when it was released because the imagery of the destruction as such a vast scale to New York evoked for many the memories of September 11, 2001. That is understandable, but I would never call for film makers to censor themselves because of that. We remain free in our actions, our thoughts, and our arts — anything else is real capitulation.
The film is short, just 85 minutes, and moves very quickly. (Of those 85 minutes, 11 are credits as this is a very impressive piece of special-effects works, meaning 13% of the movie is credits, perhaps the high ratio of a major feature film.) Cloverfield is also a film where no one is ‘safe’ by benefits of being a major character. While not everyone dies, the loss rate if very high.
I now own a copy on blu-ray and would easily recommend this movie.