Recently in movies Category

I was catching up on Rudi's recent activites and decided to give it a try: Seeing how many of the "100 greatest films of the past 25 years" I had personally seen.....

(Films I've seen in bold)
1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)

11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)

20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler's List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally... (1989)

31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)

41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)

51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There's Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)

61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)

71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)

81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004)
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

I think some of those movies are odd choices, but I won't question others - "Evil Dead II" is a great movie, and very fairly deserves it's place on the list. I won't go into others (cough)"Titanic"(cough).

Of the 100, I've seen 54 (might have mis-counted), but I think thats respectable. More than a couple have been on my "to watch" list, but the details of getting a movie on that list - and by that I mean all the things that need to go right on the checklist of life - are too much to go into right now. Suffice it to say, there are plans to extend that list.

Actually, this brings to mind a project I'm trying to figure out how to do: cataloging every movie I've ever watched. EVER. More recent movies are easier to check off or catalog, but how am I supposed to remember if I saw "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo" or not? Let's face it, there were more than a few break-dancing movies back then, so who knows which one it was?

I guess that without actually going back and watching every movie I might have watched over again, I'll just have to guess somehow and hope that's enough. Since it's my project, it'll have to be. Some movies - like "Timerider" - really stand out for some reason. Others, like the afore-mentioned break dancing movie, blend together. I'll just have to do my best with it. I think I'm going to work out some kind of multi-media web based list - make it more visual. Perhaps a separate blog - that way I can add my comments to them.

Waste of time? Maybe. Duplicated elsewhere? Probably. But it will probably be more than a little fun (for me, anyway) to go through them and try to make an accurate list. And movies are probably easier to remember than all the books I've read.... Not sure why that is though. Stay tuned, I'll probably figure out a way to do this instead of "paying" work anyway......

Driver of James Bond's Aston Martin cheated death - Telegraph

Have you seen the trailer for "Star Trek" yet? Go watch it. Now. I'll wait.

Watched it? Good. It doesn't tell you much, sure. But it leaves so very much to the imagination. And it also makes you want to see it - right? I mean, there's people in that movie you've heard of, but you can't really imagine them as, for example, a young Kirk, right? And who could ever be Scotty? Oh, wait - that's right, it's Simon Pegg. You might know him from Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz. If you haven't seen them, go check them out - "Shaun of the Dead" is a great sendup of zombie type movies, and "Hot Fuzz" is a brilliant homage of just about every single police movie ever made. And then some.

And, in case you forgot about where "Star Trek" started (a young man named William Shatner... ah, memories!), you can check all of the series and movies on DVD.

Meme, taken from Rudi who took it from Sprite who.... well, you get the idea:

1. Pick 10 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. Looking them up is cheating, please don't.

1. "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
2. "Look. This... is all a mistake. I'm just a compound interest program. I work at a savings and loan! I can't play these video games!"
3. "Don't tug on that, you never know what it might be attached to."
4. "The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It'd take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you're lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go."
5. "Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."
6. "So that you will learn by experience that I do not tolerate interference, I will now detonate the nuclear warheads."
7. "I hope no one minds but I have no intention of facing this sober."
8. "Your Commie has no regard for human life. Not even his own."
9. "Come on, boys! The way you're lollygaggin' around here with them picks and them shovels, you'd think it was a hundert an' twenty degree. Can't be more than a hundert an' fourteen."
10. "Well hello Mister Fancypants. Well, I've got news for you pal, you ain't leadin' but two things: Jack and shit... and Jack just left town."

Post your responses in the comments...

Today's fun ride into work was brought to you by Chaiyya Chaiyya, a fun little song from the movie Inside Man (Widescreen Edition). It's Indian or Pakistani or something - not really sure to be honest - but it's kind of fun and helped kill 6 minutes, 54 seconds of my commute this morning. I particularly like the percussion work, as it's rather complex at times.

Oh, and if you just mouse over one of those links, you should get Amazon's fancy new product preview pop-up. It's kinda cool. And speaking of Amazon, did you know about Amazon MP3? Among the best reasons to patronize them is that, like the iTunes Music Store, you can buy just one song at a time if you so choose. You can also - get this - copy the song to any device you want. How? No DRM is applied to the songs. Madness!

Woody from Dateline Hollywood managed to get into the media lineup for the "Snakes on a Plane" premiere. The results? They boggle the mind:

All Your Snakes are Belong to Us

Ironic Sans: The Google Maps Guide to Ghostbusters

Take Google Maps, add in the info about Ghostbusters (along with screen captures), and you have the Ghostbusting Google Map Mashup (which, by the way, is a mouthful!).

This dovetails nicely with something I've been meaning to write about - Ghostbusters. The kids LOVE it.

Sure, there's a few parts that are a little scary, and some language that they shouldn't hear - but to be honest, while I'm no longshoreman, I can't always refrain from swearing, no matter how much I try. But the idea of the movie is appealing to the youngsters, what with the ghosts and the sliming and let's not forget the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. Mmmmm.

So, yeah, it's Christmas time once again. Many things were bought for the kids, and let's just say that the mess in the living room rivaled years past. But it's all good. I've got some photos that I'm going to be posting online at some point, but I wanted to mention how much fun certain things were - like, for example, how much more complicated Transformer toys are these days.

When I was a kid, it was in the box as a robot, then you turned it into a vehicle, and then it was back to a robot again. Simple. Occasionally there was a "super" robot that took a couple robots and turned them into a big robot. That was it.

:noah: got some kind of super-omni-mega robot - it came with two trucks (a firetruck and a car carrier), which individually turn from robot to vehicle and back. But then you can also take some of their "extra" bits and make them mega-robots. Or.... Take the two, and their extras, and make a super-omni-mega robot. Or something. Two tabloid sized pages (that's two 8.5" x 11" pages side by side) with instructions on both sides - approximately 500 total steps for all the things you can do. With just one set. Awesome. Just awesome.

Next up was the MegaBlocks G.I. Joe armored vehicle thing. It came with a part that was semi-melted (it still worked, but....) and several of the pieces don't stay in place - one of my sticking points with MegaBlocks. Lego or nothing, I say.

We got the kids two DVD's for Christmas: The Polar Express about a week before for a Christmas party with some friends and then Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the big day. We saw Polar Express in the theaters and loved it, but Charlie was something that the kids but not parents had seen. I got a chance to watch it today, and was quite pleased with the movie.

Like many people, I've seen the original movie (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) more than a few times, so I had some pre-conceived notions about how the movie should play out. I'm pleased to say that for the most part, it was just as I expected. I particularly liked some of the casting choices - Johnny Depp once again proved his acting abilities, and the kids did quite a good job acting like their previous incarnations. Overall, a very good re-make.

:abby: got a "My Little Pony" Butterfly Island set, and it was quite a sight to behold - all colorful, with sound effects and music for the full audio/visual overload experience.

:ethan: got some new toys and a new "Baby Mozart" DVD, which we hope will keep him entertained a bit - he seems to like the others so far, so this will only add to his enjoyment - and lead to another kid addicted to tv, no doubt.

:emma:, who's supposed to be reading at a level 30 by the end of this school year, is currently at level 32 now. When pressed for book suggestions (Grisham, Clancy, King?), her teacher suggested the "Lemony Snicket" series - always a good choice, I gather. We also got her a nice set of jammies.

Serenity is now - well, in a few hours - available on DVD. From what I've read (below and elsewhere on the internet) it's a great movie - details that we never learned on the show, and new and fun information. I hear that some people died during the course of the story - very sad, and I wish I didn't know about it - but sometimes these things happen and are just the way things have to be.

A write up of the DVD: UGO.com Film/TV - Serenity DVD Review - UGO Blasts Off with Serenity

So, go buy a copy of the DVD - they didn't do extremely well in the theaters, so lets help them make up for it with this DVD release.

FX is currently showing "Smallpox," an original movie that's played out more like a documentary after the fact - It reviews the alleged events of April 2002, when a smallpox outbreak "occurred" and killed something like 60 million people. They put a very clear warning at the beginning of the movie that it was a movie, not fact, and that it was NOT based on actual events - I guess trying to prevent a "War of the Worlds" type reaction. No offense, but I think that they should have repeated the warning more often - it's some pretty realistic and scary looking stuff.

I was going to tape it and watch it later, if I thought the first few minutes of the movie were good, but it just sucked me right in - a good sign. It looks like some of the logic behind how such an attack could happen is pretty sound - i.e. people stealing samples of Smallpox from various locations - notably, in this example, Russia and the former Soviet Republic - and then the spread of the disease once it's out in the public.

Ok, it's back on, more later when I've seen the whole thing.