Big Budget Gods - Michael Bay

No one in the industry can top Michael Bay for his epic vision when it comes to action set-pieces. No one in the industry commands as large of a salary as Bay does, and at the same time holds the least critical respect from fans and reviewers. By now you'd think people would know what to expect from Bay. He's not making the next Lawrence of Arabia, but he is making the next Transformers movie, and it should be a ton of fun.

Michael Bay, whose middle name happens to be Benjamin, started directing music videos and other random things, (such as Playboy Video Centerfold: Kerri Kendal), and then burst upon the directing scene with Bad Boys in 1995 after being taken under the wing of Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson in the early 90's. (By the way, if you want to know where Bay got his style from, just look at the two guys who "spawned" his career. The production team of Bruckheimer/Simpson is responsible for Flashdance, Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Beverly Hills Cop 1 and 2, Crimson Tide, Bad Boys, Dangerous Minds and The Rock, among others.)

Michael Bay gets a lot of shit for not having anything to his movies. People dissed Transformers because it lacked a good story, which is untrue, and because it made too many cheap jokes at the robots' expence, which is partially untrue. I don't care what they say, Transformers was good. I loved the sound design, the transformation effects and the fights. Just getting all that animated must have been a sissyphean task in and of itself. I was impressed. Here are the stats from imdb.com's trivia section:

• According to one of the CGI artists at the Industrial Light & Magic studio, the Transformers are composed out of a total of 60,217 pieces. Optimus Prime is composed of 10108 pieces, Megatron is composed of 2411 pieces, and Bumblebee is composed out of 7433 pieces. Ironhide is the bulkiest Transformer in the film, with both his guns composed of 10,000 pieces each.
• According to one of the CGI artists at the Industrial Light & Magic studio, if you took all the polygons (CGI blocks) from all the Transformer models they created and strung them end to end, they'd reach to the moon and back and you'd still have enough left over to build the Roman Colosseum in Italy twice.

Michael Bay has said that finding a balance on the number of Autobots and Decepticons in the film was a challenge. Too few and the movie wouldn't be action-packed enough. Too many would be too difficult. They finally settled on 6 Autobots and 8 Decepticons. In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen there will be 11 Autobots and 15 Decepticons. I think it's safe to say that the animation process has been streamlined quite a bit. They're now able to put a lot more moving parts into the new film.

I can't pretend to be a big fan of Michael Bay's movies themselves, although I feel that The Rock is one of the best action films of all time - it's certainly my favorite action film ever made. But Bay has given us, the movie-viewing community, action set-pieces of such grandeur and sheer awesomeness that I cannot ignore his skill. If you haven't seen the following films, rent them if only for the described sequences:

• The Rock. Where to begin? The car chase is better and funnier than the one at the end of Bad Boys 2. The shootout in the Alcatraz shower room is a wonderful piece of editing achievement, and the score of the movie is perfect as well. Overall the film has a lot of hard violence between some very hardcore soldiers. Ed Harris' performance is quite deep in my opinion, too. Sean Connery plays a captured and forgotten British secret agent from the 60's. He's basically James Bond if Bond was caught by the Americans, disowned by the British, and left to rot in an American prison.
• Bad Boys 2. There are two sequences in this movie that should be listed as "Need to See". The shootout with the Haitian drug dealers is very cool. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are on one side of the wall, the Haitians are on the other side. There is a fireplace in the center of the wall and a door on each end of the wall connecting the two rooms. The camera moves in a big circle to show you both sides of the fight, but in so doing it moves through the bullet holes in each of the doors. It's difficult for me to describe, so I've put it in below. Also of great cinematic quality is the car chase on the bridge in Miami. The chase scene showcases Bay's abilities with controlled chaos.
  

• Pearl Harbor. This movie was pretty bad because of it's ridiculous length and boring love story. It's similar to Armageddon, except that it all takes place on Earth. The actual bombing of Pearl Harbor sequence is very cool though.

• Transformers. Even if you never watched the cartoon, you'll still enjoy the battle sequences in this movie. Barricade is my favorite Decepticon. He transforms into a Shelby Mustang police cruiser that says "To Punish and Enslave" on the side. The opening sequence with Blackout is an adrenaline-pumping good time.

• Armageddon. This movie has good characters being pushed into something they aren't able to fully come to terms with. This might have the best character depth overall of any of Bay's films. The only thing driving you to see this movie though is the destruction of cities by meteorites. And Steve Buscemi.

Michael Bay's production studio, Platinum Dunes, is responsible for a few recent horror remakes. The Hitcher, Amityville Horror, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday 13th and the upcoming Nightmare of Elm Street reboot and The Birds and Rosemary's Baby remakes are all courtesy of Bay and his cronies. For better or worse, at least someone is trying to make scary, hard-R horror movies with some gritty style.

Give Bay a chance. Even if The Island sucked, it still had some cool shots. His movies are not the work of a hack. If I had to have you watch one Michael Bay film, it would be The Rock. Run to the store and pick it up.

Here's the link for the Revenge of the Fallen trailer.

Favorite thing of the day

I'll get to a new director post soon, but this music video for Royksopp's "Happy Up Here" is my favorite thing today, so I'm sharing it with you!

If you ever played Space Invaders when you were young you'll appreciate this video. Why doesn't MTV show stuff like this anymore?


Happy Up Here from Röyksopp on Vimeo.

Big Budget Gods - James Cameron

There are two ways to measure success: Amount and quality. If you can make a living doing what you love, you're a success. If everything you make is fucking awesome, you're also a success. Everything James Cameron makes is fucking awesome. Imdb.com lists only 17 directorial projects under Cameron's name. Pretty much everyone's first couple forays into film are unknowns, so we can throw out Xenogenesis and Piranha Part 2. We're left with 15 movies/shows/documentaries. Of those 15 projects 6 of them are pure blockbusters of monumental status. Considering that in recent years Cameron has turned his eye to documentaries and left narrative fiction behind him, that's a considerable success rate. Here is why James Cameron is a big budget god:

The Terminator (1984)
Aliens (1986)
The Abyss (1989)
Terminator 2 : Judgment Day (1991)
True Lies (1994)
Titanic (1997)

If I had to I could watch only James Cameron movies for the rest of my life and be very entertained. I can't even tell you how many times I've seen the movies on that list...except Titanic, which I only saw once. Titanic became burdened by teenage-girl-weepiness, so it was hard for me to want to see it. The movie definitely deserves another chance because it is a giant spectacle of great film making and special effects. Here's a great article on Titanic and everything done right in the film: Better late Than Never: Titanic

As far as perfect movies go, it doesn't get much better than Terminator 2. T2 is an all time favorite sci-fi movie of mine, followed closely by Aliens. Some might classify T2 as an action movie, but the science fiction aspects of it are really what make the movie work. Apart from Spider-Man 2, T2 might be the best sequel ever made. Terminator 2 has everything: great one-liners, jaw-dropping special effects that still hold up, retina-fusing action sequences and a touching relationship between John Connor and the T-800 (Arnold). The movie has great balance and was a benchmark for visual effects at the time. Cameron's movies have always been on the forefront of technological advancements. Plus what a lot of people don't remember is that Arnold was the bad guy in The Terminator. In T2 he's good, but no one on screen or in the audience knows that at the start.

Aliens is another sequel that's better than the original, although it's difficult to make that statement because Alien and Aliens are such different movies. Everything from the tone and atmosphere to the characters and plot vary so widely that it's hard to compare them. Yet even with their differences, the movies make sense in terms of the development of a continuing story-line. It's one thing for a sequel to just have more of something, (ie: more aliens = bigger, better movie), but it's another to extend the mythology and give the audience more information about the mysterious titular creatures. In Alien, the alien itself is a character. For most of the movie there is a crew of only 6 people on this massive freighter of a space ship. Add one alien to the mix and you're adding a whole character that everyone in the crew is aware of. That's changing the dynamic quite a bit. In Aliens the hive of aliens were essentially one character. They behave with a hive mentality and that gives the audience a way to identify with them. Everyone knows what a colony of army ants is like when they're out on a mission, or how a swarm of bees reacts to the presence of an threat. It's the same with the aliens. They are interstellar insects, cosmic cockroaches. Cameron brought that idea to the table and it changed the tone of the film.

The Abyss was another innovative movie. Its effects predate T2, but there is an obvious progression from The Abyss to T2. The Abyss not only shows Cameron's propensity for creating great fantasy worlds, but his huge scope as well. All of Cameron's movies are big. Big sets, big guns, big vehicles. Even though it's set in a cramped underwater research facility, The Abyss doesn't feel like a claustrophobic story. James Cameron always seems to me to be interested in blue collar stuff. He throws out shiny sports cars and has chases in semi trucks; he ditches X-Files/CSI settings to show us a group of (possibly) high school-educated blue collar Joe's and their interactions on said research station. And the research station isn't a glossy hi-tech affair either, it's dark and grungy and bulky. When I was a kid I liked the fast, sleek cars. My friend liked big trucks and construction vehicles. Most film makers want to have shiny expensive stuff in their films, but it's Cameron's insistence of using big bulky apparatuses that keeps my interest in his work afloat.

I can't talk about James Cameron without mentioning True Lies, or as I like to call it, Arnold's last great movie. Arnold has nearly reached muse-status for Cameron, and True Lies was a role made just for Schwarzenegger. After being a robot for two movies, James Cameron finally let Arnold be a human, and the movie is action-packed and hilarious at the same time. I would never have thought to team up Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold, but they gel perfectly. Plus True Lies gets bonus points for making Tia Carrere even sexier than she was Wayne's World, and for introducing the Harrier jet to the public eye.

The sequence where Arnold flies the Harrier is one of my all-time favorites in action movie history. And it cost about $1,700 per frame. There are 24 frames in a second. Factored into this cost are elements like editing, CGI, actor's wages, rental of the Harrier jets from the US gov't, sound stage rental, etc. The United States gov't rented the Harrier jets to Cameron's production at a rate of $2,410 per hour. That's before fuel and everything else. True Lies ended up costing about $146 million.

In recent years James Cameron expanded on Titanic by doing a lot of underwater documentaries about wrecked ships and deep sea life with Expedition: Bismark, Ghosts of the Abyss and Aliens of the Deep. He began using 3-D while filming Ghosts of the Abyss which is a film about exploring the remains of the Titanic. Cameron is continuing to lead the way for 3-D film technology with his newest feature, Avatar, which will be out sometime in 2009.

Cameron makes movies about what he wants when he wants. He always has lavish budgets, but the money is all up there on the screen. He never holds anything back and you always have a good time. He is an infectious geek who knows how to get everyone interested in the things he likes. Everything he does is worth seeing.

Big Budget Gods - Steven Spielberg

For the next few days I'm going to talk about some of my favorite big budget directors, or select big budget films. Like it or not, you'll want to revisit these mindless summer explosion-fests because deep down, some of them really are good movies and not time-wasters. So I'm starting a column, "Big Budget Gods". I'm leading off with possibly the biggest director ever in the history of movies, Steven Spielberg. Spielberg's movies are amazing spectacles. Say what you will about the substance of blockbusters, but Spielberg knows how to take a story from the page and put it on the screen to dizzying effect.

Jaws is perhaps the single most influential film in the past 50 years. Not only to other filmmakers, but to people who swim in the ocean, or like taking baths. I don't know anyone who hasn't scrunched up their legs when in a swimming pool's deep end for fear of an impossible shark attack. Plus there's the added genius of casting great actors. Some people just click and play off each other's performances well. Roy Schieder, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw all come together perfectly and make the movie. A movie about a shark where the shark doesn't even get 15 minutes of combined screen time? Ridiculous! But it works. And Jaws was the first official "blockbuster" ever. It is the movie that started the summer big-budget movie tradition.

Another great storytelling moment for Spielberg was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Close Encounters is good because it taps into everyone's curiosity of the unknown. It also reminds us that sometimes we can be thrust into new and random situations and become connected with strangers through happenstance. Then we have to deal with it. The way the characters on-screen deal with their fateful situations is what makes the story so good. (Plus it never hurts to include aliens.) Close Encounters is a film from early on in the director's career, and if he could do it again, he'd change the ending. In the film, Dreyfuss's character opts to go onto the spaceship with the aliens. He pursues his curiosity. Spielberg would have him stay on Earth with his family if he could do it again, but that just adds to the depth of the film in my opinion.

A film from that people often decry as being terrible is Hook. Everyone who hates this movie can blow me. I love it. It's fun, light-hearted, in keeping with the original concept of the Berrie story and it's a spectacle. Say what you will, but the sets and costumes are amazingly constructed and add to an atmosphere of fun and wonder. It's such an enjoyable film, and it's got its little creepy moments too. Hook makes a fitting sequel to Peter Pan, lending some insight into life and counter balancing the frivilous lifestyle of guadian-less children with the mysteries of what happens to them when they get older. (Okay, the part where Tinkbell becomes life-size and tries to fuck Peter Pan is retarded, but apart from that it's good stuff.) Technically, Hook is a flop, but it's still better than watching Mystics of Bali or Plan 9 From outer Space.

Spielberg has always been about pushing the creative envelope. His films have always represented to me that I should be more creative and imaginative. Films like A.I., Minority Report, Jurassic Park and, yes, even Hook, combine with Saving Private Ryan, Munich and The Color Purple to show that you can be involved in worlds of fantasy and still have your feet grounded in reality. Spielberg makes both types of movies with fantastic results.

His big budgets might be shocking, but Spielberg makes substantive films with heart and quality. His work has the mark of a man who is very committed to making great art, and he enjoys himself in the process. I don't think there's a film among his oevre that he didn't fully put himself into. He is one of the best entertainers in the world. (I can't wait for TinTin!)

Hilarious!

To balance the previous video out a bit, here's a funny bit of cinematic mash-up for you.

Presented here, for your eyes only, is the alternate ending to Back to the Future!

Wanna see a snake regurgitate a baby hippo?

Sure you do.

Now, before you ask me, "Is this going to be gross?", the answer is "Yes". It is a snake regurgitating a baby hippo.

It isn't so-gross-you-can't-watch, but it's a mesmerizing grossness that you can't turn away from. Focus on how wide the snake opens its mouth. It's transcendent. Then think about how good the snake must have felt after getting rid of that huge, un-digestible meal. (Kind of like after you go #2 and feel relaxed and tired at the same time...and empty.)

Happy Wednesday!

A good book

I've got book ADD, which sucks because I love reading.  It seems that every time I try and get into a new book, I fall asleep.  This trend, which has been on-going for years, was broken last week when I started reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon.

When the book came out a few years ago, everyone raved and for good reason. I just finished it tonight.  I think it only took me about a week, and I wasn't reading it at a furious pace either.  I kept being drawn to read more of the book. I read it quickly, but feel at the same time I felt that I had been challenged intellectually.  I found it a very satisfying, but sometimes difficult read.  The words and structure were easy, but the story has its moments of hardship.  The story is narrated by a mentally challenged individual who is brilliant at math, but in the same vein as Rain Man, can't cope with other aspects of society.  The story is told through his POV, and as such the narration is very deliberate.

I recommend it to anyone who wants to read a good book.  Pick it up soon.

Creative bargaining

Over at boingboing.net there is an interesting story about a 13-year old video gamer who has struck up a unique deal with his dad.

Parent of gamer asks his son to honor the Geneva Conventions

Hugh Spencer's son, Evan loves video games, as most 13-year old boys do. Recently he wanted to start playing Call of Duty 5. Call of Duty is a violent game, but it in its defense, it is all WWII-style violence. According to Mr. Spencer, Evan is a smart kid who knows the differnt betwen reality and fantasy. He also understands what video games are and why he enjoys playing them. He is not a problem child, nor does he give his father any reason not to trust him in any way.

Hugh Spencer knows from his museum career that Call of Duty goes to great pains to provide accurate historical information, styling, story-line, etc. From that standpoint he has no problem allowing his son to play the game, and learn a little about WWII history at the same time. Mr. Spencer added a little lesson to the game-play by having his son research the Geneva Convetions and play Call of Duty within those set boundaries.

I think that's a fantastic idea. I just hope the game's plot allows him to be so fair to the Japanese armed forces.

Jason Strikes Back

Two Friday 13th posts in a row might seem like double the dark omen, but it's all I've got right now. Hopefully I'll think of something else to write up soon, but for now you're going to have to read about more Jason, more blood, more boobs, more craziness. I think you're up for it.

The nature of the new Friday 13th has been debated a lot on the net: Is it a remake or a reboot, etc? It's a reboot, because they're trying to start a new franchise based on an old franchise by remaking the original but updating it to modern day. It's a remake of sorts, but only because the source material already existed. There were, as there usually are, ups and downs. I liked some stuff, I hated other stuff.

First let me say that Aaron Yoo has got to get more acting jobs. I like his style and he's funny as hell. If you saw Disturbia, he was Shia LeBeouf's sidekick. He does a great job in this movie and he has the funniest lines and steals every scene he's in. Right before his inevitable death, he hands Jason a hockey stick and says, in a tone that suggests he's returning a lost item to its owner: "Here. This completes your outfit." Then he gets a screw driver through the neck. It sounds like I, a bona fide gore-hound, would be satisfied with a screw driver through the neck, but no! The kill in question takes place in a highly equipped tool shed. There were so many interesting implements that Jason could have used, but instead he went for a screw driver...a Phillips' head screwdriver no less. The Phillips' head is the Nerf of screw drivers. It's as round and blunt as you can get without losing functionality. Seriously, when you have every sharp and menacing garden tool around at your disposal, why settle for a simple screw driver? Here are four ways that the kill could've been much more devastating and entertaining.

It seems like I'm belaboring a tired point, but it's just indicative of the lack of creativity present in the movie. Jason is machete-prone, (always was, always will be), but apart from one fun, creative murder, Jason is a very methodical, predictable slasher in this new version. The interesting kill in question comes in the first ten minutes. Jason ties a girl up in her sleeping bag and hangs her over a fire, while the guy who was banging her moments ago watches, his leg caught in a bear trap. Don't worry, he doesn't suffer too long. He gets a machete blow to the cranium. Many bonus points for that scenario.

One thing I really enjoyed about this movie was Jason's intelligence and humanity. I'm not saying he's ever shown in a sympathetic light, but he seems like a real human being. He is a capable person who has built this maze of tunnels that run underneath Camp Crystal Lake, not to mention grown an impressive crop of ganja. (More on that in a minute.) There is a scene where Jason is returning to camp with the headless body of a recent victim and two survivors are watching him from hiding. Jason walks into camp and sees evidence of the presence of outsiders. He drops the body and starts looking around and checking things out. I've never seen him act so curious and thorough. It's the first time I thought Jason was even cognizant of his surroundings, much less aware of anything but naked girls post-coitus (you know, for machete fodder). He becomes scary for that moment, probably for the first time since 1982.

I think this film series has somewhere to go. This is a promising start, although not the well-thought through movie I and other fans were hoping for. The cast is mostly forgettable. The addition of a running, fiercer Jason is surprisingly welcome, and the atmosphere was effective. There was too much cutting at times. I couldn't follow the action completely enough, and there weren't enough long takes of the kills. It's a Friday 13th movie! Show us some money shots already! The film was also full of these jump-scares initiated by loud noises...really loud noises. That's not scary, it's just slightly startling. And the whole weed thing was a little too accidentally hilarious.

The beginning of the film sees this group of kids going into the woods to find this secret bed of pot. They give up for the day and hunker down for the night. One kid goes off in the woods on his own and comes across the garden of weed. He's admiring the buds when Jason comes out of the woods and kills him. Then Jason kills everyone else in the group. The next kill is this redneck guy who also knows where the pot is and he has a habit of selling and smoking it. Apparently, as we keep getting reminded, this pot is good stuff. Well Jason comes out of the wood and kills him too, while he's in the middle of a joint no less. Is Jason just facially disfigured, cranky pot farmer who wants people to keep off his crop? All signs point to "Yes".

Ki-Ki-Ki, Ma-Ma-Ma

What kind of a proposed "horror fan" would I be if I neglected to write about the new Friday 13th movie? A shitty one, that's what kind. I've been reading some other writings online about the Friday series, and it seems that these people all wanted today's release of a new re-make/reboot of Friday 13th to be some awe-inspiring, obsession-validating piece of genius. It's a remake of a slasher flick from 1980, why try to build it up so much?

Almost anything new gets shit on in favor of what used to be. No matter how badly put together something was when it first came out, everyone will rally around it when someone else comes along and tries to reinvent it. I do side with the people who hate film remakes. But a film remake these days, and this goes double with horror films, is like putting out a new model car that's just the grill of a Cadillac onto a Ford Focus. It's still a Focus, even if you "remade" it with Cadillac quality in mind. Likewise, remaking a Friday movie by slapping a hockey mask onto a guy with one eye and giving him a machete doesn't make a great movie no matter what your motives are. I'm not trying to insult the film makers, I just want it clear that this movie is just another slasher movie following in a previous slasher movies' footsteps. It could be fun, it could suck. (I'm going to go home and duct tape a Cadillac grill to my Focus right after work!)

Sure, there are genius cinematographic turns in several iconic slasher/horror films: Halloween is obviously important to the genre, Texas Chain Saw Massacre showed what could be done with a small budget and almost no on-screen gore at all (hint: it fools you into thinking it's one of the goriest movies of all time), Freddy is a fantastic villain that you love to fear. But that doesn't mean that every slasher flick that comes out has to be eye-opening and on par with the films comprising the horror canon. Jason is a retard in a mask with a machete who kills kids. I'm serious, that's what he is and that's what he'll always be.

I watch Jason movies for kitsch value. I like the clothing/attitudes/styles of various years that are on display. (Friday 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan is the best for horrible fashion.) I love the nudity and the creativity in the kills. What I'm saying is that Friday 13th movies aren't rocket science. The remake won't add purpose to the original, nor will it give the Jason movies that came before it any sudden value as classics. It'll be the same as it always has been and will be: Fans will hold the films up as classics at their whim, and detractors will continue to give us shit for enjoying the sight of impaled naked teenage girls. Fuck you, detractors.

The only thing I hate about horror in the current times is the inclusion of silicone. Give me nudity from the 70's and 80's. Unfortunately the starlets nowadays have bodies that look as fake as their dialogue sounds. But I'm still going to go see this new Friday movie, even if people think it's no good because...surprise, surprise...it isn't Lawrence of Arabia. What can you possibly expect from a Jason movie besides stupid teens, drinking, boobs, drugs, boobs, blood, repeat? You've no right to expect anything more! And I'm going in expecting to see just that. From what I've read, I won't be disappointed.

25 things

Facebook is a virus and a drug. Almost everyday I sign on and check up on the people that Facebook tells me have done something new or added something different. Almost every day I willingly participate in Facebook, adding to the problem and not trying to find a solution. Almost everyday I move my mouse over the "Account Delete" button and hold a whispered conversation with myself about should I or should I not just end it right now and go cold turkey. You can check, I'm still on Facebook.

The current trend in Facebook is not the SuperWall or movie quizzes or virtual aquariums but a meme. "25 Random Things" is a note that gets passed on and changed so that everyone can get to know more about you and the crazy things that even your significant others don't know yet. As with most Facebook trends, I hate this one too. As this gentleman points out, who the hell cares that you've been pooped on by a monkey? Then someone else who is smart and enjoys making fun of Facebook BS wrote, "Wm. Shakespeare's 25 Random Things Abovt Me".

Since I have no intention of filling out a "25 Random Things" sheet myself, I figured a good way to cash in on the trend would be to do a mini movie-version here on my blog. Here we go with "10 Momentous Movies/Movie Moments".

1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I was 8 when this came out and it was an awe-inspiring, unique motion picture that pretty much consumed my interests for a long time. I was obsessed with the voice and mannerisms of Roger Rabbit and really intrigued by the process of making the movie. I started getting interested in special effects after seeing this movie. (The fact that it is based on a book doesn't bother me that much.)

2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I had never seen this movie until film school. Our teacher showed us the opening shot projected onto the wall. I gasped and felt like I'd witnessed proof of amazing genius after seeing just the first minute of this movie. No TV will ever be able to capture the feeling of this movie's scope.

3. Pulp Fiction. My dad and I went to see this movie together in the theater. I was 14. I couldn't believe that he wanted to see it, and afterward he told me he would've taken me out of the theater mid-way if I hadn't already told my teacher I would be writing a report about it. At that time I'd never seen a movie like Pulp Fiction, and I've loved Quentin Tarantino ever since. It was a first-rate educational experience on all fronts.

4. Blazing Saddles. There is no way to describe how I feel inside when Cleavon Little rides into town on his tan horse with his Gucci saddle bags. It's just the beginning of an all-around great movie. (Plus it's the first time farting occurred in a movie!)

5. Grindhouse. A singular movie-going experience. I feel nothing but pity for those who didn't get to see it in the movie theater the way it was meant to be shown. I felt like I'd stepped back in time. I know a lot of other people felt that way too. I might never feel quite like that again.

6. Life is Beautiful. The first foreign movie I really paid attention to. I never knew movies could have so much brilliant color and energy. Roberto Benigni opened my eyes to cinema outside of America.

7. Evil Dead. I still remember watching this movie for the first time in my basement, I had a Dominos pizza, and the camera was gliding over the fog-machined swamp. Evil Dead is better than any of H.G. Lewis' movies by a long shot. Makes me proud to be from Michigan, the home state of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell.

8. Lord of the Rings. These movies are milestones in film making. Everything about how they were put together is one-of-a-kind and amazing. The fact that we have three four-hour long movies comprising an adaptation of Lord of the Rings is a miracle. Watching that movie makes you feel like you're seeing the greatest piece of cinema ever made. I think it's the best adaptation ever made.

9. Se7en. A movie that truly affected me. The opening credits chill me to the bones, and when the credits rolled...backwards...it just helped to solidify my understanding that David Fincher is cutting edge and brilliant.

10. Rebel Without a Cause. I don't care how old you are or who you are: James Dean is iconic and cool and will always be iconic and cool.

Brad Pitt wants his scalps

As far as I'm concerned Quentin Tarantino can do no wrong. He is an entity unto himself and thusly he cannot make anything that is less than his all. Every movie he makes has his aroma and aura attached to it in such a deep way that the movies just become "Tarantino-esque". What I'm basically saying is that if you love the types of movies that Tarantino loves, you cannot be disappointed by his work. So that means that whatever he's working on is something that I crave to see. His next movie is Inglourious Basterds. It is a film about Jewish, American soldiers, led by Brad Pitt and Eli Roth it would seem, who are dropped into France to kill Nazis. Here's a link to the trailer. I think that if you let go a bit, you'll see that this movie will be tons of overindulgent fun.

Inglourious Basterds

Fuckin'...Fuckin'...Fuckin'

So this guy, Victor S, compiled all the swear words from the entire run of "The Sopranos" into one clip.  It's about 28 minutes long, so I understand if you don't want to watch all of it.  But I bet no one who starts watching pauses it before the 5 minute mark...it's fucking' entrancing.

the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.

Chocolate therapy

A few posts ago I said that ninjas will always be cool.  Pretty much all martial arts stuff is awesome and tons of fun to watch though.  A few years ago Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior came out and it was the first movie of its kind that I had ever seen.  The athletic ability and the gymnastics of the fighting scenes are crazy cool.  There are no stunt doubles...so the acting suffers for it...and there aren't any computers used either.  Or wires.  In Ong Bak the stunts are shown several times in succession from different camera angles to help drive home the message that the stunts are actually being performed.  (Oh, and the Rza did the soundtrack for the American release.)

I don't know if you can effectively fight like that, but when it's all choreographed it looks amazing and brutal.  Another film is coming, on Valentine's Day no less, by the same folks who made Ong Bak, called, Chocolate.  The story concerns a young girl who is mentally challenged but who has a capacity for martial arts.  She kicks lots of ass and again all the stunts are real and performed without help by fantastically gifted athletes.  Here's the trailer.

Chocolate - Theatrical Trailer

RIP and something to cheer you up too.

Today James Whitmore passed away. Whitmore was a prolific actor from the 50's up until a few years ago. Most recently/popularly he played Brooks in The Shawshank Redemption. He was also in "Bonanza", THEM!, Planet of the Apes and "The Twilight Zone", among many many other shows and movies. He was one of those actors that you'd always recognize because he had such a great face. Frank Darabont always has a way with casting actors with great, expressive faces and Whitmore's was one of the best.

It's sad when someone who contributed so much to our entertainment passes away, but at least we've got all of his work saved on DVDs and such. "The Twilight Zone" episode he was in is called, "On Thursday We Leave for Home". It is an hour-long episode about a group of astronauts led by Whitmore's character who are marooned on a distant planet awaiting rescue from Earth. Whitmore's character, William Benteen, makes sure to keep everyone's spirits up, but when the actual rescue comes he tries to keep everyone under his control by forcing them to stay on the planet. His group revolts and as the rescue ship leaves with everyone else from the planet, Benteen comes to his senses too late and is left alone forever. It's a great episode, one of many from "The Twilight Zone".

James Whitmore starred in THEM! as well. THEM! is a sci-fi B-movie from 1954 wherein people fight for their lives against huge mutated insects. It's a fun flick and is an icon of the genre and era. In celebration of Whitmore's work on THEM! I present you with the trailer for another B-movie sci-fi bug flick: Infestation. It's gonna be a lot of fun...kind of like Slither, but with different types of monsters. (That reminds me, I should write about the diamond-in-the-rough that is Slither. The to-do list grows.)

Just for fun

Simply because it is related to the previous post, here's the trailer for Anaconda: Hunt for the Blood Orchid. Otherwise known as "Anaconda 2", Blood Orchid is the sequel to the very popular Anaconda (if you're a TBS weekend schedule programmer), starring J-Lo, Jon Voight, Ice Cube, Eric Stoltz and Owen Wilson. (An all-star cast if you ask me.)

Blood Orchid is terrible, but the trailer is worth watching because it has the most chilling scene in the entire movie: the part where the crew is walking through the water and you can see the snake swimming through the group unbeknownst to them.



But watch out, because Anaconda 3 cannot possibly come fast enough to a DVD player near you! You are seeing that image correctly...that is The Hoff!