Free Copy of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four

For a $20 (or more) donation to the Humane Society, you can obtain a free copy of Roger Corman’s The Fantastic Four (1994).

Inexpensive copies of The Star Wars Holiday Special are readily available on eBay and come with lots of extras including an episode of The Muppet Show and Hardware Wars.

Best Actor

They should give it to Phillip Seymour Hoffman over Javier Bardem. Bardem’s role wasn’t that complex or difficult and my teenage daughter – who hates drama class – could have done it. I’ve loved Tom Wilkinson ever since The Full Monty in everything he’s in but his role in Michael Clayton wasn’t anything remarkable. As I’ve said many times, the award should go to above average, excellent performances. He’s always good, the movie itself was good – but not truly great. When I pay my $9.50, I expect the movie, actors, etc. to be good. Better than good. These movies cost tens of millions of dollars – they’d darn well better be worth that investment. So a crappy performance or movie is inexcusable and the oscar should go to someone or something that is truly exceptional – way beyond “worth the investment.” 

American Gangster

Yet another movie that is far too long.

Let me be clear – I like long movies. Finding movies that are too long is, for me, a recent phenomenon. Usually my complaint is that movies are far too short. For example, Harry Potter movies that get continually shorter despite the books getting longer, leaving out entire characters and storylines.

Another example is George Lucas cutting out entire scenes because he feels character development slows a movie down and no one cares about that stuff anyway.

American Gangster, however, is one scene after another of the same thing. If couldn’t even finish watching it because it was so boring. Good cop keeps showing what a good cop he is, gangster keeps showing what a good businessman he is. New Jack City was better. It was neat seeing Clarence Williams III, though – I haven’t seen him in anything since Tales from the Hood. Denzel Washington was boring as always. Yesterday, I read Don Cheadle was the first choice for that role – I would have seen it already if Cheadle had been in it. He is one of the most underrated actors ever.

Best thing about American Gangster was this. Out of NOWHERE Josh Brolin, this crazy guy from Grindhouse: Planet Terror, is all of a sudden in No Country for Old Men and American Gangster.  

Ruby Dee should give Cate Blanchett no competition. Speaking of, you know what my favorite Cate Blanchett piece is? Coffee and Cigarettes. Some of that movie was unwatchable, but some of it was simply the bestest.

Waking Up Late For Work

You know that feeling? You wake up and it’s way too bright in your bedroom? I just had that feeling. The Academy Awards are this weekend! I thought they were in two or three weeks! Yet again, I will not be having any sort of a party … friends and family are scattered more than usual. But, more importantly, here’s my to-do list:

• Rent La Vie En Rose (I’ve been meaning to do this forever) and American Gangster (even though I really don’t think it looks good at all – it looks like a re-make of New Jack City). I just think Denzel Washington has been mediocre ever since X. He was M-A-G-N-I-F-I-C-E-N-T in that and mediocre at best in Training Day which was nothing more than a “We’re really sorry we didn’t give you the Oscar last time” award. But, Russel Crowe is always fun to watch and I’ll always give Ridley Scott the benefit of the doubt. I still won’t spend $50+ on the Blu-Ray for Blade Runner, though. I must say that one of my favorite movie lines to this day was spoken by Denzel in Carbon Copy: “I don’t need to.”
• Catch a matinee of Atonement
• Curse myself for not having seen Sweeney Todd. Sorry, I just wasn’t interested until it was too late and it was gone. A guy I used to work with said Depp did a great job though. I just haven’t been interested in the last several Tim Burton movies. Watching his Planet of the Apes was like catching my wife in bed with someone who isn’t even smarter or better looking than me. Like when Peter thinks Jennifer Aniston slept with Lumberg in Office Space or when Mickey Rourke says to Wanda in Barfly: “Why did it have to be Eddie? He symbolizes everything that disgusts me.”

So far, I think I completely agree with Roger Ebert’s feelings and predictions. Juno really deserves best pictures, among others. This year certainly won’t be as suspenseful and exciting as others but at least we’ve had the presidential primaries for that.

High Tension (review)

Another movie that’s way too long. This one is way too long in the same way that Death Proof is too long. How many shots of cars chasing each other do you really need? It’s nice that the “surprise ending” happens in the middle of the movie though and I like the way they shot the remainder with different actors. Other than a couple interesting bits like that, though, this movie is pretty boring and a waste of time.

Paz Vega

Loved her in Spanglish which is one of my favorite movies. Watched 10 Items Or Less last night which was way better than, say, 10 Things I Hate About You. I’m more interested in the featurette “15 Days Or Less.” Apparently, Vega wasn’t available until a certain day and Freeman had to leave on a certain day so they had 15 days to shoot the movie which meant, among other things, no rehearsals. There were a lot of location changes, etc. and even with my little bit of experience I kept thinking … how did they make all those lighting and camera changes even in the same location… wow. That was impressive to me.

Also got Sex and Lucia (R rated version) which I haven’t watched yet.

Movies I’ve Recently Seen

I can’t wait to start making my own again. In the meantime:

DVD:

• Turistas – So boring I couldn’t even finish watching it. Would have made a good short film, I think, but it’s at least an hour too long.
• Ginger Snaps – as good as you’ve heard. Finally broke down and rented it for me and Alex, my teenage daughter, after haring raves about it for years. Great writing helped me overlook the awful (to say the least) acting in Clerks. In Ginger Snaps, the good writing and outstanding acting helped me overlook the downright awful special effects. We’re talking … oh, man … it’s awful, but yes, the rest makes up for it.
• Ginger Snaps 2 – as good as you’ve heard, too. Great premise. The young lead actress plays the punkette receptionist at the abortion clinic in Juno who offers Ellen Page the boysenberry condom (and it’s amazing how pretty she is when she’s not grimacing through a whole moive). Tatiana Maslany is outstanding. Watch it a second time and pay attention to her in particular. I know there’s a debate about which is better. I couldn’t say – they’re too different.
• Children of Men – decent. I wrote an incredibly long rant about movies with no endings to a friend of mine. I delete my sent mail and trash pretty frequently so if he still has it, I’ll post it.
• The Descent – I’m not claustrophobic, but every time they went through a small tunnel I got scared. I’ve been spelunking and it’s the only sport I’d consider “extreme.” Jumping out of planes wouldn’t be a rush to me. The thought of being trapped miles underground terrifies me. The monsters and whatnot didn’t scare me. Alex, my 16-year-old daughter, who loves horror movies said it was only the second movie ever to scare her. The first would be The Blair Witch Project. I thought the all-girl cast interesting. I never noticed The Thing had an all-male cast until the commentary pointed it out. It had this prologue that had no relevance for the rest of the movie which was irritating. Strong women characters which was nice.
• Cabin Fever – I was just curious about Eli Roth- the auteur who brought us Hostel and Hostel 2. I wouldn’t recommend either of those movies, but Cabin Fever was absolutely delightful. I didn’t expect it to be funny – let alone really funny.

Just bought Lucia, Lucia. I found it for $3.99! Looking forward to watching it. Still can’t find a reasonably priced copy of Lucía y el sexo (no relation whatsover). Continuing on this train of thought, I should rent Ten Items or Less.

In Theaters:

• Rambo – surprisingly good. This inspired a rant about our foreign policy. Maybe I’ll post that, too.
• Michael Clayton – good, but the ending seemed rushed and cliché.
• There Will Be Blood – pretty darn good
• No Country for Old Men – first movie I’ve seen with another person in a long time. Robert and I went to go see it. He fell asleep a couple times. I’d have let him sleep but he was snoring. I don’t know if it disturbed other people but it certainly disturbed me. I can’t say enough how refreshing it was to watch and listen to smart characters. I would say the same thing about Juno but even more so with this movie.

Screening

Robert couldn’t show up because of  a bizarre incident involving his pants getting stolen. That’s two screenings of two movies he’s been in that he’s totally missed.

Danny, Jose, and Maggie showed up. I only talked with Jose – I didn’t get a chance to talk to the others. I left early because I had a killer headache and my stomach was killing me. I saw some cool shorts from the animation class and the beginning of Danny’s edit. Actually, I didn’t leave early … they started pretty late because of technical difficulties, among other things.

Last night I watched Cabin Fever which was very good. Much better than Eli Roth’s other two flicks, Hostel and Hostel 2.

Tres Películas

Last night I caught the 6:15 showing of Cloverfield. Juno started ten minutes after that left out. The previews before Charlie Wilson’s War had just started when Juno got out so I caught that, too.

The whole 20 screen complex was almost empty. Maybe that’s why tix were only $5.75 each. Charlie Wilson’s War was the first time I’ve ever been alone in an auditorium like that. I’ve almost been alone a few times but someone (usually someone loud and obnoxious) always comes in at the last minute or late.

New Category: OPM (Other Peoples’ Movies)

I have a rare date with Nikki tonight. Last evening we’ll have together until Feb 4 which will be, again, the last evening we’ll have together until Feb 20. We’re going to see Juno, which we’re both really excited about. It’s directed by Jason Reitman who did Thank You For Smoking which we both enjoyed and stars Ellen Page who was half the cast of the wonderful Hard Candy which we also both enjoyed. I’ve wanted to see it for a while because of Page, but the multiple Academy Award nominations yesterday certainly helped.

I rented Eastern Promises last night solely based on Viggo’s (we’re on a first name basis) Best Actor nomination. I wasn’t impressed.

I still haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War which I really want to. I have a mild curiosity about Cloverfield and The Orphanage. I would be ashamed over how excited I am about Rambo, but Rocky Balboa was so great I can admit this in public (at least until it comes out and potentially makes me look like an idiot).

Speaking of Rocky Balboa, I saw the alternate ending on the DVD in which he wins the fight. Not only was the writing so stupid it didn’t fit in with the rest of the film, but … it was just awful. Having him lose and still be proud/victorious … it brings the series full circle. Now if only we could wipe the planet clean of every copy of Rocky IV and Rocky V, all would be well in the world.

I can remember eating my way through several boxes of some disgusting cereal as a child over a period of weeks so I could send in the proofs-of-purchase to get a Rocky II poster.