Movies

THE MOVIE MEME as stolen from Dave over at Blogography

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.

Way too many to list. All the original Star Wars films, the Indiana Jones series, the original Die Hard, The Rock, Casablanca, The Guns of Navarone, The Eagle Has Landed, Lion King, and dozens more.

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.

Star Wars A New Hope.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.

A few including Kevin Spacey, Anthony Hopkins, John Cusack, Michael Caine to name a few.

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Just got the recently released Casino Royale on DVD and I enjoy the edginess of Daniel Craig’s performance as well as the well put together story. The action is fast paced and as is typical of Bond movies the action begins before the opening credits roll. As part of the DVD extras there is a feature titled Bond Girls are Forever hosted by Maryam d’Abo. The show has Maryam crisscross the globe to interview some of the Bond Girls from the beginning with Ursula Andress to current Bond girl Eva Green. It is interesting to see how the Bond Girls have evolved from damsel in distress to “Kick Ass” ladies who are both a mental and in some cases a physical challenge for James Bond. The current Bond girl Eva Green is a successful, intelligent career woman who mentally spars with James Bond before falling to his charms. Throughout the evolution one thing has remained constant James Bond will get the girl no matter how “Kick Ass” she turns out.

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Jury is still out on whether Daniel Craig will make it as James Bond or if he will go the way of George Lazenby. Trailer from new movie Casino Royale.

Check it Out!

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I checked out this site a while ago, it is pretty good. If you want to compare your movie tastes to mine give the test a try.

Click the link and try the test and see how we compare. Leave a comment and let me know.

http://www.flixster.com/servlet/invite/102894986dnoyvanmjvABCm

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I was really looking forward to seeing The Pink Panther as I enjoy Steve Martin in most of his movies. While I was a little suspect with the inclusion of Kevin Kline as Inspector Dreyfus I figured I would give it a chance. As with most remakes I was severely disappointed by the attempt to remake a classic comedy. In the original, Peter Sellers is a genius in his portrayal of the bungling Closseau whose take on the English language is hilarious. The fights between Closseau and Kato were classic battles and made the original Pink Panther movies memorable. Also the continually bumbling Closseau drove his boss Chief Inspector Dreyfus played by Herbert Lom completely mad as Closseau solved case after case.

The remake misses on all counts up to and including the casting of both Martin and Kline as the main characters. A major flaw of movies which were originally made with an international audience in mind are they are now aimed at American audiences in an attempt to raise the box office. This impacted the casting and locales which includes a visit to New York City for no perceptible reason and it added no comedy value to the movie. The inclusion of Beyonce Knowles serves no purpose and she added nothing to the except to sing a song. Kevin Kline offers a very poor performance as a “Frenchman?”, his accent was terrible as well as his character.

Overall the remake is a horrible attempt to possibly bring a successful franchise back to life.

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The original starring Micheal Caine was made in 1969 and set in of all places Italy and concerned the planning and followthrough of a plan to steal 4 million in gold. The movie is a campy comedy with a very memorable car scene with three Austin Minis. The remake made in 2003 starred Mark Wahlberg and cast other unforgetables, with the exception of Donald Sutherland and Jason Statham of The Transporter. The remake of course is slanted towards an American audience so the primary casting and story reflects this slant. Even though the title is the same as the original and there are Minis that is all that this one has to compare it to the original.
The story of the remake while somewhat intriguing misses when we take the location and move it to Los Angeles. Also killing off Donald Sutherland really did not add anything except to try and make a side story which really did not work. The whole addition of Charlize Theron to the story is a waste as she only wants revenge. The movie should have been called the LA Job, but that is not enticing to the audiences.

The original was done with some comic elements and was entertaining with the twists and misses during the caper. The stars were the Minis and the car chase. The movie has some funny elements and the writing is what you would expect but overall it is entertaining. It is worth it for a chance to see Benny Hill.

Overall the remake was a waste and in true Hollywood fashion another version to be titled The Brazillian Job is on the way.

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While their have been several incarnations of the telling of the sinking of the Titanic. Two that come to mind are 1958’s A Night to Remember and 1997 Titanic. Yes the biggest grossing film of all time is a remake of a classic. The better of the two is A Night to Remember which was an accurate retelling of the sinking based on the book of the same title. Even though it was made in the 50’s it had high production values and made good use of special effects. As for the version from James Cameron, he interposed a sappy love story over some spectacular use of special effects to try and bring the stroy alive. While the Cameron version had the benefit of actual details from the sunken wreck it wrecked the story by putting the crappy love story in the middle of the tragedy. It did not need to have gratuitous nudity to make the story. (I know Cameron needed to appeal to an American audience to put butts in the seats)
A Night to Remember is definitely worth seeing for both the historical accuracy and excellent storytelling.

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Is Hollywood only capable of rehashing old stories or should I say previously made movies. Yes I believe some movies can be remade and maybe they will be better but at some point the Movie Big Wigs need to give their collective heads a shake and start hiring writers that can come up with original ideas. It is not that every movie is a remake but it is surprising how many movies are remakes. So I figured over the next couple of weeks or more I would look at the movies in my collection as well as some of the movies I have seen lately. seems that the choices that are made as to which movies

From my collection we have The Manchurian Candidate which was a originally made in 1962 with Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey as Sgt Raymond Shaw. The premise is Raymond Shaw is a war hero from Korea whose Father has political aspirations and will use his son the hero to further those aspirations. Frank Sinatra plays his former commanding officer Ben Marco, from Korea who is experiencing nightmares about their time in Korea. As the story develops we see that Raymond Shaw is not what he seems and the nightmares that Ben Marco is experiencing maybe the key.

The remake made in 2004 started Denzel Washington on the role of Ben Marco and Liev Schreiber as Raymond Shaw. Sam premise except this time the army unit was in Kuwalt. The Raymond Shaw character is the one with political aspirations or should I say it is his Mother who is pulling the strings. As in the original there is an underlying conspiracy which follows a develops as Raymond Shaw gets closer to the White House.

If you haven’t seen the movie and do not want to spoil it do not highlight below.

The Name of the original movie is taken from the fact that the army unit in which the title characters served was captured by the Chinese and brainwashed with Raymond Shaw to be used as a weapon to kill so that the Chinese could control who got into the White House. In the remake it was a corporation Manchurian Global which had brainwashed the unit and Raymond Shaw was to be the next president of the United States, a dream come true for any corporation to control the White House.

Which is better? Well I enjoyed the story of both I especially liked the original story as well as the acting of both Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey. The buildup was believable and the ending made sense. In the remake their were too many wild angles which just seemed too far fetched and took away from the central premise. The ending was predictable and was not well developed. While I like Denzel Washington I did not think he was at full capacity in this role.

In this case the original was better than the remake.

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Director and ex-Monty Python Terry Gilliam is fine with people pirating his movies, as long as they don’t screw up the encoding!

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Here is the top 100 Movies from AFI...American Film Institute
Highlight the ones you have seen. Leave me a comment letting me know how many you have seen.

I have seen all but 15 and own 17 on DVD.

1. CITIZEN KANE (1941)

2. CASABLANCA (1942)

3. THE GODFATHER (1972)

4. GONE WITH THE WIND (1939)

5. LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1962)

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

7. THE GRADUATE (1967)

8. ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)

9. SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993)

10. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)

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I was flicking through channels the other day and came across the movie In the Line of Fire with Clint Eastwood playing on Showcase Action. It was about 10 minutes into the movie and as I hate commercials I decided to watch it on DVD. I watched the movie on DVD and even took a 20 minute break to eat lunch. After I finished watching the movie I noticed that the movie was still playing and their was about 20 minutes left to play. I could not believe it a movie which is 128 minutes long was still playing over 2 and half hours after it started. I checked the TV guide and it showed that running time for the movie to be 3 hours. I watched the remainder of the movie and there were 4 sets of commercials before the credits rolled.

I could not believe that a movie could be extended by 50 minutes. People ask me why I buy DVDs and I think the reason is obvious. Besides the fact that most channels will butcher movies for language and other content they deem inappropriate I will censor what I view Thank You Very Much! I can understand adding 8-10 minutes within the hour, I don’t like it but I understand it. Television is only getting worse as more channels come out it seems like they don’t care that they are pissing off the viewing public.

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Someone asked me recently what my favorite movie was, I was unable to give them an answer. I enjoy movies and it is difficult for me to name a single movie which I could call my favorite. I have thought about which movie I could say is my favorite and I had to narrow it down to a couple. I think I would break down my favorites to the following catagories Classic, Christmas, Modern and Comedy.

• Classic Casablanca
• Christmas It’s a Wonderful Life
• Modern Braveheart
• Comedy Ghostbusters

So this got me to thinking about some of my other favorites including favorite actor, hero and villian

• Actor Clint Eastwood / Sean Connery/ Kevin Spacey
• Hero Indiana Jones
• Villian Hans Gruber from Die Hard
  

Let me know which movies are your favorites.

Update: I added Sean Connery in my Favourite Actors.

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There are several movies I want to see that look interesting. I have an extensive movie collection and will normally be patient and wait till they come out on DVD to see them. Sometimes you have to see them on the big screen, like King Kong. I have listed the movies I am planning to see at the theater

• Syriana
• Munich
• Harry Potter
• DaVinci Code

Not a large list but thse are some that should be seen on the big screen.

Syriana,Munich,Harry Potter,Da Vinci Code

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Went to see King Kong before Christmas and even though it is 3 hours long it needs to be to fit in the story. The story is well put together with a good buildup to the first meeting with the big guy. The time spent on Skull Island was a little long in my opinon with the time spent with the dinosaurs and prehistoric bugs stretched a little bit too long. The characters were good for the most part Naomi Watts was prefect as the damsel and the Ship’s Captain and First mate were well cast. Jack black seemed out of place in a dramatic role and seemed to be out of his depth. Not sure who would have worked in the role but jack was not the right fit. Also Adrien Brody did not come across as the typical leading man and did not convince me that he was more than just a writer caught in circumstances.

The special effects were impressive and the big guy looked very real with incredible facial expressions. I really liked that the story mirrored the original and the film makers did not try and bring into present day or the future. Peter Jackson did an impressive job of telling the love story of Kong and Ann Darrow. Peter Jackson shows he is a genius and love to tell great stories in sweeping visuals. I am really looking forward to more from this great director.