What you watchin' tonight?

Never got to "Enders' Game" cuz I fell asleep at 9:30 last night...haha. Oh well, I can always re-borrow it at a later date.

I ended up watching the first 6 episodes of Community while I cleaned the new apartment.

Had an interesting evening with Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. I had not seen either of these, and found 48 Hrs. much more enjoyable and funny. BHC suffered from development hell and it shows. Without much of it to be convincing, and Brest's mediocre direction throwing out sour notes too often, it just doesn't gel like Hill's stylish direction and the rock solid chemistry between Nolte and Eddie in 48. But BHC was still enjoyable, regardless, just very flimsy.

My main interest in watching these was because I remember reading about how terribly they were received by the moral majority due to their "extreme graphic violence." Well, damn how times have changed. While Hill is known for his depictions of realistic violence such as here, Brest barely gives us any squibs. The body count and visceral impact of both films combined is less than what I've seen on modern television. Compare these movies to, say, Dredd, where a dude's face literally gets blown off by point-blank automatic fire, and one has to scratch their head as to why the kind of criticism of movie violence yesterday hasn't appeared for movies today. Yet we'll always get the condemnation of screen sex of any form.

48 Hours is great, I saw it theatrically when it was first released, I convinced my Mother to take me. It seemed violent in 1981, not so much these days. One of the better action/comedy combinations.

I just started season 2 of Community.

I actually prefer "Beverly Hills Cop II" over the original. I watched the first "BHC" with my sons a few nights ago. They had no idea who Eddie Murphy was till I told them he was the voice of Donkey in the "Shrek" movies. Man, that made me feel hella old. Haha

48 Hrs. really stayed with me, I'm still chuckling on the inside at a few parts. I may see the sequel tonight. Saw the first 30m of Peter Weir's Witness last night but fell asleep I was so dog tired.

As for BHC, I need to see II but III was my favorite Eddie Murphy movie growing up. I always like Landis' direction and the theme park parody. From what I've read the issue with the second one is it was so weighted with action that it forgot the comedy. Of course, knowing it was directed by Tony Scott--a man I got along with only slightly better than with Jerry B--I can see this.

I only saw BHC III once - in the theatre when it came out. I thought it kinda sucked, haha. I seem to remember it having a cheap, made-for-TV look to it.

Tonite we netflixed a couple of vintage B&W cheapies - "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (1957, Roger Corman) and "Attack of the Puppet People" (1958, Bert I. Gordon).

I watched Transcendence and it was a confusing, badly directed mess of a movie. The only way the plot would have worked is in a mini-series format, they bit off way too much for a 2 hour movie. Everything is so truncated to to fit it all in that it's almost like watching a 2 hour trailer for a TV series.

S.D. wrote:

I watched Transcendence and it was a confusing, badly directed mess of a movie.  The only way the plot would have worked is in a mini-series format, they bit off way too much for a 2 hour movie.  Everything is so truncated to to fit it all in that it's almost like watching a 2 hour trailer for a TV series.  

I had a bad feeling about this one. Also was the story pretty derivative of Lawnmower Man? The trailers made it seem that way.

It's a lot more complicated than Lawnmower Man, I guess there are some similarities but it's surface. The saving grace of the movie is Rebecca Hall, everyone else is basically sleepwalking through their parts , she's the only 3-dimensional character in the film. But still, it's not enough to salvage this mess.

Saw some good stuff recently, including Dr. No which I mentioned in the Bond thread:

THE KING'S SPEECH - Poor newly-throned King George has a stammer, and it's up to a speech therapist to remedy him in time for his first speech at the dawn of WWII. Though it gets a little too sentimental for my taste at times, this is easily overcome by profound performances all around, a terrific attention to detail in costume and set design, and some really winning dialogue. I tried fighting back tears at the end but failed. The direction by Tom Hooper is refreshing with unique pacing and framing, which is profound considering his failures with Les Miserables.

PITCH PERFECT - NOT what I was expecting, at least to some degree. My wife chose a chick flick for our Friday night movie (all fair since I usually do the picking) and inside I was grooooaning beforehand. My fear was for a feature-length Glee emulation about collegiate A cappella competitions scripted to formula ad filled with the contemporary radio hits I abhor. Rather, I was treated to a surprisingly funny romp with some unexpected turns and characters that aren't as stock as I was afraid of. This was thanks to a snappy script by 30 Rock/New Girl creator and writer Kay Cannon that reminds one of Clueless. Also appreciated is the talents of lead Anna Kendrick, whose understated maneuvers are completely convincing. The final number is a cheer-inducer. It's not great (and sadly it is filled with all that music I hate so much) but it made for some great date entertainment.

DR. STRANGELOVE - let's just say I can't get enough of this movie.

FARSCAPE - one of my favorite Sci-Fi programs that truly deserves a revival (and is getting one!), the characters here of the biomech ship Moya are so well-rounded and enjoyable that you forget some of the plot holes surrounding astronaut Chrichton's sudden arrival. The science, for the most part, is plausible, which gets big props from me. Fun stuff that is also a bittersweet reminder of the Sci-Fi Channel that was...

Watching Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation now.

I'm a big fan of Anna Kendrick.  Initially I was afraid to see Pitch Perfect for the same basic reasons you mentioned.  Thankfully I was relieved that she wasn't slumming it, I enjoyed the film very much.  I enjoyed the sing-offs, even if I don't like the songs that much the cast sells it convincingly.  Intelligent script as well.  The film was made very cheaply, the budget was around $17 million...they made over $113 million in worldwide box office.

Elizabeth Banks (who has a cameo as one of the judges and was also the executive producer) is currently directing the sequel Pitch Perfect 2 which will be out next May.  I'm happy they promoted her to Director, she's a talented comedienne and I think she'll do a good job.  

>>>>>

The King's Speech is great...

S.D. wrote:

I'm a big fan of Anna Kendrick.  Initially I was afraid to see Pitch Perfect for the same basic reasons you mentioned.  Thankfully I was relieved that she wasn't slumming it, I enjoyed the film very much.  I enjoyed the sing-offs, even if I don't like the songs that much the cast sells it convincingly.  Intelligent script as well.  The film was made very cheaply, the budget was around $17 million...they made over $113 million in worldwide box office.

Elizabeth Banks (who has a cameo as one of the judges and was also the executive producer) is currently directing the sequel Pitch Perfect 2 which will be out next May.  I'm happy they promoted her to Director, she's a talented comedienne and I think she'll do a good job.  

>>>>>

The King's Speech is great...

Kendrick is talented and cute as hell too. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to the sequel. THIS ISN'T LIKE ME LOL. But Banks is directing?? That's awesome; the other thing I loved about the movie was the banter between the two judges. Fucking hilarious.

Francis Ford Coppola's THE CONVERSATION - my God, what a great, great movie! I almost enjoyed this more than Godfather II! Nothing but total praise for this, a movie that is right up my alley, a complex character study and suspense thriller wrapped up in one tight package. Gene Hackman, who looks twice his age in 1974, plays a paranoid private eavesdropper who is riddled with guilt for a past job that had killed people. Now he's on the trail of a couple for the director of a corporation (bit part by Robert Duvall) and his henchman (Harrison Ford!). It turns into a series of twists and turns where you get wrapped up in Hackman's esoteric psyche and the puzzling plot itself. Very deliberate, with some BAD-ASS, and I mean BAD-ASS shot choices, with a fascinating piano-musique concrete score by the great David Shire. The fun here is trying to figure out the true meaning of the recorded conversation between the couple as Hackman enhances the audio (pre-NCIS style!) throughout the entire film. Highly recommended. One of my favorite sequences is Hackman's first personal confession to another woman; the camera follows the same tracking three times from her face to his, with each shot starting a different point in his story. I haven't seen a movie this good in a long-ass time.

WITNESS - Peter Weir has never let me down, and finally getting around to see this further solidifies that point (hell, I'm even a fan of his much-maligned THE MOSQUITO COAST). A near-great movie in which Harrison Ford actually gets to stretch his acting muscles by way of subtlety and nuance. Kelly Preston, however, is the true shine here. She is drop-dead gorgeous, even with minimal makeup and an Amish costume, and her acting truly moved me (did they really have to put her in Top Gun??). The photography here is sweeping, the score (Weir loves his synthesizers) is quaint but fitting, and the portrayal of Amish culture is the most fascinating aspect. My only complaint is Ford's character is pretty much a blank page, although the makes Ford's performance even more fascinating by the way he uses body language, tone, and facial gesturing to make the character his own. If you really think about it, the script is the weakest link here and could fit a Lifetime Network movie-of-the-week; it's truly Weir's soft and subtle direction and the poignant cast talents that make this so memorable. Still trying to figure out the last shot, though; I'm positive it means something. Look for an early stint by a young Viggo Mortenson.

The Conversation is Coppola's best film, easily. It's also one of the best movies of the 1970s and that's saying a lot since that decade was chock full of amazing movies.

S.D. wrote:

The Conversation is Coppola's best film, easily.  It's also one of the best movies of the 1970s and that's saying a lot since that decade was chock full of amazing movies.  

Yeah, I had no idea. I always thought it was just a minor hit for him. Quite a shock for me.

The 70's really was the golden era for me. I've seen so many great movies from that period, and have so many more to go...

WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT - my oldest (5), who just had his tonsils out, wanted to watch this in his vicodin-induced stupor rather than submit to bedtime. He enjoyed it as much as I did when I was 8 in the theater. I still think it's rather dense for kids who don't really understand the Chinatown-influenced plot and gumshoe noir parody. But there's something still fun for them to enjoy with all the cartoons running around. Watching it for the twentieth or so time, I'm still amazed at how they pulled this off; it really does have some magic to it. I'll never forget skipping church with my family on Sunday morning to see this (a rare occurrence with my parents) in the theater and the stone sour look on my mom's face as we left and she said, "that was NOT appropriate for children." She was so mad she began a wild boycott with Disney--didn't last very long haha.

PRINCESS MONONOKE - holy shit. I've seen a handful of Miyazaki, and was NOT expecting this, the single most elaborate animated feature I've laid eyes on. I'm not a huge fan of anime but it never ceases to surprise me. I always go in with low expectations and the result is sheer shock at the pure intelligence and ideas put forth by the script, and then the quality of the animation (if you can get past the exaggerated facial histrionics). Here we have an epic fable, and I mean epic like Tolkien, that I couldn't quite follow due to its complexity and layers of eastern mythology. Nonetheless I registered easily thanks to the brilliance of the animation, the depth of the characters, the elegance of the animals, the central conflict, the deliberate direction (great uses of silence), and gorgeous score. Fuck Jackson's overrated LOTR. This is what fantasy is all about.

I started watching F-Troop last weekend so I'll continue that tonight after some homemade red chili cheese tots.

Rockford Files and Kojak back to back!!! Awesome!!!! Gotta love that MeTV.

A couple concert videos:

Rush - Time Machine: Live in Cleveland 2011
Steven Wilson - Get All You Deserve

My 11 year old found a hysterical old 70s TV movie on YouTube called "Killdozer," about a an otherworldly force that turns a bulldozer into a sentient killing machine. It was a frickin hoot!

^^I put that on in the background while doing some of my taxes (yeah, I'm really late). I can't believe I've never heard of it before. Hilarious!

EXAM - People with Netflix Instant: Go. Watch. This. Now. This is an obscure GEM of a find and left my wife and I unexpectedly breathless. It's minimalism in the form of the equally awesome Cube. Several candidates applying for a dream job at an unknown corporation are placed in a room to take an exam in 80 minutes, the final test before hiring. They are given four rules: don't leave the room, don't talk to the security guard, don't talk to the invigilator behind the two-way mirror, and do not soil the exam paper on their desk. Best of all, the exam paper is blank. What follows is a mind fuck that has the candidates working together and against each other in a tone reminiscent of a brutality film yet can't be called a horror film. The script is hyper-intelligent yet easily comprehended, the acting is believable, the characters well-sketched, and the twist is the best I've seen since Oldboy. It's worth your 80 minutes, trust me.

BEVERLY HILLS COP II - I'm with Keith here; this is much more enjoyable than the first (IMO) underrated ground-breaker. This is most likely due to a script that hasn't gone through several thousand rewrites over the course of ten years, thus resulting in a more cohesive fluidity. However, several points:

1. Same problem I had with the first film: every time Eddie gives a spiel to misdirect someone, the assumption is always the same--that the other person be a complete and clueless idiot. Eddie is about a convincing as a Sprint CSR yet the victim falls prey to his antics all too easy.

2. Even though the plot summary is fairly simple, the way they go about solving it is a mess and completely incomprehensible. I had no idea what was going on or who's who etc. What made it more absurd is the semi-comical way Judge Reinhold's character summed the whole thing up at the end ("that guy did this and then went to that guy and they both gave these to that guy etc.).

3. Damn, what a weak villain. Dude barely gets screen time, is acted out by a name with muscle, and the payoff, in which you THINK there's gonna be a standoff between he and Axel, just made me laugh. And I thought Dr. No was poorly conceived.

4. Judge Reinhold is funnier than Eddie Murphy.

Despite all this, the movie was entertaining and could be Tony Scott's best film (I'm more a fan of his brother). I still think I prefer III, but I'm gonna have to check that one out again since it's been so long since I've seen it.

All in all, I get how these were ground breaking for Eddie back in the day but...really, what was the big deal??

That is definitely not Tony Scott's best film. Either "Man On Fire" or "Unstoppable" would be my choice, both excellent films.

Really?? I guess I've been judging books by their cover. Now I'm gonna have to give those a whirl.

Tony's excess tends to bug me, i guess, although i enjoyed Days of Thunder despite it being a complete mess. And i get hate for saying it, but Top Gun is overrated.

Most of his early films are pretty bad, Days Of Thunder and Top Gun both suck massively. The one exception is his debut film "The Hunger" which I still quite like.

However, I really think he was hitting his stride later in his career and I was saddened to hear of his passing, he was still showing growth in his filmmaking.

He was also a prolific producer, both alone and in partnership with Ridley (Scott Free Productions).