Back to Classics

After watching a number of sci-fi movies/series lately ...
decided to watch a few classics the last couple of days.

The Fountainhead (1949) - thought provoking
It's about intellectual property - an architect's work.
He dared to design his own way and demanded ownership.
His unique designs reminds me of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) - romance abroad
Three American girls working in Rome find love.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) - AFI pick of the week

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) - fantasy romance

Weekend Movies

Saturday was crime drama movies.
We wanted something more intelligent.
They all had to do with computers/hackers.

Swordfish (2001) starring John Travolta
Convicted hacker played by Hugh Jackman
is recruited by Halle Berry to work for Travolta.
He has to do it because his daughter is being held.
In the end the federal authorities recognize that.
So he and his daughter are allowed to reunite.

Firewall (2006) starring Harrison Ford
Bank's security expert is forced to hack for crocks.
His family was held in their home while he was to continue
to go to work and find a way for them to hack into system.
His wife was played by Virginia Madsen
and his assistant was Mary Lynn Rajskub.

Johnny Mnemonic (1995) starring Keanu Reeves
This one had a sci fi element.
He was hired to carry in his brain data.
The problem is they overload him causing problems.
The challenge is to get the information out
preferably without him losing his life.

Sunday night Randy watched the Detroits Tigers.
So I decided to watch a few movies on my own.

Flirting with Disaster (1996)
A comedy starring so many good people.
The cast aside this was a pretty odd story.

Casanova's Big Night (1954)
A classic comedy starring Bob Hope.
I had seen this before; wanted to see it again.

Adventure Movies

The AFI movie tonight was Easy Rider (1969).
I guess it depicted the hippie-stoner life style.
Rather than find other movies like that ...
I decided to take the "adventure" element
to find other movies to watch with it.

Earthsea (2004)
Listed genres as fantasy, drama, adventure
Admittedly I have never read the books it is based on.
I really liked this - it kept my interest thru out
moreso than Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings.
It does seem to be a cross between the two -
it has a magic school for wizards like Harry Potter
and there is the adventure/quest like the Lord of the Rings.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Listed genres as adventure, comedy, sci-fi
All I can really say is this is very odd.

Toni Collette movies

These were actually watched on Wednesday.
Randy was out and about all afternoon.
So the first two movies I watched alone.
Randy was not interested in seeing them (again).

Clockwatchers (1997) - imdb trailer
Its about the life of office temps. If you have ever worked in an office environment you will see that it is pretty true to life. The new girl gets embraced by three other temps. They socialize both at the office and after hours. They believe everyone is out to get them and keep them as temps especially when a new permanent is hired from outside their group. The movie reminded me of Working Girl and there was even a referrence to Tess. The "clockwatchers" aka temps are played by Toni Collette, Parker Posey, Lisa Kudrow and Alana Ubach.

I thought I was going to watch "gal pal" movies ...
but after watching this movie I was interested
to see what else Toni Collette had acted in.

About a Boy (2002) - imdb trailer
This is a romantic comedy based on a Nick Hornby's best-selling novel. Hugh Grant plays a young-ish man who decides to pick up single mothers by pretending to be a single parent himself when in reality he does not even work but lives off an inheritance of sorts. He ends up being involved in the life of the son of one of the ladies he dates friend. The boy who has a depressed mother in turns helps Hugh's character grow up and find purpose in his life. After starting to watch it realized I had seen it before. Toni Collette played the boy's mother.

Evening (2007) - imdb trailer
This is a romantic drama in which a dying mother, Anne, remembers her past and the "big mistake" and proclaims the love of her life is Harris - a name the two daughters, Nina and Constance, have never heard of before. The story goes back in forth between current day and fifty years past when Anne was maid of honor at her best friends high-society Newport wedding. Her best friend, Lila, has a brother that is interested in Anne while she is taken with wedding guest Harris. This back and forth element is reminiscent of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and the old love element is even more like The Notebook.

SO impressive is the cast of amazing woman actresses:
Claire Danes as young Anne and Vanessa Redgrave as dying Anne
Toni Collette as Nina and Natasha Richardson as Constance
Mamie Gummer as young Lila and Meryl Streep as older Lila
Glenn Close as Lila's mother and Eileen Atkins as night nurse

Movies This Weekend

Friday -

Patton (1970) starring George C. Scott
It is indeed a war drama biography.
It was somewhat bearable since not much blood.
It was more about his insane thoughts and cruel ways.

Hotel Rwanda (2004) starring Don Cheadle
I would consider it a historical drama about war.
It's the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager.
He helps keep his family and others alive during genocide.

300 (2006) starring no one I know
It's a action drama about a historical war.
It takes place back in 480 BC during the rule of Xerxes.
The Spartans attack by sending 300 of their finest warriors.

Saturday -

Jumanji (1995) and Zathura: A Space Adventure (2005)
Jumanji stars Robin Williams and Bonnie Hunt.
Zathura stars some kids with Tim Robbins as father.
These movies are family fantasy. I preferred the latter.

Movies This Week

Thought I would update the blog with the movies watched thus far.

Monday and Tuesday we watched the first five Harry Potters.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
I had never seen them before and Randy was anxious for me to.
They were okay although I am not much into magic and witchcraft.
I preferred the element of friendship and just being a kid.

Wednesday we did crime drama thrillers:
Panic Room (2002) with Jodie Foster
Flightplan (2005) with Jodie Foster
Don't Say a Word (2001) with Michael Douglas
I liked the intelligent and mystery elements of these.

Thursday was a hodge podge - mostly quirky:
The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human (1999)
Dark Star (1974) - I fell asleep - a student film project
People Will Talk (1951) - nice romantic comedy with Cary Grant

Music Everywhere

The AFI pick was The Jazz Singer (1927).
It was mostly a silent movie with musical numbers.
I'll let Randy post more about it later.
We decided to stay with the music theme.

Walk the Line (2005) about Johnny Cash.
I was pleasantly surprised at liking this movie.
Johnny Cash was played by Joaquin Phoenix.
June Carter was played by Reese Witherspoon.
They both performed all the songs themselves.

Chicago (2002) is a great contemporary musical.
While it is a remake the action onscreen was ALIVE.
As with all good musicals it was colorful and energetic.
It was interesting to see well known stars singing and dancing:
Starring Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, and Richard Gere.
Christine Baranski plays the reporter Mary Sunshine.
Queen Latifah plays Matron Mama Morton.

Big Dark House

We are spending the day watching movies.
The first three today were horror in big dark houses.
We watched them in order from newest to oldest.

The Others (2001) - starring Nicole Kidman
I thought it was fairly predictable yet still a good movie.
The only thing I did not totally understand -
was why the dad did not stay once he was reunited.

The Haunting (1963) - starring Julie Harris
Pretty awesome when you consider it was
a black and white independent movie.
Of note: Russ Tamblyn played the nephew

The Spiral Staircase (1945) - starring a mute!!! -
at least Dorothy McGuire was until the very end.
It's a psychological thriller which includes mystery.
Of note: Ethel Barrymore and Elsa Lanchester

After dinner we are headed in a different direction.
Some fantasy and romance and comedy. Oh my!!!
Stay tuned to see what we watch next.

Comedy and AFI

I picked three comedies for the early part of they day.
I thought they would help since I was dealing with pain.
Later in the day the focus changed to the AFI theme ...
of "culture clash/cross cultural" based on imdb keywords.

Fun with Dick and Jane (2005) - only true comedy of the day
stars Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni married and in debt!

Cherish (2002) - includes music from the 80's
Jason Priestly makes a brief appearance

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002)
I definately do NOT buy Jodie Foster as a nun!

Local Hero (1983) - with Burt Lancaster
nice little inexpensive film takes place in Scotland

Broken Flowers (2005) - stars Bill Murray
not really comedic as would be expected with him

My Fair Lady (1964) - stars Audrey Hepburn
won 8 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Actor

In the Land of Women

In the Land of Women (2007) was gretty good.
The write up intrigued me enough to want to watch it.
"His world in complete disorder after his break-up ...
Carter goes to suburban Detroit to care for his sickly Grandmother
and heal his broken heart. Along the way he forms a special bond
with the (Hardwicke) family that lives across from his Grandma,
and changes the life of each woman ... (and) his own life as well."

The main character is played by Adam Brody.
The grandmother is played by wacky, opinionated Olympia Dukakis.
The next door neighbor mother is played by Meg Ryan.
Her two daughters also fall for the Adam's character.

Destructive Relationships

We watched yet another couple of odd movies.
Dead Ringers (1988) and Heavenly Creatures (1994).
They are both about destructive close relationships.
And what is even more scary is that they are both true stories.

Dead Ringers is about very intelligent twin brothers who share
their genetical medical practice and research as well as women.
The real life twins were Stewart and Cyril Marcus.
Their story is told in the 1977 novel titled "Twins".

Heavenly Creatures is about the friendship of two teenage girls.
They are kindred spirits with a very imaginative fantasy life.
The movie and its dialog is from the diary of Pauline Parker.
Pauline Parker eventually devoted life to handicapped children.
Her friend Juliet Hume now writes under the name Anne Perry.

Daddy Deliver Us

We watched two movies that starred Gabrielle Union.

First there was Daddy's Little Girls (2007).
It was written and directed by Tyler Perry ...
but still it was a nice dramatic romance.
The three girls that played sisters really are sisters.
A number of the other actresses are from Girlfriends.

Then we watched Deliver Us from Eva (2003).
It's based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
I did not initially notice that but looking back can see it.
Obviously updated and with a black cast ...
and a different family dynamic (no father image).

License for Sadness

For those confused already ...
I like to come up with interesting titles.
It's a combination of the movies watched.

License to Wed (2007) starring Robin Williams,
Mandy Moore and John Krasinski as the couple
It was an enjoyable enough romantic comedy.

The AFI movie was A Place in the Sun (1951) with
Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters.
I will let Randy talk about that more.

Bonjour tristesse (1958) aka Hello Sadness
It starred Jean Seberg, David Niven and Deborah Kerr.
The father-daughter relationship was a bit much.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday we decided to watch movies with "changes".
This was prompted by Leap Day (the day before).

In the morning we watched The Skeleton Key.
It's a horror flick which ended with a soul tranformation "change".
Seems we picked a lot of odd and weird movies lately.
Randy was sick most of the day and slept.

In the evening we watched A Saintly Switch.
It's a family movie about a husband and wife having problems.
Their children wish theier parents understood each other better.
And sure enough they switch bodies to walk in each other's shoes.

Sunday we watched movies with titles that had special meaning to us.
Most of the movies were pretty weird regardless of the cool titles.

It's All About Love stars Joaquin Phoenix, Claire Danes and Sean Penn.
The love story takes place in 2021 in a world on the brink of disaster:
In summer it snows in New York City and people are flying in Africa.
A weird part is the multiple versions of Claire's character.

Funny Valentine stars Anthony Michael Hall and Marlo Marron.
A truly nice guy has a hard time finding romance in the big city.
His friends place a personal ad for him and screen the respondents.
In the meantime he finally falls for and starts dating a single mom.

Happy Endings stars a lot of well known actors like Lisa Kudrow,
Jason Ritter, Tom Arnold, David Sutcliffe and Laura Dern.
A lot of weird relationships with weird pregnancies and births.

Yes stars Shirley Henderson as the cleaner.
I admit I fell asleep towards the beginning.
Even at that point I could tell it was weird.

Wednesday and Thursday

Randy was done with current data entry task.
So these movies we were able to watch together.

Wednesday: Religious mystery
The Da Vinci Code - it was pretty good
The Code Conspiracy - it was just okay
Wholly Moses! - needed some comedy!

Thursday: Time travel movies
Timequest - very cool -
What if JFK was not assasinated?
Sometimes hard to follow the time lines.
Time After Time - pretty cool -
HG Wells follows Jack the Ripper which used his
time machine to escape to the 20th century.
Primer - too much geek speak
Slow start and hard to follow what was going on.

Serious Sunday #2

We watched a couple of serious movies.
Since it was the Academy Awards day
we also watched a previous Oscar winner.

Paper Clips - amazing documentary *WOW*
It has to do with a school studying the holocaust.
Since it was hard to visualize the 6 MILLION that died.
They decided to collect paper clips which was symbolic.
I strongly recommend this documentary to others.
I am not big into documentaries but this one is great!
Their Paper Clip Project created a Holocaust Memorial.

The Second Chance starring Michael W Smith
I thought this was a great movie with a great message.
I will let each person decide for themselves.

Crash - 2005 best picture Oscar
My girl, Sandra Bullock, is in it!
The same people keep "crashing" into each other.
Its a six degrees of separation concept ...
People are interrelated in each other's lives.

Marine Life

Aquamarine (2006)
I had heard it was a good movie and totally concur.
At first I was thinking it was going to be animated.
When I think mermaid I think The Little Mermaid.
Another great mermaid flick is The Thirteenth Year.

Lady in the Water (2006)
This one was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
He started it at Disney but due to creative differences left.
It's listed at imdb under genres: fantasy, mystery, thriller
The mystery element kept my interest. I really liked it.

We had planned to watch Splash but ran out of time.
We had both seen it before so it was not a big deal.
Personally I love both Tom Hanks and John Candy.

School Days

Decided to mostly focus on movies associated with school.
Simply because it was a holiday which mean "no school".

The Perfect Score (2004) - comedy
An odd combination of high school students ...
decide to steal the answers to the SAT.
They each have their own reason as to why it is unfair.

Bewitched (2005) - romantic comedy
Not about school but loved this as a youngster.
It's a reinvention of the tv show with a great cast...
Nicole Kidman as "Samantha" and Will Ferrell as "Darrin".
Supported by Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine.
It was co-written and directed by Nora Ephron.
She is known for great romantic comedies such as
Sleepless and Seattle, You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally.

Finding Forrester (2000) - drama
It stars Sean Connery as a reclusive author only publishing once.
An "afro-american teen writing prodigy" befriends him.
Randy was anxious for me to watch this. Overall it was okay.
It is slow moving building the characters but ended very well.

P.S. (2004) - romantic drama
This is one I thought would be cool to see.
The plot reminded me of Chance Are which I loved.
I enjoyed it but it still left a lot of unanswered questions.

Movies Day

Originally Monday we were going to do a movie marathon.
With the snow storm to shovel out of did not really have the time.
So decided to kick back today and relax with different movies.

Late Monday into Tuesday we watched Libeled Lady.
It had an impressive cast of actors from the 1930's:
Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and Spenser Tracy.

Mid morning we watched The Reaping starring Hillary Swank.
"... a small town ... suffering from the 10 biblical plagues."
You are never sure if you are in the real world or just dreaming.

Late afternoon we watched Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984).
I thought I'd seen it before but realized I had not.
It starred John Hurt and was based on George Orwell novel.

In the evening we watched Fracture with Anthony Hopkins.
It's a crime, drama, mystery, thriller with mind games.
Ryan Gosling costars as the sometimes reluctant DA.

Amazing Grace

I watched Amazing Grace starring a lot of British actors. Ioan Gruffudd plays William Wilberforce, the man behind getting England to stop the slave trade. Albert Finney plays John Newton, a former slave trader and the author of the song Amazing Grace, who becomes a mentor to Wilberforce. Michael Gambon and Rufus Sewell are the other two British actors I recognized.

The movie was well done in presenting the long struggle that Wilberforce undertook to get the slave trade abolished. The acting was great as well. A movie worth seeing!