Viewed July 27, 2006
The Tree In A Test Tube is one of only two times that Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in color (the other being 1930’s The Rogue Song, in which they appeared in support). It was made for the U.S. Forestry Service as a way of showing all the uses for […]
Viewed July 26, 2006
Wild Man Blues documents Woody Allen’s 1996 European tour playing with his New Orleans Jazz band. Done on a whim, Allen soon found himself the center of a media frenzy as excitement over his rare performances outside his native New York City brought much more attention to the “tour” than Allen […]
Viewed July 25, 2006
Earlier this year, I watched both Chicken Little and Valiant. They are both CGI animated films presented by Disney that received relatively poor reviews (and in the case of Valiant, poor box office). However, I enjoyed both of those films, so I decided to give the most recent “under received” […]
Viewed July 24, 2006
In 1991, Pixar created a couple of short short cartoons for Sesame Street. If you’ve watched the show (and who hasn’t), you know the kind of thing; a simple, straightforward demonstration of a concept or idea. Light & Heavy examines the notion of the difference between light and heavy objects […]
Viewed July 23, 2006
Boy, where to start with this one. As I sit here in my room surrounded by action figures and stacks of video games, I must admit some aspects of The 40-Year-Old Virgin hit a bit too close to home. Putting all that aside, the film is basically a standard-issue romantic […]
Viewed July 22, 2006
The Balloonatic is a rather trite little entry in Bustern Keaton’s series of shorts. A typical series of sight gags, it lacks the more detailed storyline found in Keaton’s better shorts.
Basically, we follow Buster as he finds himself (after a few initial escapades) trapped on a hot air balloon and then […]
Viewed July 21, 2006
In the 1940s RCM Productions began making a series of very short films for projection in jukebox-like machines. These short films were called “soundies” and were, basically, music videos. They would often have a modest storyline, but the main focus was always on whatever song was being performed throughout the […]
Viewed July 20, 2006
After the end of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry spent most of the 1970s trying to get another project going. He came up with several ideas, but one he kept returning to was the idea of future distopia and the man from the past who tries to bring peace back to the […]
Viewed July 18, 2006
What a strange film to have as my 200th. Oh well, it was my decision to watch fanfilms this week. And anyway, James Bond: Killing In The Name, is certainly not the worst one I’ve seen, even if it does fail to live up to its potential.
The biggest problem for […]
Viewed July 18, 2006
So, like, I was totally going to avoid watching the “Pink Five” series, because what little I had seen of it was, like, so stupid but then, I, like, thought that maybe I’d better watch them because they’re, like, really well known and people would wonder why I hadn’t seen them and […]
Viewed July 17, 2006
Batman: New Times often gets tagged as a “LEGO” film. I want to point out right off the bat (get it?) that it, in fact, uses the C3 figures and blocks from Art Asylum (they’re compatible with LEGO). This computer animated short film was created by students at The Digital […]
Viewed July 16, 2006
Now, just about everyone knows Mark Hamill from the Star Wars saga. Some may be aware that he has a flourishing career in voice-over work (Batman, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Justice League). Some might even know that he is a huge comic book fan. All of these elements […]
Viewed July 15, 2006
West of Hot Dog is Stan Laurel’s parody of the 1922 film West of the Pecos. It follows the travails of a young “tenderfoot” who travels to the West to claim his inheritance from a deceased uncle. Along the way, he runs afoul of a group of bandits determined to […]
Viewed July 14, 2006
There’s a warning on the cover of the Repli-Kate DVD: “A Love Story from two of the producers of American Pie!” Note that it’s not from any of the writers or the director of American Pie. Also note that the writers and director of Repli-Kate have done absoultely nothing since […]
Viewed July 13, 2006
There was a time in the late 80s when there was no cooler person on planet Earth than Andy Sidaris. I mean, here’s an Emmy Award-winning sports television director who throws it all away to make action films starring Playboy Playmates. And for a while there, he had a nice […]
Viewed July 12, 2006
Honestly, I can’t imagine why Reefer Madness has gained its cult following except that people just target it because its anti-marijuana. It lacks all of the typical touches that make a “good bad film”.
The plot is fairly straightforward and lacks the convoluted twists and turns that make the “best” of this […]
Viewed July 11, 2006
I don’t care that it’s comedy. I don’t care that he’s a cartoon walking around in the real world. I don’t even care that the material is basically advertising for American Express. The two short films that make up The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman portray a viable, legitimate […]
Viewed July 10, 2006
I’m not going to lie to you. Movies like Nicholas Nickleby are not particularly high on my ‘to-see’ list. (I know, looking at what I’ve seen so far this year, you’re shocked.) It’s not that I have anything against “costume dramas” or anything. As Sense and Sensibility proved, […]
Viewed July 9, 2006
Super Troopers is not the kind of film that’s going to win my endying loyalty like, say, Elf and Anchorman have put me squarely in Will Ferell’s corner. But it is a very funny movie from some guys who take their comedy very seriously (if the DVD commentary is any indication).
Now, […]
Viewed July 8, 2006
The final film in Fatty Arbuckle’s series of shorts, The Garage also marks the end of his official working relationship with Buster Keaton. There would be occasional cameos over the following years as Arbuckle moved to features and Keaton started his own series of shorts, but this is the last time […]
Viewed July 7, 2006
Okay, so here’s the idea: a big-budget film based on a theme park ride. Sounds crazy? that’s because it is. Until the success of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, I daresay no one thought this notion could possibly work. Yet it does, and […]
Viewed July 6, 2006
I bought and watched The Suburbans on the strength of the appearance of Will Ferrell (I know, I know). I mean, it wasn’t just Ferrell, The Suburbans is considered to be in the canon of the Frat Pack films, so I thought it had a good chance of at least being […]
Viewed July 5, 2006
Artifact from the Future: The Making of ‘THX-1138′ is the “making of” documentary available on the DVD release of director George Lucas’ first feature film, THX-1138. It follows the development of the film from its earliest incarnation as Lucas’ school USC school project Electronic Labyrinth: THX-1138 4EB (1967). It then follows […]
Viewed July 4, 2006
The 1910 silent short The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is, perhaps, the oldest film version of L. Frank Baum’s famous ‘Oz’ stories. It is almost certainly the oldest one extant, as the other two made that year, The Land of Oz and Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz, are lost.
The Wizard […]
Viewed July 3, 2006
Kate Capshaw’s character, singer Willie Scott, is the perfect example of all that is wrong with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: beautiful on the outside, devoid of any value on the inside.
Now, I have read that George Lucas originally intended Indiana Jones to be more of a James Bond type […]
Viewed July 2, 2006
Having enjoyed Napoleon Dynamite, I decided to give Nacho Libre a chance. Honestly, I didn’t expect to like it much as I’m not a huge fan of Jack Black. (He can be good, but he always seems to be performing, even when he’s just being interviewed.) But Nacho Libre, like […]
Viewed July 1, 2006
When Brian Henson and Co. revived the Muppet film franchise with 1992’s Muppet Christmas Carol, there was something missing. This continued with the followup, Muppet Treasure Island (1996). A big factor, of course, was the lack of Muppet creator Jim Henson, who passed away in 1990. But perhaps as […]
June, 2006 will forever be remembered as the month of Cars. I worked myself into a Pixar-induced frenzy during the build-up to the release of Cars, including watching a large number of Pixar and pixar-related films for 365 Films (and re-watching all the others - I can’t say how many times I saw The […]
Viewed June 30, 2006
I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy Constantine as much as I did. Of course, that’s not saying much, as I’m no fan of Hellblazer, the comic on which Constantine is based. Maybe if I was I would like it less. I’ve certainly seen my share of scathing comments on […]
Viewed June 29, 2006
Poor, maligned Josie and the Pussycats. A parody of mega-merchandising knocked by critics for being too commercial, Josie (based on the Archie comics and Hanna-Barbera cartoon show of the same name) may be the most mis-understood comic book movie ever.
Now, I’m a big fan of Josie and the Pussycats. Or, […]
Viewed June 28, 2006
I don’t know what I was expecting from SkyHigh, but I’m certain it’s not what I got. The box notes seemed to indicate an intense look at the possibilities of vengeance and the nature of the afterlife. What SkyHigh ends up being about is just another attempt to storm the […]