For Ratatouille, I present my first (and possibly last) one of those “podcasts” the kids are always talking about these days. Apologies for the sometime wonky audio and the fact that I had a sore throat the day we recorded.
Hollywoodland takes a fictionalized look at the events surrounding the death of George Reeves, best known for his iconic portrayal of the Man of Steel on The Adventures of Superman.
It accomplishes this by introducing a fictional detective, Louis Simo (Adrien Brody), hired by Reeves’ mother to look into the actor’s death. As he investigates, […]
As I stated in my original review, Mulan is a strong entry from Disney animation at a time when they were really blowing hot and cold. The story still has a lot of the formulaic problems that marked Disney films of the day, but it is at least executed very well, with good songs, […]
Pink Floyd The Wall is director Alan Parker’s fever-dream adaptation of the well-known rock opera/album. Now, Parker was (and is) no stranger to films with significant musical content, having directed Fame, Birdy, Evita and The Commitments, to name a few. With The Wall, however, he actually hit a wall named Roger Waters and […]
The original, 1968 version of Mel Brook’s The Producers and its 2005 remake naturally have a lot in common. But there are almost as many differences. As I mentioned in my original review, the biggest change is the expansion of the storyline to include a love story for Leo.
These changes alter the dynamic […]
Spite Marriage is Buster Keaton’s second film for MGM and his final silent feature. He had, in fact, wanted to make this film as a talkie (he was very enthusiastic about sound), but was overridden by studio honchos. This film marks the true transition for Keaton, as the studio began taking full control […]
I’ve said about all I needed to say about Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in my original review. There’s little to add, really.
But I would like to point out that like a lot of the films that have become personal favorites, there’s always something that I notice each time I watch it. This time, […]
Hang ‘Em High is my favorite Clint Eastwood Western. Yes, most would choose a true spaghetti western like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly or A Fistful of Dollars, but Hang ‘Em High is an American film through and through. And if there is a genre that benefits from true American roots, […]
Well, we hit one of my favorites again. This time, it’s my favorite Woody Allen film: Broadway Danny Rose. As far as I’m concerned it’s the perfect balance between the two sides of Allen’s filmmaking. It is a film steeped in show business, has lots of humor, solid and believable drama, and […]
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the single greatest piece of Star Trek material ever created. I say that without fear of serious contradiction. It does everything that made the original Star Trek television series work and engages in none of the excesses and fanwank that marked later films and series.
And […]
Dick Tracy is Warren Beatty’s big-screen adaptation of Chester Gould’s famous comic strip character. Coming only a year after Batman, it is easy to see why it was kind of overshadowed by that much higher profile film. But despite some similarities (composer Danny Elfman, for instance), they are very different projects with very […]
No film has ever f-ed with my head the way Time Bandits did. Now, if you haven’t seen this film, I won’t go into exactly what about it f’ed with my head, but suffice it to say that I think the marketing guys who sold this as a children’s film shouldbe in line for […]
The Lion King is the perfect culmination of all that had been ocurring at Disney Animation since the renaissance begun with The Little Mermaid. With each project, the visuals had become more lush and the stories had become more universal and more widely appealing. But it took the masterstroke (conceived by lyricist Tim […]
The Little Mermaid is another film that I could go on about for days if given the opportunity. The main thing that sets it apart from the Disney animated films that preceded it was the focus on music. This is not surprising, as lyricist Howard Ashman also served as a producer on the […]
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a brilliant film by writer/director Tom Stoppard based on his play of the same name. If you are unfamiliar with the work, the basic premise is that the film follows the activities of Rosencrantz (Gary Oldman) and Guildenstern (Tim Roth) as they weave their way in and out […]
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is my favorite film by director Terry Gilliam. In it, I feel that his growth as a filmmaker since his work on Monty Python and the Holy Grail finally came to fruition. After essentially making three films with the same focus and worldview (Jabberwocky, Time Bandits and Brazil), […]
Caddyshack is one of the best sports films of all time. On the surface, it’s not that different from countless other sports underdog stories. The basic story of a young man trying to sort out his future through the unlikely route of sport is certainly not groundbreaking. But what seperates Caddyshack from […]
THX 1138 is George Lucas’ theatrical expansion of his student film Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138 4EB . It is also the film that ruined Francis Ford Coppola’s first American Zoeptrope film studio.
But the film itself is great. It is, in many ways, the anti-Star Wars: a small, personal story of one person in […]
The films that Ed Wood is best known for are undoubtedly those on which he collaborated with his freind Bela Lugosi: Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and, most famously, Plan 9 from Outer Space. In 1994, director Tim Burton filmed a fictionalized version of the making of these films in Ed Wood.
Glen […]
What made the classic Muppet films stand out is that, like the Muppet Show before them, they didn’t treat them as a puppet show. These were regular, normal comedies that just happened to have puppets in many of the major roles. This is never better represented than in the best of all Muppet […]
Despite the love I felt at the time for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc., I was not at all enthused by the early previews that I saw for The Incredibles. Much of that early ad campaign (including the first teaser trailer) did not look promising, focusing on the comedy of a fat super-hero. […]
When I saw Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery in the theaters, I was extremely impressed. As I have mentioned before, I’m a big fan of 1960s sci-fi and adventure movies like Barbarella and Casino Royale with their big sets and peculiar point of view. It was clear to me that writer/star Mike […]
From the ridiculous (Barbarella) to the sublime. Zelig is, to put it simply, the best mockumentary ever made. To me, anyway. And I’ve already mentioned how much I love This is Spinal Tap, so you know that’s a bold statement. But it deserves no lesser phrase. Year before Forrest Gump […]
There is little left to be said about King Kong, one of the most influential films in motion picture history. It is directly responsible for inspiring a generation of effects makers, including the biggest name in stop-motion, Ray Harryhausen. It inspired Godzilla and countless less successful films and series.
And regardless of its place […]
After delving deeply into the Superman mythos last year, I was in the mood to revisit one of the lesser known corners with 1984’s Supergirl. First of all, it has a lot of problems. The story is a bit nonsensical and the character of Lara/Linda/Supergirl isn’t properly fleshed out. (Is she an […]
You know, I held off watching another film way too long out of some weird sense of not wanting to watch something “unworthy”. But as time has gone on, I’m settling in to watching what I would’ve watched anyway.
First of all, I’ve been on a huge “Hitchhiker’s” kick since last year, when my sister […]
Film #001 - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999)
Film #002 - Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002)
Film #003 - Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Film #004 - Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)
Film #005 - Star Wars: Episode V - The […]
Viewed December 31, 2006
When I started this project, part of the goal was to watch movies I had always intended to see, but had somehow missed. I kicked off the proceeding with what I called “the great unwatched”: Unbreakable. The other movie that qualified for that title is one of my mother’s favorite […]
Viewed December 28, 2006
The Road Home begins with a young man named Changyu (Hao Zheng) learning of the recent death of his father. When he returns to his village, he finds that his mother wishes to have his father’s body carried home by the men of the village (an old custom), despite the difficulties […]
Viewed December 27, 2006
Three Ages is an ambitious comedy from Buster Keaton, where he strives to show how love has changed (but mostly stayed the same) throughout the ages. He does this by illustrating three cases of love: a caveman, a Roman citizen and a modern day man (well, modern for 1923, anyway).
All three […]
Viewed December 20, 2006
Naughty Marietta marked the beginning of one of the most successful film pairings in history, that of Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. MacDonald was already a popular film star when seh was paired with Eddy, who was a well-known (but not super-famous) singer. All that changed after this film and […]
Viewed December 8, 2006
Good luck finding information on The Wild Goose. If my job hadn’t required me to give tech support to a recent event where the film was shown, I don’t know how I would have ever learned about it and that’s a shame. Writer/Director Bruce Cronin made several low budget films […]
Viewed November 28, 2006
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut is a project I feel like I’ve waited for my whole life. (In reality, I only learned about it five or six years ago.) I could go on and on about why I loved this movie and why it’s so much better than the […]
Viewed November 19, 2006
The Parent Trap is the remake of the 1961 Haylie Mills film of the same name. It introduced the world to the talented and not-yet-troubled Lindsay Lohan and helped usher in Disney’s recent live-action family comedy successes.
The setup follows the same basic outline at the original film: twin girls are separated […]
Viewed November 7, 2006
Mater and the Ghostlight is a cute little short that is included on the Cars DVD and features a new adventure for Mater, Lightning McQueen and the gang from Radiator Springs. It’s not Pixar’s best DVD exclusive short (that would remain, IMHO, Mike’s New Car), but it’s still a good one.
The key […]
Viewed November 3, 2006
Okay, so what the heck is the big deal about High School Musical? What should have been just a typical Disney Channel Original Movie burst onto the scene as a minor cultural phenomenon. The CD is the best-selling album of the year. The DVD sold like hotcakes (and there’s […]
Viewed October 25, 2006
Vincent is a short animated film by director Tim Burton, made while he was still a working animator with Disney utilizing the stop-motion techiques he would eventually perfect for The Nightmare Before Christmas.
It tells the story of a young boy named Vincent who is fascinated by Vincent Price and imagines his life […]
Viewed October 21, 2006
You know, I don’t know what I expected from Gilda. I mean, I knew it was considered a classic, but I guess I just never really got a sense of what the film was all about. I’m not sure what I expected, but I rather think itwas something much darker […]
Viewed October 10, 2006
Scary Movie 4 is even more all over the board than the previous entries in the series both in the quality and the sources of its jokes.
The first odd thing about Scary Movie 4 is the filmmakers’ apparent insistance to maintain continuity with the previous film. The first twenty minutes of […]
Viewed October 8, 2006
Anyone who thinks Bela Lugosi was a one-hit wonder just needs to see Son of Frankenstein. Not only does it sport a ripping good story and beautiful sets, it features one of Lugosi’s greatest characters (and one that people seem to seldom remember he created): Ygor. But he’s no […]
Viewed October 4, 2006
Dracula’s Daughter is the surprisingly good follow-up to the classic 1931 film Dracula.
The story picks up almost immediately after the destruction of Count Dracula at the end of the first film. (Although John and Mina Harker have disappeared). Professor Von Helsing (Edward Van Sloan) is found with the […]
Viewed September 30, 2006
I can’t even begin to go into the long, strange history of Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation.* The short version is that in 1982, three kids of about twelve or thirteen years of age began remaking Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot-for-shot. Finally completing the film in 1989, […]
Viewed September 21, 2006
There are three reasons I bought Brother Bear. First, I’ve been buying a lot of Disney films lately and this one popped up during by searching. Second, it features songs by Phil Collins. Even if I didn’t like the film, there’s a good chance I’d like the songs. […]
Viewed September 15, 2006
This will seem like heresy to some (perhaps many) of you. I was utterly bored by Fargo. Now, I always seem to blow hot and cold with the Coen brothers. I either love ‘em (Miller’s Crossing, The Hudsucker Proxy) or hate ‘em (Barton Fink). This time, however, I […]
Viewed September 13, 2006
The history of the production that resulted in The Emperor’s New Groove is, by now, almost legendary. It began life as a sweeping epic film entitled “Kingdom of the Sun” and told the story of a selfish prince (voiced by David Spade) who switches places with a peasant named Pacha (voiced […]
Viewed September 5, 2006
OK, right off the bat, twenty points to Martin Short for kicking off his film Jiminy Glick in Lalawood with an impersonation of David Lynch. I mean, who does David Lynch? Who knows film well enough to know what David Lynch is like? Martin Short, that’s who. In […]
Viewed August 27, 2006
Another in the BBC’s line of “ShakespeaRe: told”, The Taming of the Shrew is much more successful than the last one I watched, Macbeth. I think this is partly because Shrew is a comedy and so therefore lends itself more naturally to adaptation than a drama that was based on historic […]
Viewed August 25, 2006
Okay, so I finally picked up Volume One of “The Chronological Donald”, the special edition 2-disc set that Disney released featuring Donald Duck’s first 36 cartoons (that don’t feature Mickey Mouse). Now, I’ve not seen most of these, so I’m making my way through them slowly, a few at a time. […]
Viewed August 22, 2006
CQ is a love letter to 1960s European cinema by Roman Coppola (son of Francis Ford Coppola). It takes place in 1969 France and tells the story of Paul, a young filmmaker who has come there to make “important” films. His major work is a document of his life, where […]
Viewed August 11, 2006
Back in 1992, when Quentin Tarantino was the poster boy for “new cinema” with his groundbreaking film Resevoir Dogs, I was more impressed by Robert Rodriguez’ film El Mariachi. There’s no question that Resevoir Dogs is more professional (especially the acting talent) and slicker. But El Mariachi showed that Rodriguez […]
Viewed August 9, 2006
Shattered Glass tells the true story of Stephen Glass, an up-and-coming young journalist at The New Republic who was found in 1998 to have fabricated facts, quotes and even people in many (if not most) of his articles.
Glass is played by Hayden Christensen (best known as Anakin Skywalker in Episodes II & […]
Viewed August 1, 2006
Ice Age: The Meltdown has confirmed something that I felt for a while: that production company Blue Sky is the only studio that really gives Pixar a run for their money quality-wise. I’ve still not seen Robots, but Ice Age was the first non-Pixar CGI animated film I ever bought as […]
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 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 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 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 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 […]
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 […]