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Movie Recommendation

Just saw Charlie Bartlett. It was excellent.

-T

Top Movies of the Year

8. The Bourne Ultimatum
7. Zodiac
6. Superbad
5. Paris, je t'aime
4. Gone Baby Gone
3. Juno
2. A Mighty Heart
1. The Lives of Others

*Still haven't seen Assassination..., Charlie Wilson's War, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Atonement, After the Wedding, The Savages, Before the Devil Knows Your Dead, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Away From Her or Michael Clayton, all of which look interesting.  Oh, and eff italics.

-Romanian Jew cousin of Jeff

Juno

...is a really wonderful film.  Finally got to see it after earlier plans were thwarted by a sellout.   

Wedding Crashers was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, but there wasn't a real character in it.  Therefore, hilarious but not a great movie.  I had similar problems with Knocked Up and Superbad.   If schlubby Seth Rogen was going to attract Katherine Heigl, he would probably have to be funny, charming and successful.  But his character was an unfunny, immature dick.  Funny in real life, yes, but his character in the movie was not.  Whatever growth went on as Rogen and Paul Rudd realized they needed to grow up wasn't nearly as profound as some seem to think.  Laughed my ass off but not a great or even very good film.  Superbad was at least a good movie (and awesomely hilarious) but still lacking in the character department.

Juno was amazing.   More females writing these kinds of movies, please.  And the actor who plays her dad needs more work immediately.  He's really good.   

Back From the Dead

Holy hell, it's been a long time since I've written anything. I'm gonna have to figure out this whole typing thing all over again. The past few weeks for me have been one of those miserable ruts that make me wish I was still addicted to painkillers. It started when I got a wave of papers turned in, which always puts me out of commission for a week to ten days, and as soon as I was done with those I caught the plague that has recently engulfed Dallas. At one point four out of the six fifth grade teachers were moderately to seriously ill, which made our meetings a disgusting cacophony of coughs, sneezes, snorts, sniffs, and nose blows. Just as I had reached my sickest point, I got hit with a double whammy of neck cricks, actually one in my neck and one in my back, that kept me from turning my head in either direction and forced me to look at my shoes while walking. I've done some moping around over the past couple of days, which always helps, and I got my new kitchen appliances delivered, so things are looking up, though my dog still hates me because I haven't taken her to the park in three weeks. I have rounded up a few recommendations and observations, however, so here we go...

I read Pat Conroy's Lords of Discipline for the second time, and it maintained it's status as one of my top three books of all time. What an amazing writer. The blurb on the back of my edition says something to the effect of "reading Conroy's writing is like watching Michealangelo paint..." It sounds typically hyperbolic for a back cover blurb, but I couldn't agree more.

For awhile now, I've been curious to see The Devil's Rejects. I'm not sure why, as I'm not into horror movies or blood and gore, but anyways, I finally watched it...and it was damn good. Though I feel a bit uneasy about recommending it, since I can easily see someone taking my recommendation then wanting to beat me senseless afterwards. It is probably the most gory and disturbing movie I've ever seen.

With the Cowboys' loss last night in game 14, I feel I should warn fans that we seem to have entered Dallas' tradition final three games collapse. See the third paragraph of this entry from May for details. With games 15 and 16 on the road, will this year be any different?

I have watched this video, in which someone has overdubbed an X-Men cartoon to make all of the characters talk like pimps, at least fifteen times over the past week or so and it hasn't gotten old yet.

I recently picked up Gonzo, the new oral history of the life of Hunter S. Thompson, and though it started strongly, ultimately it has solidified my feelings about the oral history method of biography. Unless I am a crazy fan of the book's subject (such as with Whores: An Oral biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction) I will get bored within 100 pages and the book will become a coaster.

I also just picked up The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Man in the World, and I'm excited to start it when I get home. Once I'm finished, I'll pick up the author's new one, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible.

And a couple of quick notes on recent TV developments. First, I was extremely disappointed that VJ won the grand prize in America' Most Smartest Model. He was clearly the best contestant, but he was such a douchebag that I was really hoping for the Russian to pull the upset. Oh well, I hope they have a second season. And second, I am dying to recognize someone on To Catch a Predator. I'm convinced it's going to happen, and it'll be freakin' awesome. Chris Hanson, come to Dallas!

-T

Into The Wild

I saw Into The Wild today, and it was terrific. Most movies that are adapted from books wind up being pretty disappointing, but I had been hopeful about this one ever since I heard that Sean Penn was in charge of it. He was loyal to the book and did a wonderful job of showing Chris McCandless's motivations for undertaking his journey. Emile Hirsch also did a fantastic job capturing McCandless's unique charisma that left an impression on everyone he came across. As good as the movie was, though, I would still recommend anyone unfamiliar with the story to read the book first, mostly because I'm obsessed with Krakauer's writing.

And on a different note, my Gamecocks are #6 in the first BCS rankings. Just wanted to point that out.

-T

My latest Distraction

Lately, I've had an odd compulsion to think of as many movies as I can from the first half of my lifetime so I can rewatch them and see how my new impressions square with the memories of my youth. Before I could pursue this, I felt I first had to establish some loose criteria to help me focus my search, and here's what I came up with - I can't have seen the movie since my first viewing, the movie must be ten years old or more, it must be at least moderately obscure (it counts if it was big at the time but has since been mostly forgotten), and it's a bonus if I already know the movie is genuinely bad. Those are some of my favorites, the ones that I know are bad, but I love them despite that fact. So without further ado, here is my barely thought out list of mediocre, ten+ year old, semi-obscure to totally obscure movies to rewatch...

Oh, and I did some meticulous research to find an interesting fact about almost every movie. By meticulous research I mean I read the trivia page for each movie on imdb.com to see what it said.

My Boyfriend's Back - Aside from the fact that I remember this movie being the epitome of rediculous awesomeness, it also stands out for having perhaps the most small roles filled by future stars. Philip Seymore Hoffman, Matthew Fox, and Matthew McConaughey all have parts ranging from very small to, in McConaughey's case, being credited as Guy #2.

Cold Blooded - All I remember from this movie is the exchange Jason Priestley's hitman character has with his shrink in which he responds to a question about his love life with the unforgettable line, "I have been seeing the same hooker for awhile." That's enough for me.

Men at Work - Aside from the brilliant and unappreciated Dean Cameron playing the pizza guy, this movie also pissed off the Japanese garbage collectors' union for its disparaging portrayal of trash collectors. That has to count for something, right?

Julian Po - Basically, this movie - which is about a man who arrives in a small town bent on suicide, thereby inciting a paparazzi-like ferver amongst the locals, all of whom are curious and want to watch him do the deed - is wierd enough to be memorable, and I've never made it to the ending for some reason so I'm damned curious.

Ski School - This was the first movie that held the title of "Funniest Movie of All Time" in my mind, thanks to the brilliance of Dean Cameron. It also didn't hurt that Boner Stabone from Growing Pains was the sidekick. I fully expect to be severely disappointed when I watch this movie now that I'm not thirteen, but I'm gonna give it a shot.

Reckless Kelly - I've always been fascinated by Yahoo Serious. From whatever info I can find on the guy, he's an uncompromising artist who will only pursue a project if he is intimately involved with every detail and he truly believes in its merit. Yet his film credits include only three movies, all of which are utterly absurd. I've seen Young Einstein a million times, I just bought Mr. Accident from the bargain bin at Movie Trading Company, so I'll get to that soon, but I don't remember much about Reckless Kelly, and I feel like I should.

Stay Tuned - I'm not sure how I can explain the greatness of this movie. In a nutshell, a TV addicted couple buys a special satellite from the devil which ultimately sucks them into a strange and sinister TV land. Their dorky son then has to try to track them through the TV back in the real world and try to help them escape. Despite all of this wierdness, the strangest thing is that apparently the movie was inspired by an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Huh? Oh, and I had a huge crush on Pam Dawber after watching it.

Mom And Dad Save The World - This is the epitome of a movie that is so bad it's good...at least to me. I'm a sucker for Jon Lovitz playing an idiot (which is pretty much all he plays) and Kathy Ireland made any movie watchable in the early/mid nineties. I acknowledge that I deserve any and all abuse that comes my way as a result of endorsing this movie.

Undercover Blues - Honestly, I don't remember hardly anything about this movie except being terribly amused by Stanley Tucci's character "Muerte" being constantly aggravated over the frequent mispronunciation of his name as "Morty". It was also Dave Chappelle's second movie role, following his unforgettable turn as Ahchoo in Robin Hood: Men In Tights.

Backdraft - I just remember this movie kicking ass, so I need to see it again. There are also two bits of interesting trivia regarding this film. The first is that the soundtrack was later used in the TV show Iron Chef. The second is that Billy Baldwin beat out Brad Pitt for the lead role, which forced him to break his contract to play J.D. in Thelma and Louise, which Pitt was then hired for, which turned him into a star.

The Great White Hype - Between early Jamie Foxx, Jon Lovitz, the racist trainer, and Peter Berg, this movie still cracks me up when I think about it. It's about time I revisit it.

Howard The Duck - Where to start? There are so many things to love and/or hate about this movie that I'm not gonna even try. If you're like me and you can't resist the allure of bad cinema, this is a must see. An alien midget-sized duck does battle with an intergalactic Dark Overlord to save our planet. Who green lighted this project? George Lucas spent $2,000,000 on the duck outfit alone. Yes, $2,000,000 dollars. He then proceeded to lose $21,000,000 on the movie overall, forcing him to sell his company's fledgling CGI department to Steve Jobs to stay afloat. That nascent CGI venture is now Pixar Studios. Oops.

I feel the need to limit myself to twelve movies in this list because it really could continue forever, but the rest of my hastily researched list includes Love and Death On Long Island, Timecop, Necessary Roughness, The Paper, Dick Tracy, Johnny Dangerously, The Getaway, Hiding Out, The Arrival, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Serial Mom.

-T

p.s. Should anyone read this and have any suggestions about movies that fit this mold, please let me know. I'm on a mission.