Popcorn Songs

So, this summer movie season doesn't seem to suck as badly as the past few. I've seen Transformers and loved it, even if it wasn't *exactly* Transformers. I had an excellent conversation with Ken last night about the movie story and why the original story was better in almost every case. After hammering out the fine points of Transformers, we went to see Fantastic Four meets the Silver Surfer or whatever. Now, I'm a fan of the first FF movie--which puts me in the minority, I gather--but I found this one disappointing. Who would have expected the FF movie would be about some army general? Seriously... cut out that character and you might have a movie about the Fantastic Four.

Anyone else notice more and more focus on the military in big budget action movies?

Next to see is the new Die Hard and Captivity (wtf did that movie come from?!)

Labels: movies

Sam Jackson threatenin' to kick my ass!

Labels: movies

There are big names on the list!

Official Dragonlance Movie Site | The Movie : Cast

Labels: cartoons, movies, rpg

Also, Sony BMG will be giving Transformers: The Movie a more deluxe treatment on DVD in November (street date also TBA), timed to start the promotional push for Michael Bay's forthcoming Transformers live action film, due next year. The new DVD release will include never-before-seen footage, interviews, interactive games and collectible packaging, along with the film's soundtrack on CD.

-- http://www.thedigitalbits.com/ Bill Hunt's column on 5/31/06.

Labels: cartoons, movies

Somehow, for the last 33 years I've managed to have a moderate interest in theater and to have never seen nor heard West Side Story. Two months ago I bought the CD of the original broadway cast. I have already listened to it dozens, possibly a hundred times. Moments ago, I finished watching the movie. Thanks very much for loaning it to me, Barb!

I'm lucky it happened in that order. Had I seen the movie first, I would not have fallen in love with the musical. (There are, after all, only two musicals I love.)

The movie version is horribly miscast in comparison to the broadway cast. I've heard amateur karaoke singers exhibit more emotional range in songs than the movie cast.

Why the lyric and book changes? In the broadway recording, Maria says, 'They are strict with me' and, in response, Tony proclaims his love to Maria with a sublime mixture of emotion: commanding, assured, tender and damning-of-consequences. The movie version has them babbling on and him whispering his love. Blech. The opening song is changed from 'when the spit hits the fan' to 'let them do what they can.' What the heck could the censors possibly care about that for? There are more changes, you can check the links for them all.

The movie's songs are all 10-20 bpm faster. I swear the actors have to *rush* the lyrics! I didn't even want to sing along. My only two theories are that the director had some artificial time limit on the movie, or they were covering up movie Tony's lack of singing talent. The official web site explains some of the other changes, but not this one.

I will be denying the existence of the movie and hoping the karaoke tracks out there are from the broadway recordings.

The silver lining in this debacle: I get to stretch my imagination by staging the show in my head every time I listen to it.

Labels: movies, musicals

Do nothing Wednesday felt so good, I called out sick and did it all day Thursday. Any cold that thought it was getting the better of me has learned it's lesson now!

I ended up watching a whole lot of TV, including movies. First up, In Good Company, was a much better movie than I expected--superbly acted, understated, honest, touching, all with a very un-Hollywood ending. Seriously good stuff. Caught up on all the Futurama my DVR had recorded. R. Lee Ermey hosted a Christmas at war special that covered how troops handled the holidays during major American conflicts. Now, I love R. Lee Ermey--not as much as Ensign or the other Chris--but I kinda feel weird when he tries to be all Full Metal Jacket hardcore on his History channel shows. I mean, I know people know him for that, but it just comes across like desperation as he's yelling at a plastic snowman to get it's shit together. Is that what anime fan service is like to non-otaku? I don't consider myself otaku, but the fan-service bits don't bother me.

Labels: movies, tv

Of course, Sarah Silverman can do no wrong, so it must be that the movie theater is the wrong venue to see this would-have-been-HBO-comedy-special turned theatrical release. It didn't help that I was terribly uncomfortable in the Ritz 5 seats, the hazelnut-flavored hot cocoa was disgusting (why did I still drink it?), and I'm *still* pretty tired from the weekend. Or maybe I'm still fighting off the cold that everyone else seems to be admitting they have. I remain in denial.

YEA! Wednesday... my designated do nothing day.

I remember very distinctly giving up on websurfing several years back. Del.icio.us has turned me around. I can refresh that page and hit interesting-looking links forever.

I need a gender-neutral $10 gift for an Xmas-Xchange. Any ideas?

Labels: movies

There was the week that I wasn't busy at all, followed by the week that I never seemed to stop going. It happened one more time. Then, two things happened at once.

I finished reading Catcher in the Rye and I saw that Huckabees movie.

In Catcher, Mr. Antolini summarizes the point nicely.

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. ...

It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you site in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, 'It's a secret between he and I.' Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. But do you know what I'm driving at, at all?...

This fall I think you're riding for--it's a special kind of fall, a horrible kind. The man falling isn't permitted to feel or hear himself hit bottom. He just keeps falling and falling. The whole arrangement's designed for men who, at some time or other in their lives, were looking for something their own environment couldn't supply them with. Or they thought their own environment couldn't supply them with. So they gave up looking. They gave it up before they ever really even got started. You follow me?

But, in the end, Salinger is just a tease. He shows us a great meltdown, but gives us barely a quarter of chapter 25 on the matter of redemption. We get 4 or 6 pages of Pheobe at the museum and zoo, suitcase in tow. Holden had to catch her. He could throw himself off the cliff, but not at the same time he had to catch Pheobe. We don't really get satisfaction, because it's not a decision Holden makes to be there to make the catch whether or not someone needs to be caught. It was a decision he only made in the moment someone needed catching. But maybe that's the only time it's important. Then again, maybe Pheobe was there to catch him. The 'goddam' novel is too Holden-centric to possibly know.

Frankly, it's interesting at best and, more likely, a lousy piece of shit the more I think about it.

Huckabees, on the other hand, is a complex, Markovski-centric (but still well-balanced), beautiful and terrifying work of art. So much philosophical thought is packed into its 106 minutes that college courses should be ashamed. (Or maybe just embarrassed, since some of the blame has to fall to the students.) It gives us not 1, but 4 meltdowns. And at least 2 satisfying redemptions.

Tommy Corn: How come we only ask ourselves the really big questions when something bad happens?


Albert Markovski: The interconnection thing is definitely for real.
Tommy Corn: It is! I didn't think it wasn't! It is!
Albert Markovski: I know, I can't believe it, it's so fantastic!
Tommy Corn: It's amazing!
Albert Markovski: I know.
Tommy Corn: But it's also nothing special.


Bernard Jaffe: When you get the blanket thing, you can relax, because everything you could ever want or be, you already have and are.


Albert Markovski: ...until you can't remember what happens when you stand in a meadow at dusk.
Bret: What happens in the meadow at dusk?
Albert Markovski: Everything.
Mrs. Hooten: Nothing.
Albert Markovski: Everything.
Mrs. Hooten: Nothing.
Albert Markovski: It's beautiful.
Tommy Corn: It's beautiful.

Maybe it's just that I'm 50 years too late to appreciate 'Catcher in the Rye.' And that 'I Huckabees' fits my idiom. Maybe 1950's readers were content to create their own redemption for Holden Caufield and today's generation wants redemption spoon-fed with a healthly dose of potential sequel under the yogurt. But even that fruit-on-the-bottom is gone now, next will be the chunks of real fruit. Finally, there will be this perfectly homogenized yogurt pudding that will come in six-packs straight to home video. It will be produced by Disney-Kraft or Dreamworks-Dannon and will come with loopy-straw spoons shaped like your favorite characters. They will be made by the same plastics company. They will be the same shape, size, and color.

Go see it now, before Lucas or Spielberg own it and remaster it into a blockbuster.

Labels: books, movies