Gah! The Mother's Day catalogues have landed, full of romantic comedies and soppy chick flicks. Refer to my earlier post "His and Hers DVDs" for more on this, but WHY, WHY, WHY does this keep happening? Someone dare me to write to the retailers and complain, please!
We went to the movie trivia night at Mana Bar the other night, unless they change it I probably wouldn't go again. It was extremely geeky and seemed to focus on the massively obscure. I'm gonna send some feedback to suggest they broaden it a little if they want to broaden their client base for the bar overall. Although I seem geeky about movies, I had nothing on the people there on Tuesday night!
The last poll on movie marathons has closed and Star Wars won - can't wait for that intro to start rolling down my screen. Stay tuned for the next poll.
Upcoming movie events of interest (in Brisbane) are the "Let there Be Rock" program at GOMA, Tribal Cinema is screening Donnie Darko all week and for Foo Fighters fans there is a documentary showing this weekend only "Back and Forth" which documents their history, followed by a concert in 3D. The GOMA program is looking really good, it's a mix of classics, modern, doco and fictionalised stories about bands or musicians, here is the website which lists all the films and times - http://qag.qld.gov.au/cinematheque/current/let_there_be_rock
I can definitely recommend the following if you haven't seen them before: 6FtHick - Notes from the Brisbane Underground, It Might get Loud, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, The Runaways and This is Spinal Tap.
Some of the films I'm interested to see based on word of mouth are 9 Songs, Ladies & Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains, When You're Strange - A Film about The Doors, and Dogs in Space. Definitely check the program and remember the Friday night sessions are accompanied by short live music sets.
I also watched Buried on DVD the other day - this is a good little movie about a kidnapped truck driver in Iraq who wakes up buried alive in a box. The whole movie is set in the box! It really shows how much you can do with a tight script and inventive camera angles, I liked it, especially the ending.
That's a wrap!
Friday 29 April 2011
Monday 25 April 2011
# 7 Movie Seen - Paul
Last night we went to see Paul with our friends B and L. This was a perfect Easter egg of a movie to see on Easter Sunday - sweet and sugary on the inside with a crunchy outer coating courtesy of some inventive new cursing and a few alien butt shots. Hopefully you've read my earlier post on upcoming films I was excited about, but to recap: Paul is a film written by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (actors from Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Spaced) and directed by Greg Mottola (Superbad, Adventureland). The talents of these three individuals combine really well to make a very enjoyable film with quite a few laughs and a high "spot the movie reference" quotient. Simon and Nick play Graeme and Clive, two English geeks who go to Comic-Con in San Diego then begin a road trip in an RV through the southern states to visit many famous alien related sites e.g. Area 51, the black mailbox (which is actually white!). The introduction to the movie has made me really want to attend a Comic-Con one day!
The guys have not gotten far on their trip when a car overtakes them and crashes, and when they go to investigate they discover a small grey alien called Paul who has lived on earth for the past 60 odd years, helping the Government after his spaceship crashlanded. Paul is trying to escape the clutches of "The Big Guy" who feels that Paul's usefulness has run out; he's been able to get a message to his people to come and pick him up. Graeme and Clive adjust to their dreams coming true and decide to help Paul on his mission to get to the pick up point. A series of mini-misadventures ensues, with the guys meeting a devout Christian RV park manager - Ruth - who quickly adjusts to finding out the truth about her faith and enjoying her new found freedom to "curse" and "fornicate" (Kristen Wiig does a great job in this role, very funny), while being chased by a mysterious agent working for The Big Guy (Jason Bateman also doing a great performance), two bumbling local agents, Ruth's dad trying to rescue her, plus two rednecks who aren't happy with the boys.
I thought this film would be constantly hilarious but it is more of an adventure film with a series of gently funny moments and sweet moments. The relationship between Graeme and Clive and Paul evolves nicely and all are believable, with Seth Rogen voicing Paul as very "Seth Rogen". I really enjoyed the film overall and found plenty of moments where I was really caught up in the mission and kept saying out loud "oh no" when something bad would happen. I also picked up a lot of the references they've packed in to other films, particularly watch out for lines or whole scenes relating to Star Wars, Star Trek, ET, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Alien and a few other films by Steven Spielberg. I've included above a link to a website which lists a fair few of these references, but don't check it until you've watched the movie or it will spoil it.
I recommend this movie if you're a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, or if you just like alien encounter movies in general. It was really fun, I give it 4 out of 5.
The guys have not gotten far on their trip when a car overtakes them and crashes, and when they go to investigate they discover a small grey alien called Paul who has lived on earth for the past 60 odd years, helping the Government after his spaceship crashlanded. Paul is trying to escape the clutches of "The Big Guy" who feels that Paul's usefulness has run out; he's been able to get a message to his people to come and pick him up. Graeme and Clive adjust to their dreams coming true and decide to help Paul on his mission to get to the pick up point. A series of mini-misadventures ensues, with the guys meeting a devout Christian RV park manager - Ruth - who quickly adjusts to finding out the truth about her faith and enjoying her new found freedom to "curse" and "fornicate" (Kristen Wiig does a great job in this role, very funny), while being chased by a mysterious agent working for The Big Guy (Jason Bateman also doing a great performance), two bumbling local agents, Ruth's dad trying to rescue her, plus two rednecks who aren't happy with the boys.
I thought this film would be constantly hilarious but it is more of an adventure film with a series of gently funny moments and sweet moments. The relationship between Graeme and Clive and Paul evolves nicely and all are believable, with Seth Rogen voicing Paul as very "Seth Rogen". I really enjoyed the film overall and found plenty of moments where I was really caught up in the mission and kept saying out loud "oh no" when something bad would happen. I also picked up a lot of the references they've packed in to other films, particularly watch out for lines or whole scenes relating to Star Wars, Star Trek, ET, Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Alien and a few other films by Steven Spielberg. I've included above a link to a website which lists a fair few of these references, but don't check it until you've watched the movie or it will spoil it.
I recommend this movie if you're a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, or if you just like alien encounter movies in general. It was really fun, I give it 4 out of 5.
Friday 22 April 2011
Movie Trivia Night - for Brisbanites
Exciting news! The Mana Bar in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley is starting up a regular movie trivia night. A little odd given it is a bar created around playing video games, but the two are probably somewhat related. Hopefully some of the questions will be on geek movies. The first one is this Tuesday 26 April at 7pm. First place wins tickets to Source Code, which is one of the movies I had on my "looking forward to" list (see post below). Second and third place get some DVDs. If anyone is interested in forming a team and going, let me know on Facebook or post a comment here.
As it's Easter, here is my tip for a good Easter movie - Donnie Darko. Warning - contains one scary bunny rabbit!
As it's Easter, here is my tip for a good Easter movie - Donnie Darko. Warning - contains one scary bunny rabbit!
Monday 18 April 2011
Movie Marathons
So a few weeks ago we did a Lord of the Rings marathon. Not just the cinema versions either, as intended, as I forgot my DVD copies were the extended editions only. We started at 1:30pm Saturday and finished at 2am Sunday. How dedicated is that? But we didn't actually do this purely for the fun of it or to punish ourselves, the purpose was to catch up on the films before 3 of us went to see One Man Lord of the Rings. OMLOTR is a stage show where one guy acts out the whole trilogy in one hour, with no props or sound other than sound effects he can make with his own voice. As we had previous form with One Man Star Wars, we knew it would be very quick and to keep up you would need to be really familiar with the movies. So we watched them all with a couple of breaks. And I have to say, these movies are still really really good. If you haven't seen them before, or not for ages, they are worth revisiting. Some special effects look a little outdated, but this can be easily overlooked due to the great story, acting and epic-ness of it all. However, I'd probably recommend against a marathon of these films (extended editions in particular) unless you are truly totally nerdy and have a good ability to stay awake during long movies. Reflecting on this though raises the question - what would be a good movie marathon?
As we are too old to go out drinking and partying these days except on special occasions, movie marathons are a good way to fill in long weekends. So now I'm considering what the next movie marathon should be. Do you stick to trilogies because they tend to have a good story arc? Star Wars (original), The Matrix, Back to the Future? Do you do two movies - great movies with good sequels - because you don't want to watch three whole movies in a row? Umm I can't really think of any examples of this - help me out. The horror genre throws up all kinds of options - Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th etc. But a lot of those movies don't hold up being more comedic than scary these days. What about a certain director e.g. Hitchcock, Tarantino. Or do you just do a theme e.g. chick flicks, superheros. Our girls' nights in the past have yielded some good double bills - Heathers & Empire Records, Corey Haim double.
I'm looking for some inspiration for future movie marathons - tell me which movies you have enjoyed as a movie marathon before, or what you think would make a good day of extended laziness supplemented with lollies and softdrink to stay awake! By the way the One Man Lord of the Rings was awesome, so funny and witty, it really paid off to have watched the films recently.
As we are too old to go out drinking and partying these days except on special occasions, movie marathons are a good way to fill in long weekends. So now I'm considering what the next movie marathon should be. Do you stick to trilogies because they tend to have a good story arc? Star Wars (original), The Matrix, Back to the Future? Do you do two movies - great movies with good sequels - because you don't want to watch three whole movies in a row? Umm I can't really think of any examples of this - help me out. The horror genre throws up all kinds of options - Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th etc. But a lot of those movies don't hold up being more comedic than scary these days. What about a certain director e.g. Hitchcock, Tarantino. Or do you just do a theme e.g. chick flicks, superheros. Our girls' nights in the past have yielded some good double bills - Heathers & Empire Records, Corey Haim double.
I'm looking for some inspiration for future movie marathons - tell me which movies you have enjoyed as a movie marathon before, or what you think would make a good day of extended laziness supplemented with lollies and softdrink to stay awake! By the way the One Man Lord of the Rings was awesome, so funny and witty, it really paid off to have watched the films recently.
Saturday 2 April 2011
What are you looking forward to?
My first poll has just closed and it seems I do have some movie fans visiting. The majority said they would see more than 15 films a year and another group said 5-10. So with all that movie viewing ahead of us, I thought I'd see what upcoming films people are getting excited about (even though it's April already - time flies!). Here are some movies I'm interested in or actually excited to see.
The other big unsurprising news is that Hollywood is continuing to focus on sequels, some of interest but most seeming unncessary. Most unneccessary award goes to Fast and the Furious 5. There are 3 Part 4s due out this year - the good should be Pirates and Scream, the bad will be Twilight Breaking Dawn. The final Harry Potter instalment is coming soon and I can't wait to see it. The Hangover Part 2 is my most anticipated sequel while Sherlock Holmes 2 could be fun. Most unnecessary remakes award goes to Conan the Barbarian and The Thing.
That's my list - please tell me what you are most looking forward to seeing - maybe we can go and enjoy it together? Either leave a comment below or take the poll to the left.
- Paul (out 14 April). Two guys on a road trip come across an alien who has been stuck on Earth for so long he has a lot of human traits, and try to help him get back to his ship. Why am I excited? Simon Pegg and Nick Frost wrote and appear as the two main characters. You love them from such great things as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Spaced. Seth Rogen as the voice of the alien too. Trailer looked very funny.
- Sucker Punch (14 April?). Layer upon layer of weirdness and arse-kicking females from Zack Snyder. Okay, his movie 300 was so-so but he gave us the brilliant Watchmentand also the Dawn of the Dead remake a few years back. This movie will probably be more style than substance, but so what?
- Source Code (April). A guy keeps getting sent back in time in 8 minute blocks to figure out who blew up a train and stop it. The plot sounds a bit done to death, but there are two reasons it will be interesting: Duncan Jones and Jake Gyllenhaal. You know the latter, the former is the director of Moon, a genius sci-fi character piece from 2 years ago. AKA Zowie Bowie, son of David, so he knows a bit about sci-fi.
- Your Highness (May). A bunch of massive silliness starring James Franco, Danny McBride (who should re-create their Pineapple Express chemistry), Zooey Deschanel and Natalie Portman. A medieval stoner comedy that will hopefully rock. Ben will be in heaven with both Zooey and Natalie (apparently you see Nat's bum for a bit).
- Pirates of the Carribbean 4 - I enjoyed all of the films but the new one should have an edge by focusing back on Captain Jack and there will be no Keira and Orlando mushing up the weirdness. Barbossa is back in the thick of it too, and Pene Cruz should add some sassiness. I'm hopeful.
The other big unsurprising news is that Hollywood is continuing to focus on sequels, some of interest but most seeming unncessary. Most unneccessary award goes to Fast and the Furious 5. There are 3 Part 4s due out this year - the good should be Pirates and Scream, the bad will be Twilight Breaking Dawn. The final Harry Potter instalment is coming soon and I can't wait to see it. The Hangover Part 2 is my most anticipated sequel while Sherlock Holmes 2 could be fun. Most unnecessary remakes award goes to Conan the Barbarian and The Thing.
That's my list - please tell me what you are most looking forward to seeing - maybe we can go and enjoy it together? Either leave a comment below or take the poll to the left.
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