7 posts tagged “movies”

My biggest complaint about the AFI 10 Top 10 List is that they seem to have a broad definition of the movies in their categories.  For example, the worst category seemed to be the Fantasy category.  Their definition seemed to include any movie that had a fantastic element to it, like It's a Wonderful Life or Groundhog Day. I tend to have a more narrow view of the genre in that it can't take place in the present and magic needs to be involved in some way.  To me, fantasy movies are things like the Harry Potter movies, the Lord of the Rings movies, and the Narnia movies.  Some other movies left out include any number of films by Ray Harryhausen (e.g. The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad or Jason & the Argonauts) or Pan's Labyrinth.  My revised Top 10 for this genre would be:

1. The Wizard of Oz - Can't complain with the AFI pick
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - Same here
3. The Princess Bride - Why is this missing? This film is funny and turns the genre on its side.
4. King Kong - No complaint with this pick
5. Jason and the Argonauts - A fun film that seems to be missing from this list.
6. Pan's Labyrinth - A new film, but one which I think will be more appreciated over time.
7. La Belle et La Bete - Jean Cocteau version of Beauty and the Beast.
8. The Dark Crystal - Really good non-Muppet movie
9. The Thief of Bagdad - Older film, but fantastic effects for its time
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Arguably the best of the Potter films

I get the feeling the majority of these lists were built by critics.  I did not see as many fan favorites in the lists.  Also, many of the films feel dated and don't age well.  My favorite western is Unforgiven, which only made it to #4 on their list.  Two films probably don't belong: Cat Ballou and McCabe and Mrs. Miller.  Neither film would register with that many filmgoers. I would have thrown in High Plains Drifter and The Magnificent Seven.

By genre, here are my thoughts on the remaining lists:

Animation - No quibbles here
Romantic Comedies - I think City Lights seems too old for most people, but maybe that's just me.
Sports - I would dump National Velvet and put in The Natural instead.
Mysteries - I would replace Dial M for Murder with the superior Shadow of a Doubt or Strangers on a Train.
Science Fiction - I find 2001: A Space Odyssey overrated and boring. I would find room on this list for The Matrix.
Gangster - I would find room on this list for Road to Perdition.
Courtroom Drama - No complaints
Epics - No real complaints

I know these lists are mainly to bring attention to AFI and are intended to be controversial.  Everybody has their favorite film and not all of them can be reflected in these lists.  The musical genre seems to be missing, for instance.

Regular Wednesday post: This one focuses on changing the Movie Industry.  I have no insider insight, so this is just as a fan of movies.

1. More Direct-to-DVD/Online Distribution releases
Over the last few years, there has been a shift in the type of movies that people see in the first run in theaters and the type that people see later on DVD.  Pretty much the only films that anyone sees in the first release are the blockbusters.  People no longer love movies the way they did before.  It's just another form of entertainment.  Because of this, I think it's easier to recoup your film production costs by going straight to DVD or online release.  If nobody is seeing your movie in theaters, at least find a medium where they might see it.  Marketing budgets seem to go towards known quantities (like sequels, comic book adaptations, book adaptations or video game adaptations) over unknown quantities.  Make sure the film gets seen somehow, then you can gauge whether a sequel (if appropriate) can be made.  Small dramas/comedies could still be made and seen this way.  This will allow studios to experiment more if they can recoup their costs.

2. Forget Blu-Ray, wait for Online Distribution
As a consumer, I am satisfied with the upconvert DVD technology.  Even though I have a high-definition television, I don't feel I gain that much more with the more expensive Blu-Ray technology.  I would rather wait for the Online Distribution of movies to settle into a standard.  You have Apple's iTunes, NetFlix's new Roku, and a myriad of other similar technologies.  When the networking speeds improve, there will be a standard.

3. Experiment with 3D
We're pretty much at a similar point in time as the 1950s.  At that time, television had become more popular than the film industry and forced movie theaters to experiment with different ways to project the movies.  You got the first version of 3D with the cheap, cardboard glasses; you got Cinemascope and the other widescreen projection methods; you got Surround Sound; you got Smell-o-vision and other oddball technologies.  3D movies may not stop empty theaters, but it's a good start.  There has to be a difference between watching movies in a theater and watching movies on your widescreen, high-definition television.  As long as the experience is nearly the same, most people will wait for the DVD (basically, home viewing) release because of the convenience.

4. Pay your talent with backend deals
Profit sharing seems a better way to make everyone happy.  When movies make money, everyone should get a piece of the pie.  You need to stop paying so much upfront and make people responsible for the success at the box office.

5. Continue using the internet to market
It doesn't have to be cheesy movies like Snakes on a Plane, but any type of internet buzz is better than none at all.  At the minimum, you want to build awareness.

6. Eliminate showings when there are few people
For instance, weekday matinees do not attract many people.  You probably spend more money on the electricity.  Reduce the weekday matinee to one a day.  That way, retirees and people with a day off can catch a movie without the crowds.

7. Switch production and projection to Digital
Film production costs are fairly high because of the reproduction of content to film.  If you store movies on hard drives, you can easily transmit movies to each theater without having to use physical media.  You also get to add special effects more easily and perform production corrections more easily (e.g. change the color mix, the sound mix, etc.).  The cameras are only going to get better.  Besides, very few people use film cameras these days.

I'm sure there are more changes, but the main thing is to make it cheaper and get more butts into theaters.  That's it for now.

Pretty good.  I wasn't expecting much from this movie, and it delivered more than I thought it would.  The first movie was just okay, if a bit boring.  This one was at least a solid B.

In this movie, the Pevensie children are summoned to Narnia by Prince Caspian, who is nearly assassinated by his uncle in order to seize the throne after he acquires an heir.  Caspian flees to the woods, where he encounters some of the enchanted creatures the Pevensie children befriended in the first movie.  This time, it is 1300 years after their first visit.  The Pevensie children, the Narnians (including cute mouse warrior Reepicheep and dwarf Trumpkin), and Caspian team up to help Caspian re-acquire the throne.

The battle scenes are fairly well staged and the action is entertaining.  The acting is perfunctory and the directing is adequate.  This movie was an improvement over The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, even though the villain (King Miraz) is not as scary or as deadly as the White Witch from the first movie.  This movie feels more like the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Surprise, surprise.  This is a really good comic book movie.  I can easily say that this is the best Marvel Comics adaptation.  Either an A or A-.  The plot is simple: Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), the genius head of a weapons manufacturer, is demonstrating his latest missile system in Afghanistan.  While there, he is captured by terrorists and forced to build the new missile system for the terrorists.  Instead, he creates an iron suit to escape.  Realizing that his company has been selling weapons to terrorists as well as the U.S. military, he has a change of heart and decides to advance the technology in the iron suit he built and use it to become a superhero (more or less).  Jon Favreau, who directed Elf, does a nice job directing this movie.  Robert Downey, Jr. brings his quirky line delivery to this movie and injects a lot of humor in his ad libs.  Gwyneth Paltrow does a fine job as his loyal assistant, Pepper Potts, and Jeff Bridges brings the right amount of menace as Stark's nemesis, Obadiah Stane.  Terrence Howard is fine as James Rhodes (not War Machine yet), Stark's military friend.  Lots of cool action sequences and humor makes this an enjoyable movie-going experience.

As an aside, my favorite comic book movie is Batman Begins. This movie comes close, but I like Batman better than Iron Man. I enjoyed the X-Men movies, but each sequel felt more and more like a clone of the first movie (same conflict of mutants vs. humans, same super-villain in all three movies, heroes don't change much, etc.).

I liked this movie a lot.  I would give it an A-.  The plot of this movie is about an economics professor (Walter Vale, played by character actor Richard Jenkins) who gets involved in an immigration issue with the squatter living in a New York apartment he owns but hasn't lived in for years.  The professor's wife has recently died and he is a bit lost.  He attempts to learn to play the piano (with little success) as a way to remember his late wife, a pianist.  He teaches only one introductory economics class and begs off from teaching more because he claims he is writing a book.  He is asked by the head of the department to present a paper he has co-authored (the lead author of the paper is on maternity leave) at a conference in New York.  He travels from his Connecticut home to New York, where he discovers that someone has illegally sub-leased his New York apartment.  The couple squatting in his home are both immigrants (discovered to both be illegal immigrants) and he offers to let them stay at his apartment until they can settle their housing situation.  One of the squatters, Tarek, is a musician from Syria who plays the African drums in a jazz band.  While staying with Walter, Tarek offers to teach Walter to play the drums.  While on a trip on the subway with Walter, Tarek gets arrested by the NYPD and eventually turned over to immigration.  He is threatened with deportation, so Walter arranges a lawyer to work with Tarek.  The remainder of the movie deals with Walter and Tarek's mother (who arrives from Detroit when he hasn't spoken to her in a while) trying to extricate Tarek from his situation.  Along the way, Walter comes to a decision with what to do with his career and his life.  The acting is uniformly good and the friendship that develops between Walter and Tarek is nice to watch develop.  The movie is an interesting commentary on the American immigration system and how dehumanizing it can be in a post-911 world.

Overall, pretty funny.  I would give it a B+.  The movie is about Peter Bretter, a TV show theme composer who has just broken up with his TV star girlfriend, Sarah Marshall.  In order to get over her, he decides to go to Hawaii for vacation.  Unfortunately, his ex-girlfriend is there with her new boyfriend and he has to deal with this embarrassing situation. There are a lot of funny riffs on the cliches of TV shows, like the crime procedurals and the promotion of these shows.  It's a typical Judd Apatow style movie (since he produced it).  I still think "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" was the best of all of these films.  Kristen Bell from TV's Veronica Mars plays his ex-girlfriend and Russell Brand plays her new boyfriend.  Bell isn't as funny as she was on Veronica Mars, but she gives the role more dimension than you would expect.  Brand is funny as the somewhat clueless, sex maniac rock star.  If you're easily bothered by such things, there's some amount of male nudity (by star/writer Jason Segel) and lots of swearing.  The usual Apatow players show up in supporting roles: Paul Rudd as a surfing instructor, Jonah Hill as a stalker/restaurant host, and Bill Hader as Peter's stepbrother/confidant.  Watch for the multiple scenes with a microphone hanging on top (good for a drinking game when this goes to DVD).  It kinda slows down in the middle section of the movie, but the rock opera at the end makes up for it (you have to see it to believe it).

• I am really looking forward to the NCAA College Basketball tournament.  This should be a really competitive tournament with a good chance for some upsets in the first few rounds.  My favorites are UCLA, Memphis and North Carolina.  My alma mater (Cal) didn't make it, so I have to watch them in the NIT.
  
• Speaking of the NCAA, I still hate the Bowl Championship Series.  There are no excuses for not having a playoff.  Just start with the top 4 teams and add more every few years.
• I just bought a Digital Video Recorder.  Unfortunately, it's crap and I'll probably have to return it.  All I want is a replacement for my VCR in anticipation of the Digital Broadcasting switchover in 2009.  I don't want to pay for a service, so that rules out TiVO.  I think the search continues...
  
• The Bear Stearns buyout seemed like a panic move by the Bush Administration (but what hasn't been a panic move by those incompetent boobs?).  I would love to see the Democrats win the White House, but my fear is that their stupidity in running campaigns will continue in the election this fall. If they're smart, they hammer home that "McCain = Bush" and you'll get more Iraq and more recession.  Hopefully, Hillary won't burn down the house in order to win the nomination.
• Movies have been pretty blah so far this year.  Saw "Horton Hears a Who" on Saturday.  Meh.  I was hoping it would be funnier.  I'm anticipating the summer films this year.  Indy Jones and The Dark Knight in particular look pretty good.
• Anyway, that's my brain dump for today.  Happy St. Patrick's Day!