Tragedy has struck

I was going to write about something more entertaining, but then I checked the imdb homepage and was struck with some terrible news. A great comedian has died: Leslie Nielsen.

RIP (1926-2010)

Of more recent actor/actresses who have perished, the others I don't really care aboot. I was either unfamiliar with most of their work (Steve McQueen) or didn't really feel any particular fondness (Brittany Murphy, Dennis Hopper). Leslie Nielsen however was one of the greats. Best known for Airplane! and Naked Gun, though he was a bunch of other movies, mostly other (spoof) comedies. He is pretty recognizable, and has had gray/white for like 40 years now.

Though he had a small role in Airplane!, the greatest parody movie of all time, in Naked Gun, another great, he makes that movie what it is.

So ya, I guess I'll just review Airplane! in his honor.

Airplane! (1970)- Other than Leslie Nielsen, there aren't really all that well known actors in this. It is a parody movie of drama/tragedy films- like the plane's pilot gets ill and how can the people possibly survive! There are a lot of visual gags, and slapstick, but then, what really makes this great, are the smart jokes, clever humor.

It's a lot cleverer than the newer parody movies (the only good ones being Scary Movie and Scary Movie 3 and you can run and tell that, homeboy). And the only other parody movies that compare are Naked Gun and Hot Shots part deux.

Also, there is a lesson in ebonics:

Rating:9/10



SO in conclusion:
I guess he was old and it was his time, but I dread to think who could be next....Walken? Nicholson? Oh, what great sadness that would bring aboot.

Stuff-your-face-day

So the last Thursday of November has rolled around once again. Why does this keep happening?!
Thanksgiving is a holiday when the family comes together to be grateful....though its mostly aboot eating large amounts of food. But you might ask: Don't people eat a lot of food on Christmas, Halloween, Easter, 4th of July? And don't those holidays have other more predominant traditions?!

Yes. But America is a country, where bigger is better, hence all the fat people. They did away with all the annoying tradition of other holidays that got in the way of them and food.

But now, lets turn to the movies, for some enlightenment on the topic of food. Food and movies are well connected, even just considering popcorn. I doubt that it would be the popular food that it is, if it wasn't like the only thing at movie theaters other than candy (well there is nachos and stuff too i guess). and of course Americans love them some corn- popcorn, corn on a cob, canned corn, sweet corn, w.e. Maize isn't as popular elsewhere. Also, there are some great scenes involving food in movies, from American Pie's....well pie, and that fat guy from Se7en who ate himself to death. Here are some of my favorites.

First, we'll visit a "happy" dinner, reminiscent of the stereotypical Thanksgiving dinner:

That's from American Beauty of course, my review of which you can check out in an older post.

Two of my all-time favorite lines also deal with food.

First, we go to Pulp Fiction. People familiar with this masterpiece, would assume the royale with cheese speech would go here, but that is wrong. Instead I'm going with one of the greatest scenes in all of cinema (which I have almost memorized word-for-word), but here I'll just include the first half, and maybe less popular part of the scene

This is followed by the whole: "Does he look like a bitch?" part. But what I love even more than that, is this:

Now we'll move to Full Metal Jacket a movie just full of great lines right from the get go with sergeant Hartman. But this just has to be the greatest exchange in all of military cinema.

And to focus on specific lines again:

And yes, I have recovered my collection, hence the custom clips. Well almost all of it.....I didn't realize how annoying it would be....sooo much typing and clicking

And as a final note:

And the saga continues

First, however. A big-ass butterfly!

No joke here, it's just a humongous butterfly. I got to go to the American Museum of Natural History, fo' free! [1:12]. I finally I remembered that I had my fancy camera (1600 ISO, mofos!) with me when I got to the butterfly exhibit.

So lets continue where we left off.

17. Toy Story (1995)-  Pixar's epic career begins with a bang. It came out the same time as Disney's Pocahontas, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame Actor's aren't really that big of an issue, as it is an animated movie. The other two aren't necessarily bad, but the gap in animation quality is like a 65-foot deep bottomless pit.
Ok, so the animation is better than others around the same time period, so what? Well, the animation still holds up today, which is also true about the older Disney movies. The real awesome part of this movie is it's story.
Ughh, where have you been, that you don't know the plot?
It turns out toys are alive, and just chillax when no one is around. These toys owner gets a new badass space man action figure Buzz Lightyear, and then the other main toy,  sheriff Woody (voiced by Tom Hanks. shazam!) gets jealous. It's a great story of two "enemies" becoming friends and surviving great peril.....but they're toys.
It's Pixar, so there really isn't anything to complain aboot (ya, I said aboot! whacha gunno do 'boot it?).
Also, the sequels are awesome. Maaaaaaaybe Toy Story 3 might be better, because it does have a more emotional and deeper story, buuuuut nostalgia always win.
IMDB: 8.2
RT: 100%

16. The Big Lebowski (1998) - The Coen brothers are one of the greatest (look out for future posts for specifics). If they aren't making Millar's Crossing or No Country For Old Men, then they are making absurd clusterfucks like Fargo, Burn After Reading, and this piece of fantastic piece of comedy. I'll just say that this is my all time fvorite "pure" comedy, in the sense it isn't animated, or some action movie, with comedic elements, so you won't be seeing Zoolander or Anchorman up more on this list.

SO Jeff Bridges is the Dude. He gets confused with another Jeff Lebowski....yes, there are two. He gets his rug peed on, and all he wants is a new rug, and instead he gets a ferret in his bathtub. I won't spoil it too much, as the unexpected twists are great.
Still can't make clips myself, but this one is great, and shows how awesome the Dude is: link.

At first I didn't like John Goodman, but he's been in a lot of Coen movies, and he has been crazy in each one. I'll say he is the craziest in this, even though he was a murderer who decapitates people in one movie (not saying which one, let it be a surprise).

Also, make way for one of the greatest actors who, like Chirstopher Walken, doesn't get the lead role much.

STEVE BUSCEMI!

IMDB: 8.2
RT: 78%




Oh, how much fun we've had these past few movies. And now it all comes to an end, with this depressing piece of beautiful cinema:

15. About Schmidt (2002)

A tale of an old man, who's life sucks. Nobody cares about him, nobody need him. He is disappointed who his daughter is marrying, and tries to be controlling, which isn't really a good trait. But the viewer still feels sympathy for this poor old soul. Jack Nicholson has one of his best performances ever, and that's saying something, considering his fantastic career.
If a movie is too sad, it isn't enjoyable, so to lighten the mood there is plenty of humor along the way, dark and otherwise.
The end is very emotional, and just makes me sob every time.
I think that's enough before I start to weep.

IMDB: 7.3
RT: 85%

another group done

and I bid you a GOOD DAY, SIR (spoilers!)

'Bout time

Then, suddenly, Bacon

So now that the humorous intro is out of the way. Now that my movies have disappeared, I might was well reminisce about old movies. I'd give ya'll a top 10, but so many movies just miss it, so a top 20 would be better. SO here.....we......go

20. Catch Me If You Can (2002)- Stars two of the greatest actors of all time. Leo DiCaprio and....Christopher Walken. Oh, also Tom Hanks is in it, with some goofy accent. So before we continue to the main attraction, here is Hanks doing the greatest joke of all time. Of all time!

Begin with Walken, since he isn't there a whole lot.....like every movie he is in [except King of New York (1990)]. But when he is there he is great....like every movie he is in (including King of New York). Also, as per usual, he has a cool little speech. In the movie he plays the father of the main character, Leo DiCaprio.

It's based on a true story of a forger of checks and doer of other cons, and his high-life, and the cop chasing him, played by Hanks. It's amazing to think, that a man was actually able to get away with these amazing feats.

So ya, movie is well acted, well directed I guess, since it is Spielberg, and has a great, entertaining plot.
Rating: 10...well it is kinda obvious that these movies get tens.

IMDB (imdb.com): 7.8/10
RT(rottentomatoes.com): 96%/100%

19. Groundhog Day (1993)-  Featuring Bill Murray, the second greatest comedic actor of all time, gotta respect Jim Carrey brosef. One of the most original plots....well I assume it was when it came out, but it has been parodied to death. So Bill Murray, is .... BIll Murray, so everyone else perceives him as a jerk. And then he is forced to live the same day over and over again. He falls in love with the woman from Seinfeld.
Oh wait! It isn't her...it's Andie MacDowell!

Identical, no?

And in the end he changes, sells out, and becomes a nice, but happy, guy.
Original and full of some of the greatest dark comedy (suicide humor, yay!). What more do you need?
Well, Christopher Walken, but that's about it.

IMDB: 8.2
RT: 96%

18. American Beauty (1999)- Not as fun of a plot as the before mentioned, since it just a story of a family (well sorta two). One aspect is the father of the family, Kevin Spacey (awwww ya), is reinventing himself, and has a conflicting relationship with his wife played by Annette Bening. The other part is their daughter's, Thora Birtch, relationship with her friends. The movie has the nice message, that one should enjoy life. Almost anything can be beautiful, everything is like.... like a miracle.  Wait. NO! don't click that. Those two should never be associated.
Sadly, I was unable to find the clips I wanted to show..... but believe me, they are hilarious.

IMDB: 8.6
RT: 89%


I guess that's enough for now.....I leave you with this.

DVDs

*Insert  obligatory Futurama reference*

I got my Scott Pilgrim vs The World dvd today. Yay!

Awwwww ya!

I know what you should be thinking, "You, of all people, bought a movie?!". And yes, it is quite unusual. Discounting the tv series I have on the disc format (The Simpsons seasons 1-11, three Family Guy volumes, one American Dad volume, and one Spongebob Squarepants volume) I only have three other DVDs: Underworld and Underworld: Evolution (they're in one box, so it counts as one).......mmmmmm, Kate Beckinsale.....; The Matrix trilogy and The Animatrix; and The Spongebob Movie. A very 1337 and high quality collection if nothing else, eh?

Epic collection is epic

So there are two reasons that I purchased another dvd.

1. It is good to have a physical copy. Just like with video games. I am reluctant to purchase downloadable games. I prefer to have the box. And also, dvds have extra features like deleted scenes and such. Eventually, when I am not a poor college student, I will buy the more epic movies. And Scott Pilgrim belongs to this elite group (as will be revealed by my ever delayed top movie list).

2. Scott Pilgrim vs The World is epic. That is just a fact. Sadly, I am the target audience, and my peers generally don't spend money on things they can get for free. So the movie flopped in the box office (made back only 80% of the cost). I, for one, supported it in theaters (also a rarity, considering how expensive the movies are in the US. In Estonia, it's like $5). I also bought the dvd as to show my support, because if the movie and dvd sales do poorly, then the studios aren't going to make similar, epic movies......and that would be bad.

So go and buy this dvd. It is teh awesomenessness. Also it has some great deleted scenes and bloopers....haven't got around to the commentary.

And I leave you Jason Schwartzman and his glasses.

Good news everyone

I'll just let The Professor! do the honors:

Sry, it cuts off slightly before the end, but making a new clip would be too much of a hassle

So ya,  I managed to delete all of my movies, and thanks to Columbia University, I wont be able to redownload them till I go to my uncle's this Thanksgiving. Luckily for you, my loyal follower, I now have more free time to blog, and review movies I have seen recently. Or...I could mind my studies "Oh, boy my studies!" (the relevant bit is at 1:28, but watch the whole thing, as it is truly hilarious)
So ya,  I won't go into detail aboot how I managed to bring upon this most traumatic event, as I am not one to live in the past....though all the movies are made in the past....and I watch them and rate them on their quality, and thus am in some way living in the past.
O well, there is no way round hypocrisy, unless you avoid it.

And still i pee i mean type. (another reference to hyperlinked youtube video)

So the last movie  I watched before the fateful event was:

Daybreakers (2009)- It was actually filmed in 2007, but came out two years later to its misfortune, because, well, it's about vampires. And since it was released after Twilight and after True Blood and all the other vampire stuff that was coming out, it got sorta pushed to the back of the pack. But as Underworld and Underworld 2 taught me, that there are also awesome vampire movies. Though maybe those were epic because of Kate Beckinsale......and Bill Nighy is also superb.

Opposite ends...

of the spectrum of awesome

Btw his filmography is wrong on rottentomatoes, it is missing  Ready When You Are, Mr. McGill, a hilarious Brittish film, that I happened to catch half of in Estonia on tv. That movie was soooo great, and for some reason it does not exist in torrent or dvd form anywhere that I know of. So if anybody can help me with that, that would be...

Greaaaaat

Well I am just waaaay off topic....from vampires to Office Space in a paragraph and a half; amazing.

So back to Daybreakers. So it's a world where a disease apparently caused people to turn into vampire. Now the vampires rule the world, and humans have been hunted into almost extinction, because of the need of their blood. Ethan Hawke is in the lead role, a solid actor, who believe it or no, isn't a cop in this movie, unlike Training Day, Brooklyn's Finest, Assault on Precinct 13. So ya, he is a vampire, named.....Edward. ARGH! I know, it's terrible, but this movie was made before Twilight. And this Edward is much cooler. He is researching to find a blood substitute, and not so much as so the vampires won't starve, but more so that humans wont be hunted. It also stars some lady I haven't heard of *I'm being told that her name is Claudia Karvan*, William Dafoe with a weird accent that makes him creepier, as if that were possible. Also that guy from Jurrasic Park, the one with the cowboy hat, Sam Neill. I thought he was dead or sth.

I'm totally alive....well sort of

The movie starts off fantastic, the dark and gloomy city (since vampires can't be out during sunlight). It shows what a world might be like with the cold immortals ruling the world. Cars have a daytime mode, where all the windows are covered, and one steers the vehicle via HUD in the car connected to cameras on the outside.
The first half of the movie has good atmosphere and seems quite unique (well...maybe Underworld had a similar atmosphere). BUT it sort of changes into a different movie halfway through. It suddenly gets very violent and action-y. The plot doesn't fall apart completely, but the atmosphere and uniqueness are completely forgotten.

An interesting note in this movie is the special effects.  A lot of them are fine, in the sense they aren't obviously noticeable as special effects. But then there are a few that look like bad sci-fi movie effects, like blood in some scenes.

First half of the movie, I'd give an 8, maybe even a 9. But the second half is so mediocre, not terrible, just not all that good, that the final rating is:

7
imdb: 6.6
rt: 68% (fan vote: 50%)

10th Post!

Seems like a good time that, I, Chris, as the movie person that I am, talk about my, Chris's, favorite movies. 

Maybe a top 10 list or sth (something).

Buuuuuuuuut, I wont. I finally got to making clips of movies, as seen just moments ago. I tried VLC but the audio went out of sync, so I used Windows Movie Maker. It's not perfect, but it gets the job done.....sort of.

So now that I could make clips, I wish to issue an apology to the movie Good Burger. In my post about movie ratings, it was placed in the 7s category. Which caught the attention of my one follower, and so I watched it again, and elevated it's rating to a 9. Because of nostalgia, and one very important scene which I was reminded of:

Also, this blog post seems a bit short, so I'll include a movie review.


Everybody's Fine (2009)- So as seen on the poster, this movie has a great cast (I guess) Well, all the lead people have a movie that I gave a 10, well except one. With  the greeat Robert De Niro [(from all his great movies, Meet the Parents is the top one (and I know Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver are amazing, but they had issues)], Sam Rockwell (Moon), Kate Beckinsale (Underworld. Fuck Yeah!), and Drew Barreymore (I don't really like her, but she was in Donnie Darko which I gave a 9, so that's close).





But your mostly going to see little old Bobby, and the rest are there for only a scene or two. Of course this isn't necessarily a bad thing, since De Niro is great as usual. It's a story of an old widower who is trying to reconnect with his kids. It's sort of like About Schmidt (2002), but doesn't have the same effect as the other movie. It gets sad towards the end, and the final scene is sort of sappy, but it just isn't as powerful as the other movie I mentioned.

I'm so sad and lonely =(

The plot is decent enough, a person story. It has an underlying theme, and the acting is good. Its just missing a little something. It's not bad, but I recommend seeing About Schmidt instead if you want to see a film with a sad old person.

Well, maybe not soooo sad

Final Rating: 7

Read a book, read a book....

Read a motherfucking book.

So I may seem like a new age entertainment type of guy, with the top video games, and movie reviews. But I also enjoy a good book. As a book has the best graphics run by imagination*insert non-existent Youtube video of Spongebob making a rainbow while saying "imagination"*, making for a much more immersive experience.

Though off the bat, I have something to say about "classic" novels.
Lets make some generalizations:
1. Fuck French literature. Alexandre Dumas (pronounce Dumb-ass) The Three Musketeers wasn't terrible, but Hugo's novels were just terrible, and I only got a couple pages into Honoré de Balzac's (pronounce Ballsack) Le Pere Goriot and it was just turrble.
2. The same for Russian literature. From Dostoyevsky to Pushkin just boring and horrible... Though Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita had some humor to save it.
Ughh, i just haven't read any great piece of  "classic" literature.




Anyway, onto my top 5:

5. Andres Kivirähk Mees kes teadis ussisõnu - Show some props to Estonian literature. Well... this, and Kivirähk's other book are the only decent ones I've read.... Anyways, you will never have the possibility to read this, will you? Unless you decide to learn Estonian, one of the most complicated languages. So since you will never be able to read this,  I might as well describe this as the greatest book ever written, so many amazing shocking scenes, featuring a laser-firing dinosaur, miniature ninjas, with triple-cross twist-ending.

4. Shel Silverstein The Giving Tree - This book literally has like 150 words. It is obviously meant as a children book, but it's got a surprisingly deep story. It's like a mini-pixar movie in book form.

3. Anthony Burgess A Clockwork Orange - Welcome to a dystopian future in Britain where the youth speak a mix of English and Russian, and partake in the ultra-violent. As any good dystopian should, it touches upon moral issues of society and distorts them to the extreme. The movie is also amazing, and it's hard to choose which is better, as they are both superb.
Also, is this not one of the best book covers? It's a goddamn glass of milk!

2. George Orwell 1984 - Another dystopian novel. This one however is the most depressing book ever, while A Clockwork Orange has humor to it. The world of Orwell's future is soooooo bleak. And I don't want to spoil the end, but it is great. It has one of the greatest sequences, revolving around truth and how 2+2=5.

1.Orson Scott Card Ender's Game - Well, the other books in the Ender-verse could also break the top 5, but to keep it fair, I'll keep it collected to one representative, the undeniable greatest book ever written. The title character, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin, is the most epic fictional character in any medium. It is set in a sci-fi universe where aliens exist, though they are more passive. It is more of a story about a person. With an interesting cast of characters and has a surprising, twist ending which always helps. The later books in the series feature the aliens more prominently. And the parallel series ( the shadow series) is more of a book about politics and trying to taking over the world. 
Card is one the greatest authors ever, with this series, Empire, Pastwatch, and some great short stories.




Maybe not such an interesting blogpost. Unlike movies, books need to be read, because each person reads it differently and gets different things out of it. Movies are more straightforward. You can discuss acting and directing and such, which are non-existent on books.