Category — movies

As it’s the end of the year, I’ve been looking back to do a self-review. Part of it is so I can write my goals for next year, but mostly I just want to know how this past year went for me. My goals are almost always the same thing, so it gets boring sometimes and I need to get creative when writing new ones – or I have to be very specific.

But as I was looking back over ’08 I realized that I haven’t been enjoying the movies as much. Well, I knew that but I wanted to think about it more and to find out why.

Here are two things that stuck out at me:

1) I think I only went to the actual movie theater twice this year. That’s it!? Just twice?! I saw No Country for Old Men and Batman: The Dark Knight.

EDIT: I saw No Country in Dec ’07. Uggh, I only went to the theater ONCE in a year? That’s unheard of for a Schwartzman. That can’t be right.

2) Most of the moviesDVDs I watched this year, I kind of whined about. Various little things here and there… plot points, characters, etc. And as this is a blog, I don’t get into why that is, I just whine and move on. But why is that?

For item #1- I know there’s a lot of “stuff” surrounding theater-goers woes: ticket prices, concession prices, cell phone noise, cell phone texters, loud talkers, etc. But that’s not what has kept me away. I think I just don’t schedule my time correctly, or I wuss out and look for excuses not to go if I’m invited. (I get invited to a lot of daytime showings – “long lunches”.) That’s fixable.

For item #2- I think the reason that I’m whining more is that I’ve lost some of my escapability. I’m probably not wording this correctly- but what I mean is that sometimes I just can’t sit back and get lost into the movies like I used to be able to do.

I could with Torque (and enjoyed it) but I couldn’t do it with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (review pending). With Indy, it was because I had wanted to see it and my expectations were high. And even though I was at home and on my couch, I couldn’t get into the film without picking it apart (and thinking “Southpark was right!”).

It wasn’t until later (my 3DMT™) when I heard Kevin talking about it over Pho that I realized it was a fun movie despite it’s flaws and that I should “lighten up, Francis”

So for ’09 I have two movie goals: go to the theater more and just enjoy what I’m watching without picking it apart.

Yes it’s been a while. Here’s how it usually goes-

insert statement here about how I’m shocked that I haven’t watched many movies (even though I have – I even had a quick blurb about the artistic Torque which you really should watch with your friends and beer this week)…

I then complain about how I haven’t been to the cineplex in a while (although true, I did finally go see The Dark Knight when it was out) on this line here ..

Okay – now we’re ready for me to whine . ..

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Someone asked me recently why I haven’t posted a DVD Roundup in a while. Well, the answer is that I haven’t really seen anything worth writing about.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been caught up in other things (Euro2008 in June?, work?, tech crap?) or if I was just watching more TV from the DVR. Or maybe I’ve just been negative about everything. . .

I have a theory about the movie-watching-slowdown, but I’ll save that for a future blog post.

But I tell you what, I’ve gone through my Netflix rental history and my stack of borrowed items. Here’s what I’ve seen recently:

I Am Legend – CRAP movie. Okay, so the antagonist is smart enough to figure out how to rig up a trap just like the one Will Smith rigged up, but he’s not smart enough to open up the lab door at the end? Btw- that door operated from the outside in the earlier parts of the movie, so shhh you.

There Will Be Blood – I really really really wanted to like this movie. I thought everyone in it was great, but in the end I just couldn’t give a crap about the story. And I’m usually pretty forgiving about that. Well, I did give a crap actually now that I think about it- I just thought it kept taking weird turns . . .

The other thing about this movie is that when Daniel Day Lewis was on screen, I kept thinking he sounded like John Huston. Don’t believe me? Check out this clip, then watch this great old interview (skip to 9:20 if you’re impatient).

(Jet Li’s) Fearless – Meh

Live Free or Die Hard – Compared to I Am Legend this was high-art.

Lucky Number Slevin – This one was okay. A bit too self-aware if you know what I mean, but I thought it was interesting and clever.

Shooter – Escapist fare . . . but I bet it came from a much better series of books that I should look for to add to my commute reading stack. The movie was a bit(!) predictable.

Miami Vice – holy crap this sucked . . . so many plotholes. . . Oh, btw, on the DVD extras, they talk about how into “the art” and “the look” Michael Mann is and the lengths he goes to to get things a certain way in the movie. He should’ve paid more attention to the storytelling.

Mi3 – Was much better than Mi2. But what does that tell you?

Grind House – Wow, the first Tarantino movie I didn’t really get into . . . and I’m a fanboy!

WAIT WAIT- there was one movie that I thought was clever–

Shoot ‘Em Up – It was like a live-action cartoon with Clive Owen and Monica Bellucci. It was even strangely political. But I really was able to get back into escapist movie watching mode and enjoy this.

Other than that, you know what I’ve (still) been watching? The Shield. Season 5 wassodamngood zomgwtfbbq. And I’m getting ready to start watching The Wire. I hear The Wire is a great time suck and is very entertaining.

I forgot to include Eastern Promises in my last DVD Roundup becasue it wasn’t in my Netflix rental history- Cory loaned me the HD-DVD combo version.

I really liked the movie and recommend it highly, but I’m a bit confused as how to describe it now. You can look it up yourself if you’d like. Why am I confused now? Well, let’s get the basic stuff out of the way first.

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Wow, it’s been a while since I posted a DVD Roundup. I think that’s mostly due to a combination of my backlog of things to watch, holiday travel, and getting cable.

Most of the things I’ve seen though haven’t been worth mentioning. I keep looking at my rental history in Netflix and remember that I haven’t really liked anything recently. Or enough to warrant mentioning. edit: oddly enough, I started my last DVD Roundup the same way and I just now noticed that. Maybe I should get rid of cable.

But enough of the whining, here are some notes-

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Man, the DVD sadness continues. I’ve gotten a bit more used to cable being a timesuck, but when I went to look up my queue history for this month I realized I still don’t have much to “round up”. But even with the lack of quantity, I do have some quality picks.

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A sad DVD Roundup. . .

I just realized I hadn’t written about and dvd rentals recently- or at least, what amounts to my writing.

I just took a look at my rental history in Netflix and realized that I’ve slowed dramatically in my dvd viewing. I know I was busy with the move and some visitors, but not that busy. But I think I know what the main cause of the slowdown is– cable tv.

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Well, I’m way behind on my movie write ups. I need another guest column from my secret columnist. It’s not that I haven’t been watching movies, it’s just that I haven’t really liked any of them.

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I’ve said it before – now others are saying it too!

Via the Reason Blog I saw this great article: Kirsten Dunst’s nipples: Now ya see ‘em, now ya don’t.

Americans are happy to watch some dude eating another dude’s brain, but as for erect nipples, nuh-uh. It’s the end of an era, mon ami, the likes of which we shall not see again.

No, I’m not a perv, I’m just concerned about violence in film :)

Au revoir my old friend.

My old apex dvd player kicked the bucket a month ago. Well, it actually didn’t die completely but stopped playing DVDs. Well, it actually stopped playing “real” DVDs. It would still play burned (legally backed up) copies of DVDs, but I couldn’t watch the movies I was getting in from Netflix. And as we all know, it’s (sadly) a big part of my social life. I love me the DVDs!

When I started looking online at reviews of players, I thought I had found some I liked, but in the end I was walking down Clement street and remembered that the Chinese VCD/DVD store near me sold region-free players. So, I picked one that I thought would work well and for much less than $75 I was on my way.

I picked up a RJTech region free player and have been pretty happy with it. It’s played just about everything I’ve thrown at it– including AVI files! The few of you who know what that is will realize it’s useful.

So soon, I’ll have another DVDRoundup.