I had forgotten how good a tear catcher a full beard makes.
Archive for the ‘Movies’ category
Movie Review: Marley & Me
January 5th, 2009Movie Review: Role Models
November 23rd, 2008I haven’t laughed that hard at a movie in a while. I think Knocked Up was the last one that was this good.
Oh sure, it’s a lot of crude humor, but it works.
The Dark Knight
July 20th, 2008Okay, we went and saw The Dark Knight this weekend.
Whoa! That was awesome! I went there with some really high expectations and it surpassed them. I remember thinking twice that it was about ready to end and both times I was OK with it, but the awesomeness just kept rolling.
There isn’t a single, solitary dull moment in the entire two and a half hours.
This isn’t one for children that are easily scared though. Heath Ledger, as the Joker, had me squirming in my seat at one point in the movie. Theresa closed her eyes for some of that scene. It wasn’t gory, but you couldn’t stop yourself from forming some really nasty images of what was coming next. I have absolutely no idea how they pulled off getting Two Face to look the way they did, and it was rather ghastly. The kind of stuff that’ll probably give kids nightmares.
Go see it.
Into the Wild
April 23rd, 2008We watch Into the Wild tonight based on the recommendation of a friend of mine.
Good flick, but I came away thinking two things:
1) Hippies do suck.
2) What a twat!
Spoilers (and me being an ass) below:
Long story short, kid from a well off family goes to Emory, graduates, and because he’s pissed at his parents for living in an unhappy marriage skips town and sends his life savings off to charity. He then prances around the west side of the US for a about a year, never sends a letter home to his family letting them know he’s still alive, then heads to Alaska for his big adventure.
He dies of starvation up there at the age of 24 and some hunters find his corpse a couple weeks after he dies.
Nice work, dipshit. You tormented your family for 2 solid years and ended up killing yourself for what? A hundred odd days in the wilderness? Let’s just take a look at the WikiPediapage on him to find more idiocy:
In April 1992 McCandless hitchhiked to Fairbanks, Alaska. He was last seen alive by James Gallien, who gave him a ride from Fairbanks to the Stampede Trail. Gallien was concerned about “Alex”, who had minimal supplies (not even a magnetic compass) and no experience of surviving in the Alaskan bush. Gallien repeatedly tried to persuade Alex to defer his trip, and even offered to drive him to Anchorage to buy suitable equipment and supplies. However, McCandless ignored Gallien’s warnings, refusing all assistance except for a pair of rubber boots, two tuna melts, and a bag of corn chips.
Hippies are stupid.
Yeah, you can survive off nature up there — if you know what you’re doing. When a local says you’re totally unprepared for this you should probably take notice. The people that do survive off the land have knowledge passed down to them from previous generations. You need a little more than a couple of books to figure this shit out. Some practice probably wouldn’t hurt either, like maybe working in town for 2 months, collecting info, then camping out on your own for a week. Repeat that a few times until you’ve got it down and know what to do during each season to stay the fuck alive.
More:
Because he chose not to buy a map and a compass (items which most people in the same situation would have considered essential)
Yeah, those are pretty fucking important, especially the compass. I own one, military surplus I think. It cost me $7.
McCandless was completely unaware that a hand-operated tram crossed the impassable river ¼ mile from where he attempted to cross. Had McCandless known this, he could easily have saved his own life.
Yeah, that map would have been handy. I buy maps like that when I go off the beaten path (ie: My trip to Montana in 2006) even though I’m in a damned Jeep with enough food and water to keep my ass alive for weeks. Then again, I’m not a fucking hippie.
Additionally, there were cabins stocked with emergency supplies within a few miles of the bus, although they had been vandalized and all the supplies were spoiled, possibly by McCandless, as detailed in Lamothe’s documentary.
So, actually, Nature Boy wasn’t really all that far out from civilization. At least, not by Alaskan standards.
Alaskan Park Ranger Peter Christian wrote: “I am exposed continually to what I will call the ‘McCandless Phenomenon.’ People, nearly always young men, come to Alaska to challenge themselves against an unforgiving wilderness landscape where convenience of access and possibility of rescue are practically nonexistent […] When you consider McCandless from my perspective, you quickly see that what he did wasn’t even particularly daring, just stupid, tragic, and inconsiderate. First off, he spent very little time learning how to actually live in the wild. He arrived at the Stampede Trail without even a map of the area. If he [had] had a good map he could have walked out of his predicament […] Essentially, Chris McCandless committed suicide.”
Emphasis mine. That pretty much sums up his adventure right there.
I’m not saying I could do it. Far from it. I’ve been known to get myself into a pickle or two in my life when left alone, but I’m smart enough to know that I shouldn’t try some shit like that.
Movie Review: Little Miss Sunshine
March 18th, 2007That was one funny movie, and a great flick. We got it from NetFlix and let it sit for at least a couple of months before we finally watched it.
Damn. Should have watched it sooner.
Go rent that one, you won’t be disappointed.
Happy Feet
November 20th, 2006I saw the movie Happy Feet Saturday evening and thought I’d write a review.
Just discovered that there’s no need to. Mel already wrote what I wanted to say.
In short:
The songs aren’t appropriate for children, though in all honesty seeing the movie once won’t make the overly sexual lyrics stick in a kid’s head it isn’t something you’d want them watching over and over again.
About 2/3rds the way through the movie we learn that humans are responsible for the penguins starving. We also learn that religion is stupid and all religious leaders are fakes.
Oh, and the only way to solve a problem is to have the United Nations fix it. No kid will actually pick that message up, but the UN logo is presented in the movie in such a way that it would sink in subliminally.
The long:
I’d say about 80% of the movie is “kid safe” but the other 20% isn’t. That pretty much ruins it as a kid’s movie. It’s a funny movie with plenty of laughs for the kids in there, but the message is too dismal and one sided. It would have only taken 2 minutes to actually create a debate and compromise solution in the movie explaining that human beings need to harvest responsibily. That would teach the children a decent lesson on conservation. Instead they run with a whole-hog ban mindset.
Another issue was the action. My girlfriend’s four year old niece and 6 year old nephew were with us and some of the action was a bit too intense for the four year old. She had to look away and hug my girlfriend. They could have been much shorter and much less dramatic. For instance, the orcas (killer whales) going after the penguins. Way too long, and didn’t do much for the plot. Instead it would have been much better, and more educational, if they had actually showed how orcas hunt with realistic outcomes. I caught something a month or so ago about them working as a team to knock seals off ice floats as a team. They’d get 3 abreast, swim real fast as the ice float, go under it, and create a wave that knocked the seal off the float to eat it. The interesting part about the article is that they didn’t eat the seal in question: they were just showing the younger ones how you do it.
Educational, entertaining, somewhat suspsensful, and it lets the kids know that orcas aren’t evil killing beasts all the time. That’s got some value to it no matter what your political leanings. I normally wouldn’t harp on a movie for failing to provide education when they can, but kids will be coming away from this movie thinking that the killer whales Sea-World are nothing but killers that’ll eat them in a second.
That and eating fish is starving the penguins.
Nice movie, but you probably won’t want to buy it on DVD and you would do best to sit your kids down and actually talk about the issues presented.
Official 300 Trailer
October 9th, 2006The first trailer for 300 has been posted online.
It’s shorter than the leaked one that was out a few weeks ago, but at least we know the release date now. March 9th, 2007.
I’m so there.
