Films Category

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

Feature Presentation

If you’re on a laptop, I suggest grabbing it and heading out under the stars with me to enjoy a summer flick. No it’s not the same as film viewing in Maui, but after ten seconds of fantasizing what that would be like, I decided to do the next best thing.

Hmm… perhaps a movie in a park would be the next best thing… and then a drive in would be the next best thing after that… watching a film on a big theater screen in your back yard would be the next best thing after that, well actually I’d move this last one to the one after the Maui thing…

Anyway, here you go: Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Into the Wild

I didn’t know a lot about this film before I had it delivered to my mailbox. I knew it was a coming of age story about a man bent on going to Alaska. In fact I didn’t even read the synopsis until after I watched it:

Sean Penn directs this feature based on best-selling author Jon Krakauer’s true story of a young man who gives up everything to lead a solitary life in the wild. Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a middle-class college graduate, abandons his safe existence to trek across the harsh yet beautiful terrain of Alaska. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden co-star, along with Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn and Hal Holbrook (in an Oscar-nominated role).

Upon viewing it I had my soul tugged at again. Memories flooded my mind in such a way that I didn’t have time to grab onto any thing solid. I gladly allowed myself to get caught up in the rapids of my mind that was sparked through familiarity in a film.

Christopher’s life was a facade that he wished to break from. Anything that reminded him of the false reality his family created he wanted nothing to do with including his own identity. Money was tainted, names were lies, and every part of him wanted to break from the stench and become his own person on his own terms in his own way.

We all need our personal journey to discover who we are away from the people who raised us. To forgive life for painting lies onto our canvas until we’re ready to see the flaws underneath is definitely an sobering experience. Once we can accept those flaws and see their purpose, we can then realize and understand our own selves and begin to perfect and strengthen who we are..

I was raised in Alaska and my father took us to the states near the end of my brother and my school careers. I felt ripped away from a land that was my home. A place I watched grow. A place laced with so much beauty, innocence and what felt like magic. I knew the feelings of brotherhood and belonging were going to be left behind once we got into that car and hit the Alcan Highway that led to the Lower 48.

A call back to Alaska rang into my dreams each night I was away. The majestic mountains and land that sometimes you’d happen across and feel you were the first human to lay eyes on it and explore.

My brother and I would create these fantastic adventures to escape our own home life. We’d leave at the crack of dawn and return just shy of bedtime. We’d return with memories of building rafts, cutting paths in the wild, building forts, braving windstorms, blizzards, white outs, wild animals, and the dangers of seemingly gentle terrain.

It was a culture shock to find out that while I was learning survival skills in elementary school, being taken miles into the mountains by foot in the middle of winter with my class for a week- kids down in the states were busy bouncing balls and learning their state history through text books.

School was closed up there once it hit -30, even though we’d push our way through waist deep snow for weeks before, and my first winter in the NW… school was closed for a week because an inch of snow fell.

When I turned 20 the call of the wild was so strong and the opportunity arose, so I left everything behind and went back for a whole new series of adventures, equally fascinating and inspiring.

This of course isn’t about *my* life. The film was a decent story of a man who enters into adulthood in a modern world while trying to break away from any thing that would cause him dependency on the society around him. He had to learn his strengths and limitations on his own terms, in his own way. By doing this he could have his epiphany and return to a waiting world with more insight, understanding and wisdom than he ever could have obtained should he had stayed put and ignored the betrayal and disgust he felt towards his parents. This story is also about his sister’s understanding of why he left, her bond with him and her own growth by imagining his journey because his communication is non-existent.

Although this isn’t a feel good movie of the year, it does prompt you to look around and re-evaluate your own issues, puts them in perspective and then nudges you to step out of your own comfort zone a little and approach the world in a slightly different way.

Current Mood:Amused emoticon Amused

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Wildly Popular ‘Iron Man’ Trailer To Be Adapted Into Full-Length Film

Fans are worried that the feature film adaptation of the beloved trailer won’t live up to the original 90-second story’s vision.

Sunday, April 27th, 2008

Wristcutters: A Love Story

 Disclaimer: In this hypersensitive world, do not read further if suicide is a touchy subject, if you have good taste in films or if you value your time.

“Trapped in an alternate world populated by suicide victims, a band of souls tries to find an escape route in Goran Dukic’s quirky fantasy. Although he took his own life, Zia (Patrick Fugit) isn’t ready for such a grim hereafter, particularly when he learns that his ex-girlfriend also killed herself. On a quest to find her, he befriends a jaded hitchhiker and a Russian rocker, and together, they set out in search of a more appealing afterlife.”

Sounds interesting doesn’t it? Let me save you the trouble of going through the emotions I did by sharing how I felt when it was over with.

I’m barely scraping by in life while this film made a profit? NO FAIR! If I would have known that film making was THIS easy and required almost no talent, then I would have sought a career in that field.

This reminds me of a bad dream that you can’t recall. You try to spew out the bits and pieces that you remember, but none of it makes any sort of sense and it’s not as interesting as it sounded in your head… hmmm that’s probably how Goran Dukic felt once he saw the final work.

The writing was lazy as was the acting. The story line was hazy and I kept pinching myself hoping I’d wake up. Why didn’t I turn it off? I figured with all the buzz it had to get better. It didn’t.

Current Mood:annoyed emoticon annoyed

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

The Usual Suspects

Monday, February 4th, 2008

A New Week

Well this is a brand new week and I’ve no idea if that means it’s a better one. I’d like to think so due to the fact I’ve no more vacuum cleaners to catch on fire.

My rent is late and I had been applying for online loans which fall short of what I need. Now many site have my critical information and I think it’s time to get a new identity. My next one shall be a bazillionaire.

In a way I think it’s a good thing to pass up the online loans and issues finding one local. Perhaps the one that I used to go to closing down is a good sign. Maybe being close to eviction is better than winding up in a horrible financial cycle that last time cost me $10,800.00. For that amount I could have paid off my student loan that haunts me. I could have bought a brand new car. I could have taken a cruise… hell, I could have bought a pair of socks at Sak’s.

I’m taking it all as a sign not to do the payday advance this time. I’m pleased that I called Vonage to see if I could pay on Friday (payday) or cancel my service tomorrow and restart it on Friday- and they’re giving me this month free to keep me as a customer. Are they really that bad of a service… or are they truly customer orientated? I’ve no idea, but it takes a sting out.

Also- if there’s no Dept of Ed or anyone else to nab my return… then YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!! I’d actually get to enjoy it more than buying a new flame retardant vacuum cleaner!

I watched Atonement last night. I’m not going to write some huge review- I’ll merely state that I didn’t hate it. I will then add that I didn’t love it either.

I was supposed to watch a nosey girl who had a crush on guy possibly ten years her senior who, in a days’ time finally hooks up with her sister. Hurt feelings causes her to spread a rumor and then ultimately points the finger at him when a girl is molested. He’s a sexual deviant. He liked her sister instead of her, so he must be punished. He winds up in prison and then he is released to fight the war where the sister has become a nurse to help in the war. I call this film, “Epic Blank Stares”. It wasn’t traumatic, it was more “unfortunate”. The “love” story was an brief brush at passion and we’re supposed to think that they’re doing all they can to be together again. There was no chemistry. There was no depth. There was no believablity. The story generates of a girls guilt and accusation. Stuff happens. It happens regardless, and perhaps IF went in accordance to her perception- sucks to be her. Were other men in the war in a lesser relationship? No, they had years built with a spouse who they were torn from. Were other nurses placed in harms way there because of a teenage fling that was acted upon in impulse on an odd evening? Probably not, they problem had an entire clan waiting for their return at home or perhaps a true passionate love story that was built up so much so that they’d explode if they weren’t together and the one night they could be together, a bomb fell separating their embrace or something like that.

James McAvoy did a wonderful job portraying someone who truly was interested in the woman who felt no need to acknowledge him for the most part. Fighting for his life to get back to her and running into constant frustrations and dangers… while Keira Knightley showed no connection with the part, the characters or the film. Was she doing this as an obligation? The younger sister, played by Saoirse Ronan did a  great job as well in portraying a smart young lady who is jealous of her sister that she loves, but more painfully so in love with the son of the housekeeper who sees her as just a child.

The film was perspective. It wasn’t as tragic as I thought it’d be. I guess the movie would be too sad though if the camera panned out the Keira in her mid-thirties becoming a grandmother as she struggled to pay her rent while her child was hooked up in a machine in the next room with her fire destroyed vacuum cleaner in the closet, typing on the computer to finish a blog about a tepid film so she can complete it to go to sleep so she could go to bed ALONE and wake up to sit in a noisy room to be barked at all day. No having a child struggle for their life and seeing them hooked up to a billion machines and being “touch and go”, no losing a myriad of friends and loved ones to illness, suicide, war, murder, accidents. No falling outs with people, etc. Leave a beautiful corpse, leave when love is still romantic and tragic- not a realistic and horrible break up to be chronically alone and when you’re not, you’re dating a string of freaks! I love my life, I wouldn’t change it for anything, I’m just trying to make a point- but please, after the film ended- the characters lives were assumed. Damn, I did it again. Seriously though, I’d rather die with a beautiful thought of a relationship with possibilities that gives you the fuel to move forward, than having a definite ending and nothing more to hold onto.

I recall when I *thought* had I had that tragic story brewing- and almost a decade of trying to get back to him and the things I survived through in order to make it back. I sat telling my tale on a warm summer day. The gentleman I was talking to was in tears and introduced himself as detective (yes, he was legit). The next thing I know I’m sitting in a detectives office as the sun shining through the window, hope was being carried on the breeze that gave the hot day a refreshing break. He was bent on helping the story move forward… a week later I got the news that the love of my life was wound up married and working at NASA and had a second kid on the way.

 I AM NOT BITTER! Cinderella stories should end with a kiss to a new beginning that you’ll never see unfold, or it should end in death.

Seriously, I’m not. On that same coin, I didn’t feel compassion for them. They got off easy. They got to die with a strong love in their heart for someone as the relationship never had a chance to even begin. Who knows what would have happened should they truly have lived a normal length of time. And I just think I gave away the story for the most part… (like the Hamlet mention wasn’t a foreshadowing)

 So much for not writing a huge review!

The next film up before the Oscars… No Country for Old Men. I have a feeling I won’t like it. Then again, I had a feeling I’d love Atonement. I’ve learned that I know NOTHING. I can now fall asleep.

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008

This Massively Sucks

heath.jpgYesterday a blanket of darkness was thrown on me at approximately 2:05:16 pm PST. I was sitting at my desk doing my usual routine of whining that I wished I was home when a friend shot me a link. Not knowing where the url led, I clicked on it and saw that Heath Ledger was found dead less than two hours prior.

Granted, I don’t know the guy, but I know that he was a breath of fresh air amongst a stale industry. For the past ten years I’ve watched him grow from a teeny bopper flicks to serious roles that few would brave.

I had to step outside and absorb the news. When I returned home, I called my daughter to tell her about the somber news as both her and I had enjoyed viewing his career and seeing him become stronger as an actor as time progressed.

It was so random. Unexpected. 50 years premature.

He was a promise and a reminder that there was actual talent out there who knew their craft and did it well.

Silence is the only thing that seems to capture my reaction. I don’t feel like crying for the loss. I feel merely like sitting in silence and hoping that he left knowing he was respected in his field. That he helped to set a standard in his professional life that I hope others try to reach at and above and that he truly assisted in keeping my love of film going.

I truly don’t care the why or how, it doesn’t matter at this point. What matters is a hopeful has passed and he will be missed.

Current Mood:blah emoticon blah

Saturday, January 12th, 2008

Two More Weeks

Live for nothing or die for something.[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=w_LuxmlJscE[/youtube]

Current Mood:awake emoticon awake

Tuesday, December 25th, 2007

DP: Ghic Chic Reviews 30 Days of Night

30daysofnight_teaserposter.jpgIt’s the holiday weekend, what other kind of film are you going to check out… if you’re me? I saw “I am Legend”, but being as that didn’t annoy me, I’ll save that review for a little bit later. In the meantime I bring you 30 Days of Night.

Or as I like to call it, 30 things the film makers don’t know about cold, blood, terrain or film making.

In Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost town in the U.S, the winter sun sets and does not rise for 30 days and nights. From the darkness comes an evil force that strikes terror on the town, and all hope is pinned on a husband-and-wife cop team. (Yahoo)

Way up North in Barrow Alaska a clan of vampires come to terrorize a town. As a vampire I might think, “Awesome, 24 hours of dark… I don’t get cold… so why can’t I be completely lazy after I trek to the middle of no where and feast on people for thirty days? We’ll kill the majority of them in the first day, refuse to turn anyone- although we will… and they’ll know our language immediately… and the blood won’t ever dry or dissipate because blood does that… Being as I’m a vampire, then absolutely nothing in nature or reality can apply as I’m fictitious. Oooh look- there’s a white out and no snow accumulation after and WOW- that kill we did ages ago is still stained on the snow!”

Continue reading DP: Ghic Chic Reviews 30 Days of Night

Current Mood:annoyed emoticon annoyed

Wednesday, December 19th, 2007

DP: More Geeky Gift Ideas

With the gatherings extending well into the new year for those post holiday get togethers, it’s not too late to complete your list or get a little something for yourself.

USB Missile Launcher
misslelauncher1.jpgStir Up Some Mayhem to Break Up the Monotony — Is your 9 to 5 getting you down?
Ever find yourself bored and frustrated on the job? Take control of the airspace
in and around your cubicle for a fun way to break up the day. — This USB
Missile Launcher features a 15 foot range so you can conduct target practice, or
see if your missle can land just outside the corner office. — Use your PC to
aim and launch the three foam missiles to secure your borders and defend your
homecube. The missile is controlled left to right, and fired using your computer
controls.

USB Missile Launcher
Price $29.99

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball
freud1.jpgTired of being called unsympathetic? Give the gift that keeps on giving. For that friend, significant other or relative who keeps trying to get you talk about their feelings, Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball will have you appearing heart felt and caring in no time with over twenty responses such as: “How did that
make you feel?” and “Talk about your mother.”

Dr. Freud’s Therapy Ball
Price $8.95

Continue reading DP: More Geeky Gift Ideas

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