A Perfect Movie

I think I just saw a perfect movie. Surprisingly, this movie was made in 2011, in Hollywood and Owen Wilson was one of the costars. (I kid. Wilson has made a number of movies that I like.)

The movie was positive, end to end without being sappy or stupid. All the main characters spent the entire movie chasing and choosing among different values without sacrifice. Not a single despicable character haunted the screen. Not a single "message" was added for the audience's "education". The movie took no shortcuts. The movie had a plot that didn't feel contrived.

Anyway, I was shocked to see such a movie.

Oh, by the way, the movie was "The Big Year" and starred Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson.

Somehow the movie only got a 40% on Rotten Tomatoes. I guess critics are stupid (like arguing with people on the Internet).

Tess Talks Zombies

Dhoom 2

Would you like to spend some time staring at insanity? If so, I have the movie for you. It's the Bollywood blockbuster Dhoom 2. This movie is streaming right now on Netflix. This movie would be the result if you put the following things in a blender and turned it on high: The Pink Panther, MTV, the country of India, the X Games, and those most interesting man in the world commercials.

If you decide against all sound reason and good sense to watch Dhoom 2, you'll need a path back to reality. If you have my phone number, watch the movie and call me. I'll talk you back to the part of reality that everything besides Dhoom 2 occupies. If you don't have my number, I advise you to keep a copy of your local paper nearby. After watching the movie, read that paper (every word) three or four times. That should bring you back.

I pity those who get trapped in the world of Dhoom 2. There should be a foundation or at least a support group for helping those people.

Have fun but be careful. Do not fall into the abyss.

Netflix Review

Here are some movies I've recently watched on Netflix:

1. Cannibal! The Musical: This is a movie you can miss. It was only mildly entertaining.
2. The First Saturday in May: A documentary about the Kentucky Derby. It follows horses (and the people behind those horses) trying to qualify for the race. It was fairly interesting and entertaining.
   
3. The Gamers (Dorkness Rising): A low budget movie about a group of people playing Dungeons and Dragon. I thought it had some very funny bits.
4. Les Paul (Chasing Sound): It's pretty amazing what Paul did with his life.
   
5. Michael Moore Hates America: A documentary about Michael Moore and some of his films. I think it successfully shows that Moore uses dishonest techniques to make his movies.
   
6. Moving Midway: A documentary about the history of a plantation in North Carolina. I learned a lot about the history of the South and slavery. Worth watching.
7. No Impact Man: A documentary about a NYC family that tries to make "no impact" on the environment for a year. They give up coffee, toilet paper, electricity, etc. It was an interesting watch. However, why would you give up any of that stuff? Humans have brains and we can invent and use things that make our lives better. Depriving your family of a year of living like a human doesn't seem like the right thing to do to me.
8. Persepolis: An animated story about life inside Iran during recent history told by a little girl/young woman. It was both very sad and funny. I liked it a lot. I also learned some things.
   
9. Protocols of Zion: A documentary about some of the crap that Jews have to put up with from irrational people that blame them for all sorts of things. It's hard to believe some of the things people believe (or at least say) about Jewish people.
10. Punch-Drunk Love: An Adam Sandler movie that wasn't full of crude and stupid humor. I liked it. It was odd but not bad.
11. Screamers (The Hunting): A sci-fi thriller. Think Aliens meets Tremors. I didn't like it very much.
    
12. The Visitor: I liked this movie. However it's obviously a movie with an agenda. The movie is about America's laws that apply to non citizens. I would like to see those laws changed to be more rational and humane and I think that's the overall message of the film.
    

Netflix Review

Here are some movies I've recently watched on Netflix:

1. About a Boy: Hugh Grant plays a very shallow guy who comes to realize who he is and eventually makes changes. I liked it. It was pretty funny.
   
2. For a Few Dollars More: Classic western. Must see if you like westerns.
   
3. The Host: Korean horror/monster film. It was ok. Some of the monster scenes were well done.
   
4. I Love You, Beth Cooper: I like the idea of this movie a lot. A complete nerd gives a valedictorian speech that gets everybody's attention, including the girl he silently has had a crush on throughout high school. Hilarity ensues. It's not a bad movie.
   
5. The Men Who Stare at Goats: A George Clooney flick. I didn't care for it.
   
6. Metropolis: A visually interesting anime sci-fi film. I liked it. It had a reasonable plot and some decent moments.
   
7. Much Ado About Nothing: Ok. I don't mean to be offensive. However, this movie is gay. Avoid it. Go watch DiCaprio's Romeo + Juliet instead.
   
8. Nerdcore Rising: This documentary is ok. Not the best I've seen recently. It chronicals the first tour of a geek rapper named Mc Frontalot. Imagine a rapper rapping xkcd comics and that's what I mean by geek rapper.
   
9. The Outlaw Josey Wales: A classic western. I liked it a lot. One of the better old westerns that I've seen.
   
10. Pale Rider: Another classic western. I liked the allusions the movie made to other things.
    
11. Planet B-Boy: One of the better documentaries I've seen. It is very well done. Watch it with your sound turned up. It follows teams as they prepare for and participage in a worldwide breaking dancing championship. I know that may sound lame. However, it was actually pretty cool.
    
12. Sita Sings the Blues: An animated movie about some mythology from India. It was very well done but I had lots of trouble following what was going on. The characters talked very fast and the movie moved very fast too. Also, I'm not very familiar with the stories it was telling.
    
13. Spirit of the Marathon: A good documentary about the Chicago marathon.
    
14. The Station Agent: I didn't like this movie very much. Not enough happened. It was essential a character movie with three characters. I think I didn't like this movie for exactly the same reasons I didn't like Lost in Translation.
    
15. Timecrimes: I thought the main charater in this time travel movie wasn't believable. He was very dumb sometimes and very smart other times. He probably could have avoided all of his time travel problems if he had just watched Back to the Future a couple of times before the events of the movie. Having said all that, I still kind of liked this movie. It tried. The plot was complicated and interesting.
    
16. Waiting for Guffman: I didn't like this movie too much. The cast of this movie has made several movies. A Mighty Wind, Best In Show and This Is Spinal Tap were better.
    
17. Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?: A tough old lady buys a painting for nothing. She battles the snooty and arrogant art community trying to prove it is a Jackson Pollock. Her experts come up with pretty good evidence that it is but that doesn't matter to some people.
    

Oh. I almost forgot. I urge all members of the US Congress to add all the above movies to their Netflix queue as fast as humanly possible, if not faster.

Movie Comments/Recommendations

1. Confessions of a Superhero: This is a documentary following four people who take pictures for tips outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre in LA dressed up as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Incredible Hulk. It is very entertaining in a semi-morbid kind of way.
2. A League of Ordinary Gentlemen: This is a documentary about the Pro Bowling Association right after it was bought by some retired Microsoft techies. The PBA almost failed and the new owners made changes to it work.
3. Helvetica: I swore I would not watch this movie. I did. It's only worth about 30 minutes of viewing. After that, it gets kind of repetitive. Some people take fonts way too seriously.
4. Word Wars: This is a documentary that follows four professional Scrabble players. It builds through the Scrabble "season" to the championship. It's very entertaining.
5. The King of Kong: Billy Mitchell is the greatest Donkey Kong player ever. Can he withstand the challenge of a new commer? This movie takes a fascinating look at a very odd subculture. Of particular interest are Billy Mitchell's toadies. Why do they choose to orbit such a small star?
6. Burden of Dreams: Director Werner Herzog struggles to make a film deep in the Amazon rain forest. This film is so meta. The main character of the film is attempting an act of art in the jungle too. It's like Herzog is making a film about himself without knowing it.
7. Primer: A very confusing movie made on a budget of something like $15k. It's very good for such a small budget.
8. I Like Killing Flies: A guy runs a restaurant in New York for twenty plus years in one spot. He dishes out good food. He also dishes out his own view of life. I really liked his poem about parties of 5. (His place is very small and he won't serve parties of more than 4).
9. Silent Light: This is a very, very, very slow movie. It might be the slowest movie ever. I kept watching to see the payoff. There was one. It wasn't worth it. This is a great movie to make fun of as you fastforward through the slow scenes (most of the movie).
10. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill: This is a documentary about a guy that takes care of wild parrots. He gets really close to them. Somehow, despite all odds, this movie ends on a positive note.
    

The Invention of Lying

Some people think I'm the biggest liar ever. So, it's not surprising that I found myself in the theater tonight watching this movie.

I just want to say these two things:

1) I'm so jealous of the people who made this movie.

2) Hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah.

The Fall

So, I'm watching movies from this guy's list: http://colinmarshall.livejournal.com/317732.html

I watched The Fall last night.

I liked it a lot. It was sort of a combination of Brazil, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and some other movie.

It was different, well done, and not formulaic at all.

There Will Be Blood

I watched There Will Be Blood tonight. It is one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen (and I've seen doozies such as The Notebook and Spartan).

What was wrong with that guy? Are there really people like that walking around among us? What do you do if you have to deal with such a person? What did he gain by acting that way?

Movie Observations and Questions

I watched Star Wars: Clone Wars and Solaris (1972) last night and I have some questions.

1. Is Ziro the Hutt from Louisiana or Mississippi? I'm thinking Louisiana because of his Mardi Gras style headgear.
   
2. Should a creature with no legs (like Ziro) say things like "Let's make a run for it"?
3. Solaris is a very slow movie. It is so slow that Tess was able to follow the plot. It's so slow that I paused the movie a few times and I couldn't tell. It's so slow that it seemed like time, itself, was flowing backwards. It's so slow that by the end of the movie I had learned Russian.
   
4. Do astronauts really wear monogrammed pajamas in space like Kris Kelvin in Solaris did in at least one scene?
5. What's up with that horrible 5 second weightless scene in Solaris?
   

New Disc Golf Movie

Tom Cruise stars in a new disc golf movie called "Valkyrie". I'm having trouble finding plot details. However, it looks like the character Cruise plays is a German disc golfer who wins some huge disc golf tournament held during World War II. His favorite disc is, of course, the Valkyrie. I'm not sure what plastic he threw. I'm guessing he threw the champion plastic since it would be the most durable plastic for use during a war.

Hopefully "Valkyrie" will be as well received as some of these other disc golf movies: "The Destroyer", "The Beast", and "Weekend at Ken Climo's".

http://www.dailyplastic.com/2008/12/valkyrie/

You Don't Mess with the Zohan

I'm going to review You Don't Mess with the Zohan without even seeing it. Here's my review:

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 44 times, shame on you, again.

Here's all you need to know about Adam Sandler:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/celebrity/adam_sandler/

He has a 7% career rating on Rotten Tomatoes (ouch).

My Apologies

I saw No Country For Old Men for the first time this weekend.

I realized after a while that I was watching myself. I'm very much like the character Anton Chigurh (played by Javier Bardem). I'm like him in almost every way. It's pretty amazing.

Anyway, I had an ephinany. A lot of the charters in the movie are afraid of Anton Chigurh. Maybe a lot of the people in my life are afraid of me? If so (and it's very likely considering all the evidence I have), I apologize.

I don't mean anybody any harm. I'm pretty dangerous and I'm capable of all sorts of destruction. However, I'm able to keep it all that contained. It's been a long time since I've gone on a rampage. Also, I have it pretty good right now. So, the likelihood of a rampage is greatly reduced.

So, in short, sleep well my pretties.

= )

Superbad Was Super

I saw Superbad this weekend.

It was crude but very funny.