Category: movie

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The Bad Review Revue

Honey Don’t: “An unfulfilling film that feels like a bootleg copy of Cohen and Cooke’s earlier and more successful work. Between a seemingly intentional directional choice of hollow performances and a sloppy plot, an actual bee sting would be preferable to watching it.” — Dana Han-Klein, What We’re Watching

Trust: “Trust is an ironic title for this foolish crime drama that has no credibility.” — Carla Hay, Culture Mix

Eden: “‘Eden’ is doomed to the same fate as its biblical namesake. And like Eve and the forbidden fruit, Howard’s lurid existential exercise bites off more than it can chew.” — Al Alexander, Movies Thru the Spectrum

Primative War: “‘Primitive War’ is a ‘Jurassic Park’-meets-Vietnam War mash-up—and is as ridiculous as that sounds.” — Jesse Hassenger, The Daily Beast

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The Jaws Poster is in the Public Domain

The poster for the iconic 1975 American thriller film, Jaws, it turns out, was never copyrighted.

David Friedman on Ironic Sans:

As we’re all celebrating the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws, here’s something I bet you didn’t know: Due to a fluke of publishing and copyright law, the Jaws shark is public domain.

It’s not the character of the shark that’s public domain — or someone would surely be making a low-budget horror prequel about how he became the Amity Island Killer. But I’m talking about the famous shark painting from the movie poster:

Movie poster from 1975 movie, "Jaws"

Friedman’s story about the poster is funny and worth reading. As for the movie itself, I tried watching Jaws about a year ago but I found the pacing just too slow and decided it wasn’t worth it so I turned it off. I’ve seen many parts of it before, just never in one sitting, but I still remember seeing the titular “Jaws”1 as a kid on the Universal Studio tour when I was about one or two years old.

Here are a couple of photos from that trip:

Jaws from the safety of our tour tram.
Jaws photo op at Universal Studios circa 1980.
  1. The shark was nicknamed “Bruce” on set, after Stephen Spielberg’s divorce lawyer.[↩]
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Don’t Look Up

I just watched “Don’t Look Up”. I’m glad I heard the mixed reviews because I went into it knowing that it’s not a comedy per se. It’s a humorous movie but ultimately a tragedy. I highly recommend it.

I read a review from Dave Winer a couple of days ago that convinced me to watch it despite the bad reviews. He said:

I didn’t watch a lot of movies this year, but my favorite, hands-down, was (of course) Don’t Look Up. It’s more than a movie, it’s an anthem, identifying the conclusion of our civilization one way or the other. We either overcome our need to be told simple bedtime stories and thus transform into something else, or we self-destruct. Either way, the past is not a template for the future. And they deliver the message in such an entertaining way! Maybe it’s the last fun movie our species will ever create? People who judge the movie on its ability to entertain alone are totally missing the point. We have not only hit the wall, but it destroyed us. Now it’s time to pick up the pieces, the best we can. As Dr Mindy says at the end, “We really did have everything.” Note the past tense, and it’s very true, in the movie and in our lives. The times of having everything is over. Now what can we salvage from the wreckage of our civilization?

When I came to bed afterward I was just reeling from the movie. It’s not about a meteor at all, and I think we’re already past the point of recovery, but some people most people don’t want to know.

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DeLorean Time Travel Consultant

A couple of weeks ago I watched the movie “Driven” about John DeLorean and his run in with the law. It was an ok movie but not as exciting as I had hoped. I still liked it but I was hoping for something more like Ford vs. Ferrari.

Anyway, last night I happened to watch Back to the Future and felt particular appreciation for the genius idea to use a DeLorean as the time travel vehicle. It was perfect, right down to the fact the DeLoreans were/are notoriously unreliable which added to the suspense as lightning is moments away from striking and Marty can’t get the car started.

Anyway, after the movie was over I was grooving on Huey Lewis’ “Back in Time” and watching the credits roll when I noticed the name Ron Cobb beside the words, “DeLorean Time Travel Consultant”. What does that even mean? I did a quick search and found Ron Cobb’s website and wikipedia entry. It turns out he designed the concept for the DeLorean Time Machine. I also learned that unfortunately, he died just last year on his 83rd birthday, from complications of Lewy body dementia. From Wikipedia:

Ronald Ray Cobb (September 21, 1937 – September 21, 2020) was an American-Australian artist. As well as being an editorial cartoonist he worked on numerous major films including Dark Star (1974), Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Conan the Barbarian (1982), Back to the Future (1985), The Abyss (1989), Total Recall (1990), and Southland Tales (2006). He had one credit as director, for the 1992 film Garbo.

It’s really neat to see the prop schematics for the DeLorean Time Machine. It’s extra fascinating to read all the names of the different time travel components. Be sure to check out the original design of the flux capacitor.

Continue reading “DeLorean Time Travel Consultant”

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Live-Blogging The Princess Bride on First Watch

Westley and Princess Buttercup look at each other

Twitter user @uzbadyubi had never seen, “The Princess Bride” and when he finally watched it1, live-blogged the whole thing creating this riveting twitter-thread:

https://twitter.com/uzbadyubi/status/1218630664754466817?s=21

Following along, it’s like watching the whole movie in less than 5 minutes. Check out the thread via Threadreader or on Twitter.

(via The Loop)

1. I do wonder though, did he continually pause the movie to take and post those screenshots?

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Star Wars with Ron Howard

I’m really looking forward to the new Solo movie coming out later this month. Having Ron Howard as the director made the perfect opportunity for this Arrested Development Star Wars parody.

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Barton Fink

After many years seeing it top lists of the Cohen Bros. best movies I finally saw Barton Fink streaming on Netflix and decided to watch it for the first time.

When it was done, I thought to myself — as many viewers of the movie apparently have, what was that all about? Luckily in 2018 I can do what viewers in 1991 (when the movie came out) could not do: Google it.

And to my delight, this Medium Article popped up, “Writers Come and Go”: 10 Reasons Why Barton Fink Is the Best Movie Ever Made About Writing.

Every semester, I show my Creative Writing 1 students the 1991 Coen Brothers film Barton Fink. Those students who are foolish enough to enroll in Creative Writing 2 (and unlucky enough to have me again for a teacher) watch it a second time in that course. Students always ask: “Why are we watching this?” This is a good question — I encourage my students to seek answers, and questioning authority has been my modus operandi since I was a child. I’m happy to discuss all of this.
[…]
Barton’s ego is the villain of this story. So convinced is he of his genius that he becomes blind to the desperate needs of everyone around him — Charlie, WP Mayhew, and Audrey. He fails to see his art as a tool to improve the world, and instead sees it only as a means of attracting praise. Therefore he fails as a writer. I don’t want my students to follow in his footsteps.

The movie is excellent and made all the better after reading the above analysis.

I wish I were a decent writer. This web page is about the closest thing I have for an outlet and I’m lucky if I can just whip something up once a month to kid myself into thinking this blog isn’t completely dead. Maybe this movie will be the inspiration I need to get back into blogging. Or maybe this entry will sit on the front page for the next year, symbolizing my own Barton Fink like writing block.

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The Hunt for Gollum

I, for one, am really looking forward to the Peter Jackson-Guillermo del Toro two-part film based on The Hobbit, but in the meantime fans of Middle-earth have taken it upon themselves to create a prequel of their own, with The Hunt for Gollum.

The 40-minute film based on JRR Tolkien’s appendices to The Lord of the Rings fills in some of the untold events that befell between the end of The Hobbit (with Bilbo having unwittingly carried off the One Ring from its then ‘owner’, Gollum) and the beginning of the saga of the War of the Ring as recounted in The Fellowship of the Ring.

What is most amazing is that the filmmakers have managed to produce their film for a mere $5000.

“The Hunt For Gollum is an unofficial non-profit film made for private use, and is not intended for sales of any sort. No money is being made from this film, and no one was paid to make it.”

The Hunt for Gollum is easily the highest quality fan movie I’ve ever seen. Lord of the Rings fans will love the incredible 40 minutes, as it depicts Strider’s adventure in gathering clues about the coming horde by tracking down Gollum. Almost as if pulled from cut scenes out of the Peter Jackson trilogy, if you’re a fan, you’ll probably not want to miss this.

Here’s the trailer movie:

I’d like to see them make one about the cleansing of the shire, but in the meantime, you can watch The Hunt for Gollum online (for free) right now.

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Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

The first time I’d ever heard of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was when my dad made a wood carving based on one of the characters holding up a plate to the sky. (Apparently my parents are better acquainted with popular children’s books than I am.)

Sony pictures is now making a Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs movie. (Check the embedded video below for the trailer.)

I’m not convinced doing it in 3D is a good idea, but I haven’t actually seen any of the new 3D movies lately and so, I’ll save my judgement for now.