Ok, so I really, REALLY hate the new Hotmail. With a firey passion. Yeah, it looks prettier but it’s twice as much a pain in the ass now. Fucking Microsoft.
I will never EVER use the new Napster. I don’t care how many downloads it has or how easy it is to use, just on principle I’m not ever going to use it. Remember when they gave us FREE music? Now they are just pussies. At least change the name. Napster sounds like you are kidnapping the songs for your own. If you’ve got to pay to kidnap someone, what’s the point?
Am I alone in thinking that the new “improvements” of Hotmail are the shittiest “improvements” that you could ever get? What a damn pain in the ass.
——The Missing——
(B+)
Overall this is a very good and interesting movie, spoiled only by its overlong length and Ron Howard’s tendency to shoot specific scenes for the Academy. Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones are great, as is the child actor who plays Dot, Blanchett’s younger daughter. The movie does a lot of things right and is well shot overall, but every once and a while things get a little too PC for my tastes. Obviously Ron was influenced by The Searchers, but no one in this movie has quite the un-PC intensity of John Wayne’s Indian hating even though the Searchers was made in a much more PC time. The captured daughter suffers no more than some harsh physical abuse but never anything too intense; even in a scene where she’s about to be raped one of the Indians captors comes out of nowhere to save her. Cate and Tommy Lee seem to resolve their differences a little too easily also, but overall I did like most of the movie and really enjoyed it despite its flaws.
——Dirty Ho——
(A-)
This Gordon Liu movie has a pretty entertaining plot and a lot of really cool set pieces. It’s only hampered by one bizarre sequence that seems a little out of place and overly weird in which a gang of weird fighting semi-transvestites (one fights only by biting) tries to capture Liu’s character.
Skip that sequence (well, fast forward to the guy who bites and then skip the rest) and you have a really great movie in which a petty thief Ho gets involved with a rich trader (Gordon Liu) who just happens to be hiding the fact that he’s a kung fu expert, and just happens to be hiding the fact that he’s a prince. By a series of coincidences Ho gets entangled with Liu who does everything he can to hide from him who he really is, until he is finally revealed and then trains Ho to help him get back to the palace (one or more of his brothers doesn’t want him to be there when his father names the successor to the throne).
My personal favorite scene is one in which Ho tries to attack Liu and Liu, still hiding his identity, claims that a lute player is his bodyguard and then helps her move her body around so that it appears that she is really a kung fu master. The whole thing is rather ingenious and a whole lot of fun. Other notable scenes include a showdown against an army of archers in a ruined city and a two on three fight at the end that’s really amazing. Besides the bizarre semi-transvestites this is must see kung fu.
——Love Actually——
(B+)
I actually really liked this movie and it for the most part really works as a collection of many different stories of love. The only problem with it is that there are just too many stories going on, and the director/writer Richard Curtis should have known where to restrain himself. If I were doing it there are at least two stories I would definitely cut out: One involves a dopey not so attractive Englishman who can’t get laid and who’s solution is to go to this mythical place called America, where his British accent will be so cool that he’ll instantly get laid. He goes to Wisconsin of all places, and not only does he prove his theory true but he gets four girls, who all happen to be drop dead gorgeous, all live in the same house, sleep in the same bed and all want him. Uh, yeah, right. Keep dreaming. Not only that but when he comes back to England he brings with him Shannon Elizabeth and Denise Richards for his friend. Completely unnecessary in this movie.
The other useless plot thread involves two movie stand-ins who fall in love while pretending to fuck each other. Not only is that the extent of the plot, but I also had a hard time believing that someone would spend a month actually setting up a sex scene with stand-ins. Other than some nice nudity for the guys who were dragged to the movie with their wives/girlfriends there is nothing to this sequence outside of the anecdotal.
Obviously the sequences with the big name actors get a lot more attention and are a lot more realistically drawn out. Hugh Grant is great as the Prime Minister who falls in love with his saucy house maid, Emma Thomson is wonderful as a wife who watches her marriage unravel as her husband (Alan Rickman) falls for his younger secretary, Liam Neeson has an unusual yet great plot as a widower whose dealing with his son’s grade school crush on an American girl, and Laura Linney has an especially touching plot as a woman who can’t be with the man of her dreams because her institutionalized brother. Trim the fat and you have a really great chick flick that even the guys can get into.
——The 39 Steps——
(B-)
Alfred Hitchcock can obviously do no wrong, so it’s too bad that I can’t say the same about the writer. This case of mistaken identity spy thriller suffers from the fact that only about 1% of the plot actually moves along because of character; the rest seems to move all because of coincidence. If this didn’t happen, or this didn’t happen, or this didn’t happen, yadda yadda yadda, we’d have no movie. One or two of these moments are OK and even welcome, but when the entire film depends on them the experience kind of falls apart for me. I just couldn’t buy it, or really care. This is for Hitchcock fans only, the rest should stay away. North by Northwest is a whole lot better anyway.
——Welcome to the Dollhouse——
(B)
I really enjoyed most of this movie, but for it to really work Todd Solondz has to become a lot less cynical human being. The problem with this movie is that the character at the end is really no better or no worse than she was at the beginning of the film. And she was pretty damn shitty at the beginning. I don’t care if she found a way to better herself or if she went mad and blew up the school, I just wanted to see her do something to change her situation by the end. Even when she tries to make those life changes life has a way of kicking her in the ass right back to where she was. When she decides to date a boy, he leaves. When she tries to find her sister to redeem her mistake and become a hero her sister is found without her and once again steals away the spotlight. While I really liked Solondz’s character work I was really bothered by the fact that the ending didn’t really go anywhere. Although I enjoyed the last hour and a half I felt like it had also been wasted. Good, but not quite as good as Happiness.
Also, despite not really seeing much of anything Thanksgiving week, I’ve had a pretty impressive month. Here’s the numbers:
In November,
Movies Seen: 43
New Movies Seen: 40
Movies Seen in Theater: 8
For the Year,
Movies Seen: 326
New Movies Seen: 221
Movies Seen in Theater: 52
Could I get a little help from those of you who know more about computers than I?
A few days I try to log onto the internet on my laptop and instead of the dialup logon screen and then the Hotmail webpage coming up, a saved webpage (HP.html) in the Windows folder on my C drive came up as my start webpage and didn’t automatically dialup my internet. I can’t for the life of me figure out how it became my start up screen, nor do I know how to get rid of it. I’ve tried going into Internet Options and changing my homepage to hotmail and I’ve tried deleting the HP file, but every time I restart my computer it comes back as my main setting.
Can anyone help me out???
Shit. As if to herald in the week of bad sleep, it snowed last night, covering the ground with beautiful white powder that screams out “FUCK YOU BEN! HAHAHAHAHA!” See, this week because all of my relatives are coming up for Thanksgiving I have to sleep in the basement on the couch. If the uncomfortable matress (eh hem, sorry…cushion) and the fact that you can hear everything going on upstairs because there is only a thin layer of wood separating the basement from the first floor isn’t bad enough, there is the fact that now that it is getting cold out the wood stove is going to have to be started up, thus heating the basement up to the nice comfortable temperature that Hell operates on. Of course for the last week it has been beautiful outside (the last two days making it into the 60’s) but right when I really need that weather to pull through for me it kicks me in the ass down a flight of stairs. Stupid weather.
——Spellbound——
(B+)
I like this movie for the one Freudian slip that’s made that isn’t explained at the end. When Ingred Bergman meets Gregory Peck for the first time she is describing a swimming pool and draws a shape in the table cloth that looks surprisingly like the female genitalia, which causes Peck to blush and go all crazy. Of course the reason the movie gives for why he is uncomfortable is that the lines in the white table cloth remind him of skiing, but I can’t not see the sexual metaphor when it is staring me right in the face, especially after Peck tries to cover it up by moving an especially phallic shaped butter knife between the lines. Well, that’s not only why I liked this, but you get the idea. Two great actors discussing psychotherapy with a Dali designed dream sequence. Good stuff. A tighter script and this could have been really damn cool.
——Executioners from Shaolin——
(A-)
Pei Mai, an expert at tiger style kung fu, turns on his brethren and kills the head priest of the Shaolin Temple for the Manchus, who are getting rid of all opposition. The story of this movie takes place over 20 years after the head priest is killed as one family tries to avenge his death (most of the characters, it should be noted, never age for some reason, including Pei Mai who should technically die of old age before these people got their act together). The best student goes around posing as a theater performer to try to teach the people to oppose the Manchu. During this period he meets his wife who is an expert at Crane style. But very soon the Manchus figure out what the theater troupes are up to, and they disband. The husband and wife go into hiding while the husband perfects his Tiger style.
Pei Mai is an expert though and he can’t be beat by the husband’s inferior kung fu. Pei Mai’s weak spot happens to be his nuts (hey, whose weak spot isn’t?) but they only come out at a certain time of day. The rest of the time his balls retract into his body and you can kick him there till the sun sets and nothing will happen. In fact one of his favorite tricks is to get your foot stuck up there and drag you around just to show you how cool he is. It’s hilarious. Also you can’t eye gouge him, as he has eyelids of steel or something like that. So pretty much he just sits around all day waiting for people to come to him to challenge him, just so he can act cool.
The father is defeated by him, but luckily he had a son who grew up learning his mother’s crane technique. When the father dies the son pulls out the father’s tiger style manual, but it has fallen apart from age and so he can only learn half of the moves. This is a good thing though, as by combining Crane and Tiger he is able to beat Pei Mai. (Why the father stubbornly refused to learn Crane is beyond me.)
A nice epic plot with lots of kung fu, and of course Pei Mai, makes this must see.
——Five Superfighters——
(A)
OK, there are actually only three fighters, and they aren’t particularly “super”, but this movie kicks ass. It’s pretty much no stop action from start to finish with some excellent choreography and lots of different styles of kung fu.
The plot is that this egotistical kung fu corrector is traveling around and pretty much beating up anyone who he feels doesn’t have perfect kung fu. The corrector beats up a master and his three pupils (they do monkey style) and humiliates them. The students decide to leave while the master is sleeping and split up to learn kung fu from other masters so that they can come back in 6 months time and kick the corrector’s ass for their teacher’s birthday.
The kung fu is so freaking cool in this movie, and the climax is quite impressive. Also this movie has one of the most fantastically bad soundtracks ever. At times it is like a cheesy 70’s action TV show, while at other times it’s like an insane Nintendo game. This movie kicks ass.
——Legendary Weapons of China——
(B+)
Very often I had no idea what the hell was going on in this movie. The plot has something to do with a kung fu master who quits his school when his ability to stop swords can’t be applied to stopping bullets and he doesn’t wish to see any more students die pointlessly trying to take bullets. His school views him as a traitor and all sorts of people try to find him and kill him (including his brother who wants to be the new master of the school). The school is also kind of based on Chinese magic too, so there are lots of cool scenes of people using flash bombs and shooting knives out of their backs and all sorts of madness. While the plot will leave you scratching your head, some of the fight choreography is amazing to behold and very cool, well worth wading through the plot for. As the title suggests, there is a whole hell of a lot of weapon fighting in this one.
——Street Fighter’s Last Revenge——
(C)
This Street Fighter movie I thought was actually pretty crappy. The plot is a little easier to follow than the last two movies and there is no annoying sidekick, but the movie also doesn’t have much of the fun and extreme violence that the first two movies have. This time Terry has become a B-movie James Bond of Japan and unfortunately that combination doesn’t make for a very exciting movie about people fighting over a recipe for synthetic heroin. The amount of fight scenes are minuscule and not really all that cool. Stick with the first two Chiba movies.
——Elf——
(A-)
Man, there have been a lot of great kid’s movies out this year, haven’t there? And this is one of them. Aside from the final fifteen minutes where the film turns into a rather generic Christmas movie, this film is incredibly hilarious. Most of that is probably because of Will Ferrell throwing himself 110% into his role as a human raised an elf, and definitely the movie wouldn’t be as good without him. But he’s not all this movie has going for it as most of the screenplay snaps with great dialog and funny lines, and the direction by Jon Favreau pays loyal homage to movies of Christmas’s past while making fun of the conventions at the same time. It’s the little details like making the North Pole look like the old claymation movies (even including claymation characters like the hilarious Frosty the Snowman) and things like letting us know what the three professions of elves are (shoe cobblers, cookie makers, and toy makers (somehow being able to make etch-a-sketches with wooden mallets)) or why dwarves don’t make toys (they’re drunks) that make this movie so fun. Will Ferrell is fantastic though. He needs more movies like this that showcase his many talents.
——Legend of the Eight Samurai——
(D)
This Sonny Chiba movie is bad. It’s bad, bad, bad, bad, BAD! I was probably a little naïve to expect a Kurosawa quality samurai epic, but I never expected anything like this. This movie is like Seven Samurai/Hidden Fortress combined with Masters of the Universe, as put out by Roger Corman. Oh man this sucks. The movie even starts out with the worst 80’s movie pop ballad played over artwork inspired by Journey album covers. That said, there is something about this movie being SO bad that it is actually quite hilarious. I broke down with some heavy laughter quite a few times while watching this. The acting is so hammy, the lines so bad, the sets and makeup so garish, the plot contrivances so absurd that you can’t help having a good time hating this movie. My favorite part has to be when the bad guy suddenly turns good, falls in love with the princess, the make love in the middle of nowhere for like five minutes to a pop song that goes something like “I wish this night would never endddddd~!” and when the song ends a giant rubber snake pops out of the fog to attack them. It’s the fakest thing EVER, and so goddamn funny. A horrible movie, but a great movie to get drunk to (and there are actually two scenes in it that aren’t half bad).
——Slap Shot——
(B+)
A pretty funny comedy that uses just about every good hockey joke out there. Some of the parts aren’t great, but put together as a whole this movie is hilarious. There is nothing quite like watching the three Hanson brothers on the ice killing everyone they can get their hands on. Everyone is obviously having a good time making this movie, and that energy is contagious.
——Blow Out——
(A-)
This Brian De Palma film is expertly directed, but unfortunately De Palma isn’t as exciting a writer as he is a director. Some of this movie drags on and it probably could have been a little more exciting than it is, but just from the director’s standpoint this is a very interesting and amazing film. John Travolta is actually quite good here, but I’m still trying to decide if De Palma knew what he was doing with the main actress or not. I kept going back and forth between thinking she was chosen for the film because of her annoying voice or thinking that it was some really bad casting. I’m still really undecided. Dennis Franz is also kind of annoying, but again is that intentional? I don’t know. I really liked the film though and am becoming more impressed with De Palma’s direction as I see more of his films (even if I don’t really think any of them are classics).
The house is so clean right now I don’t know where I am half of the time and I’m afraid to touch anything. And my room smells like caring. That’s right. Caring. What the hell is going on?
…that you seem to get five times more junk mail on the weekends? What’s up with that?
——
In other news, it’s crazy in my house right now because of preparations for family coming for the week. Last night my mom even blew up on my sister because we were having my sister’s birthday dinner and she decided to take a phone call while the rest of us ate. Not earth shattering I know, but there is a whole new level of tension in the air right now. I’ll keep you posted on any mental breakdowns.
Micheal Jackson’s Booking Photo:
C'est Non Un Blog 