damn you, Charlie Kaufman

Hulu sent me an email mentioning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and then all of a sudden I seem to have just watched it again. I guess it’s almost been a year since my last Eternal Sunshine viewing, so maybe it was time. And I can’t wait for Synecdoche, New York even though it might be overly long.

Harry Potter Reviews: Deathly Half-Blood Phoenix Prisoner Secrets and a Stone Goblet

The post with the Order of the Phoenix trailer has been popular on here lately so here’s a small update with my ratings for the films and the books.

Agree? Disagree? Don’t care?
Get started on some comments. I’m eager to interact.

it’s good to love Luna

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
movie: 60 / book: 80

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
movie: 65 / book: 85

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
movie: 88 / book: 90

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
movie: 73 / book: 95

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
movie: 86 / book: 75

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
book: 85

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
book: 90

more movie ratings:

my criticker profile

13 most “important” 80s LPs of all time (according to mistersplice)

Because Jimi’s top 80s LPs of all time post has been getting so many hits lately I decided to share some of my eighties opinions. These are definitely not my favorite albums from the 80s though…I’m saving that for later.

These are the 13 albums from the 80s (listed in chronological order) that I think are the most “important”: the ones that were the most influential and had the biggest impact on pop culture. Feel free to point out anything that I may have missed…because I’m sure I missed something. And share your thoughts if you don’t agree.

AC/DC – Back in Black (1980)

Journey – Escape (1981)

Rush – Moving Pictures (1981)

Pink Floyd – The Final Cut (1983)

The Police – Synchronicity (1983)

Madonna – Like a Virgin (1984)

Metallica – Master of Puppets (1986)

Run-DMC – Raising Hell (1986)

Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction (1987)

U2 – The Joshua Tree (1987)

N.W.A – Straight Outta Compton (1988)

R.E.M. – Green (1988)

Pixies – Doolittle (1989)

(a response to Jimi and Christin. Also…I might have cheated with a few of these, but they didn’t seem to fit into my real “best of” list.)

Jiminy, Criticker…let’s rate movies!

Criticker.com

I found another online diversion and started ranking some films. Some of my previously published scores were tweaked to order things a bit better and it could still use some work, but there’s enough content to share now. Please make your own lists and link to mine…I’d like to see how our TCIs* compare.

*The TCI (Taste Compatibility Index) is a measure of the similarity between two people’s taste in films. The lower the TCI, the greater the tendency to agree on which movies ruled and which sucked. It’s scientific (kind of)!

click for my profile on criticker

(It gets better when you rank more movies.)

 

Drugs: The Tripper, Shrooms and…Severance?

Severance | the Tripper | Shrooms

Psychedelic drugs already have a terrible reputation and it seems like the new trend for horror writers is to make it even worse. It’s bad enough that in some movies the characters hallucinate cartoon birds when they take cocaine, just to use one example. Unrealistic portrayal of drug-use is essentially lying and can only hurt society in the long run. The most dangerous drugs are already legal anyway, and demonizing the drugs that have the most potential to help the people of the world can’t possibly be a good thing. Maybe this is a new tactic in the war on drugs, but hopefully not…since the similarities with Prohibition and the futility of the drug war are apparent even to former narcs and police. (Sorry that I’ve gone a little link crazy with this post, but the topic has been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time now.)

(edit: this seemed too official to pass up-> Was Timothy Leary Right?)

 

Severance trailer

Severance starts out with a harmless enough drug trip, but the fact that horror-type things happen afterwards makes it almost like a Friday the 13th approach to sex…if you know what I mean. I liked the film overall and there was one scene (that they just about ruin in the trailer) involving Laura Harris (from season 2 of 24) with a shotgun that I thought was excellent, but a lot of the rest seemed like stuff I had seen before. The reviewers seem to like it a bit more than I did though: and why did they change the poster?

 

The Tripper trailer

Okay…I don’t know much about this one except the basic idea that “a Ronald Reagan-obsessed serial killer targets a bunch of hippies who are heading to a weekend-long concert”, but it seems to be continuing the thread I mentioned before. It’s David Arquette’s directorial debut though (and he supposedly did some “research” at Burning Man), so maybe the message won’t be totally counterproductive…and the fact that Jason Mewes is in it gives me even more hope.

 

Shrooms trailers (russian site)

I know even less about the movie Shrooms, but supposedly “a group of college students encounter tragedy while on hallucinogenic mushrooms” and with a premise like that it’s easy to imagine associations being made between tragedy and mushrooms (and if I’m sure of anything it’s that those two things should never go together.) The tagline, however, is “Get Ready to Get Wasted” and I have to admit…that’s pretty clever.

 

To continue the drug theme in this post I will leave you with something that I think is completely awesome: Kirsten Dunst believes the world would be a “better place” if more people smoked marijuana. I wish more people in prominent positions around the world had the guts to speak their minds when they disagree with the current system. I’ve already stated that cannabis is not my thing, but I think people should have the option if they want it. Besides…illegalizing nature just doesn’t even make sense.

Top 80s LPs of all time (according to Christin)

The first response generated from Jimi’s list: Top 80s Lps of all time. There’s one album here that would almost definitely be on my list…were I ever to make one. I think it would be difficult to distill down to 10 albums though. I might even have trouble with 25.

10. Pet Shop Boys – Disco

 

9. Men at Work – Business as Usual / Cargo
(tie)

 

8. Sinead O’Connor – The Lion and the Cobra

 

7. Vangelis – Blade Runner Soundtrack
(recorded in 1982)

 

6. Sting – Dream of Blue Turtles

 

5. Tears for Fears – Songs From the Big Chair

 

4. Thomson Twins – Into the Gap

 

3. Gary Numan – Telekon

 

2. DEVO – Freedom of Choice

 

1. Styx – Kilroy Was Here

 

I called those the “Albums that I play, start to finish” and that’s a rarity these days.

-Christin

(a response to Jimi’s Top 80s.)

Top 80s LPs of all time (according to Jimi)

This list is from a good friend of mine. I’m borrowing it because of the lack of music on this blog. I’m not into the music of the 80s so much (or at least not the stuff most people think of…maybe one day I’ll make my 80s list), but since I really like 3 of the albums here I decided to re-share:

because none of you asked for it

here are my top 80s lps of all time

10. thompson twins – into the gap

 

9. innocence mission – innocence mission

 

8. the english beat – pick one, they all rule

 

7. the sundays – reading writing and arithmetic
(technically 1990, but the first single was released in 1989. besides…one might argue that the nineties didn’t start until 1991.)

 

6. the alarm – eye of the hurricane

 

5. sting – nothing like the sun

 

4. tears for fears – songs from the big chair

 

3. howard jones – humans lib

 

2. u2 – unforgettable fire

 

1. talk talk – spirit of eden

 

please enlighten me with your ten faves…but when you are done talking michael jackson and culture club…check out the albums i have listed.

-jimi

(continued here: Christin’s Top 80s. My “important” 80s.)

a few updates

John Waters | Singer and McQuarrie | TMNT featurette

• I’m a big fan of John Waters, but not of the movies he makes. The only film of his that I’ve seen is Cecil B. Demented and, while I loved the premise, I felt that the movie did not live up to it’s potential. You might even say the story zig’d where I would have zag’d. In fact, I didn’t know he was the director when I saw the movie…I found out later when I watched a documentary on him. That documentary made me a fan. I really like what he’s about and what he was trying to do with his earlier films…even though they’re not really my thing (sidenote: cannabis is not my thing either and I don’t smoke it, but I wouldn’t want to live in a world where it didn’t exist…I don’t even like the fact that it’s illegal.) I will say this: John Waters is absolutely one of my favorite movie stars (he says that “a movie star is someone you want to either get drunk with or have sex with” and I’d love to get drunk with him) and I wish there were more people with such unique perspectives in the world. I like people that do their own thing and push the boundaries, so I think it’s delightful that he may soon be influencing young minds through film. This is what he had to say about the children’s movie he’s planning: “It’s a terribly wonderful children’s adventure called Fruitcake. It is a children’s film. One that I’ve been working on a long time, and I’m hoping to start shooting it in the fall. It’s a very special film, and it’s one that could appeal to children that are especially creative.” I can’t wait. And maybe I’ll get around to watching some of his other movies before this one comes out.

• Bryan Singer (X2, Superman Returns) and Christopher McQuarrie (Way of the Gun) are teaming up again for a multi-character ensemble piece set in World War II. The last time they worked together was The Usual Suspects, so you can guess how much I will be looking forward to this project. (edit 2: oh yeah…they’re saying that the next Superman movie will NOT be delayed because of this.)

• There’s a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles featurette with footage (heh) that isn’t in the trailers. It’s worth a watch and it touches on the individual personalities of each turtle.

The Host (Gwoemul) – US Trailer

I already recommended it here (and that should definitely tell you something), but now there’s a new (to me) US trailer:

The Host (Gwoemul) US Trailer

I really like monster movies, so keep that in mind when I tell you that this might be my favorite movie from the past few months. I’m also really against overhype, so go see it, but don’t expect it to be 100% great.

edit: according to IMDB the first scene is based on fact: “The event described in the beginning of Gwoemul is based on an actual event. In February 2000 in a US military facility located in the center of Seoul, US military civilian employee Mr. McFarland ordered to dispose formaldehyde into the sewer system leading to Han River despite the objection of a Korean subordinate.” Read the rest here under “trivia”.

 

The Dead Girl

It seemed to me that the buzz from Children of Men was overshadowing a couple of the other good movies that are out there. This is one of them (click to see the trailer):

The Dead Girl (69% fresh)

The Dead Girl [8.35/10] is really five completely different mini-stories that all have a tiny link to each other because of the “dead girl”. I really liked the way it was presented, and I’m surprised that no student films have been made out of several smaller projects like this. Keep in mind that it’s more difficult to flesh out the stories and characters when so much is going on…I think that’s why some of the people are giving it lower ratings. All I know is that Karen Moncrieff is now on my list of directors to watch in the future.