(This is much funnier if you sing it to the tune of “Immigrant Song”.)
Also:
Guilty. But that was nearly two hours in, and we still had a whole bunch of Ulfråsen Fribergsgatu to go.
(Hattip: the great and good Pat Cadigan on the Twitter.)
Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category
Quote of the day.
Friday, January 20th, 2012Nice, bright colors.
Sunday, January 15th, 2012I wanted to throw up a link to Zander Robin’s “Kodachrome 2010” documentary on Vimeo, but I felt like I should watch it first.
After watching it…well, there’s some interesting stuff in it about the chemistry involved in processing Kodachrome, and quite a few lovely images, but I really wish there was more to it. At less than 10 minutes, it seems like it is just the beginning of the story of Dwayne’s Photo and the final days of Kodachrome. I know it might have been a tough sell on the festival circuit, but I, for one, would have paid money to see a 90 minute version of this, or to download it from iTunes.
In any case, here’s “Kodachrome 2010” if you want to watch for yourself.
KODACHROME 2010 from Xander Robin on Vimeo.
(Hattip: PetaPixel.)
Like Steve McQueen.
Thursday, January 12th, 2012Today’s NYT has an interesting article about an attempt to unearth and recreate the tunnel system used in Stalag Luft III.
It turns out that the team was unable to excavate “Harry”, but they did manage to dig down to “George”. They also constructed a new tunnel called “Roger”, “but in a trench just beneath the surface; anything deeper was deemed too dangerous”. (The original tunnels ran 30 feet below the surface.)
I am looking forward to this documentary showing up on PBS. (At least, I’m hoping it will show up on PBS instead of The Hitler History Channel.) I think this is a review of it from the Telegraph. Here’s a link to an older NOVA documentary. For any of my younger readers who are unfamiliar with the story, here’s the Wikipedia entry to use as a starting point. The Great Escape
Cahiers du cinéma: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Monday, January 9th, 2012Here are my total lack of qualifications for reviewing this movie:
- I have not read this, or any of the Stieg Larsson books. I have heard people I trust say they’re great. I have heard people I trust say they are awful and overrated. I have heard people I trust say they may have been better in the original Swedish, but Larsson was poorly served by his English translators. My mother wanted to see this because she tried to read the book and couldn’t get more than 20 pages into it.
- I have not seen any of the Swedish movie adaptations of the books.
- I’m way behind in my David Fincher. I liked “Se7en
“, but haven’t seen anything since. I missed “Zodiac
” when it was in the theater (I really should get the DVD), and I have “Fight Club
” on (the extra-special) DVD, but haven’t watched it yet. I had no interest in “The Social Network
“, and I heard strongly negative things about “Benjamin Button
“.
All that aside, I thought “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” was a solid 3 – 3 1/2 star movie. I didn’t feel like I spent my $7 in vain, and the actual movie going experience was pleasant enough. (Of course, not everyone is lucky enough to have the Alamo Drafthouse.)
I did have a few quibbles and problems with the movie. I’m going to put those after a jump, even though I’m going to try to avoid major spoilers (there may be some minor ones).
Blogroll addition.
Monday, December 12th, 2011By way of Insta, Great But Forgotten.
I was more than a little skeptical when I saw his entry. But when I clicked over and saw that they had covered
- The film version of A Simple Plan.
- The works of John Brunner, including The Shockwave Rider.
- Bedazzled (the original)
And all on the first page of the site, I pretty much said to myself, “Yeah, these guys are worth keeping an eye on.”
Then I kept clicking. Screaming Yellow Zonkers! Ellery Queen! And Tom freakin’ Reamy! (I haven’t read Blind Voices, but I have read San Diego Lightfoot Sue and Other Stories.) Yeah, if these guys are willing to go that deep, I’ll trust them on a lot of stuff. (Okay, I do have a quibble or two. I don’t think Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein was all that and a bag of chips, though I agree it wasn’t horrible.)
I could waste hours here. Indeed, I think I already have. But, you know, when someone singles out Night of the Comet, attention must be paid.
Obit watch: December 7, 2011.
Wednesday, December 7th, 2011Harry Morgan. (Edited to add: LAT obit.)
Most of the obits I’ve seen so far reference his work on “M*A*S*H” right away, but I prefer to remember him in his other famous role.
Edited to add: As Lawrence points out in the comments, Morgan also had one heck of a film career. In that vein, I’d like to spotlight Sean O’Neal’s obit at the Onion A/V Club site.
I’ve noted that the A/V Club obits, especially those written by O’Neal, do a very good job of summarizing the accomplishments of the people they are eulogizing (especially older Hollywood figures) and explaining why their lives mattered, without snark.
Gilliam watch.
Monday, November 28th, 2011The LAT has a nifty piece about Terry Gilliam, tied to his receiving a Federico Fellini Foundation award.
Obviously, I knew about Heath Ledger’s death, but I didn’t know Gilliam was hit by a bus during the filming of ”The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus”. Combined with the whole “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” story (well covered in the article, for you non-obsessives) and it makes you think he may be on to something when he suggests God doesn’t want him to make movies.
Random notes: November 28, 2011.
Monday, November 28th, 2011Well, that didn’t take long: Astros team president Tal Smith and general manager Ed Wade are done.
Also done: Bernie Fine, assistant basketball coach at Syracuse University and accused child molester.
Obit watch: rapper “Money Clip D”. Where do they get these names?
Edited to add: And not 30 seconds after I hit “publish”, Lawrence emailed me noting the death of director Ken Russell.
Edited to add 2: Missed that Ron Zook got fired from Illinois. That’s epic: start the season 6-0, then lose six games in a row.
Turner Gill is also out at Kansas after a 2-10 finish.
Obit watch: November 22, 2011.
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011John Neville, perhaps best known as Baron Munchausen in Terry Gilliam’s underrated “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen”. (Or perhaps as “The Well-Manicured Man” on “The X-Files”.)
TMQ watch: November 8, 2011.
Tuesday, November 8th, 2011Here is a partial list of movies that Gregg Easterbrook apparently thinks are better than “The Dark Knight”:
- “The Room”
- “Manos: The Hands of Fate”
- “Exterminator City”
- “Robo-Geisha”
- “Zardoz”
- “Rubber”
After the jump, we’ll dig a little deeper into Easterbrook as film critic in this week’s TMQ…
(more…)
Noted.
Thursday, October 13th, 2011I’ve been wondering if Roger Ebert was going to review the sequel to The Movie That We Do Not Discuss; after giving a zero-star review to the first one, was there any point in his reviewing the sequel?
Well, he finally got around to it. In keeping with our practice, we note this because it is also a zero-star review. We also question Ebert’s objectivity in reviewing this film. On the other hand, we really can’t work up the ability to be indignant that he chose to review it himself.
I want to ride in the car…
Thursday, October 6th, 2011…John Wayne drove.
Earlier this week, Lawrence noted the Heritage auction of John Wayne’s stuff.
Today, the HouChron kindly informs us that one of John Wayne’s cars, a “1966 International TravelAll”, is for sale on eBay. The “Buy it now” price is a mere one million dollars.
In one of those “only in Texas” things, the car is actually owned by a state legislator from El Paso who says that he only drove it to church on Sunday a few hundred miles.
“It’s got the original seat that John Wayne passed gas on,” Pickett said.
Yeah. I think now we know why Rep. Pickett went into politics instead of sales.
Obit watch: September 12, 2011.
Monday, September 12th, 2011Missed posting this yesterday, as I was tied up with other things.
Cliff Robertson, Oscar winning actor and the man who brought down David Begelman.
Obit watch: May 25, 2011.
Wednesday, May 25th, 2011Huguette Clark, “antisocial socialite”.
I recommend clicking through and reading the entire NYT obit. Ms. Clark was 104 when she died, and her story is one of the saddest things I’ve read recently.
In addition to the Astor comparison, I’m reminded somewhat of the Green family, particularly Sylvia Green.
On a totally unrelated note, I think I’m going to have to pre-order the Blu-Ray edition of Citizen Kane
(Hattip: I actually saw the obit skimming over the NYT site this morning, but thanks to Althouse for providing the link.)
Random notes: May 19, 2011.
Thursday, May 19th, 2011Things have been kind of slow the past couple of days. Please accept this random collection of crap in lieu of actual content.
Today’s update from our “the street finds its own uses for things” file: “Mexican organized crime groups are using ultralight aircraft to drop marijuana bundles in agricultural fields and desert scrub across the U.S. border.”
Speaking of Neuromancer
Back at the ranch, the City of Austin
I’m a little surprised that they had over 2,000 applicants in this most recent batch. I’m also wondering exactly what those questions were…
I also wanted to touch briefly on our fun city council elections. Yes, we had city council elections last weekend. Three seats (out of a total of six) were up this year. Two of those seats were retained by the incumbents (Chris Riley in place 1, and Laura Morrison in place 4) by pretty large percentages (66 and 73 percent of the votes, respectively.)
Place 3 is held by Randi Shade, who is finishing up her first term on the city council. Shade was initially a favorite to win re-election, but there was a controversy over some emails she sent, one thing led to another…and Shade got her butt kicked, badly, finishing second in a four-way race. Shade just barely managed to get into a runoff with the first-place candiate, Kathie Tovo; Tovo pulled in 46 percent of the vote, and it seems unlikely that the supporters of the other two candidates (former city council member Max Nofziger and Kris Bailey) are going to throw their votes to Shade.
(Tovo was also endorsed by the local alternative weekly; the way I read their endorsement, though, it was a close decision between Tovo and Shade. I’ve been unable to find endorsements from the last election on the alt-weekly’s crummy web site, so I don’t know if they endorsed Shade last time around.)
Tovo’s supporters are already calling on Shade to concede and spare everyone the cost of a runoff. Shade’s response? She’s filed an ethics complaint against Tovo. I’m looking forward to watching this one play out. Note to self: vote early.
This just in: remember the SWAT officer who flipped his cop car and was charged with drunk driving? Yeah, he’s out, pending the decision of the arbitrator. Our buddy Art also suspended six other cops who were supposedly at the party with him. Unclear from the current Statesman article is what the grounds for suspension were, or how long the suspensions were for.
Edited to add 5/20: Here’s a better Statesman article with more details on who was suspended for how long and why.