Saturday, October 31, 2009

Shall We Dansu?: This is a Japanese movie, if you've ever seen the movie Shall We Dance? it's a remake of this one. This movie is about a Japanese man who takes up ballroom dancing (I don't know if this still holds true but when this movie was made, ballroom dancing was a social taboo.) It's a sweet and funny movie. I absolutly love it.

Good Night and Good Luck: This movie is about events that took place during the dark time of McCarthyism and communist witch hunts. Edward R. Murrow was a well known journalist and he had a tv news show called See It Now. For those who don't know about this period, it was the cold war and an insane period in history, the US was deathly afraid of communism and Senator Joseph McCarthy was in charge of a committee on un-American activity, basically accusing people of being communists. Most of the people that were accused were not communists and were accused and convicted with insubstantial evidence. People were terrified of the chance that they could be called up before the committee, carrears were ended or damaged at the suggestion that a person was "red". Anyway Edward R. Murrow and his team had the guts to stand up to Senator McCarthy and the injustice of what was going on, this movie tells that story. I think this is a very inspiring story.

Some Like It Hot: I love this movie, love it! To musicians witness a fictionalization of the St. Valentines Day massacre and to make it out of town alive they go into disguise and join a girls band headed for Florida. Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are hilarious in this movie as they see what life is like for the other half. Marylin Monroe makes it hard for the guys to remember that they're supposed to be girls with humorous results.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Il Postino (The Postman): This is an Italian movie that I love, my second favorite Italian movie after Life is Beautiful (Vita e Bella). This movie is about an island postman who becomes friends with the famous poet Pablo Neruda and from him learns about poetry, love and the beauty that surrounds him in his island home. I highly recomend it, it's very heart warming.

The Magnificent Seven: This movie was inspired by the Japanese movie The Seven Samurai, which I haven't seen but hope to see. I may have said this before but I'm not a huge fan of westerns, this however felt more like an action movie and I know that westerns technically fall into that category, I mean an action movie today. The movie has a star studded cast Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, other famous people who's names I don't remember but who's faces you'd recognize... America is a funny place and kind of awesome too, in America a Mongolian can be a cowboy and a German can be a Mexican.

Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb: Yes that really is the whole title of the movie. This is a black satire about the cold war. Peter Sellers stars in not one but three roles, it was originally going to be four but I think that'd probably be too much for anyone. An unauthorized air strike against the Russians has been set into action and seems impossible to stop, worse than that the Russians have a doomsday machine that will destroy everything on the earth if the Russians attack. A darkly comedic look at a infamous era in history with such memorable lines as "Gentlemen please, no fighting in the war room!" and a creepy German, Dr. Strangelove himself.

Into The Woods: Technically this is a play, however I've only ever seen this version which they recorded for video. Bernadette Peters is in this cast and Chip Zeins (that could be wrong). I quite enjoy this play, it's a bit of a satire on a bunch of fairy tales: Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, etc. This show is incredibly funny, fairly sad, and makes you stop and think about moral issues. It's quite a show.

Up: I loved this movie, it was the best Pixar movie that I've seen to date, it's sweet and laugh out loud funny. If you haven't seen it, you totally should!

Monday, October 19, 2009

Mostly Martha: This is a German movie about food, family and love. I really liked this movie, especially the fact that one of the characters was Italian and thus spoke in Italian some of the time...I doubt that will be an attraction for most people so I will just say that it's a nice romantic movie.

No Reservations: Okay so this is the American version of Mostly Martha so in contrasting and comparing these movies, I think on the whole No Reservations stayed fairly true to Mostly Martha, however it was Americanized, it's happier, and a bit more cheesy, it feels like Catherine Zeta-Jones is going through the motions of the character but she's also still playing Catherine Zeta-Jones, if that makes sense at all. I think I slightly lean towards Mostly Martha as my favorite of the two, it seemed a lot more sincere and real, not so contrived. I did appreciate things that seemed to be explained a little bit better in No Reservations. Both movies are pretty good but like I said, I lean towards Mostly Martha.

The Bourne Supremacy: The Bourne saga goes on, with more treachery, more amazing fights, more outwitting the bad guys and more insane car chases. This is the last of the books that I actually read, the books are rather hard to read and the movies really more make up their own plot and just use the character and title. I'm a fan of Bourne, this isn't my favorite of the movies but they're all well done and quite impressive.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Charlie's Angels: This movie has absolutly no redeaming value

Strictly Ballroom: This movie tells a story that has been told many times before, rebel guy, homely girl who come together to do something amazing and in the process the girl becomes beautiful and the two fall in love. It's been done many times before, but I still quite enjoyed this movie and I love dancing movies.


Marilyn Hodgkiss' Ballroom Dancing & Charm School: This was an interesting movie, I'm still not quite sure what to think about it. It's very different from most movies I've seen, I'm pretty sure the essential story isn't one that's all that original but the movie itself is quite unique I think. I like it and I don't. I don't believe I'll be going back to this movie over and over again.

Dark Passage: Bogie and Bacall in a film noir type romance. This movie is interesting, I think it was sort of experimental. For most of the movie you don't see Bogie's face, the camera angle is as if you're seeing what his character is, kinda cool, kinda weird. This movie is noir, but it's not really dark on the whole, at least I didn't think so, but I guess I also haven't seen much noir lately either. Anyway, I like this movie and recommend it.

Sunday, October 4, 2009

The Great Race: Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, in a crazy, melodramatic, suffragette, race around the world. This movie is silly, and funny and quite frankly it's over the top. I liked it but I don't know that it's one I'd go back too. Jack Lemmon was quite amazing though, I think his performance was probably the best. This movie made me want to watch Some Like It Hot, I liked that movie better.

Bride and Prejudice: Jane Austin meets Bollywood. I think that pretty much sums this movie up because once you've said that what else is there to say? However, just to let you know I was pretty skeptical about this movie before I saw it but I fell in love with it, it's utterly wonderful, you really should see it.

The Nightmare Before Christmas: So Tim Burton is really weird, I think that could be universally agreed on, however sometimes his weirdness is also pretty cool. Of his movies I think that Nightmare's my favorite, I love the music and Jack Skellington.