Cornerstone Primo

I’m back! I’ve been meaning to get back to doing this little segment since the blogs came back on-line and discovering the comments on my last post as inspired me to get to work. So I’m putting hereditary spherocytosis aside for the moment and focusing on this. I’m sure I’ll be much better off…

I’m going to have to update my movie lists on this page. I started keeping track of them in a spreadsheet with the blogs went down and I’ve really come to enjoy managing them that way. I also converted myself to a 10/10 system rather than a 4 star system. It’s really rather arbitrary to assign a rating to any movie, but it does help me keep track of things and it’s a nice way to give someone else a general idea of what you thought of a film without having to write a paragraph for each one you see.

November was a fairly productive month considering how busy work has gotten.

’50s: 1

’60s: 2

’70s: 2

’00s: 2

My sole new release and theater viewing was Quantum of Solace. I liked it particularly well and have the feeling that its reputation will increase with time. The action is sloppy and it’s overall a backstep from its immediate predecessor, but otherwise it’s one of the best Bonds. This same month I sat down to finally watch Lazenby’s sole outing as 007, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. It’s an often mentioned installment when talking about the best Bonds of all time, but it didn’t quite reach that standard for me. I enjoyed it and Lazenby did an admirable job with the role. After slamming through the fourth wall with the force of a Daniel Craig lunge in the opening minutes Lazenby settles nicely but never establishes a presence that rivals the greats. He is minor Bond, despite his efforts here. The film includes one of the best Bond girls of all time and the final scene is utterly heartbreaking. That’s what really lifts the film, because otherwise it’s a bit of a snooze. Despite the villain being Blofeld himself, things are rather dull when it’s just Bond pretending to be a heraldry professor the entire middle act. It’s a respectable entry, far greater than the majority of Bond films, but it falls beneath Craig’s pair and most of Connery’s.

Roman Holiday is absolutely delightful and the best I saw all month. I didn’t care for A History of Violence much at all, while I enjoyed my introduction to Woody Allen and Peter O’Toole.

New Viewings:
Roman Holiday
A History of Violence
All the President’s Men
Annie Hall
Lawrence of Arabia
Quantum of Solace
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Rewatches: Robocop 2, Die Hard

Pretty much the most awesome channel on television right?

I started paying attention to ‘Turner Classic Movies’ in August, before I wasn’t really sure I got it, and since then it has pretty much taken over my movie viewings. Netflix in particular has been disseminated. In just a few days over three months I’ve seen 17 movies off the channel. I’ve probably lost close to 10 others before I got to view them when my DVR was purged last month. And I’ve got about half a dozen saved right now just waiting to be looked at. In comparison, I’ve seen 5 movies from Netflix over the same time period and 2 in movie theaters.

Get Carter
A Dog’s Life
The Circus
The Kid
City Lights
Modern Times
12 Angry Men
In the Heat of the Night
Soylent Green
On the Waterfront
Rear Window
High Noon
Bonnie and Clyde
A Night at the Opera
The Body Snatcher
Roman Holiday
All the President’s Men

I saw six movies for the first time in April, up one from last month but down one from a year ago.  My ratings this month averaged out to 3.41, an increase over March and the second highest of the year thus far behind January.  I remain ahead of last year in total movie viewings, with 29 as of the end of April, compared to the 24 I had seen at this point last year.  I saw a single 2008 release, the direct-to-DVD animated film Justice League: The New Frontier.  I saw one picture from last year, the creepy The Mist.  Included in my viewings was a rare documentary, Hoop Dreams, and what is probably the oldest film I have ever seen: the silent German Expressionist horror film, Nosferatu.  Following, I saw the fictional making of Nosferatu picture, Shadow of the Vampire.  Slipping in at the end was my first viewing of Gladiator, a movie I found good but not great.  My repeat viewings included Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (the best of the Potter films), and two Batman adaptations: Batman (a nostalgic favorite) and Batman Begins (my 2005 favorite film of the year).

’20s: 1

’90s: 1

’00s: 4

I am continuing with the first season of The X-Files and Twilight Princess.

Performance of the Month (only new viewings): Max Schreck in Nosferatu; runner-up: Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire as Max Schreck.

Rewatches: Batman, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Batman Begins

I just viewed Justice League: The New Frontier (***.5/****) tonight, the second in what looks to be an ongoing series of Direct-to-DVD movies from DC Comics (the next will be a collection of Batman short-stories entitled Gotham Knight). While I wasn’t a big fan of the first title, Superman Doomsday, this one not only gets it right, but tells a pretty great story as well. This direct adaptation of the recent classic DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke isn’t perfect, but it’s just right for fans. If you don’t know who Batman is or can’t get over the fact that superpowers exist, you’re gonna be in trouble. The film focuses mostly on Green Lantern (Hal Jordan version), with Martian Manhunter and the Flash getting sizable roles as well. In fact, the film oftentimes seems to be a Green Lantern origin story (Martian Manhunter is also supplied with an origin). The more well known characters like Batman and Superman have much smaller roles, supporting the new guys and lesser knowns. My favorite thing about the movie? The 1950′s time period is left intact from the original comic (which was published in 2004). Set right between The Golden Age of comics and The Silver Age, The New Frontier takes place in the midst of the space race and McCarthyism. If I’m going to watch Justice League, I prefer it to be retro.

The voice acting is strong, but the main one I’d like to talk about is Jeremy Sisto (Law and Order) as Batman. No Kevin Conroy? No Conroy indeed. And yes, the first time you hear him speak it does through you for a loop. Undoubtedly this is a bigger problem for fanboys like myself who’ve been listening to Conroy exclusively for over 15 years now. And Conroy isn’t done, he returns as the Caped Crusader in this summer’s TDK tie-in Gotham Knight. But Sisto does a good job. The voice fits and I’d like to see him return to the character in a future project. Perhaps more animated Justice League movies will be on the way, giving us another chance to hear his take on the character. While I’ll never turn down Conroy, perhaps there is room for another voice actor.

The costumes are wonderfully retro and the Martian Manhunter’s story is probably my favorite of the film, aside from the few scenes we get with Batman of course. Thankfully, the two characters manage to overlap a bit. Overall, this is how the Justice League should be done and it even makes me wonder if I ever want to see the JLA in live action. Obviously the current version of the project Warner Bros. is prepping would be a disaster, but I might still like to see a film done in the future. The Justice League is a tough nut to crack. You’ve got to get it just right, or else it all falls apart. Rest assured, The New Frontier got it right. Let’s just hope those live action folks do the same.

My movie viewing slowed in the past month, dropping a full 50% from February.  Despite this, it was a good month averaging 3.2 out of 4 stars, up impressively from 2.4 in February but down from 3.6 in January.   Even with the slower month, I remain well ahead of my movie count from 2007, with 23 new movies having been viewed since the new year began.  I saw no 2008 releases and all but one film was from 2007.  Sunshine and Michael Clayton both lived up to expectations, while Into the Wild disappointed and The King of Kong soared to among my ’07 favorites.  My sole classic was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a fine film that didn’t quite live up to my expectations.  I think I’d like it more on repeat viewing.   Oddly enough, all three of my rewatches were 2007 films.  My only theater experience of the month was a rewatch of the superb No Country for Old Men, a very worthy Best Picture winner.

’70s: 1

’00s: 4

I am continuing with the first season of The X-Files and began Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from my Father.  I also watched the first, and so far only, season of the HBO series Flight of the Concords.  It is probably worth its own blog entry.  A terrific musical comedy, it came out of nowhere for me.  You can blame some of my movie-less nights on the new Nintendo Wii system I finally got my hands on.  After, literally, months and months of searching the Wii was found.  I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.  Thanks to school, things are moving slowly on that front.

Rewatches:  The Darjeeling Limited, No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton

This month I saw a surprising 10 films for the first time. Most of the films I saw (6) were from 2007 as I continue to catch up on the year and prepare my top 10 list. Like January, I saw only a single 2008 release, this time Semi-Pro, a movie I would recommend to Will Ferrell fans and only Will Ferrell fans. It is definitely in the lower tier of Ferrell movies.

’50s: 1

’00s: 9

Not much diversity in time periods this time around, mostly reflecting my desire to see all of the ’07 releases I can before starting any sort of top 10 list. Three films were seen in theater, while two came from regular television with commercials. For the first time, I saw a film through Netflix’s Instant Watch option. The rest came through DVD rentals.

Sadly, I was unable to finish North by Northwest, what was to be my first complete Hitchcock viewing. The biggest surprise of the month was easily Gone Baby Gone, while Atonement was a massive disappointment. I feel I may have rated that particular film too high. In better news, There Will Be Blood finally arrived in my area. A great film showcasing an incredible performance from Daniel Day-Lewis.

I began watching The X-Files from the beginning and also read The Great Gatsby for the third time in my life. The first was in high school, the second in college, this was the first time I’ve read it simply for pleasure.

Rewatches: Ghostbusters, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (’07)

The X-Files was one of those shows that came on mostly when I was still a kid. So I watched, but not all of it and a lot of what I did see I remember fuzzily now. I do remember my parents not allowing me to watch a couple of times and I remember being scared by it at least a few times. I needed a tv show to watch right now and since there is a new movie coming soon I figured I’d give this one a rewatch.

Pilot (1×01) – You can tell this is a television pilot filmed in the early 90s. Not only does it scream 90s, you can see the cast and crew still trying to figure out just how to snuggle into these stories. A lot of the episode feels awkward, like they don’t have it down just right yet, especially the movements of Mulder and Scully. It’s still not a terrible mystery though and it is a not altogether shabby introduction to the series. I especially enjoyed the moments at the beginning where they run down the background and resumes of Mulder and Scully and how they got to where they are.

Deep Throat (1×02) – The show already looks a lot better in its first episode after the pilot. While it is still obviously rusty and early on, it has a more polished look. This is another mythology episode, with Mulder finding an Area-51 type military base and even spotting a UFO, before having it wiped from his memory by…the air force? The special effects are shaky at best, but still work because of the atmosphere (like Mara said). Seth Green guest stars as a stoner who helps Mulder onto the military base.

I bet Mulder’s new “friend” will pop up again and again.

Watching these two episodes I was really struck by how young Scully looked. In some scenes she looked like a college student. She looked like someone my age. Then I found out that Anderson was only twenty-four when the show started! She really is about my age at this time (at least the actress is, the character is obviously at least four years older than that).

Squeeze (1×03) – The first monster of the week episode. As someone who is already greatly familiar with the characters, it is a lot of fun to watch how they initially introduced Mulder and Scully to the audience and how their relationship develops. There is a lot in this episode about Mulder’s reputation as “Spooky Mulder” and the effect that reputation has on everyone around him and even on Scully through association. The main subplot centers on Scully and an old academy friend of hers, of course in the end she has to choose between him and climbing the ladder herself and Mulder. The actual monster was creepy enough, a century old serial killer who can stretch and squeeze himself through any opening.

Conduit (1×04) - An alien abduction story. This episode focuses mostly on introducing us to Mulder’s backstory, specifically the possible abduction of his younger sister. Throughout the episode we see Mulder relating his own experience to that of the family as he looks at photos and talks to the abducted girl’s brother. You can see his dedication here, both toward solving this specific case (being very personal to Mulder himself) and toward the X-Files in general. We see that Mulder’s obsessions with things that go bump in the night is a direct consequence of the loss of his sister as a child. The final scene with Scully listening to Mulder’s hypnotic recollections of the abduction on tape while Mulder cries in a church over a picture of himself and his sister is really affecting. Not a very scary episode, but definitely an emotional one that fleshes out Mulder’s character very well. We can see how he became “Spooky” clearly now.

Knowing that Mulder’s obsession with his sister is a continuing plotline, I’m looking forward to seeing more. Although I seem to remember the buzz around the conclusion of this story to be a let down. Still, I always thought that Mulder and his sister were really the heart of The X-Files, the driving force, so it will be interesting to see if that holds up.

Once again we see the FBI’s attitude toward Mulder and Scully having to choose between supporting her partner or feeding him to the wolves. Despite backing Mulder, she does her best to reign him in on an obviously emotional case, perhaps even doubting whether she should be allowing him to continue.

I was surprised to see Mulder in a church. I always thought he was a believer in everything but religion, while Scully was a skeptic of everything but religion. Although I do seem to remember the pair of them crossing over at the end of the series, with Scully becoming more believing in the supernatural and Mulder more accepting of religion.

And I just have to say, Mulder and Scully are totally rocking the shoulder pads at this point. Not just Scully, but Mulder too. Hilarious 90s fashion.

The Strike is over.  Woe is me.

Of course I am glad that the writer’s strike has finally ended, after all, I really need new episodes of The Office as much of LOST as I can get this year (13 episodes).  It’s good news for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  Both of those programs struggled without a writing staff and understandably so.  But it was a different story over at NBC and Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  Conan may have had the only show on television that actually got funnier without writers.

It should come as no shock to anyone that the worst parts of Late Night have always been written.  Jokes are hit or miss.  Always have been and always will be.  Conan’s first night back with his writers showed that particular television law to remain unbroken.  The “Conologue” was back with its usual variable quality.  I don’t know that I should say that Late Night has bad writers, but the show’s writers certainly write bad jokes.

If only we could go back to the glory days of the strike.  It couldn’t have been more amusing that an entire segment of the first show back with writers was taken up by a montage of moments from when the show did not have writers.  It will take more than a year for a Late Night with writers to build up as many laugh out loud moments as that sole month contained.   But at least Conan’s strike stretch ended on a high note, with him finally beating his record ring spin using teflon and a MIT physics professor.

It started last week with “The Beginning of the End” and continues tonight with the second episode of an eight episode reserve that survived the writer’s strike. The powers that be ( “Darlton” ) seem to have taken a different approach when kicking off this, their fourth, season. Past years begin with mind-blowing BANGS! Just look back to the pilot, “Man of Science, Man of Faith” with Jack entering the infamous Hatch, and “A Tale of Two Cities” with our introduction to the Others. One thing is for sure, each opener established the plot and tone for its season, so expect the same to come from BotE. These “rescuers”, whoever they are, and the division of the lostaways into the JACK PACK and the LOCKE FLOCK will no doubt resonate throughout this season…or however much of this season we get.

Thankfully, things are looking better on the writer’s strike front. Could we be getting good news within a week? As it stands, it is probably too late to salvage the full season, but we just might get a few more episodes and a good finale out of this. That’s IF things go well and the whole strike is called of very soon. In the meantime, I’ll be savoring every second of LOST I get.

Introduction

The year 2007 was the strongest year for film that I’ve witnessed since movies became a small hobby of mine. I’m not sure when I began reading about film on the internet, but I do recall racing home from my first viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring to see what the message boards were saying about it. I had no expectations going in, no prior knowledge, and the experience was so great that I had to seek out others to discuss it with. I think that was the beginning, as best as I can recall, and since then I’ve been following film with greater interest each year. This interest of mine reached a peak in 2007, only I hope that it continues to climb. Not only did I see more films in 2007 than I believe I have ever seen before (65), I saw more new releases and had more theater viewings than ever before. There are two reasons for this, I think. Firstly, as I said before, my interest has been building over the years, and this is simply the highest that it has yet reached. But also, this was a good movie year. A very good year for film. And when you have a good year, you can’t help but see more movies.

2007 was the first year during this period that a single “franchise” film has not stood out to me as one of the best of the year. For a few years it was LOTR, then Spidey 2, Batman Begins, and Casino Royale. There isn’t a single film I would refer to as a “franchise” film in my top ten. That’s a bit of a surprise. I saw 8 of them. Is it because of the strength of other films or the weakness of the franchises? I’d say both. Not that there are not franchise films from 2007 worth viewing, but none rose above the pack for me. So you’ll notice a lack of the type of film that you might usually associate with a very high spot on my end of the year lists.

I’ll get to my top ten list a little later (a list that is and probably will continue to be in flux), but right now I’m going to give out a couple of “awards.” A few distinctions that I thought I would make. I’ll pick my favorite “franchise” film of the year, my favorite comedy, and my favorite animated film. So…

FRANCHISE FILM OF THE YEAR (2007)
Winner: THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Hon. Mentions: Live Free or Die Hard, The Simpsons Movie, TMNT

I’m not a huge Bourne fan. I don’t have anything against the films, not even that shaky cam. But it is hard for me to deny that the third and supposedly final installment of the film series was the best franchise film of the year. It’s a tense, intelligent thriller that puts to shame nearly every other action movie released this year. It’s the best, but not my favorite. My heart really lies with my three honorable mentions in this category. None of these three are great movies, but they are solid enough and represented their respective franchises with honor. The biggest similarity between these three, is the adversity that each faced on the road to release. Live Free or Die Hard was a high-number sequel to one of the best action films of all time, saddled with the age of an old franchise and a rating no one was pleased with. The Simpsons Movie was only a decade too late. Even though the show is still airing, the glory days are long behind us and nearly everyone agreed that the best time for this movie was 10 years ago. Few believed the staff still had it in them to give us a good Simpsons tale. And TMNT, a stab at the revitalization of a once believed, long gone franchise. Whether the film succeeded in sparking more interest in the series is still unknown, but it was certainly a favorable entry into a franchise that hadn’t had a good film in 17 years.

ANIMATED FILM OF THE YEAR (2007)
Winner: RATATOUILLE
Hon. Mentions: The Simpsons Movie, TMNT

I have no problem admitting that I probably haven’t seen all of the animated fare I should have in 2007, but there is still no excuse to not recognize Pixar’s latest cinematic achievement. The animation in Ratatouille is breathtaking, but the glorious pictures are rivaled by the quality of writing and voice acting to bring this picture to life. I’ll get back to this film later, so I won’t dwadle. It was truly a thrill this summer to see Springfield and its denizens brought to life on the big screen for the first time in The Simpsons Movie. TMNT also produced some stirring visuals, particularly in bringing amazing, kinetic motion to the mutant turtles in a way fans had never seen before. The heroes moved so fluidly, in a way that I had imagined in my head for decades.

COMEDY OF THE YEAR (2007)
Winner: SUPERBAD
Hon. Mentions: Hot Fuzz, Knocked Up, The Simpsons Movie

Comedies are forever the red-headed step-children of the cinematic world. Dramas will always dominate when it comes to end of the year accolades it seems. But no matter, I saw several comedies this year and enjoyed many of them tremendously. Top of the list, without a doubt, is Superbad. This was a film so funny I had to see it twice before it left theaters. Honestly, it has been a long time since I have laughed this much during any film. In giving out this distinction, I’m going for pure hilarity, and Superbad brought it more than anyone else. That doesn’t mean that they were not other successes this year, however. Hot Fuzz, Knocked Up, and The Simpsons Movie all brought an above average number of smiles to my face. I commend each of them.