Cornerstone Primo

One month into the new year. I’ve seen eight films for the first time, experienced two theater viewings, and caught my first 2008 release. It’s been a strong month, dominated, as usual, by the prior year rather than the present. My sole ’08 viewing was Cloverfield, an unusual, but strong, entry into the monster-attacks-city genre. Coming out of the movie, my only complaint was the nausea.

’50s: 1

’70s: 1

’90s: 2

’00s: 4

Aside from seeing a couple of classics like Schindler’s List and Young Frankenstein, the biggest addition to my movie database was my introduction to Akira Kurosawa. His Seven Samurai was the first of his filmography that I have sampled. While no doubt a solid film, I’m still struggling to rate it. It is one of those I nearly find impossible to rate. However, I will say that I enjoyed it and look forward to seeing more of the Japanese legend’s work.

Rewatches: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (’01), This is Spinal Tap (’84), TMNT (’07)

My thoughts, my heart, and my prayers go out to Heath Ledger’s family, friends, fans, and mostly his young daughter. God bless you all.

I had never been a huge Ledger fan. I’d seen some of his work and knew that he was talented, but I wasn’t what you would call a fan. Then, in the summer of 2006, Heath was announced as the new Joker in the upcoming ‘The Dark Knight.’ While a surprising choice, I was thrilled. I really felt that this was right. This was the man to bring my favorite villain of all time to the big screen, just the way he was meant to be. Since then, I can honestly say that I’ve thought about Heath Ledger nearly every day. I know, that sounds weird, even creepy, but ‘Batman’ is a hobby for me. I come in at the end of the day, get online, and check Batman-on-Film.com for the latest news, pictures, interviews, whatever. I’ve followed the making of the film, the marketing of the film, everything. I’ve looked at the pictures and I’ve seen the trailers, dozens of times. I know that Heath Ledger gave an astounding performance in ‘The Dark Knight,’ and through this process, I became a fan of his.

I heard the news on the radio this afternoon, sitting in traffic as I left for home. My jaw, literally, dropped. At first I thought I must have misheard, but they repeated the name. I still couldn’t believe it. I rushed home, put on the news and pulled up the internet. It was true. Even so, I still almost can’t believe it. I’ve been shocked to my core. Rattled. Even terrified. Never have I experienced this amongst all the deaths of the famous people of the world.

In the future, I’ll comment on what this means for my favorite film franchise, my favorite characters, my most anticipated movie, but right now isn’t the time for me to do that. I’ve filled this post with thoughts about myself, and that’s damned selfish of me. A wonderful talent was lost today. But also a fellow human being, aged only 28 years. He has a young daughter, only 2 years old. My heart goes out to her in ways I cannot express.

I am speechless, but I somehow continue to ramble. If anyone ever needed an example of life being unfair, look no further.

I’ve started work on my simple review of the year in film for 2007.  It will of course consist only of my own opinions, what I personally liked and disliked.  At centerstage will be my own Top Ten for the year, more of a ‘favorites’ list than a ‘best of’ list, although most of the time those two things become the same.  I’ll also include a few other short paragraphs on what I thought of the year.

Why so late?  I have to see the films first.  No doubt I will only have scratched the surface of the films released in 2007 when I put out this list (by which time I will have seen, I estimate, just over 25 films from the year), but after Feb. 1 I think I will have seen just enough to put out that preliminary, end of the year list.  Why after Feb. 1?  Supposedly that’s when THERE WILL BE BLOOD finally arrives in my area.  So expect this to arrive in the first half of February, we’ll see how gentle life is to me during those few weeks.

Two good things have come from this writers’ strike (amongst the myriad of bad things).

1. Justice League got canned.

2. Conan O’Brien lost his writers.

Now I could go on forever about JL, and maybe I will one day, but I’m just going to focus on Conan at the moment.  I sat back tonight to watch Conan, as I have every night since he came back during the Strike (save for last Friday, when I caught Cloverfield instead).  To my great alarm, Conan appeared sans-beard.  At first I was horrified!  HOW DARE HE! Thankfully I soon realized that this was only a rerun.  No need to fear.  As far as I know, Conan’s glorious beard remains intact.  But as I watched this year old rerun, I realized something I had already suspected.  This show is better without writers.

I soon realized why I had gotten out of the habit of watching Conan each and every night in the first place.  The writing isn’t that good.  Sure, Conan is always hilarious, and it’s those few moments of his personal hilarity that I watch the show for to begin with, but with the writers in place those moments are so spread apart.  The current Strike-show, sans-writers and with-beard, is almost pure Conan.  It’s up to the man himself to guide us through the hour, not a writing staff.  I’d take a Strike-episode of Conan over a written episode any day of the week.

So while I continue to hope for a speedy resolution to the Strike (both for the real life people involved, which is too often forgotten about, and for the hope that my shows will return to me with new episodes, I’m looking at you LOST!), until then I can at least enjoy Late Night with Conan O’Brien.  It’s the best the show has been in years.

For simplicity’s sake, I’m breaking the year down into only 3 seasons, each of four months, which I’ll call Spring (Jan-April), Summer (May-Aug), and Fall (Sept-Dec+). Counting only the 2007 releases, I averaged my ratings for all the movies seen in each time period, not counting any ’07s I saw on DVD release. The winner? It has to be Fall, right? Let’s see…

Spring: 5 releases with an average of 2.70.

Summer: 8 releases with an average of 3.13.

Fall: 6 releases with an average of 3.58.

DVD: 4 releases with an average of 3.00.

Obviously, at least in 2007, and according to my own individual opinions, the Fall held up to its reputation as the best film-going season of the year.  And according to my DVD stats, it seems like there might be a reason the movies I don’t see in the theaters get pushed back to a DVD release.  The average of DVD releases, thus far, is higher only than the Spring average.  Also interesting to note, I saw the most movies in the summer, thus far.  What does this mean?  Nothing.  But I thought it was interesting.

Maybe I’ll do an update later to see if more DVD releases flatten out the averages.  I wonder if every year would produce similar results?  Either way, looks like I might be right in looking forward to the Fall for movies every year.

First of all, I’d like to thank amberlita for her gift of sig banners. As you can see below, I wasn’t having much success with them on my own. But when I logged into the Icine forums tonight I got a wonderful bounty of banners that I’ll be using for some time now. Thanks again Amby.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to come to my little blog and read my posts and take a look at my movie lists. I do this blog with the full knowledge that it is likely no one will ever read what I write, but it’s much more fun to write when someone is reading. And as you can see, I tend to write more when I know people might take a peek. So thanks to everyone that has stopped by to read my posts these last few months.

Finally, my thanks to everyone who has left me comments over the past couple of months. They have all been really great posts. Both insightful on the current topic, and encouraging for me, the blogger. In turn, I’d like to encourage you to keep commenting if you have something you’d like to share. I reply to everyone’s comments, and it is really no hard task at all, because the comments have been so good. They may have all been short discussions so far, but they’ve been fun anyway.

One last thing, I’ve never been able to decide on a particular format, color scheme, etc for the blog. If anyone has any tips or suggestions, feel free to sling them my way.

Or the Producers as David Lettermen refers to them.

The WGA Strike of ’07 is no longer, now this atrocity spans TWO years. Amazing that well over two months later there is still no end in sight. Worst of all, the bad news continues to build for my favorite shows.

LOST – According to one internet speculator, if LOST doesn’t go back into production by January 31st, season four may be a bust. However, if the Strike doesn’t last too far into the Spring, there may still be hope to get those 8 lost episodes back (no pun intended). But as each day slides past, my long standing fear comes closer and closer to reality. If this Strike lasts for very long, LOST may be in serious trouble. With the way the contracts are designed, they can’t just add extra episodes to season five’s 16 episode allotment. We may end up in a situation where 8 episodes are truly gone for good. Hopefully the showrunners can come up with some solution to remedy this…that’s if the cowards don’t have their way.

THE SHIELD – This show did well in comparison to most shows (thankfully, since this is its last season), except for one worrisome blemish. No Shawn Ryan on set for the series finale. In fact, there wasn’t a single writer anywhere near the set. As fortunate as we are that the finale script was already written, all previous episodes of THE SHIELD have had a writer on set to make sure the show stays consistent. Amazing that the only one lacking this will be the most important of all. Turns out, Michael Chiklis (as the only non-writing producer) was in charge for the Barn’s last hurrah. So if it turns into a pile of garbage, you can blame Vic Mackey himself. Or more accurately, the cutthroats behind this debacle.

THE OFFICE/HOUSE/ETC. – All down for the count. Although we may luck into a couple of House episodes sometime this Spring. Not all have been shown yet. Still, as the months pass without new episodes…thanks weasels.

Round III, not to be confused with Round II.

Nearly a full week into it and things are roughly as I left them last time. The biggest change this week was the return of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report sans writers. The result wasn’t pretty. Kudos to Stewart and Colbert for putting something on the air, but this was a clear example of why we need the writers back soon. While the traditional talk shows on the big networks soldier on much as they did before, it’s the pair of Comedy Central programs that seem to be suffering the most. With Jay Leno writing his own material, The Tonight Show continues relatively the same. If you hadn’t told me Leno didn’t have writers, I never would have guessed it. Meanwhile, Conan O’Brien, despite being the most vocal supporter of the writers (and keeping that awesomest of beards on), seems out to prove he doesn’t need writers at all. Despite a few lulls here and there, the show has been in top form since it returned. While Letterman was shaking off the rust, Conan was putting on a clinic of late night comedy.

While I was sad to see Dave’s beard go on Monday, at least he provided us with the bloody execution. No joke, the man looked like he had just been in a knife fight.

In case you ended up here by clicking on my shoddy signature banner on the Icine forums, I’d like to officially apologize for the crudity of the work. That’s a beginner paint product for sure. But hey, it’s my first foray into this field in quite some time. And with other banners popping up all over the place, I figured it was time I got with the program. Besides, I missed having Andy Bernard attached to each and every one of my posts…

I kicked off the year with my first film viewing of 2008, Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein.  And with this first viewing comes a brand new page for 2008.  You’ll be able to find all of my ratings, along with a list of every new film I see in 2008, on the RATE 2008 page.  Currently, I have it structured just as I did ’07.  Also, I’ll be updating the ’07 page as I see more and more releases from the year.  In fact, I hope to see a few 2007 films this month.  As always, I do my best to keep my ‘Rate’ pages as up to date as possible.  If you are ever curious as to what I’ve seen or what I thought about it, look no further.