Four years ago, I made a New Years resolution not to eat fast food for a year. Fast food I defined as any food from a fast food restaurant like McDonald’s, Burger King, Jack-in-the-Box, Taco Bell, etc. Places that have drive-thrus and do not have servers or silverware. Where your [...]
10. The Wackness
9. Gran Torino
8. Milk
7. In Bruges
6. Snow Angels
5. Rachel Getting Married
4. Let the Right One In
3. The Wrestler
2. Wall-E
1. The Dark Knight
These came in close:
-The Reader
-Dear [...]
The worst of 2008:
I didn’t see either of the Friedberg/Seltzer films this year. In 2006 and 2007 they had my #1 spot, and their two releases in 2008 (Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie) would have been a natural for #1 and #2… where I’m sure they would have placed [...]
Getting to hold that lion cub… it was incredibly soft. I can’t think of anything cooler - even though there were plenty of other cool things in 2008. These are the runner-ups:
Running. I did two races - a 10k and the NYC Half Marathon, which [...]
Speed Racer starts off with promise: a bright, trippy kaleidoscope. I anticipated the rest of the film to be like that, but it wasn’t. There are some astonishing visuals throughout the film, but it’s not enough. Moreover, the film is about 50 minutes too long. And it’s obvious [...]
Some guys who went to the same film school as me made this movie, not far from St. Louis, with John Heard (first-billed, but in a supporting role), America Ferrara (right before her big break-out in Ugly Betty), Laurie Metcalf, and Raymond J. Barry. It gives Barry and [...]
This Oprah-produced inspirational drama came out late last year. It was one of those movies that I felt I should see but didn’t really want to. It got mediocre reviews, but the subject and time period got me interested so I ultimately put it in my Netflix queue. [...]
Roman Polanski made some films in Poland before moving to the U.S. (and later France). Knife in the Water was, I believe, his only feature there, and it’s obvious why he quickly moved on to bigger productions. Knife in the Water is a classic thriller in the vein [...]
I’m among the masses who were disappointed with Ang Lee’s Hulk five years ago. It was such a misfire in so many ways, most notably in that it took itself waaaaay to serious, but The Incredible Hulk is a vast improvement. It’s not as much fun as Iron [...]
I’ve been meaning to write about WALL*E for about two months… here it finally is.
I have written before about my love for animation. I love the Disney classics, and while I enjoy most of their recent work, many of them “future classics”, it hasn’t blown me [...]
I still think the title is awful.
Here’s what I gave the previous Indiana Jones flicks…
Raiders: 5/5
Temple of Doom: 4.5/5
Last Crusade: 4/5
This one is 3.5/5. That’s not saying that I’m disappointed. I liked it a lot and was sort of relieved that it didn’t [...]
It’s no Pink Flamingos or Female Troubles (that one’s my favorite), but like all of John Waters’ films, it has his distinct mark which means it’s worth seeing. Every moment of every film he has ever made are clearly his. I can’t think of many other directors for [...]
This was the second film I saw at Tribeca. If it wasn’t for In the Name of the King, this would be the worst film of 2008. It’s not funny. We get it: People are profiting from the Iraq war. It worked in Dr. Strangelove. If someone wants [...]
Give me an S. Give me an H. Give me an I… oh, that’s just too obvious. There’s a reason that this 80s cheerleader flick has been forgotten. It’s a typically bad teen sex comedy that’s light on both sex and comedy. There’s also an embarrassing rip-off of [...]
The casting of Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant. I don’t think Iron Man is all that cool of a superhero, but Tony Stark is. Unlike Clark Kent, Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, etc. I prefer the scenes in which he’s not in the costume. I saw this at the [...]
This is the front-runner for worst film of the year (it came out in the US in 2008). The notorious Uwe Boll is at it again. He is called this generation’s Ed Wood. Both directors made awful films but thought them to be brilliant. They were delusional, sad [...]
Sort of.
I’ve always dreamed of making a movie with Chevy Chase. And this morning, that dream came true.
Sort of.
My friend Mark was kind enough to bring me along to Chevy’s house, where I operated the boom on a video taping. So, technically, my dream came true. I’ll [...]
Halle Berry’s Oscar hopeful from last year came out just prior to award season and bombed. It got mixed reviews and nobody went to see it. It was quickly forgotten. Which is a shame, because it’s not bad. It’s an effective drama with solid work from Berry, Benicio [...]
Last week I had the opportunity to meet a living legend: Gene Hackman. Hackman hasn’t really been in the spotlight lately. He retired from acting - his last film being Welcome to Mooseport from 2004 - and now spends his time writing novels with his neighbor, Daniel Lenihan.
Their third [...]
I saw two films at the Tribeca film festival, and this was the first. It’s a historical epic from China based on a book that’s been popular over there for hundreds of years. There’s lots of action - some of it cool, some of it silly - and [...]
This was one of the few films of 2007 that I really wanted to see in the theater but somehow missed. I really don’t know what to write about it. I liked it a lot, but part of it made me want to dislike it right after I [...]
I knew this was going to be shitty. When I first saw the trailer, I knew I was going to be disappointed. When it was first announced even, I knew I wouldn’t like it. And when I popped it into the DVD player (or blu-ray, I guess) recently, [...]
It was a bit of a stretch to see a whole town go along and pretend that Lars’ doll was a real person, but the charm of Lars, his brother and his sister-in-law doesn’t wear off. Lars turns into an asshole after a while, acting as if his [...]
This was such a surprise. It’s a bit sad that good, old-fashioned, character-driven, family-oriented comedies - the ones we used to see in theaters all the time 15-20 years ago - have almost completely disappeared. Instead, we get quirky independent comedy dramas, silly goofball comedies, kids movies, big-budget [...]
I love dark, gritty cop dramas, but the genre might have run out of steam. There was a resurgence a few years ago with a number of stylish new films that didn’t shy away from violence and showed both good and bad cops. But after films like Traffic, [...]
The spaghetti western is one of my favorite sub-genres, and my favorite spaghetti westerns are the ones that have American stars. Back in the 60s and 70s, for James Coburn, Henry Fonda or Charles Bronson to go to Italy to headline a cheap Italian film (western, cop movie, [...]
A snore of a movie. The film consists of three stories. One features Meryl Streep as a journalist interviewing senator Tom Cruise in his office. It takes place almost entirely in the senator’s office. The other story focuses on professor Robert Redford who is meeting with one of [...]
This is a Cannon sci-fi thriller that I had never heard much about… until now. I saw that it was on Universal HD, so I recorded it. It’s Cannon, how can I live a full life without having seen it? I was surprised how good the film looked. [...]
Tony Kaye (American History X) goes on a bit too long (2 1/2 hours) in his (mostly) unbiased documentary about abortion. Kaye also puts too much focus on fundamentalist Pro-Life activism, which gave me the feeling that that side of the spectrum wasn’t represented very accurately. The documentary [...]
Universal Home Video will release a second volume of Woody Woodpecker cartoons on Tuesday. Picking up right after Volume 1, this three-disc set contains the next 45 Woody cartunes (Volume 1 covered 1940-1952). It also has 30 additional Walter Lantz cartunes, featuring characters like Chilly Willy, Andy Panda, and even [...]
I got a kick out of Richard Shepard’s last flick, The Matador, and I’ve been looking forward to his latest, The Hunting Party, for a while. Sadly, it only had a limited release and went by unnoticed. It played at the Landmark Sunshine in my street, but with [...]
What happened to Rod Lurie? He started out with an interesting doomsday thriller in 1999 (Deterrence), followed it up with the terrific political thriller The Contender in 2000, but then struck out with the Robert Redford/James Gandolfini prison flick The Last Castle a year later. He didn’t make [...]
For the past 2 or 3 weeks, the posts here were out of order. Well, I finally was able to fix it by installing a new version of WordPress. I intend to write more regularly. But really, don’t count on it.
[...]The server had an update and now all of my posts are in reverse order.
[...]Picture: No Country For Old Men will and should win.
Director: The Coen Brothers will and should win.
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis will and should win.
Actress: Julie Christie will win but Marion Cotillard should win.
Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem will win but Hal Holbrook should win.
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett [...]
Do you also have a Wii? Would you like to add me as a friend? My Wii number is: 1994 0863 5447 6637. Let me know what yours is so I can add you.
[...]My top 10 for 2007, so far:
1. There Will Be Blood
2. No Country for Old Men
3. 3:10 to Yuma
4. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
5. Atonement
6. Rescue Dawn
7. Juno
8. Into the Wild
9. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of [...]
Last year, Fox put out the first season of that great 80s hospital drama St. Elsewhere on DVD. It didn’t sell very well, so Fox isn’t releasing a second season. If you were like me and finished the DVD set hungry for more, tune to American Life TV, a new [...]
I decided that it was time for a new television. I remember getting my first job at a video store when I was in high school. For the first few months, I barely spent any of my money, until I finally bought a television. It was beautiful (to me), and [...]
A few months ago I searched the far reaches of the earth for a Nintendo Wii. I finally found one. It was defective, so I returned it, and I once again had to search the far reaches of the earth for a Wii. Again, I found it. Now I’m looking [...]
Time to fire up the old blog again. What have I been up to since August?
-I won a Blu-ray player! Next generation, here I come.
-I did a book signing in Long Island with Tom S. and Zach G., and I got to ride the train. Exciting…
-Like last year, [...]
This is from earlier this year (Mothers Day), but I was just sent the photo.
Since then my hair grew long and brown and now it is short and black again. I almost called him ‘David’ - I wonder if he gets that often. Click for full [...]
A few years ago, I tried digging up a trailer for the movie Nothing Lasts Forever. I never found it and one day decided to make my own. Styled after 1930s movie trailers, and in most cases using the exact text (believe it or not), I created my own version [...]
This is already making me drool. I can’t wait until it comes out this December. There will be a limited theatrical run in October and I won’t miss that, either. Five discs is an awful lot for one movie but this film is deserving of [...]
There are 171 Starbucks in Manhattan, and my friend Mark - who is cool enough to let me hang out at The Colbert Report - decided to try to visit them all in one day. You can see a short video of his journey at 171starbucks.com. It’s already become [...]
I headed over to the 7-11 store that was turned into a KWIK-E-MART on 42nd Street yesterday. It was mildly amusing to hop in and out, but not all that it was cracked up to be. They had Simpsons donuts, Buzz cola, Squishees and a modest selection of other Simpsons [...]
Larry King-style, but with fewer dot-dot-dots:
In an earlier post I mentioned that I signed up for a gym that is a block away from my apartment, as opposed to going to the Upper West Side three times a week after work. Well, it hasn’t been long, but so far I’ve [...]
I am not an expert on classic animation but I proudly label myself an enthusiast. I have always enjoyed watching cartoons and still love to watch them today. I love the golden age of cartoons, from Disney and Looney Tunes to Popeye and Woody Woodpecker. Ub Iwerks, Walter Lantz, Friz [...]
I’ve seen more movies lately so I made an update to the 2007 movie list. The link is to the left where you can access it at any time of the day. 11pm, 9pm, 3am, even at 2am. That’s the way computers work nowadays. You can also click here - [...]
DRUDGE REPORT is open most of time that I have my computer turned on. It refreshes every few minutes and I’ve got the latest news.
I think today is a slow news day:
[...]Truth is, I’m a very shallow person and have so little to say.
Last week I decided to join a gym. Previously I went to a gym inside my brother’s building three times a week, but I got tired of going all the way up to the upper west all the [...]
Man, is there nothing else going on in my life besides movies?
A while back I went to the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens for a rare screening of Jacques Rivette’s long movie Out 1. This 1971 flick runs twelve-and-a-half hours and the screening I attended was [...]
I’m watching this movie right now called Overlord. It’s a British war movie from the 70s that mixes stock footage from WWII with original footage. It kind of blows. Not recommended so far, but I can’t bring myself to stop it. I do like all the stock footage, although there [...]
Here’s some random stuff. Random.
-9 trillion dollars is a lot of money.
-I will be first in line to see Snakes on a Plane.
-Three dead at Denny’s. My first thought when clicking on the headline was ‘what was in the food?’ (I hate putting links in blogs without any [...]
Peter Tomarken, 63, the host of the early 80s game show Press Your Luck, and his wife died in a plane crash today: [news.yahoo.com]
Just this morning, MSN had this to say about Tomarken and Press Your Luck in an article about the all-time greatest game shows: [...]
Mr. Magoo lives, and I couldn’t be happier because he’s such a memorable character. I can’t wait to see next week’s episode. That new show Big Love sure isn’t bad, either.
[...]
On Friday I called the cable company to subscribe to HBO again. I always do when The Sopranos start, and then cancel shortly after they’re over. I can’t wait until a few hours from now when Season 6 starts. It’s been about two years since the last season. [...]
Each week on Sunday, Mike Frezon at the Home Theater Forum posts a Weekly RoundUp of all the new DVD releases that will be coming out the next Tuesday. I can’t tell you what an amazing resource this is. Over the past years, Mike (and before [...] 
Well, maybe it’s not a preview if you live in the UK, where each Up entry premieres on public television, but here in the US, the Up documentaries are released theatrically. I’m an enormous fan of the Uppers, as they’re called, so I couldn’t wait and asked someone [...]
At this year’s Academy Awards, films tackling very important issues facing our world today got the spotlight: racial tension, homosexuality, corporate scandals, sexual harassment, third world hunger, you name it. Yet, one of the most serious problems facing our country - somewhat of a social taboo - got no attention. [...]
Last night I went to an Oscar party. I dressed up as a Brokeback cowboy - sort of like Heath Ledger, but with longer hair. I forgot to mumble throughout the evening… dammit. I hope no pictures will surface.
I enjoyed the telecast. Even when I disagree with who wins, which [...]
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Face it: Chevy Chase is a legend - one of the most quotable icons of the last thirty years who sadly gets way too much shit for some crappy movies, his outright personality, his talkshow and whatnot. But this is the same guy who gave us Caddyshack, the [...]
WelcomeHello, this is my first post. Thank you for coming. [...]Blog Info:
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