(1983) dir. Bob Clark
viewed: 12/30/07
It’s funny how this film has become one of the staples of contemporary Christmas culture, playing for 24 hours straight back to back on one of Ted Turner’s networks. I remembered when I first heard that a few years ago, I thought it was genius. It kind of amazes me that [...]
Archive of entries posted on December 2007
A Christmas Story
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(2007) dir. Tim Burton
viewed: 12/28/07 at AMC Loews Metreon 16 with IMAX, SF, CA
Sweeney Todd, the latest collaboration between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, and heck let’s throw Helena Bonham Carter in there too, is some pretty serious Goth and gloom, Victorian era, black-sooted London, and rivers upon rivulets of blood. Oh yeah, and singing! [...]
The Orphanage
(2007) dir. Juan Antonio Bayona
viewed: 12/28/07 at Embarcadero Cinemas, SF, CA
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, whose Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) is still fresh in my mind, The Orphanage, a Spanish thriller/ghost story film set in a former orphanage, I was thinking more of del Toro’s 2001 film The Devil’s Backbone, which also featured a haunted orphanage as [...]
Divine Trash
(1998) dir. Steve Yeager
viewed: 12/25/07
Ah, John Waters…gotta love that guy.
Divine Trash is a documentary focussing on Waters’ early career, up through Pink Flamingos (1972), his inspirations, his coterie, and the tale of how he became a filmmaker. It’s an engaging piece, with good footage from both “back in the day” and current (current at time [...]
Crazy Love
(2007) dir. Dan Klores, Fisher Stevens
viewed: 12/25/07
Crazy Love is a well-made documentary about a compelling, disturbing and fascinating story. The films follows a straight narrative slant on a tale of a lawyer, Burt Pugach, who, in 1957, falls in “love at first sight” with Linda Riss, a then 21 year old woman from the East [...]
First Snow
(2006) dir. Mark Fergus
viewed: 12/25/07
This was one of those films that comes through town and disappears. If you’d blink, you’d miss it. And then you don’t remember it even enough to think about it when it comes out on DVD. I read the film reviews when they hit the paper on Fridays, mainly to get [...]
Ghostbusters
(1984) dir. Ivan Reitman
viewed: 12/24/07
Part of the ongoing exploration of films that my kids might like, we ended up watching Ghostbusters last night. I can’t remember the last time I saw it, but I’m willing to say that it’s been about 20 years. I somehow recall catching Ghostbusters II (1989) on tv or something whole [...]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(2007) dir. David Yates
viewed: 12/24/07
My approach to the Harry Potter series has been to read the book before the movie is released. So, I’m still two books away from the ending. And this series is, I think, two installments left now, too.
I think the films as a whole are pretty well-put together. The casting and art [...]
Balls of Fury
(2007) dir. Robert Ben Garant
viewed: 12/23/07
Though I thought some of the images from this movie looked funny in the trailers: Christopher Walken in uber-campy Chinese robes and pompadour, the Siamese twins two-handed ping-ponging,…okay, maybe it was mainly Christopher Walken, but anyways…I also thought it looked like a typically awful comedy with lots of obvious crotch [...]
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
(2006) dir. Adam McKay
viewed: 12/22/07
The only reason that I considered seeing this awful film was because I’d heard that Sacha Baron Cohen kind of stole the show as the fey French opponent to Will Farrell’s NASCAR dunce/all-American hero of this dumb-ass comedy.
I don’t hate Will Farrell personally. But I find him stunningly unfunny.
I don’t know [...]
