After watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I decided that it would be fun to go through all the Disney feature films in order. There's actually a bunch that I either haven't seen in a long time, or haven't seen period. Anyway, the film that came out after Snow White was Pinocchio, which also happens to be on the Top 1000 list. Two birds, one stone.
So I was kind of bored today, and I thought, "Hey, why not watch the seminal classic The Toxic Avenger for the first time ever?" And then I checked and saw that it was on Netflix, which is all a movie really has to do for me to watch it.
The next movie I'm watching is the animated classic Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. This is the movie that made people take Walt Disney (and really the entire idea of an animated feature) seriously. Before this, you've got mostly animated shorts, and pretty much everybody thought a full length animated film would be doomed to failure. This is why you shouldn't listen to pretty much everybody.
The next film on our list is Flaming Creatures, a 1963 short by Jack Smith. Its claim to fame is that it was pulled from very limited distribution after being judged obscene by the New York Criminal Court. Why is it on the list? Mostly because it's edgy and controversial, although surprisingly not that explicit. I mean...considering the fact that the NYPD seized it at the premiere.
The next film on our list is The Purple Rose of Cairo. It's one of the many Woody Allen films included in the Top 1000, and stars Mia Farrow and Jeff Daniels.
The next movie we'll be watching is The Ghost and Mrs Muir, a 1947 romantic ghost story starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison.
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| Not creepy at all. |
The next film on our list is Une Femme Est Une Femme, or A Woman is a Woman. This is a French New Wave film from 1961, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, which means that it is clever, smug, and artsy.
This next film is called Heaven Can Wait. It's an Ernst Lubitsch film from 1943, starring Don Ameche as a deceased playboy.
Imitation of Life was a book about two women bonding, the complicated mother-daughter relationship, and the even more complex issues of race. It was adapted into two films, the first of which came out in 1934, starring Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers, and the second of which came out in 1959, starring Lana Turner and Juanita Moore. They're both very good films in their own right, but which is better?
The next film on the list is Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window from 1944. It stars Edward G Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Duryea, a team that would be brought back together for 1945's Scarlet Street, with similar success.
The next film on our list is Rose Hobart, a 19-minute long experimental film that splices together clips from the film East of Borneo featuring Rose Hobart, with footage of a solar eclipse.
The next film on our list is Plein Soleil, or Purple Noon if you're so inclined. It's a 1960 psychodrama/thriller from France, starring Alain Delon. Tom Ripley has been hired by an American industrialist to bring his shiftless layabout son home to San Francisco, to the tune of $5000.
Our next movies is a 1928 silent film called The Docks of New York, about a stoker who decides to marry a suicidal hooker on his one day of shore leave. This should end well.
This next film is called Duel, and it has the illustrious honor of being Steven Spielberg's debut film.
The next film we'll be watching is The Gospel According to St Matthew, a 1964 religious drama imported straight from Italy. This is a straightforward adaptation of the Gospel of Matthew, detailing the life and death of Jesus Christ.
The next film on our list is The Heiress, a 1949 drama starring Olivia de Haviland and Montgomery Clift.
The next film on the list is something a little different -- this one's a documentary from 1988 called The Thin Blue Line. Having read the description on Netflix, I have a feeling that this might serve as a companion piece to my 12 Angry Men review.
The next film we'll be watching is 12 Angry Men, a 1957 courtroom drama starring Henry Fonda, in which twelve white men have to determine the guilt or innocence of an urban Hispanic youth. Moral quandaries galore.
We're about to watch the original version of The Day the Earth Stood Still from 1951. Not the vastly inferior Keanu Reeves one, with stilted acting, a confused environmental message, and the annoying spawn of Will Smith. Just so we're clear.
The next movie on our list is Wavelength, an avant garde piece that all takes place in one room. It's often referred to as one of the greatest Canadian films ever made, which to be honest is a lot like saying those guys from Cool Runnings were one of the greatest Jamaican bobsled teams ever. Anyway, I watched this in film class while I was in college, and I don't remember being too impressed.
Today I finally got a chance to go see the incredibly successful film adaptation of the very successful young adult book, The Hunger Games. It's proved to be an unstoppable force at the box office, and has been getting generally solid reviews from critics. But how does it stand up to my keen and discerning tastes?
The next movie we'll be watching is a 1989 import from Hong Kong. Literally the only other thing I know about it is that presumably it involves a killer.
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| Oh hey look Chow Yun Fat! There's another thing I know about it! |
Hi everybody!
I've been getting back into television shows for the first time in a while, so I decided that I'd like to have a separate place where I can just have my TV reviews, instead of having them all mingled with the film ones over here.
I'm very excited to announce the creation of The Electronic Fireplace, which will be the place to go to for reviews of both current shows and ones that are no longer on the air. At the moment I'm planning a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon, but I envision this new blog as having a number of different shows reviewed.
So stop by! The official launch will be this Sunday night, when I'll be reviewing both Mad Men and the season premiere of Game of Thrones. Are you as pumped as I am? You should be!
Since 1923, the Walt Disney Company has had its share of questionable decisions. From unpleasant racially motivated propaganda cartoons in the 40s (hey, Warner Brothers did it too) to the Native American sequences in Peter Pan. What I want to focus on today, though, is the messages some of the Disney films send to their viewers. I don't actually believe that watching any of these movies is going to screw up the minds and hearts of children, but Disney is a huge corporation that does have a significant influence on the youth of America, so it's important to at least look at these things, right?
Moving on to the first of several Woody Allen films on our list, this is Broadway Danny Rose. The story of an agent with a veritable stable of second and third-rate acts, who has to get an alcoholic singer's mistress to an important show to avoid a career-destroying meltdown. Having worked in talent management, I can recognize a lot of Danny Rose in agents I've worked with.
We all ready for another terrifying foray into scary German silent horror? Good, because the next film on the list is Faust, a silent film adaptation of the classic story of selling your soul to the devil.
To celebrate the first anniversary of the 1000 Movie Journey, we're going to watch one of my favorite short films ever: Un Chien Andalou. This is less of a movie by normal standards, and more of a surrealist art piece that uses the medium of film. But I love it for the exact same reason I love looking at melting clocks and elephants that have giant tubas for trunks. Because sometimes it's fun to see something that is so zany and out there and think:
Hello all. Today is the one year anniversary of my very first movie review!
Here's where we separate the men from the boys. That's right, folks: it's Ingmar Bergman time. I'm reminded of when I took AP English in high school, and our teacher assigned a frustratingly difficult novel for our summer reading. Her rationale was that she wanted to weak out the weaklings before we started the class in the fall. That's sort of what Bergman is for film. He's just not for the faint of heart.
We're all familiar with the pop culture juggernaut that is Harry Potter. But what if it wasn't a literary phenomenon, leading to a $7 billion blockbuster film franchise? What if it was just a modestly budgeted, offbeat teen comedy from the 80s? Who would be our wizarding heroes then?
Does everybody have their popcorn handy, their Judgmental Caps on, and their Unrealistic Expectations close by? Good -- then we're ready for the Oscars!
I did it! For the first time ever, I managed to make it through all the Best Picture nominees. Unfortunately I did miss out on a bunch of the other films, but hey, it's not possible to see everything, right? Here are my thoughts.
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| Get it? Cause it's Oscar the Grouch? Screw you guys, that's hilarious. |
This...is a man after my own heart.
Thank you, movie, for making me want to go back to Paris really badly. I haven't been there since I was 9, and I'm sure watching this movie won't make me miss it at all.
Moving on to Moneyball. Brad Pitt? Yes please! Baseball? OK...sure, why not? I liked Field of Dreams and The Sandlot. Statistics? ... ... ... do we have to?
Next up is The Help. I've heard a lot of varying opinions about this movie, everything from the best movie of the year to an offensive white savior film. It's up to me to get to the truth.
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| I'm sorry, OK? I couldn't resist. |
Here we go as I continue to try to plow through all the Best Picture nominees before Saturday...today I watched The Descendants, which is basically The Kids are All Right for 2011. Yup, it's a family drama...family has issues, family faces crisis, family grows together as a family. Starring Captain Handsome himself, George Clooney.
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| 50% emotional Oscar bait, 50% commercial for Hawaii's tourism industry. |
I am about to watch a silent French film made in 2011 about the early days of movies...and I'm so pleased that the sentence I just typed was allowed to exist. In a world of remakes and sequels and prequels and adaptations, it's so heartening that someone took a chance on a concept like this and allowed it the opportunity to succeed. Even if I don't come out of this liking the film, it's still a win for me.
Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing Death of a Salesman on Broadway, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. Disclaimer: these guys were on their fifth live show when I saw this during previews, and it's obvious that there are still some things that they're working on. Also, Philip Seymour Hoffman has been ill this past week with the flu. So I guess what I'm getting at is that it's a bit unfair to judge them quite yet, so rather than give a full on critical review, I'd rather just put out my impressions of the show, given where it's at right now.
OK, I just found the trailer for Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and. I. AM. SO. EXCITED.
Hey all! This may come as a giant surprise to you, but...I'm a huge nerd. And I love Disney movies...especially Disney songs. I grew up with so many of them and they were a big part of my childhood. So I wanted to make a countdown of the Top 20 Disney songs. Enjoy!
I would like to preface my review today with a shameless plug. My best friend since the age of 5 lost her mom to cancer last year. This year, she's shaving her head to raise money for St Baldrick's Foundation, a charity to find cures for childhood cancers.
The next movie we'll be watching is David Lynch's The Elephant Man, starring John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins. It's the story of a severely deformed man who struggles to find his place in Victorian England. It also makes me cry like a baby.
No, everyone, calm down. Terminator 3 isn't on the Top 1000 List. Fear not. But I couldn't really stop after just the first two, come on.
The next film we'll be watching is the 1960 classic The Hustler, starring a charming young actor named Paul Newman. Maybe you've heard of him. It's about the most thrilling game of all: pool.
This is a bit of a random entry, as I'm still ploughing my way through The Hustler, but have been doing some other stuff as well over the past few days.
This is a new entrant on the Top 1000 list, and it clocks in as the shortest film on the list by far, running just less than one minute long. Released in 1896, it's one of the first publicly exhibited films by the Lumiere brothers.
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| No relation. |
Guys, I have a confession to make. Back in September, my boyfriend and I were in NYC for our anniversary, and we decided to go to a little theater on East Houston and see this new movie called The Tree of Life, starring Brad Pitt. Roger Ebert said that it was amazing, one of the best films he'd ever seen. Who am I to argue with Roger Ebert and a glowing recommendation like that?
