Weekend Fluff: Movie List

O

kay, Steve tagged everyone who reads his site so I decided to follow through. I thought: Five short questions. A nice short list. But nooooooooooooo.... I MUST elaborate, elucidate, illuminate... gawd, even regurgitate my thoughts on everything. Here goes.

1. Total number of films I own on DVD: 24. I bought virtually all of these at Blockbuster when they have their 3 for $20 sales. It would be hard to categorize my collection. Titles include Last Samurai, When Dinosaurs Walked the Earth (Discovery), 50 first Dates and Ice Age. The only one I bought new was Lost in Translation--I had to have that one.
2. The last film I bought: Spiderman 2. I'm a Spiderman fan, even though the story takes liberties with original--I don't think Spidey should have confessed his feelings to Mary Jane. This internal struggle he has with himself and his identity is exactly what made Spiderman the darling of comic book readers for decades.
3. The last film I watched in the theater: Madgascar. But I'm going to see War of the Worlds later today.
4. The last film(s) I watched on DVD: The Pacifier and Hitch. I wrote two because I don't remember which one I saw last. I rented them a the same time. Hitch was okay. A little to corny for my tastes. I could have waited until it came out on TV. The Pacifier was more fun, if only to see Vin Deisel change a diaper and get bit by a duck. Also, I liked the hidden parody of The Sound of Music. It hit me in an early scene when the kids were called down the stairs to meet the babysitter. It was similar to the scene when the kids came down the stairs to meet Maria for the first time. When I mentioned this to M, she just rolled her eyes in that "leave-the-literary-analysis-at-work" kind of look. The initial refusal of the kids to accept the new babysitter/nanny and their gradual acceptance of him are virtually the same. Vin Diesal even sings and "dances"! (I give him brownie points for trying.) The name of the fictional family is Plummer, the same last name as Christopher Plummer, the character who played Captain von Trapp. Was this conicidence? Of course, the dead give away was The Sound of Music production that the eldest son, Seth, played in. But I didn't gloat...
5. Five films I never get tired of watching--in no particular order. These five are movies that I will inevitably watch when they come on TV. I could miss the first 30-60 minutes and I'll still watch it, since I already know the set up.
   a. Field of Dreams--For me, the quintessential baseball movie. The only drawback I have now (and this is because I've seen it at least 20 times) is that I noticed the editting was not that good. The final scene when everything comes together--Moonlight Graham turns back into a doctor to save Karen, Annie's brother Mark can see the field finally, Terence Mann is asked to join the players in the corn field--this scene must have taken days to put together. The scene suggests a span of time that should have taken, say, one hour in real life. But if you pay attention to the shadows in the background and the way the sun reflects off the faces, you can tell that some of the shooting took place midday, other times in the late afternoon, a few shots looked like a slighlty overcast day. Crap, if not for that, this would be a pretty perfect film.
   b. American President--What a corny film but I enjoy it anyway. Michael Douglas as a single, widowed president newly infatuated with a lobbyist is a stretch. But more than him, the other characters really made the movie. Martin Sheen as Chief of staff--I guess he had to hold this office before becoming President Bartlett--was good, as was Michael J Fox as the mirror image of George Stephanopoulos. But it is Annette Benning who makes the movie. Oh yeah, the writing was pretty good. By a guy named Aaron Sorkin. I sometimes feel like this was a test run for "The West Wing"?
   c. Dave--Another president film, this one even cornier. A guy who find temp jobs for out of work people is a dead ringer for President Mitchell. He becomes his stand in when Mitchell has a stroke while he's cheating on his wife. Dave (Kevin Klein) a good but naive man decides to become "presidential" and do things that Mitchell would not have done. The premise is outrageous, but it's fun to watch anyway. This is my favorite Klein movie, and Ving Rhames is pretty cool too.
   d. Shawshank Redemption--This is the best movie based on a Stephen King story. Andy is wrongly convicted of murdering his wife spends decades in a prison fending of sexual attacks, boredom and most of all loss of hope. Tim Robbins is perfect in his role as a deadpan, soft-voiced but adamantly opinionated man. Red played by Morgan Freeman is wonderful, too. If you've never seen this, please do. One of the very few movies with a reviewer average over 9 on IMBd.
   e. The Whole Nine Yards--I've yet to understand why I like this movie. But it just simply cracks me up. Bruce Willis is just himself--cool, tough--and Michael Clark Duncan is massive. And Rosanna Arquette is at her impishly worst. And they are all a headache for the main character Nicholas Oseransky played by Matthew Perry. I was never a "Friends" fan but I must say watching Perry in this film makes me wonder what a few episodes of friends might be like... no, no, no... nevermind. I will stick with this movie; his role as a friendly guy caught up in a bad marriage and a worse situation--he constantly gets manhandled and his frustration is just bursting at the seams--is just hilarious.

Hope I didn't bore everyone. Have a good Sunday, all!

Update

Just realized that I'm approaching 60,000 hits. At my normal rate of visits, someone will reach it sometime late tomorrow, Monday. If it's you, please leave a comment.

dudedontdissrice: wat's with all the kid's movies?Dude, I am a kid! Movies I can watch over and over again must be simple and mindless. A movie like Pulp Fiction is interesting and thought provoking and so can be taxing. I love the movie but I will watch it only occasionally. And is Shawshank Redemption a kid's movie?

bulletgrrl: no akira kurosawa films?Ugh. No! Could anyone see Ikiru over and over again? It's a great movied, but I'd probably commit suicide if I watched it more than once a year. I should have put Tampopo on the list, but I've already mentioned that one before.I wanted you guys to see the REAL, the non-adult, unadulterated O-man.