Movies Movies Movies
Don't ask me why Roger Ebert gave 2.5 stars to the movie Bewitched when reading his review gave me the impression he has never been so luke-warm to anything in his life. Usually I agree with his assessments more often than not so I'm not sure if I really want to see this or not (don't tell me that's not a lot of nots). Maybe I'll make this a date movie, if I can find a date.
A number of people at work today were saying how much they were looking forward to seeing Mr. & Mrs. Smith. It was with a touch of sadness that I had to recommend waiting for it on DVD. The acting was forced, the plot tried way to hard to be True Lies without looking like it was, and the action sequences were surprisingly lame. The only thing that saved it was Angelina Jolie's mouth. What made me sad about the recommendation was that I really had hoped that it was a good movie. The rest of the summer movie season looks so good and I didn't want to be disappointed.
The Beatles flick A Hard Day's Night is still sitting here waiting to be watched. I've been looking forward to watching it for sometime now, but have only watched one of the on-disc documentaries thus far. Now that I got my 'puter to recognize their music CD 1 I've got a bit of a Beatles renaissance going on with the best of these best on my iPod.
Speaking of DVDs, I can hardly wait until Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith is available. I plan on renting a big screen TV for a weekend and showing all six movies in a sitting. We're talking breakfast, lunch, dinner, and plenty-o-snacks with the movies shown in the correct order. I also want to do the same with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended editions, of course.
Something I don't understand, though, is why Apple heavily promotes watching movie trailers with iTunes when the Quicktime Website is easier to use and has more movies listed. What is even stranger is that some of the trailers on the Website insist on opening iTunes first. Rather than explanations for these riddles, I'd rather have an archive of older trailers at the site.
We need more Danny Kaye movies on TV. Years ago AMC used to show them like they were Bewitched reruns. Now you hardly see them. Maybe it's because that network has gone heavily commercial in order to survive the onslaught of Turner Classic Movies. The latter plans to show The Court Jester in August and Hans Christian Andersen in September. Before then I might wind up buying A Song is Born. It's an equally good remake of Ball of Fire and features a fabulous segment 'documenting' the history of Jazz with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Barnet, Mel Powell, Gene Krupa, Louie Bellson, Buck and Bubbles (Ford Washington Lee and John William Sublett), the Samba Kings, and The Golden Gate Quartette liberally sprinkled throughout the film. That almost makes it a mini-Woodstock of it's era. A music teacher in the school I work at uses this film in her class upon my recommendation.
Chock-full of anti-Christian behavior, language, themes, and imagery, one of the best movies ever is John Landis's Animal House. It would take almost as much time to list the types of humor that comprise the script as it would to watch the movie itself. To be this good it's understood that great writing (Harold Ramis, et al) and great acting from all the players are primary components of why people like this movie. But why is it legendary? Go ahead, search the Web, it's legendary.
I would guess this status is tied in part to the toga party scene. This quickly became a staple of college parties and remains so. Featured in this scene is the song "Shout" (not originated by the then fictional group Otis Day & The Knights), a fabulous party and group participation song that reminds anyone who has seen the movie of good times.
Another important part has to be that there's a character for everyone to identify with, if only in part. Somewhere there has to be a college course studying this movie or some psych student doing a paper on that aspect. Sadly, I identify too much with Flounder.
Who would you identify with? Watch the movie sometime, if only to have a good laugh or to see a piece of American culture that has become a legend.
