Apparently California decided to skip autumn and plow on straight through winter. Seriously, it was hot as blazes not a week ago, and now the relative cold has really thrown me off. Jeez.
Finally stopped being lazy and put up my Monster post btw. This one isn't perfect, either, but I think I get my idea across better than I did last week.
Also, since my 'net problems still aren't letting up, and I still can't get into Chat, I'm going to try and be on MSN and AIM more often. MSN: [email protected], AIM: Shinmaru007. Good times.
EDIT: Ugh, and apparently my DVR is having troubles, too, because it didn't record Monster last night. Guess I'll have to use the Japanese version to catch up ...
I Love You, Man (2009): Good, funny movie. It mostly sticks to its bizarre rendition of the romantic comedy formula, with the main character finding the perfect guy to be the best man at his wedding, but the characters work, so that isn't such a big deal. Most romantic comedies are way more insipid than this movie, anyway. I'm just glad it is good because Jason Segel (who plays Sydney, the guy who becomes friends with the desperate Peter, played by Paul Rudd) deserves to be a star. He's awesome in just about everything he does. His character is far away from the characters he plays in How I Met Your Mother and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so it's fun to see a different type of comedy from him.
Frankenstein (1931): I liked Bride of Frankenstein more, but this is still a good movie and must have been pretty shocking in its day. Actually, one scene -- where the father mournfully walks through the village carrying the body of his drowned daughter -- is kind of crazy even by today's standards. What's also kind of jarring is that the creature isn't really in much of the movie -- he gets like 10-15 minutes of screen time at most. The creature is sympathetic (it's hard not to feel for how utterly miserable his life has been by the end of the movie), but he's also pretty damn vicious -- more vicious than in Bride of Frankenstein, where he's actually kind of calculating in his own way. Frankenstein is also a lot crazier in this movie than in the sequel. The line, "Now I know what it's like to be God!!" stirred up a lot of shit upon release, haha.
Disturbia (2007): Actually better than I expected -- it's pretty good thriller for about 2/3 of the movie, and then it goes for a typical, but well made, ending. But even that is much more than I thought I would get from what initially appears to be a teenaged ripoff of Rear Window, so well played, Disturbia. The only thing I'm not really sure about is whether the movie wants Shia LaBeouf's character to be likable or not. In Rear Window, you're supposed to have mixed feelings about Jimmy Stewart's character, because the plot subtly plays up the disturbing nature of the voyeuristic obsessions he develops (plus, he is kind of punished at the end, despite saving the day, when his other leg gets broken too). And that aspect is there in Disturbia, too ... until the end, when Shia's character saves the day, is freed from house arrest for "good behavior" and gets the girl. Then again, that could be a message in itself: Genuinely creepy, invasive behavior is rewarded by the paranoid society (which the killer remarks on partway through the movie), and a nice little bow is tied on everything. Or I could be reading into it way too much. Who knows!
On the queue for this week: Away We Go (2009), Suspiria (1977), Ghost Town (2008) and probably Gran Torino (2008)
Total Movies: 157 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Point Break, 500 Days of Summer, Man Bites Dog, Burn After Reading, Glory, Training Day, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, White Heat, All About Eve, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Big Heat, Death at a Funeral, Valkyrie, Shane, Stalag 17, Secondhand Lions, Bride of Frankenstein, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Witness for the Prosecution, In a Lonely Place, Dracula, Escaflowne, Dark Passage, X/1999, Watchmen, High Anxiety, Point Blank, Murder, My Sweet, The Thing from Another World, Revolutionary Road, Commando, Coraline, Rachel Getting Married, V for Vendetta, Let the Right One In, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Beast with Five Fingers, This Gun for Hire, Jackie Brown, Beverly Hills Cop, The Boys from Brazil, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Back to the Future, Shivers, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Wrestler, I Love You, Man, Frankenstein, Disturbia)
