Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and days of old lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
for auld lang syne,
we’ll take a cup of kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.
Auld Lag Syne, Robert Burns
I’m avoiding my queue of reviews to write by writing my thoughts on the movies of this past decade. I’m not gonna list them as the best what’s the point as I am an amateur at movie reviewing. I can’t also put them as the best because I’ve only seen a fraction of the movies put out during the past 10 years. I really didn’t start to get serious about movie going until perhaps 2002 and since I didn’t have a blog to jot down my reviews I don’t really remember many of them. I’ve really seen lots, some good, some bad, some good I found bad, and some bad I found good. It’s just too much to list out, and anyway the Seed will complain about something.
So instead, since I did come back to enjoying watching movies, I’ll tell you how movies that made me have fun in the theatre or on DVD: my favorite moments from my movie viewing over the past 10 years. While I’m gonna try to stick to movies released during the past decade, I’m gonna meander to some older films.
Trying to figure out this list, the only movie to jump out of my memory quickly is The Incredibles (2004). This is the point where I thought Pixar and American animation has grown up. You can make animated CG movies that go beyond kids fare. Of course, it didn’t turn out completely this way as Pixar still adheres to family flicks, but they showed flashes of brilliance in their successive films after The Incredibles. Still, The Incredibles will always remind me of the joy of watching movies. Its score is still much a favorite. I remember sitting in the theatre and cheering just as the trumpets blare in “Marital Rescue.” Love that cue. And so that is how these films will be on this list: fun and moving.
The second film to pop out of my memory is The Queen. Why? No idea, but I was shocked in my response to it. I thought as I watched, “This is a really good film.” It was and I still think of that stag. But what connects me to this film is the day Diana died. I was at a bar after a shift at work. I drank a toast to the dead Princess.
Let’s go the DVDs, The Parent Trap and Rushmore always are the movies of the year 2000 for me. The former picture was my favorite at the start of the year because Lindsay Lohan is just so darn cute in it as both Hallie and Annie. Go Annie! Plus, it was the movie I watched the most as my dad lay dying. The latter film reminds me of my dad’s funeral and the wistful, melancholy of those days. That’s the way the decade started and those two are the movies I remember for the year 2000.
One sleeper hit for me during the past decade has to be Wicker Park. I think it is unappreciated because of the two stars. Shaggy and the dude from Pearl Harbor, but it did have Rose Byrne and the hottie whose face launched a thousand ships. Little did I know how much I would dig the film going in. The unrequited love, the play on Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s plays, all contribute to me liking the flick. Love was illusory for me this past decade. I’ll just continue wistfully thinking I will find it.
Duplicity is another movie I enjoyed in the theatre. Fun to guess the plot twists.
The Lord of the Ring trilogy was something every Tolkien fan waited for. It doesn’t live up to the books and your imagination, but it still is something to behold. I caught every one at the midnight showing. I remember fighting off sleep for the Fellowship. I just wanted to see Moria and the Balrog. I remember wondering why they changed Theodred’s motivation in the Two Towers. I remember the glee I had to see the ride of the Rohirrim in Return of the King. Those where moments that made me glad to see Tolkien in live action.
I’ll have to put Hitchcock on this list. From watching Vertigo, Notorious, Rear Window, and The Birds on DVD from Netflix or watching them at The Charles Hitchcock will always be the master of movies.
Finally, anime and with it Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. The best animated film of the decade. Yes, even better than The Incredibles, because it is so touching and poignant in its themes of searching for identity and environmental awareness. Miyazaki is how I thought Pixar would mature to being. Not yet, but maybe they’ll get there.
That’s about all the movies I care to remember for the decade. Every time I think about movies, I remember the fun I had. Like the guy calling Spidey a bitch during Spiderman 2. Or the lady grabbing my arm as she cooed with delight for the abs of 300. I remember watching and not seeing any of the fright movies I went to see in the theatre (The Grudge, Drag Me to Hell, etc.).
It will always be about the experience of movie watching. The movies will come and go. There will be good and bad ones. There will be ones that make you laugh, make you cry, make you think, make you love. There will always be movies to watch. Here’s to those in the past, and here’s to those in the future.
For a moment there Up In The Air tried to be about redemption. A man lives his life on the road afraid of commitments, relationships, baggage, but with the help of three women in his life he finds that life is more than traveling. Then a twist that you knew had to be coming comes and the movie gets our leading man back on the road where he belongs.
The trailers lead you to believe that George Clooney finally gets off the road to now where. He doesn’t. He is defined by the mileage and the rental cars and the gold club and the flying. Girls try to change him. But it really isn’t him. And so he stays the same. All the better for it.
I didn’t like that he didn’t change. I thought he would and we would have a feel good movie. When he didn’t, I felt lost. I wanted to fly away from the theatre.
Are there moments in my life where traveling would be fun? Yes. Do I like to fly? No. Especially if there are pantsu bombers out there.
3 of 5 stars
It was a fun time with the family. Eating food. Chatting with relatives. Drinking in the fun. The giving and receiving of gifts is the highlight of the night. You need a Santa Claus to do the duties or else it will be madness. When you hand out the gifts, a Santa will make it more organized.
Santa will give out the presents. The recipient will jump with joy. Then file back up later for more presents.
Either that or just hand the presents out. The recipient and the parents will lose track of the presents. Who got what? Who gave what? Where is it?
You really need a Santa Claus to handle it all.
I’m gonna service the queue and the first movie up is Avatar which I saw opening night before the big snow storm in surreal “IMAX” 3D.
I was always very skeptical on the look of the film. James Cameron spent upwards of $300 million on this movie and in the commercials it looks like a Halo cut scene. With my 3D goggles on that first night, it looked like $300 million on the screen, and it did not look like a cut scene. It looked pretty awesome and pretty, too. All that $300 million to render and make the physics look good was worth it. But that $300 million did not pay for a story.
The movie’s plot has been compared to Dances With Wolves and other films of white guys going to the natives. And it sure was very similar. The Terminator guy loves his blue skinned honey. He loves his blue skinned avatar as well as it gives him the mobility that this shriveled legs lack. He gets his legs back and his soul back to save a planet. And of course to condemn another planet to death.
Avatar had weird politics. It asked the audience to cheer for the Indians as they slaughter the pioneers. It asked the audience to choose to root for the insurgents as they blew up IEDs on the unsuspecting soldiers. It asked the audience to be bigoted against the other. For a group of people that valued a universal emotional/physical bond, the Nav’i sure hate those that are not the same. They expel the humans from Nav’i world with extreme prejudice. I don’t understand why they let some humans stay.
Avatar also had weird concept of evolution. Does it work the same way on planet Nav’i as it does on earth? Then what’s up with the ethernet jacks. I wonder how these things evolved, and what is the evolutionary need of such a thing on all the things there.
The visuals were a feast for the eyes, but I was too busy trying to understand the evolution of these species to fully get into the movie.
The battles were pretty good, James Cameron is a cheese master though, the movie had a Phantom Menace vibe as it could not live up to the hype, and I couldn’t help but notice that it was a mash up of many different movies: Princess Mononoke, The Matrix trilogy, Dance With Wolves, etc. Cameron is frustrating on the story end.
3 of 5 stars.
Bought three packs today at the comics shop. Culled them from the middle the stack in the box. Got another B Rob. But then in the final pack got another signed mini, Scott Elbert of the LA Dodgers. I have no idea who he is as well. I should ask @Alyssa_Milano. But in that pack as well was this:
Cool! Gold foil Ty Cobb number 1 of 50! That’s pretty sweet. Of course, when I checked ebay this card was only going for $5.00. Darn I was hoping that it was a more valuable card.
… Is backing up. Must find time to out thought to paper for Avatar, Up In The Air, Sherlock Holmes and Nine. I've just spent too much time in the theatre to write my review down.
Putting your sugar water into a 9 ounce can is not innovative.
Setting up a website to tout how innovative you are is itself not innovative.
I’ll wait for your tweet about it.
Did I ever tell you I’m a sucker for girls in glasses? Mmm. Nozomi, megane. o.0
