Nine Ladies Dancing

broderic on January 2, 2012

The X-Files (How The Ghost Stole Christmas)

Christmas time finds Mulder and Scully investigating a haunted house in Maryland. The duo find two desiccated bodies under the floor boards. The corpses are wearing the duos outfits. The duo are on a wild ghost hunt. They meet up with the former occupants of the house who committed suicide on Christmas Eve in the past. The ghosts delve into the two FBI agents’ complicated relationship.

One of the worst episodes of the X-Files. The concept was cute by a half.

Christmas theme: Need to be connected to someone. Sceptic with the believer. Both afraid of the loneliness. Sharing the holiday season with someone who understands you.

I miss the internet community that The X-Files spawned. And Scully in her short bob. Mmmm, Scully!

Eight Maids A-milking

broderic on January 1, 2012

You! Yes you. What day is it? New Year’s? Have I been asleep all this time since Christmas? No, don’t answer that? I say though do you know the butcher on the next street over? Do you know if they’ve sold the goose hanging in the window? Still there! Good! Here’s a farthing fetch me the butcher. Bring him back with the goose in 10 minutes, and you’ll get another farthing!

Happy New Year!

I just substituted New Year with Christmas, but as we all know that scene is from A Christmas Carol. I’m finally getting you back to a familiar holiday treat. Yes, a week late, but we can go back in time to witness what Christmas means to a humbug of a man.

Usually, this is when I summarize the movies story, but if you don’t know it by now. Get thee to a library.

The Christmas theme for today is Christmas Day! Happy New Year! Nothing like thinking about Christmas Day than to start 358 days away to getting there. Remember where your Christmas Spirit should be; in the here, in the now, in the next. Nothing better than to start being Christmas than to start on the first day of the year.

So remember, be Christmas year round lest the Ghosts of Chrismas Past, Present and Future come to visit you.

Seven Swans A-swimming

broderic on December 31, 2011

New Year’s Eve. It’s a new movie opening this weekend. I don’t think I want to subject you, my readers, to something that painful so I’m gonna fall back to one of my favorite Coen movies, The Hudsucker Proxy.

Norville Barnes, a hick from Muncie, Indiana, peers perilously over the ledge as the clock strikes twelve on New Year’s Eve. He wants to take his life because he was a failure at being the CEO of the Hudsucker Corporation, but he was just a stooge put in place by the board to drive the stock down. At the disastrously lowered price, the board members wanted purchase the stock on the cheap. Needless to say, Norville’s idiocy guides the Hudsucker Corporation to new heights especially with the introduction of the hula-hoop, Norville’s invention.

Amy Archer is a Pulitzer winning journalist who spies something funny about Norville Barnes as CEO, and she decides to investigate him. She poses as a fellow Muncian and becomes Norville’s secretary. She finds out how much of an idiot he is, but also that there is some genius to his idiocy. She falls in love, yet, she exposes his idiocy and causes his downfall. “How could you a fellow Muncian?” Queue the climb to the ledge.

The Christmas theme today is the circular notion of “what comes around goes around.” Christmas comes just once a year. It’s gone, but it will be back again next year. Live for that and it will come around again. Give and you shall receive. Or as they said in the movie karma.

The big O! “You know, for kids!”

So as you celebrate New Year’s Eve remember, you do get a second chance. It’ll come around again in a year’s time.

Best Pictures List 2011

broderic on December 30, 2011

I’ve become really stingy when it comes to doling out stars in my reviews. I only gave one movie a plus positive rating of four stars or more from all the movies I’ve seen this year. My list is so meager that I’m adding in the best movie I saw this year which happened to be on DVD. Also, the other movie I added is considered the best picture from last year, but I saw it this calendar year. There’s plenty of 3 star movies this year and there are also plenty of two stars or less. It’s depressing. Movies haven’t moved me in awhile. Perhaps I may see something on the last day which would.

L’Illusioniste on DVD (5 stars)
The King’s Speech (5 stars)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (4 stars)

Six Geese A-laying

broderic on December 30, 2011

Most every anime featuring high school romance is going to have it’s Christmas episode. Hatsukoi Limited is no different. It’s title is “Before it Snows” (雪が降り出すその前に) I just wanted to copy and paste that. You see I needed an anime to tell us all about Christmas in Japan from the schoolboy’s perspective. I would’ve chosen my favorite anime, but settled on Hatsukoi Limited because it sorta has a theme we could attach to it for today.

The set up for the anime is that these girls and these boys have crushes on each other and they either need to acknowledge the crush or be crushed by rejection. It’s a short, simple, complicated manga turned by Kawashita-sensei that you should read about its plot at wikipedia. Anyhow, the Christmas episode has the gang planning a Christmas party. Three girls and three boys each crushing on someone are to attend and they’ll exchange gifts. The day arrives and two girls and two boys have bailed out for various reasons leaving the more antagonist couple alone. They don’t know if they like each other; they just know that the other is really, super annoying. They argue then get into a snowball fight which clears their heads enough to acknowledge that each has a good point to them; they’re steadily falling in love. They exchange presents and each finds that they got what they had wanted.

The Christmas theme for today is koi. Love not familial or brotherly, but passion. We should feel it all year long, but it is more acute around this time because of the sharing and

The second Christmas theme for today is “tsudere goodness.” Assertive, combative, confrontational at first given way to gentle, warm-hearted, loving that’s a Christmas present I can’t wait for.

The third Christmas theme is grade S zettai ryouiki. That’s the star on the treetop and the ribbon on the gift. Waiting for it is worthwhile.

Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

broderic on December 30, 2011

I did like Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, but I thought it lacked emotion. It was a very rote, by the numbers Misson, but no heft in outlying why we should care about IMF. They were gonna be disavowed, but “meh,” why should I care. The previous installments in this film series forced Ethan Hunt to the brink emotionally. Whether through revenge and betrayal or love and passion, Ethan always was running fueled by his emotions for getting the job done. In this movie, it lacked the personal, emotional investment for Ethan to keep running.

That is not to say the plot was a mess, but the standard rogue agent with a nuclear bomb makes me think Lex Luthor, and Lex Luthor was a comic book villain. This could’ve been a plot for any other task force team — someone look up what John McClane is up to.

I think Paula Patton is beautiful. I think Brad Bird did a fine job on his first live action film. I hope Brad Bird doesn’t just do live action films anymore. I think Tom Cruise runs funny. Simon Pegg is overexposed. Anil Kapoor should be in more Hollywood productions bringing some Bollywood over. I thought when the twist came that Josh Hallowell would be under that mask. I wonder what the IMAX hype was all about.

3 of 5 stars.