I saw this the other day and I thought it was just hilarious.  Its amazing how a few carefully collected clips and a little change of soundtrack can do.  Definitely worth watching.

In all seriousness, though, The Shining is one of my favorite movies.  First of all, it makes me feel so conflicted.  On one hand, you have the perfectly deconstructed and torn down psychopath, Jack Nicholson, flipping out and trying to kill his family.

On the other hand, boy do I hate Shelley Duvall in this movie.  I mean, I seriously think if he did clip her with that ax, the audience probably would have cheered.  Can an actress be more irratating??  Watching her flounce around in an attempt to run was just painful.  Well, I suppose if it was Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack wouldn't have been too much of a match for her, so they had to pick an easier target.

Anyhoo, Jack's whole unwinding is done at such a perfect pace.  Its never unbelievable and it never drags on either.  Plus, I like the fact that the ghoul factor is pretty low.  Its scary, but the only thing you really need to be scared of is the woman in the tub.  Other than that, its all just mood and suspence.  Fantastic score, set off by the early Berlioz on the trek up the hill.  I loved the scenes where the charactors from the past appear, and I think maybe the scariest thing in the movie is when he turns up in the picture at the end.

Best unintentional comedy moment:  Scatman Carrother's (the cook) apartment in Miami.  It looks like a scene from "The Ladies Man"...  huge sprawled out female nude painting behind the bed.  Totally 70's decor.  Look out Miami. 

I know what you're going to say. The fourth one? Absolutely.

Growing up in the 80's, the movies were all about two guys--Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Rocky/Rambo vs. The Terminator/Commando/Conan. The amount of money these two grossed in the 80's is staggering. Right smack in the middle of it, in 1985, Stallone reigned supreme. He had two out of the top three biggest hits, bringing in $277 million with Rambo II and Rocky IV. When I think of "Sly" these are the movies that come to mind.

So why not the earlier ones? Why not the first one? It won best picture. Well, you have to understand that I got exposed to these movies all at the same time, not as they came out. So, to me, Rocky was the champ. Watching him lose in the first one, even though the first one was a great movie, was kind of disappointing. Great writing, yeah. Nice story... stairs, running, whatever... not my fav. Oh, and is Adrian more annoying when she's completely social inept in the first one or when she's the nagging wife later on?

So now there's two. He gets another shot at the title. Well, I didn't really like that he lost in the first one, but I don't really like the fact that he has to beat Apollo in this one. Apollo's not a bad guy. He's Rocky's bud later on... he teaches him how to beat Mr. T. They're on the same side. So, if you've seen the later ones, it kind of takes a little bit of steam out of the early rivalry. Still, its nice to see Rocky become the champ here.

As for three, well, this one is kind of a joke. Its the parade of the 80's icons... Hulk Hogan. Mr. T. BTW... I can't believe they kill Mick in this one! Bold move. Funniest moment from watching III for the first time at Brian's house was Brian saying, "Rocky's Jewish?" when they're at Mick's funeral and he's got a yarmulkah on. His brother Jimmy, who I think is one of the funniest people I've ever met, returned with, "Yeah, that's why they call him the Italian Stallion."

No, for my taste, its four. At the height of the cold war (at least as far as I knew, anyway), you've got USA vs. USSR. The Italian Stallion from Philly against Mother Russia. Its just so dramatic its totally ridiculous, but its perfect. Dolph Londgren has about three lines and they're all classic.

"If he dies, he dies"

"I must break you."

"You will lose."

His coach is great, too...

"Whatever he hits, he destroys."

Londgren is just so larger than life, towering over Rocky, that its unreal. But Rocky's trained hard. He's chopped wood.. a lot of it. He's run in snow and lifted carts full of people. Plus, he's been listening to Vince DiCola's "War" throughout the whole movie, even though it never works for the Mets at Shea when they're down late.

Plus, its got James Brown!

I just love everything about this movie. Drago is definitely in my top villains list (that's one I definitely have to do... I love bad guys). I think one of the only downsides is that its a reminder of how badly Bridgitte Nielson has aged.... that and the stupid robot scenes with Paulie. (Why does Paulie even need to exist anyway?)

So, you might disagree, but for a kid who grew up in the 80's, Rocky IV is where its at.

Rocky IV

Del.icio.us : movies

Sorry for the late movie again... another busy week.

"When is a sidewalk fully dressed? When its Waring Hudsucker!"

"..when the president, chairman of the board and owner of 87% of the company stock drops 44 floors... ...then the company too has a problem. "


When I was a senior at Fordham, I worked with my friend MaryAnn and a Jesuit scholastic, Andrew Wawrzyn, to come up with a spiritual retreat for business students. I was on the spiritual retreat team that year, and very few of the business majors were taking advantage of the program. However, there was certainly a need for a little "refill" after recruiting was done in the fall. Many of our classmates complained that they found recruiting--figuring out who they needed to be to get hired--emotionally and spiritually draining. Therefore we targeted a weekend program specificially to them, but modeled on the Emmaus retreat format.

It turned out to be a great program. Our activities generated a lot of great reflection and conversation. However, we didn't want to make it too intense, so we needed something to do at the end of the overnight to relax, but something that tied into the theme.

We watched the Hudsucker Proxy.

The Hudsucker Proxy is a movie with a nice little message about dreams, perseverence and the pitfalls of greed in business. Tim Robbins is a bright eyed young man with a big idea (you know, for kids) and a lot of ambition. He stumbles into a scheme led by a perfectly cast (sure, sure) Paul Newman that puts him right at the top of a pubic company. The movie is very styled... very 50's, boomtown and big... hats, rotating job boards, fast talkers and a little bit of innocence. Jennifer Jason Leigh is entertaining as the undercover reporter trying to get the scoop on why an imbicile is now running a company.

In the end, Robbins gets the best of them all by turning his big idea into a big success, but not without learning what happens when you let money and greed go to your head. Its a charming story with a solid cast, amusing charactors and a nice pace.

The Hudsucker Proxy

Del.icio.us : movies

Its Wednesday, so you know what that means...    my movie selection two days late.  Sorry.

So last night, I went out with my new Zog Sports softball team.  I signed up as an individual, so now I have a whole new set of people I'm getting to know.  I asked someone what their top five movies would be to take to a desert island.  This is a little bit different than saying favorites.  I love Shawshank, but I couldn't watch it over and over and over again on my desert island.

One selection she had was pure brilliance:  Beverly Hills Cop.  And you know, it doesn't even matter which one.  Frankly, I don't even know which one was which.  There's one with Wallyworld and another with Bridgitte Nielson...  They're all kind of the same.  Same plot.  Crime gets committed.  Eddie Murphy is on vacation or accidently around or follows up a lead from across the country and isn't supposed to be there.    He pokes his nose where he doesn't belong.  The local cops haven't a clue and he's just nosey enough to figure it out.  He laughs a lot, flashes that big smile, and impersonates a lot of wacky charactors to get by underpaid rent a cops or receptionists or hostesses.  Judge Reinhold has a gun fetish... and his partner has an ulcer.  hmm.. did I forget anything?

But, the one thing they have in common...   no matter what time it is, or how many times I've seen them before, I'll stop to watch Beverly Hills Cop if I'm flipping through the channels.  That's what makes a desert island movie.  I seriously think I could wake up every morning on my desert island, watch a little Axel Foley, and not get tired of it.  Its not even that its that entertaining...   its just entertaining enough, simple enough...   Its kind of like the movie equivilent of Livan Hernandez.  The guy goes out and throws seven or eight innings every time and gives up three or four runs.   If you knew you had a pitcher who could throw eight and give up four runs, you'd take that every time.  Same with Beverly Hills Cop.  Solid, but unspectacular entertainment every time. 

Plus, how cool is that theme song?  Go ahead... hum it.  You know how it goes. 

So what's your desert island movie?

Wolfgang...

...Amadeus...

...Mozart.

I don't know which is more brilliant, the title charactor or the movie.  (Well, I know the answer to that, but still, the movie is pretty damned good.)  F. Murray Abraham narrates the movie as Salieri and we obviously get his perspective of the story, otherwise we'd probably see someone a little less childish than Tom "Pinto" Hulce playing Mozart. 

Most of the composers of the past are pretty dead to us as charactors.  What Amadeus did was to bring Mozart alive in our pop culture minds...  to tell his struggling artist & tortured soul story.  It put a fresh face and a story (and a laugh) on a body of music centuries old.  Its really hard to imagine that all that music tying dozens and dozens of instruments together into melodies even little kids know all came from one man.  How much of the story is true to life?  Who knows...  but even a fictional retelling loosely based on fact gets us closer to his life than stale old engravings on a CD cover. 

I wonder what Mozart would listen to today.  I wonder what his Pandora radio station would sound like.

Almost lose.  Stop.  Look back.  Reexamine.  Appreciate.  Save or renew.

That's Eternal Sunshine.  Oh yeah, there's a big of intrusive memory zapping, too.  What lengths we'll go through to forget people we want to remember.

In ESSM, Jim Carrey has to bring every single item that reminds him of his ex into an office to help get rid of her memories.  What does that bag look like for you?  Do you keep anything you should probably get rid of?  When I had my wallet stolen, I had a ten year old Winterfresh gum wrapper in it.  What's your item?  In the spirit of forgetting, and maybe, in turn, appreciating, that's the topic of today's call for comments back.  Name the item you keep from a past love that you should probably get rid of. 

Jim's bag is full of stuff.  Drawings, a snow globe...   and his head is full of stuff, too.  We know that because we get to walk through it and it results in a visually creative, fun, and thoughtful take on how much love depends on our own screwed up heads.  He's great in this movie and I really think he does a great job in most of his pseudo-straight man roles... he's a good actor.

I sweat Kate Winslet in this movie, too.  I've always loved crazy chics with Crayola hair, especially when they have a sensitive, vulnerable side they only show to a select few... always made me feel special. 

The movie is made by Focus Features which also did Lost in Translation.  Its the "specialty" unit of Universal... both movies are indeed very special.

The year was 1994.  I was a sophomore at Regis.   

I had recently been introduced to the Mecca that was the local all-girls high schools.  When you go to an all-guys high school, getting an "in" to your sister school was like finding the Holy Grail.

So there I was, with some newly minted friends from Marymount and the older Regis guys they hung out with, and they couldn't wait to see Pulp Fiction.  I was largely unaware of what I was going to see.  In fact, I remember being largely unaware of a lot of cool pop cultural stuff at the time, aside from what I heard on Z100 or from my Brooklyn friends.  I remember in freshmen year being told who the Ramones were by this girl Veronica I met at a Regis dance.  The Ramones!   What a sheltered life. 

Anyway, Pulp Fiction was, by far, the coolest thing I'd ever seen on the screen.  It was edgy, creative, and totally unlike anything else.  I must have easily seen it ten times in the movie theater... also because it played FOREVER.  You could always find it playing somewhere in the city. 

Pulp Fiction marked the resurrection of John Travolta's career as well.  He'd just come off the second sequal of "Look Who's Talking"... (yes, they made THREE of those movies) and hadn't done much since... well, since the early 80's. 

Another first.... it was also the first time was saw all this mix and matching with storylines that were out of order and tied back into each other.  When I saw that the diner scene tied back into itself, I was really wowed.

All the characters...   well, they're all just so fantastic and how many lines from this movie just got repeated over and over again?   "Check out the big brain on ______."   From Pumpkin and Honeybunny to Jules to the Wolf, the casting is kind of like watching art. 

And its got a Christopher Walken monologue...  This scene is just hilarious.  "And I hid the watch..."

There isn't one thing I would have done differently with this movie.  I love every character.  Every scene is art.  Every line is so carefully constructed.  It was part of growing up for me.  I owned the soundtrack, too...  great soundtrack.  Everyone my age had it. 

I think of this list like the Hall of Fame, but some of the movies are like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.  They're just on another level that would be a list of like 5 or 10 or something and not make for much interesting comparison.  Pulp Fiction is on that list, Shawshank, and few others.  Truly greay.

So its a couple of days late and I posted Shawshank last week, so now I've got to come up with something to top it or even on par, right?

Nope.

Not even going to try.

This is a pure Charlie's favorite.  I won't vouch for any kind of quality.  No Oscar caliber performances here.

What do you get when you combine Rammstein, hot chics, fast cars and a bald guy?

No, its not my blog...

Its Vin Diesel in "XXX".

"XXX" is just gratuitous entertainment.  Things go fast, things blow up, and there's cool music from Queens of the Stone Age, Orbital, and  Drowning Pool.  Did I mention things blowing up?  Its also got fantastic lines like, "I like anything fast enough to do something stupid in."

Truly an award winning performance from Vin Diesel--he actually got nominated for Best Male Performance at the MTV Movie Awards. 

At 5.5 stars, its got one of the lowest movie ratings I've seen on IMDB.... but to be honest, how could you dislike this movie if you went to go see it?  You knew it had Vin Diesel in it.  What did you expect?  Where there not enough things exploding?  Should the music have been louder? 

This ain't no Shawshank, folks.  Its the guy who did Riddick.