Category: Films

I started off watching A Few Good Men–a classic. There are so many triple bills for which this film could be the solid core:

• Courtroom dramas, or legal films: 12 Angry Men, Presumed Innocent
• Classic Rob Reiner films: When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride
• Tom Cruise’s finest moments (yes he can act…sometimes): The Firm, Jerry Maguire
• And it even qualifies for a J.T. Walsh fest (Backdraft, Contact) or a Kevin Bacon linkup! (Murder In the First, Stir of Echoes)

Instead, I’ve gone for Magnum Force, to follow up on Monday’s foray into Clint Eastwoodland. Ah, back in the days when tough guy cops wore ties.

Feeling, as I am, sick and sorry for myself, I thought I would slap something mindless and fun on the DVD player and zone out for a while. I made the mistake of watching Attack of the Clones again. I hadn’t seen it since it came out on DVD, and now I remember why: it’s a cock-awful pile of bantha poo.

I could go on and on about the crapness of the script, acting, direction, but it’s all been done before, and frankly, it’s too bad even to waste more energy on lambasting it.

Next up: Speed. Keanu is da man.

Update: Ah, much better. Watching Speed just served to emphasise how completely devoid of originality Clones is. For a film so fantastic, so filled with action, and so bursting with special effects, that’s good trick to pull off.

Next up: Dirty Harry.

A gallery devoted to the Ford Finger. (via Tagliners)

Hmm. We’ve hit our deadline at work (yay!), and now there’s a lull in the project. I might be able to go home at a normal hour this evening. Also, we currently have Scott & Ange’s car while they’re on holiday. So I’m thinking about going out to see a film after Alex has gone to bed. But what to see?

Should I go down the comedy route, with Anger Management or A Guy Thing, or would it be more enjoyable to take in a thriller like Ripley’s Game or Identity?

(Hmm… Jack Nicholson, Jason Lee, John Malkovich, or John Cusack. Modern popular cinema seems to be entirely populated by lead actors with “J”-names.)

Alternatively, I could take the easy way out and see Reloaded again. Maybe it’ll make more sense the second time round.

There’s a lot of discussion going on right now about The Two Towers, its relevance to current world politics, and its use as an allegory or just an interesting point of comparison. Patrick Nielsen Hayden links to some of the essays in his blog.

At Paul Bibire’s (Near) New Year’s party yesterday evening, James Harvey made the observation that Peter Jackon is re-telling a tale from mythology–a practice that stretches back as far as language itself. The fact that some elements are differently emphasised in this version, and that others are added or dropped, is perfectly natural, and in keeping with the nature of the work itself.

This makes me a bit more comfortable with the film’s treatment of Faramir, and makes me even more keen to see it again. (Maybe tomorrow?) After watching all the extras over the weekend, today we’re watching the extended version of the film itself. Wow. It’s much more than just the original film with deleted scenes re-inserted: it’s a complete re-edit. It’s almost a completely different film. Wow.