Preparing for the great media holocast AKA Why am I stockpiling all of this media?
In preparing for a recent "capsule review" entry regarding my recent round of media consumption, I realized that the list of films I had been viewing was so great and vast that to begin writing capsule reviews for each of them was going to require a major commitment of time. In so reflecting, I began to think of all the "catching up" I had to do in terms of the various DVD's I have ripped and sitting on my media server in addition to the 2-at-a-time unlimited plan I have with Netflix for watching the latest blu-rays releases. For my birthday, my girlfriend's mom, Fran, purchased two-months worth of Netflix membership (a gift no doubt suggested by my current, Sherry) and in redeeming it, I decided to up the membership to 3-at-a-time unlimited, at least for the two months that I'm getting a decent discount, courtesy Fran Wasserman. In addition there has been a steady stream of DVD's coming home from the library both from myself and from Sherry - she has her own "queue" going at the library that is keeping the flow at a maximum capacity. We often have to rip the DVD's that we didn't have time to watch before returning them which is creating a backlog of movies for us to watch. To top it off, I'm currently getting Skinemax in HD for free (thank you Time Warner for fucking up in the best way possible). This means having a movie on even if a movie isn't on the menu for the evening... it's too hard to say no to free movies!
It doesn't take a blind man to see that I'm living in a self-created world of media over-saturation! I noticed this pattern before, sometime around 2005, when I was at a crossroads in my life and was trying to "refill the pitcher" as it were. This may or may not be one of those crossroads, but I think it's more to do with the ease in which we watch media these days has infiltrated our lives. And even more to the point, how I've embraced this mass media consumption and tried to make it even easier to watch (or even passively observe) film and TV media.
In an effort to hold myself accountable for all of this consumption, I'll be periodically posting up short reviews of some of the material that's passing through my head... below is the beginning.
EQUINOX - Family Tie star Phil Anzelmo has a good track record with recommending fun B-movie entertainment from yesteryear, but this one was a little tough for me to sit through. Cheezy enough to be bad but not bad enough to be funny and not fun enough to really be good. Definitely better as a background movie rather than as a dedicated experience. One has to wonder "what was Criterion thinking?" when they released EQUINOX as a two-disc special edition, but then again they are fans of Michael Bay, so I rest my case.
TWO MINUTE WARNING - At its most reductive, it's a '70s disaster movie about a sniper at a football game, but as it quietly recedes into commercial film obscurity, it stands as a creepy how-to guide for psychotic killers in a society that is unaware of the threat and unable to protect itself against it. Timely indeed, but prescient? Probably not... The all-star cast includes Charlton Heston, John Cassavettes, Gena Rowlands, Jack Klugman, Beau Bridges and a ton of others.
BENJAMIN BUTTON - Exceeding expectations which were admittedly skewed after hearing critical response both for and against the curious case of Benajamin Buñ, but they were quickly waylayed in the darkened theater as I found myself fighting back tears that weren't even earned in the first 15 minutes. It's a film that is steeped in emotion and heart. It's also a film written by Eric Roth, the guy who wrote the screenplay for Forest Gump, and there are undeniably similarities between the two in their narrative devices. But as I was consistently impressed with the outstanding yet subtle CGI FX, I was taken into the story, sometimes kicking and screaming, but going along the whole way.
28 WEEKS LATER - OK, not bad considering it had some big shoes to fill from the first 28 days of infected zombie mayhem. The cast definitely carries the material and Robert Carlyle clearly earned his paycheck on this one, but in the end no one can escape that this is a familiarly hokey horror yarn.
CANDY - Lovable like a child you wish you didn't have, CANDY has a lot of camp appeal and '60s zaniness overindulgence but is worth the trip for the insanely over the top performers of the all-star cast of Richard Burton, Walter Mathau, Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, James Coburn, Charles Aznovaur, John Huston and John Astin (and no I didn't need to imdb that shit - it's all stored upstairs).
SHARKWATER - Without getting preachy about conservation efforts, I recommend this film unequivocally. While I felt the film was a tad manipulative and cheesy in its voice-over narration, the message and story of the journey these guys take in skark-conservation-efforts is powerful and truly moving. Statistics alone are horrifying - see the movie and witness firsthand how bad things are getting for marine life out there.
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - Some movies are hailed classics for a reason, and this is definitely one of them. Featuring the outstanding black and white photography from James Wong Howe of NYC and Times Square in the '50s, SSOS is a smartly written and well acted character study on the underbelly of tabloid journalism. It really says something when a film still resonate fifty years later - check it out!
PARASITE - OK I knew this was going to be bad going in, but I was hoping it wasn't going to be THAT bad. The creature FX are fun, but there were too few to go around. This movie definitely gets some additional laughs from a few gratuitous 3-D shots, and the lead actor was so weird looking and wooden in his acting I kept waiting for him to die. I guess since a very young Demi Moore found him attractive and helps him kill the parasite, he was the hero. For '80s horror completists only...
EVENT HORIZON - Newly released on bluray, I decided to take in this sci-fi horror film from the late '90s to see if it was any good. There are definitely some creepy moments in the film and when things start going really wrong, it's fun watching shit go haywire. The CGI work is pretty crude for today's standards, but the good cast helps elevate the b-movie material, which makes this movie feel an awful lot like Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE from last year.
TO BE CONTINUED...
It doesn't take a blind man to see that I'm living in a self-created world of media over-saturation! I noticed this pattern before, sometime around 2005, when I was at a crossroads in my life and was trying to "refill the pitcher" as it were. This may or may not be one of those crossroads, but I think it's more to do with the ease in which we watch media these days has infiltrated our lives. And even more to the point, how I've embraced this mass media consumption and tried to make it even easier to watch (or even passively observe) film and TV media.
In an effort to hold myself accountable for all of this consumption, I'll be periodically posting up short reviews of some of the material that's passing through my head... below is the beginning.
EQUINOX - Family Tie star Phil Anzelmo has a good track record with recommending fun B-movie entertainment from yesteryear, but this one was a little tough for me to sit through. Cheezy enough to be bad but not bad enough to be funny and not fun enough to really be good. Definitely better as a background movie rather than as a dedicated experience. One has to wonder "what was Criterion thinking?" when they released EQUINOX as a two-disc special edition, but then again they are fans of Michael Bay, so I rest my case.
TWO MINUTE WARNING - At its most reductive, it's a '70s disaster movie about a sniper at a football game, but as it quietly recedes into commercial film obscurity, it stands as a creepy how-to guide for psychotic killers in a society that is unaware of the threat and unable to protect itself against it. Timely indeed, but prescient? Probably not... The all-star cast includes Charlton Heston, John Cassavettes, Gena Rowlands, Jack Klugman, Beau Bridges and a ton of others.
BENJAMIN BUTTON - Exceeding expectations which were admittedly skewed after hearing critical response both for and against the curious case of Benajamin Buñ, but they were quickly waylayed in the darkened theater as I found myself fighting back tears that weren't even earned in the first 15 minutes. It's a film that is steeped in emotion and heart. It's also a film written by Eric Roth, the guy who wrote the screenplay for Forest Gump, and there are undeniably similarities between the two in their narrative devices. But as I was consistently impressed with the outstanding yet subtle CGI FX, I was taken into the story, sometimes kicking and screaming, but going along the whole way.
28 WEEKS LATER - OK, not bad considering it had some big shoes to fill from the first 28 days of infected zombie mayhem. The cast definitely carries the material and Robert Carlyle clearly earned his paycheck on this one, but in the end no one can escape that this is a familiarly hokey horror yarn.
CANDY - Lovable like a child you wish you didn't have, CANDY has a lot of camp appeal and '60s zaniness overindulgence but is worth the trip for the insanely over the top performers of the all-star cast of Richard Burton, Walter Mathau, Ringo Starr, Marlon Brando, James Coburn, Charles Aznovaur, John Huston and John Astin (and no I didn't need to imdb that shit - it's all stored upstairs).
SHARKWATER - Without getting preachy about conservation efforts, I recommend this film unequivocally. While I felt the film was a tad manipulative and cheesy in its voice-over narration, the message and story of the journey these guys take in skark-conservation-efforts is powerful and truly moving. Statistics alone are horrifying - see the movie and witness firsthand how bad things are getting for marine life out there.
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS - Some movies are hailed classics for a reason, and this is definitely one of them. Featuring the outstanding black and white photography from James Wong Howe of NYC and Times Square in the '50s, SSOS is a smartly written and well acted character study on the underbelly of tabloid journalism. It really says something when a film still resonate fifty years later - check it out!
PARASITE - OK I knew this was going to be bad going in, but I was hoping it wasn't going to be THAT bad. The creature FX are fun, but there were too few to go around. This movie definitely gets some additional laughs from a few gratuitous 3-D shots, and the lead actor was so weird looking and wooden in his acting I kept waiting for him to die. I guess since a very young Demi Moore found him attractive and helps him kill the parasite, he was the hero. For '80s horror completists only...
EVENT HORIZON - Newly released on bluray, I decided to take in this sci-fi horror film from the late '90s to see if it was any good. There are definitely some creepy moments in the film and when things start going really wrong, it's fun watching shit go haywire. The CGI work is pretty crude for today's standards, but the good cast helps elevate the b-movie material, which makes this movie feel an awful lot like Danny Boyle's SUNSHINE from last year.
TO BE CONTINUED...
posted by Mugs at 2:30 PM
1 Comments:
Mainly agreeing with your opinions, though surprised to see that the mastermind behind The Family Tie didn't really enjoy Equinox. I agree it was kind of hoakey, but I got a kick from the chutzpah required to make a film of that nature.
Candy was absolutely dreadful; the tagline, "She's only faithful to the book," was the best thing to come from that disaster.
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