|
|
Sunday, May 29th, 2005
"Night of the Hunter" is the movie that I have had in mind ever since I saw it 6 or 7 years ago at the American Museum of the Moving Image, as the archtypal confidence-man movie -- I could never remember the name of the movie though, just that it had Robert Mitchum going down the Mississippi [incorrect -- the river is actually the Ohio] conning widows. Tonight we watched the movie on video tape and it took about 5 minutes for it all to come flooding back. What a fantastic film.
posted evening of May 29th, 2005: Respond
➳ More posts about Night of the Hunter
|  |
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
Our latest movie is "The Muppet Movie". Sylvia had a cold this week so we rented it for her to watch with Ellen during the day on Wednesday; but they did not get to it, so Sylvia and I ended up watching it over the course of Wednesday evening and this evening. (Also I watched it in full Tuesday night after Sylvia was in bed -- did I mention this is one of my favorite films ever?) Great, great, great. Great soundtrack, great caricature, great cameos (the best IMO is Orson Welles but all are excellent), great plot! Sylvia said after the end of the movie, "Let's get this one again sometime." I could not agree more.
posted evening of February 24th, 2005: Respond
➳ More posts about Family Movie Night
|  |
Saturday, February 5th, 2005
We watched the second half of Fantasia tonight, except for A Night on Bald Mountain which Sylvia found too scary. (And she was pretty tired anyway by that point.) Weird -- I was totally sure that Peter and the Wolf was one of the songs in Fantasia, but apparently not.
posted evening of February 5th, 2005: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia
|  |
Friday, February 4th, 2005
Been a while since I posted about a family movie night and we have had a few more in the mean time. Tonight we watched the first half of Fantasia and that was a lot of fun. Sylvia was quite chatty throughout -- the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor played against a background of Sylvia talking about how she had watched part of this movie in school after lunch and calling various images "funny", "good" or "sad"; The Nutcracker was accompanied by her memories of seeing it performed at NJPAC; The Rite of Spring had a lot of dinosaur-related commentary and (my personal favorite) during the first 30 seconds or so, when the screen is dark and there is no sound: "'s it over?..." "What's happening?..." "Maybe it's loading." The commentary did not stem from being bored with the movie but from being engaged. She was particularly keyed-up about The Rite of Spring and busy naming all the dinosaurs that appeared on screen. She got that the large meat-eating dinosaur had to be an Allosaurus because it had three fingers and was attacking a Stegosaurus. (I think maybe there was some confusion at the studio though, and they intended Tyrannosaurus -- there were definitely some Cretaceous creatures in the crowd that looked up in alarm at the predator.)
posted evening of February 4th, 2005: Respond
|  |
Wednesday, December first, 2004
We saw Sideways tonight and I was just blown away. I don't think I have been so moved by a buddy movie, with the possible exceptions of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Thelma and Louise. For a while I was feeling really resentful of Jack and Stephanie for having such a good time when Miles and Maya were really much more deserving -- this was of course a facile and limited reaction, and I recognized it as such. Really, a beautiful movie -- go see it if you have the chance.
posted evening of December first, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about Sideways
| |
Sunday, September 12th, 2004
Last night we watched "Duck Soup", which went over pretty well, I thought -- granted Sylvia was not much into it at all for the first hour or so, but when it hit the scene where Harpo is trying to convince Groucho that he is looking at his reflection in a mirror (instead of at Harpo), she was entranced. We watched that scene (Sylvia calling it "the Peek scene", as in "Peek-a-boo") about 3 times through, and once more this morning. Sylvia is a bit confused about why it is called "Duck Soup", when there were no ducks in the movie. Update: Sylvia was talking last night about a movie called "Duck Soup", in which a man is eating soup and then a duck climbs in, "and then there's a peeking part." Then she said "But I was mistaken -- that's wrong!"...
posted evening of September 12th, 2004: Respond
| |
Saturday, August 14th, 2004
Tonight we watched "Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers". Sylvia gives it "lots of thumbs up!" -- highlights included "when they ride on the toy train" and "all of it!" That's all for a while -- Monday we'll be heading out of town for our vacation. We are spending the week in Sodom, NY, deep in the Adirondacks.
posted evening of August 14th, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about Wallace and Gromit
| |
Tuesday, March second, 2004
Last night we went to the movies. None of our first choices were playing and we ended up seeing "The Dreamer" -- an excellent choice as it turned out. Now my main comment about the movie is a criticism but I want to be clear -- this movie is close to perfect. Its big failing is lack of character development, which I attribute to a poorly written script. I think this precise story, and all of the events in it, could have added up to something fantastic if the writers had just devoted themselves to really creating full, real people in the roles rather than just treating them as sort of archetypes and trusting the audience to identify with characters already existing in our heads. Update: Oh yeah, and here's what was good about the movie: Cinematography, soundtrack, acting -- these three elements were just stellar -- a good, engaging story; and lovely, sexy nudity.
posted morning of March second, 2004: Respond
| |
Saturday, April 26th, 2003
What a funny movie! A real nice mix of "suspense" -- set-ups which managed to be simultaneously ludicrous and suspenseful -- and comic deflation of the suspense.
posted evening of April 26th, 2003: Respond
|  |
Ack... Well after I wrote the last post Ellen wanted to take a break; so I took Sylvia. She was crying! I took her for a drive thinking she might go to sleep but no way -- "I want to go home see Mommy!" After driving around for a while with no abatement I thought I would go to the video store and rent the "This is Spinal Tap" DVD which Mr Murtaugh recommends highly. Drove over there and when we parked and got out of the car, Sylvia actually calmed down! So I asked if she'd like to go to the library (next door) first, and she did; we went in there and she asked for a Clifford book, I asked the librarian where I could find such a thing and she pointed them out to me; we walked over there and while I was looking vacantly at the titles trying to see what she had been talking about, Sylvia pulled up a stool, climbed up, and pulled "Clifford's Birthday Party" off the shelf. (Clifford seems to me like a pretty good TV show and dreadful books, strange since it seems like the books predate the show, but still) -- I read her the book and then, the library closing, we headed over to the shop, which is called We Got Movies! As we walked in Sylvia said, "We got Rug Rats movie!" and walked over to the kids selection to look for it. Alas, no luck on the Spinal Tap, the owner said she would order it and let me know when they got it; but I figured I'd get a movie anyways. We have not yet used our DVD player; we needed a new VCR and found one for not much more money that has a DVD in it; so tonight is the inaugural use. I ended up renting "Hopscotch" with Walter Matthau which looked pretty interesting.
posted evening of April 26th, 2003: Respond
| |
|
Drop me a line! or, sign my Guestbook.
•
Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
| |
