Buffista Movies 5: Development Hell
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
The good thing about most of the Pixar films is that I can watch them multiple times, too and not want to stick a hot poker into my eyes.
Me, too. Sara's been on a Monster's Inc. kick, and that's fine with me.
When Jake was her age (before DVDs!), his big movie was 101 Dalmations, which he called The Puppy Movie. We watched it probably once a day. I loved it, and still do, but there were times when "Cruella DeVil" was a constant, unpleasant earworm.
O is now at the age where you will watch and rewatch those movies until you've memorized them.
So...about 28, then?
Crap. I already have
Finding Nemo
and
Toy Story
memorized. And
Aladdin, The Little Mermaid,
and
Beauty and the Beast.
This isn't going to make M's toddler years any more bearable, is it?
Saw "Cars" last night. I enjoyed it. Not as much as "Toy Story" or "The Incredibles" or "Finding Nemo", but more than I expected given that there are no people people in it. I liked Pixar in-jokes flea mentioned. A lot of kids in the theater were only fully into the film during the race scenes -- many of them were restless during the talking parts as I think some of it went over their heads. I would see it again.
I am warching Once Upon a Time in the West right now, AIFG. Evil Henry Fonda is filling me with glee.
You know that scene where Claudia Cardinale is making coffee for Jason Robards? I thought while watching it that it was reaching a Bernardo Bertolucci level of making me want to have what they were having. And then, at the end, I saw he was credited as a writer.
Uh, I don't know what the point of that story was.
In preparation for seeing X3 - which as a geekgirl I feel obligated to do - I'm watching X-Men and X2 back to back tonight. I saw X-Men at the theater, but it made little enough impression that all I remember is that Hugh Jackman is hot and Halle Berry can't act. I never saw X2.
So, now I've just finished X-Men. To sum up:
- Hugh Jackman is hot.
- Halle Berry can't act for shit.
- Anna Paquin is not a teenager.
- The CGI on Mystique was really good.
- Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen can act the hell out of anything.
- What's so darn great about Jean Grey that made Logan go all emo for her? I don't get it. I've seen Famke Janssen look way better, too.
- The dialog, plot, and phlebotinum weren't any worse than the usual scifi/fantasy movie, and the one really funny line was Joss Whedon's. ("Prove it." "You're a dick.")
- Cyclops is a dick.
I am neither disappointed nor particularly enthused about X2. Off to get popcorn and waste another 120 minutes of my life.
ETA: Having checked IMDB, apparently Anna Paquin was a teenager - 18 or 19 - when X-Men came out. I thought she was early 20's. Never mind. Sorry, Anna.
Saw
An Inconvientent Truth
yesterday. I was familiar with most all the science beforehand, but it was nice to see a science documentary done so well - I'd highly recommend it to folks who are not as familiar with the global warming stuff.
Then we saw
Dr. Strangelove
on DVD. This was the first time I've seen it in many years, and now I love this flick even more. Such a brilliant, funny move. Also watched the DVD extras - I didn't know that Peter Sellers was supposed to play the B-52 pilot (he was injured and couldn't do it). Also that the studio that did
Strangelove
sued the producers and/or studio behind
Fail-Safe,
claiming that the novel
Fail-Safe
was ripped off from the novel that
Strangelove
was based on. Strange. They have similar but not the same plots. (I've only read the book
Fail-Safe.
The DVD extras had the theatrical preview for
Fail-Safe,
which made we wanna see it.)
eta: And how did I miss before that the president's name was Merkin Muffley? I musta' not known what a merkin was the last time I saw it....
Have now seen X2. I liked it better for about 2/3 of the movie. Then I kinda got impatient. A few things didn't make any sense, like why exactly did Jean get out of the plane, but upon further thought, I realize that it's not worth further thought.
Seeing them back to back was a good idea, since X2 picked up only a few weeks after the end of X1. Also, I noticed that the voiceover (about evolution) at the beginning of X1 in Xavier's voice was repeated at the end of X2 in Jean's voice. That was neat. I like bookending.
I think the main reason I enjoyed the movies was that Wolverine has always been my favorite X-Men character, and he's a central character in both. The first movie mostly focused on him as a POV character, and in the second movie, we got some resolution to his backstory. He was better developed and more engaging than any of the others. I liked Nightcrawler in the comics, but disliked the movie version of him. Too bad. I'm still baffled at the suddenness and intensity of the relationship between Logan and Jean, but to be honest, that always baffled me in the comics, too.
Maybe I'll see X3 tomorrow.
I think the main reason I enjoyed the movies was that Wolverine has always been my favorite X-Men character, and he's a central character in both.
You're in luck. He's getting his own movie.
Zenkitty, I saw X3 today. I both liked it and was disappointed in it. Not much different than the way I felt about the first two. I was confused by some of the things that happened that went counter to what little I do know of the X-men timeline, but it's all very recent stuff to me so I could be totally lacking in understanding. Still, there was enough violence and cool shit going on that it kept me happy. Although, as my dad said, "a lot of pontificating." Hee.