Saw Dirty Harry For the First Time Last Night

And it was better than I ever thought it could be. That woman had no idea how close she was to death.    
Even though my only experience with it going in is that it was a gritty crime drama, I was surprised to find how funny some scenes were.  For the first time in a long time I found myself actually thoroughly enjoying a movie again.  It was like having sex with an ex girlfriend 10 years down the line.  Now, whenever someone says that oh they don't make movies like they used to.  Every generation underneath says you're just old, and all people say that about the things kids listen to and watch and yeah it's going to be that way for the rest of time.  But I think we just need to start admitting that the stuff from the 60's, 70's and 80's was just awesome and it started going down hill in the 90's.  If Dirty Harry had come out today and I saw it in the theater I'd probably see it 3x.  It competes against anything released this year.  I was born in 1983 and I saw The Thing for the first time in 2007, around the same time I saw Ghost Rider, and The Thing floored it.  It doesn't really have anything to do with when I saw it, mainly more on whether that it is crap or not.

Remember when Amanda Peet was the big IT girl?

She was in that episode of seinfeld with the dude, got warm, then exploded all over the place with The Whole 9 Yards.  Remember when the Whole 10 yards just bombed?  No one recovered from that.  Maybe that's what did it. They were all a few years old, looked worse.  Amanda Beet was everywhere for around 4 years.  Then seemed to disappear after Whipped.  Well not really, I mean you do see her pop up once in awhile.  She is always some kind of psychologically stressed mother with a husband who doesn’t love he. Those seem like simpler times though when she was hot.

I Miss Chubby Michelle Williams

I might be willing to say nothing beats that first season of Dawson's, and every time Michelle Williams came on, instant boner.  She was this new, out of left field, slutty, voluptuous blonde chick that pissed off Katie Holmes.  Jackie vs. Marilyn type thing except in modern high school so they are more catty.  She also reminded me of a girl I went to high school with at that time too so i was able to kill two birds with one stone.  But now, she is still hot don't get me wrong, but she seems less fun.  Plus you know Heath Ledger just destroyed that thing probably. 

I ended up watching Shutter Island for the third time a week ago and I think I am more confused as ever.  I noticed that the chick he is interviewing, one of the patients.  She asks for a glass of water, raises her hands, but with nothing in it, then you see the empty glass.  What the fuck.  Martin Scorsese, you son of bitch.  He is a sneaky little fucker.  I thought the movie oh blah blah, he is insane the whole time, bravo Scorsese, yet another sleep walking, intense mental institution movie.  But he actually stuck a lot of things in here, pardon my french, that you will notice.  You notice that the Jackie Earl Haley, says certain things like :"You did this" and "It's all a game".  But then you also more reasons that he has to be sane this couldn't be real, and it's like you split your mind in half more and more the more you see..  It's a movie that makes you insane.  This might be Scorsese's biggest, literal mind fuck.  You have to interpret both equally yet some people see either one at full speed.

Some points from this time that make me see more for either on of them.
Insane -

• I can see the case that none of what happens could be real up until the point in the lighthouse.  Seriously he could have been under deep psychosis inside that little room, inside his mind.  Or some combination of film reel, Clock Work Orange thing. He could have been just coming out of it when he "shot" Ben Kingsley and was half asleep.  That is why the gun goes off and we see blood but nothing happens.  All of it was in his head, only the lighthouse existed.  That is why the gun didn't have bullets.  The guard was genuinely scared outside.  He would know the gun wouldn't have bullets.  Because Leo was never outside the lighthouse.  He was doing this all inside that room in his mind.  He looked deranged and he was dancing around.  Perhaps he just gets worse and worse, he starts out nice and civil, a US Marshal who is seeking vengeance.  But then he starts shooting guns and stuff so they have to basically put him down mentally.  That is the scene in the end, notice how it mirror the scene on the boat.  He is on the boat right now getting ready to go again, and Ruffalo knows it.  
•  Finally realize the hints that he beat up Jackie Earl Haley (sp).  
• All the orderlies react so harshly when that one guy said he left to go to the bathroom, as if it was such a horrible thing to do over a 12 hour shit.  Overreaction? 

(from the first point of it above, obviously if none of it is real, then none of this below existed like we thought it did which would negate it.  The easy way out?)
Sane -

• Why would they let a mental patient just wander around the facility at all times a day or night?  He also had relative ease getting into ward C.   
• Guards are shown in the beginning combing the fields.  Presumably for the "lost woman", would they really divert about a dozen resources to on the fringe fields to make it that authentic to Leo.
•   The woman patient that writes 'run' doesn't look at Ruffalo at all when they bring up his Dr. character.  She would have to be an extremely well trained actor within the movie to be able to pull off that stunt.  
• That woman in the cave is more convincing than anything, big wild card. 
  

Why Don't DVD Numbers Get Reported At All?

Quick what was the highest grossing movie last year in the US, 2010.  Toy Story 3, of course.  Who had the highest grossing DVD last year?  Might take a little while, and digging and it's kind of weird but Avatar.  According to The Numbers.  Avatar sold about 10 million DVD's, Toy Story 3 came in second with a little over 9 million.  The sales revenue of each just from DVD's was $183 million and $162 million.  That no small chunk of change.  Yet we never hear anything about it.  They run the weekend box-office every week on our local news station, IMDB always comes in with up to date totals, and has box office for almost every movie, from every country depending on how popular it is, but rarely talks about rentals.  Hundreds of websites are devoted to the weekend box-office, with even one devoted to gambling on it.  The DVD's (I mean rentals) only make up a small portion of what's talked about yet that is what more and more people watch nowadays.  Back in 2007, Pirates of the Carribean:  At World's End (the guy who Depp based the character off of actually appeared in the movie, zany!) made $279 million from DVD's and sold about 13.7 million units.  That's huge, more than 97% of the movies released didn't even get a sniff of that asshole in box office receipts, more than 75% probably not even half that.  It's weird though, especially for how much backlash that crapfest had.  What's shocking is that it sold more than Avatar  With all the nerds that made it the highest grossing movie of all time, more people would buy a DVD of the 3rd runaround with ol Jack Sparrow, with probably only a couple years from an ultimate collectors trilogy being set loose, than buy a Oscar nominated movie that grossed twice as much money?  Not only that but they only sold 26% more units, but made 52% more money.  Of course more people are buying a crappier movie that costs more money, makes sense to me.  On the other hand how was Avatar able to make over $700 million, but only be deemed good enough to buy 10 million times.  Something doesn't add up, am I missing Blu-Ray numbers?

X-Men The first Class is better than the original X-Men movie.

I haven't seen it again yet, but after a couple months why wouldn't this be considered the better movie than the original X-Men.  Although it had a couple weak moments it had more action, more characters, more powers, a bigger finale.  The original hasn't aged well at all.  The first few years it was awesome, but than the second one came out and it blew it away, you watched first one again a few times, it started to get shown on TV a lot, you actually only had on VHS for awhile so you stopped watching it.  The DVD sucked ass.  Then you realize there is really 1/2 an action scene, and you recall "what happens when a toad is struck by lightning".  Does wolverine do anything until the end?  Hugh Jackman, although a phenomenal actor, is starting to become the wrong choice for that role.  He actually might have made a great cyclops.  But First Class, it's all Xavier and Magneto dynamic which is the most interesting in the series.  You get Magneto like in the first, but then you get Kevin Bacon on top of that.  Or Maybe it didn't get better the first one just got worse, I'm still really pissed that they didn't have Jean.

The Greatest Poster Ever Created in Mankind History

When future generations look back on today they will be witness to a lot our work courtesy of the digital age, pictures of everything will exist somewhere.  Artwork lives on forever.  But those future generations will make sure that this work of art lives in the minds and hearts of men for all eternity.  No need to consider Ben Stillers eerie bone structure, or why they are just staring at each other, 6 inches away about to kiss like that dennis to mennis poster or robert de niro's sleep walking through life the last 13 years.  I think it started with bull winkle.  Well, we'll all find out this christmas. 

They aren't even doing that stupid I'm looking at you bit, they are staring, uh. 

Forrest Gump - The Premature Ejaculation Scene

Everyone remembers their first semi-sexual experience right?  Most likely it didn't go the way you liked or planned, but guess what it slowly becomes a part of you, it has to.  As with that, remembering those times, when the years add on, you begin to think and reflect how special they really were, no matter how awkward they may have been. It was something that was new, exciting and at the same time frightening how often does that happen in our lives when you grow old.  We'll look back with wonder right?  With sex, sadly you will never get another first time again.  What happens happens no turning back now.  By semi-sexual I refer to anything cumming with the assisted contact of another person.  Most likely there wasn't penetration.  This moment is very profound in your life, when it happened you are generally old enough to understand it in away, enjoy it, there is no doubt about it, which also part of why you will remember it forever.  Could this scene in Forrest Gump be the most pivotal in the entire movie, and since it won the Oscar the entire year of 1994.   When people think of 1994, they should think premature ejaculation. That's actually a good theme for anything.  It happens to the best of us, which is close to all of us. How you decide to face your life the rest of the way is what separates the men from the boys, and the men from the legends. 

Just think about what happened for a second.  This is something he was probably hoping for his entire life to happen.  Was it awkwardness or desire when he looked over at Jenny in that scene when he climbed into his bed.  He probably had sleepovers dozen of times during his teenage years, probably drove him insane.  Now in her dorm room, alone*, her walking around in a bra.  He will remember this forever because it was with the woman he had loved his whole life, and spent his childhood with, and now this is taking what used to be innocent to the next level, like when cooties becomes cuddle parties.  But then everything that happens around that scene is great.  For the first time we see, Forrest stands up for himself and his woman when he thinks she is being hurt in that car by Billy and starts decking a guy he never even sees.  This is Forrest fucking Gump now, all of a sudden the former local idiot, the same guy that was chased in a pickup truck and almost killed only a little bit prior.  Was it football that made him tough?  Fighting racism?  Then what Jenny and Forrest talk about, what they are going to be when they are older.  What does Forrest say?  "Who I’m going to be me, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be me", you know a weird answer, you kind of see that 76 percentile a little bit but how honest does that become?  He never wavers from who he truly is, this is before Vietnam.  He goes through that hell and still comes out a decent, honest person based on the same morals as before.  His love of Jenny, his respect of his mother and her ways, and the drive to do whatever he was instructed to a T. 

The only thing is I'm not really sure if I'm even willing to bet this was his first sexual experience he had with a woman though, her mom was running a small hotel in the deep south.  Probably got a lot of people on the run, running from the problems.  He might have been raped as a kid, probably first by some cougar on the run from her husband, and he was dancing in Elvis' room. Not to mention he was on the college football team, but the thing is he probably pre-maturely ejaculated until he was 22.    The best part on top of him splooging all over the roommate's bathrobe, is that you find out her roommate was there and awake the whole time.  And that's college for you.  

This or Forrest was just playing dumb/coy the whole time in her dorm in order to get her to be aggressive.  "I sit next to them in my home economics class all the time"  Genius man genius. 

To Be Continued....

Stacey Dash Is Perhaps the Most Underrated Sex Bomb In Our Lifetime

And she was pulling down woman roles in her mid-twenties.   To quote a movie I really don't want to start as a trend, she is the perfect combination of sexy and cute. 

When I remembered her and saw her in Mo' Money, I couldn't believe how sexy she was.  That's always the problem, noticing girls way too late.

The Invasion: What the Fuck Movie of the Millenium

Society thinks that people who blog don't face any real challenges.  It's true they may never face a fire, have to decide whether a child lives or dies, or be a whale hunter.  Yet, perhaps it's something worse than everything.  Talking about shitty movies--->creates business----->begaths more shitty movies. By me talking about it, it is advertising for it and probably 1-2 people might see it out of curiosity.  I cannot advise highly enough that you don't, but again that is just going to make you want to see it more.  I'll try to talk about it as much as you can and save you an hour*.  

The premise sounds interesting enough.  A police officer goes to investigate a meteor crash outside the town where strange things start to happen.  It starts out nice, but don't most of them. Quick do a search of Invasion on imdb, can't find it?  That's because it is listed as Infection, that link takes you to a page where it has a poster saying Invasion like the one above, but it's not that important to get the name of the movie correct in a movie database. 

Let's get the production out of the way first, 2 editors?  This movie needed 2 editors.  It is one continuous 60 minute shot* and this movie needed 2 editors.  Fucking Cider House Rules was done by one guy. You could have contracted a college kid for beer money to edit this over a Moday night**. My theory is there was a big creative clash halfway though editing, meaning the editor saw what they did and decided they didn't want to work on this piece of mung for another second. This movie also needed a director of photography.  Could the director not pull double duty on that one being such a low budget film.  Nope let’s hire a guy to tell us to stick a camera on a car dashboard with a big light.  Makes sense.  Speaking of the budget…

The budget was $35,000.  Some idiots seem to think, wow this movie was only made for that much what a feat in cinematic achievement.  El Mariachi cost $7,000, Clerks cost $27,000, Slacker cost $23,000, Primer cost $6000.  See these were actually movies, with acting, takes, camera work, lighting, sound, preparation, shooting schedules, film, etc.  This was none of the above. Shot in one night, with no facial recognition of any kind or lighting setup to brag about that you did it, and just a microphone in a car. This was like a college made movie, where they accidentally forgot to stop recording in between the different locations they were going to do and just decided hey lets keep it add a girl whining constantly behind the camera and we got a feature length instead.  I wonder if it has to do with how much men hate and get turned off when women cry about things.  This just gave me an anti erection for an hour*

The movie is 64 minutes long.  You may look at the running time say nope right there man, it says eighty some minutes.  Oh hold on buddy.  If everything else in this review is a lie as well and this movie is brilliant, then this is the only thing I swear true.   The credits are 15 minutes and 34 seconds long.  Yes that is correct. I'm sure it was a case that in order to be considered a feature length to certain investors it had to be at least 80 minutes, bingo.  Even though it is almost 20% scrolling/fading words, that's normal for good movies, right?  I assume it just wasn't stipulated. 

Although, there is this glorious 7 minute scene where they just use a scene that is played out later on, and overlay it over the current one and drop the transparency to make it look like ghost is coming towards you.  There is no explanation as to why an alien movie has suddenly transformed into a ghost story.

There is also a part where a crow attacks the cop car?  All it is is a Rorschach test skeeted on screen, a loud caw, and the girl shrieks.  

*honest to god the credits are more than 15 minutes long.  

** It was originally agreed it was going to be Sunday night but still too hung over. 

 

Is Graft Rampant in the Film Industry Part II The Case Of Madden Football and Iron Man

Every year the EA sports machine marches out their same ol song  New cover, new aspect of game to focus on, new player to curse.  In some ways it has evolved into something similar to bands with greatest hits albums.  Let's just reorganize all of their songs into a greatest hits, or "years" and resell it every once in awhile.  Madden has created this notion that it must be bought each and every year.  Better than any album or song with new technology could do.  Now I have incredibly little experience with computer programing, I'm just trying to use logic here.  The problem I have is that the makers of the game seem to suggest that working on Madden is a year round 80 hours a week job, constant programming, constantly improving, and always getting bigger.  Can something like that be true?  I guess I could see it being a big workflow if you are making it for a new system.  However Xbox 360 and PS3 are some of the oldest by age before next update.  Conjunct that with the fact of how fast technology evolves in every other realm seemingly right now.  Maybe updating rosters and players too, but other than that?  Isn't a majority of the work always already done for you every time you boot up?  Does someone have information saved on a floppy disk somewhere?  Also, the players are always just playing on this little square, this dome for an area is all you need to fill with information/characters, very simple geographically.  It's not like you need to design 600 complex detailed rooms.  Speaking of design, for the objects being football players that makes it simpler clothing wise and face wise since face masks and simple one main color jerseys and pants cover a lot of it.  I would also think almost all the layouts of the basic plays and types are already established and what fail percentage mixed with free will they will have every time. 

Of course each year they pump in a lot of promo videos, funny commercials, and they are going to show in behind the scenes featurettes that seem to pop up on each version, the "team" working with the players with all the ping pong balls, and doing facial recognition.  And studying engineering of hits, impact, physics, blah blah blah.  Why isn't that a template yet?  Why would you need to do that every year?  Yeah it's bells and whistles, it's see we are making it but, they can knock that out in a holiday shortened week, it is just messing around you just play it all year basically, jag bagging around with it.

Onto Iron Man 2, was there a contest for who got to write it that Dr. Pepper had?  Sorry to throw you under the bus Justin Theroux (sp), you were funny in Zoolander.  But Must have missed that contest.  Vanko?  The main villain, for the 10 minutes he was in the movie it was motivational.  I'm glad they made him so smart that he could hack into a weapon suppliers data base, build an army of war drones, create a suit better than Iron Man's essentially but still had to go through the black market for forged passports.  Why even bother to get forged passports and make a whole scene out of that, can't we as an audience just put 2 and 2 together that he got from Russia to Monte Carlo somehow sneakily.  Final battle probably should have lasted 18 minutes longer. What's the point of setting it in that woods area that comes out of nowhere and not mulch any of it, destruction just constantly around them as they are funny.  Just so you can stick it in the trailer so everyone things it is in the middle of nowhere which would seem kind of cool. Instead we just get this smooth iron man and war machine just mowing down everything with no problem.  Why wouldn't Vanko try to assassinate Tony Stark.  He was free, had access to vast amounts of machinary, weaponry, super computers, he could have gone unabomber on his ass at least a couple times, make another obstacle.  Or he could have hired Russian assassins.  to go after him while he is trying to make that atom.  Just to keep him busy.  Vanko knows he is working too.  Maybe Stark figures out Vanko wasn't killed.  And there is a big twist in his mind to maybe fill that gap as to why Stark wasn't curious about the details of Vanko's sudden and mysterious assassination in prison which would turn up in a probable DNA/dental test mere days later that it wasn't actually Vanko in the explosion.   

What is suspect after watching both of them a couple times is that Iron Man cost $140 million and Iron Man 2 cost $200 million.  Like Madden with special effects/graphics saved on a computer somewhere, sets designed, characters/crews established, and possibly fewer, yet easier to make 2 years later special effects why should the second one cost more.  I mean you have nerds in their basements making Iron Man videos with special effects at a somewhat decent level on next to nothing budgets.  Maybe there are pay offs for the first one making so much unexpectedly.  I wouldn't think RDJ would be able to request that much more money but then how much more, maybe $15 million plus back end?  No one really else could based off the reactions of replacing Katie Holmes and Terrence Howard, all characters besides the lead usually are expendable.  Usually, unless it bombs, then it is the first commandment in the book of reboot.  But it also didn't feel bigger in scope.  I guess they blew up a lot of cars, wasn't there a car commercial based of that around the time.  How much did it make off more product placement?  And did they really blow up real actual cars?   This isn't just Ironman 2, a lot of sequels do this.  Animated sequels is a weird turd.  Why again did Toy Story 3 cost almost 6x the amount as Toy Story?  What the hell computers were they using back in 1995?  Or a few years before since that was only the date it was released.  "Oh! Of course if it is a sequel it means the first one was popular so you get a bigger budget, more to throw around, make it rain, you get more spend more, human nature, then it is a write off of budget, boom". 

Why would it matter if a movie costs this much when it should cost less?  Maybe it is a good justification of the raising of ticket prices every year so it's a situation now where I have to pay to see a movie in a theater for a few bucks less than if I wait and just buy it on DVD.  Can you imagine today's father?  Today's father.  Working 60 hours a week at a job that he probably hates, and doesn't get any respect for, making $40,000 grand a year, with pathetic insurance.  Schlepping all 3 of his kids, plus 2 of the neighbor kids since they are somewhat friends but somehow didn't have any cash on them to goddamned Shrek 4 for $80 bucks including snacks, $110 if in Imax 3D, and one of the kids pukes from a seizure.  That guy shouldn't have to put up with yet another failure at the movies this time because the studios mishandled movie budgets and need to turn something around quick.  Not at my movie theater, not anymore. 

PS So is father secretly develops this global changing element but encrypts it in a model of queens, for his son to decipher years down the line but only does so because he developed an Iron suit to become a super hero.  Dude's a risk taker.  

Shrek 4 Budget was $165 million (imdb)