The Temple of Doom

The second movie in the Indiana Jones series is certainly an interesting one, but it brings up a few questions as well. While it was a great movie, I don't think it was as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark.



First off, the movie starts with the whole "Anything Goes" sequence. While I appreciate the use of the scene to introduce us to Willie as a character in the movie and as an opportunity to get all the initial credits out of the way, the sequence doesn't really fit in with the rest of the movie. The rest of the scene in the nightclub only advances the plot a little bit, but being the beginning of the movie, my guess would be that it was a great way to ease into the movie, unlike in Raiders where you had spiders and skeletons within the first ten minutes.

Fortunately, we leave the nightclub and head in a car driven by Short Round to the airport and a flight out of Shanghai operated by the same guy we were just dealing with in the nightclub. That leads us towards the main plot of the movie - a crash landing into India, and the search for the stone.

However, there is a major problem - poor special effects. I'll try to explain it in words, but a video would really help here. Unfortunately, I've tried to upload the clip three times now and I've had no luck, so here goes ;)




The first problem is that when the plane crashes into the mountain, you see the fireball, but there isn't much evidence of the plane crashing apart. I know it's being picky and pedantic, but it's just not convincing. Then, as they go down the mountain in the snow, the raft has this magic quality of constantly changing colors between bright yellow and dull yellow. Back and forth, and really no purpose to it. Then, you see the raft hit the dirt, but fortunately they thought of throwing some dirt in front of the raft to make it seem like they were on dirt.



However, where that didn't go too well, the rest of the movie was quite good, especially, as in with Raiders, mixing the adventure and the creep-you-out factor. Particularly when Willie is trying to get the trap room to stop closing in on Indy and Shorty and she has everything crawling around and on her, then having to reach through the bugs and things to hit the lever is sensational and freaky.



Another great "creepy" moment is when they're presented with the meal in the dining hall. With everything from snakes filled with eels to claimed monkey brains, it's everything a horror film could have asked for. Lest we forget that there were also the scenes where you have Mola Ram pulling hearts out of people which then spontaneously combusts when the hapless victim hits the molten rock below the platform.

While I could go into a full discussion of child labor, I'll just leave it at it's wrong, especially if they're being chained up in order to do the work.

A couple of questions -
- Since the movie was set in 1935, we know that it's a prequel to Raiders. In that case, what happened to Short Round and Willie? Did they fall off of the face of the earth?
- When was the auto-inflating plane raft invented? I would have sworn that those were invented after 1935.

All in all, it was a really good movie. It did seem to move a bit slow at times (particularly the opening scene). But like I had said at the outset, I liked Raiders more than this one, but both are definitely on the list of movies you need to watch at least once.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

If you're like me and haven't watched this movie before, you need to watch it. You will not be sorry. Honestly, it's one of those essential movies that you need to watch to have experienced the world. And seriously, you should stop reading and go watch it. I'll wait for you. :)

Having said that, those of us (now that I can include myself in this group) who have seen the movie know why it's such a great work. Here's my take on why I think it's so good.

Mixing of adventure and scare


Ok, so maybe "scare" isn't the best word for it, but there are definitely some moments that make you tingle. For example, right at the beginning of the movie when Indiana and his Peruvian counterpart are exploring the cave and all of a sudden tarantulas appear on their backs. Like I said the other day, I don't mind small tiny spiders that don't do much, but tarantulas give me the creeps! Of course, then the wall comes out with the decomposing skeleton hanging off of it. Which moves. Need I say more about that?

From there you move to the adventure of grabbing the idol and getting it out of the cave, and the escape from the rainforest. That leads into the race to get the Ark and trying to beat the German expedition team (I'm not sure that they were referred to as Nazis in 1936, even though it is three years into Hitler's rule).



Then, when Indiana finds the Ark's true location (the Germans having erred on the calculation on the height of the staph), he finds a pit of snakes. Nothing but snakes which are slithering along the floor. He even faces down a (what looks to be) cobra, but they just mention asps in the dialogue. Then Marian falls into the pit, and while leaving, she winds up in a hall of more moving skeletons, including one that has a snake coming out of the mouth. Again, very creepy!

However, it all winds up balancing perfectly as there are only a couple of moments where you want to ball up but the rest of the movie keeps you so engaged that you keep your focus on the movie and nothing else.

Little bits of humor



You could say that all movies have some elements of humor in them, but Spielberg is one of the best to do it. For example, when Indiana is teaching after his quest for the idol, he gets distracted - first by his head teacher, and then by a girl who has put "LOVE YOU" on her eyelids. Even today, that's a pretty creative way to signal your feeling, and one that is very blunt but would probably land you in hot water for sexual harassment. Then, after Indy gets out of the Well of Souls and gets back to Sallah, he says that he's going to get the truck. How? Sallah asks. "I don't know. I'm making this up as I go." Simple line, and in the context of the movie, completely accurate, but it's worthy of a chuckle.

The rock chase



Now, even if you haven't seen the movie (What are you doing reading down here if that's the case? I told you to stop reading and watch it! ;)), you are probably familiar with this scene. I had been under the impression that it came towards the end of the movie, but it comes right at the start. It's still amazing to think that Indiana didn't get run over by it. Of course, it's been immortalized as part of the ride at Disneyland, which I took when I was there in 2001. One of the things that they said is that there are infinite combinations of the ride to go on. As it happens, I wound up on the one where you go past a wall of snakes, which do move. Below is a great clip of the ride and the area around it - there are a couple of other videos on Youtube of the ride, but this is the best of the ones I watched.

A couple of questions
- Why did Indiana keep the monkey after he was the cause of the first attack in Cairo? (Of course, not that it was a bad thing considering that it found the "bad" dates)
- What happened to the ship that Sallah had hired to take the Ark, Indiana and Marion to London after the encounter with the U-Boat?

The Movies I've Watched

I got to thinking tonight about the movies that I have watched over the last year, and it's interesting to look at what I've actually watched. Some of them I've reviewed on the blog, others I haven't. Some of them are movies that most people have watched, others are ones that were wildly popular in some parts of the world and never made that big of a splash here, and others are just good movies.

This is the list of movies that I've watched over the last year or so; if I've done a review, I'll have it linked:

• Back to the Future
• Back to the Future II
• Back to the Future III (I've got to go back and watch them again one day soon ;))
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
• The Client
• Romeo + Juliet
• Strictly Ballroom
• Dead Man Walking
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• Dead Poets' Society
• Top Gun
• Short Circuit
• The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
• I Am Sam
• Pump up the Volume
• Titanic

The next movies in my queue for watching however, are BlueThunder (though I suspect I've gotten the fullscreen version instead of the proper widescreen version), The Blue Lagoon, and the Indiana Jones trilogy.

I'd love to hear your suggestions for movies that I should/have to/need to watch. Don't be afraid to make obvious suggestions; chances are that I haven't seen it (and may not have even heard of it). The last movie I watched in a theatre was (if I'm remembering correctly) The Santa Clause.

200th post

Well, this is something that I should have hit a long time ago, but like I had said a while ago, I've been busy with a few other things, so the blog's been on the back burner for a while. Actually, if I had kept myself to the one post a day theme, I would have hit this mark in March, but it's May and I've made it! :)

I'd like to take a look back for the benefit of those of you who haven't been reading since the beginning, with some of my favourite posts over the last few months.

When I started, the main posts on here were my Tuesday & Wednesday posts about Rockstar Supernova, with my unique insights into the performances of the show. One such post that sticks out is my commentary on the 10th week's results show, where I got, shall we say, a little annoyed at the constant plugs:

And we see the rockers coming into Television City in a bunch of H***a E*****t S*s, surrounded by throngs of people there for the show, including one person who had their hands in the shape of a heart. I guess I missed that memo ;) Back in the studio and Brooke announces that the encore performer gets the car they came in! Whoa! Free pub baby!

Of those people, how many do you think were there for this show, and how many were there for The Price is Right?

3 mentions of the name of the car so far before the break, then we see the adboard for it, then we see the AD for it

After Rockstar was over, I had to search for stuff to post about. So I discussed some of the more interesting things that I have been doing. I also discussed some of the things that I've discovered in my continuing quest to make it down under.

Something that I haven't done for a while is watch some movies. I'd intended on actually getting a list of the movies I haven't watched but need to watch, but that's gone to the far back burner, especially since I've discovered The West Wing. ;) I would definitely encourage you to go through my posts labeled movies for some reviews I did in the past. I think you'll like them :)

You'll also notice that I've changed the look of some things here, including adding a widget for BUMPzee, which I joined a little while ago, and don't really have much of an idea of how to get things going there. I'm also thinking of putting a thing for MyBlogLog on here as well.



This is my current settings for my site feed. I used to have it as a full feed, but after discovering that there may be sites out there (aside from legitimate feed readers such as Bloglines and Google Reader) which take your content without your permission and make money off of it, I switched to a partial feed.

The other day, I read in a list of tips to become a better blogger that you should have a full site feed to become better. They don't exactly explain why it's better to have a full feed, though there are some good arguements towards publishing a full feed, and I'm inclined to agree with their viewpoint - I know that I prefer to have a full post in my Google Reader - it makes things easier for me because I'm not juggling tabs to view different posts with it all there for me to see. I've turned the full feeds back on for the blog now and restored the little message I had on the bottom of my posts (you'll see it only if you subscribe via RSS).

So, here's to the next 200 posts coming quite a bit faster than the first 200, and for those that keep looking, here's a picture of Dilana's nude face

A bus trip across the desert...

It's been a while since I've been on a bus, but this isn't about me. It's about a movie based on this concept - Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Basically, it's a story of two drag queens and a transvestite who are summoned from their base in Sydney to Alice Springs to perform at a hotel/casino. Now, anyone familiar with even the basics of transport in Australia will know that it it's a long, hard slog to get from one city to the other, involving long periods of (for the lack of a better term) lonliness, even when travelling with mates.

In fact, during the movie, there are two journeys going on - the one at the centre of the movie, and the running gag - the "Philips Coast-to-Coast Classic", and somehow, the two paths meet up a couple of times during the movie. Clearly, she is a fast runner. ;)

However, the main journey does encounter some delays, most notably when it is decided to take the shortcut (essentially an unimproved track through the desert) instead of staying on the sealed roads while heading toward Port Augusta. Thus, they are led through the outback (the filming of which featured many of the creatures that are native to the desert lands) and the result is predictable - the dust clogs up the engine and they wind up stranded. Bernadette (the transvestite) heads off for help, finds it, but once they come upon the scene of the bus, now painted purple (or lavender, but it looked pink), they run off quite quickly. Eventually help is found, a pink kite (which later ends up somewhere else in Southeast Asia) is used to locate them, and they hobble their way to a small roadhouse, then onwards to Coober Pedy and to Alice Springs.

One of the recurring themes is that of tolerance. It all starts out well in Sydney where the type of show that they do is generally well-received. However, in Broken Hill, they receive a harsh lesson in how intolerant people can be when after they finish their stay in the hotel, they find their bus adorned with the phrase "AIDS Fuckers Go Home". At the roadhouse (where they were suggested to perform by the mechanic who helped them out of being stranded), they were essentially booed off of the stage, preferring to be entertained by the wife of the mechanic who did this amazing trick with some pingpong balls. Interestingly, the only people in the country who really tolerated them (aside from some folks in Alice Springs) were a group of Aboriginals who asked them to attend their camp and they put on a show that ended up in the two groups essentially merging their music.

It's a movie that discusses (indirectly) some interesting aspects of modern society - particularly the acceptance of people who choose to live their lives differently than the rest of us. I personally do accept the fact that there are people who do choose to live this way; if that's what they think is the right way of living for them, then they should go for it.

An interesting meme

I saw this over on Chubber Cheekers, and I found this interesting. This is a list of 252 movies; apparently if you seen 85 or more of them, you should get a life (I'd think a number closer to something well over half like 150 or more might be suitable for claiming someone "needs a life"). Anyhoo, if you know me, it's fairly easy to tell that I'm nowhere near that 85 mark. In all fairness, I'm kinda stretching what I have watched as there are a couple in there that I watched ages ago (namely Little Mermaid and Terminator 2). There are some that I didn't count which I have seen bits of - like Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Napoleon Dynamite. Enjoy! ;)

( ) Rocky Horror Picture Show
(x) Grease
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean
( ) Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
( ) Boondock Saints
(x) Fight Club
( ) Starsky and Hutch
( ) Neverending Story
( ) Blazing Saddles
(x) Airplane
Total so far: 3

( ) The Princess Bride
( ) Anchor Man
( ) Napoleon Dynamite
( ) Labyrinth
( ) Saw
( ) Saw II
( ) White Noise
( ) White Oleander
( ) Anger Management
( ) 50 First Dates
( ) The Princess Diaries
( ) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Total so far: 3

( ) Scream
( ) Scream 2
( ) Scream 3
( ) Scary Movie
( ) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
( ) Scary Movie 4
(x) American Pie
( ) American Pie 2
( ) American Wedding
( ) American Pie Band Camp
Total so far: 4

( ) Harry Potter 1
( ) Harry Potter 2
( ) Harry Potter 3
( ) Harry Potter 4
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
( ) The Wedding Singer
( ) Little Black Book
( ) The Village
(x) Lilo & Stitch
Total so far: 5

(x) Finding Nemo
( ) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
( ) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning
( ) White Chicks
( ) Butterfly Effect
( ) 13 Going on 30
( ) I, Robot
( ) Robots
Total so far: 6

( ) Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
( ) Universal Soldier
( ) Lemony Snicket: A Series Of Unfortunate Events
( ) Along Came Polly
( ) Deep Impact
( ) KingPin
( ) Never Been Kissed
( ) Meet The Parents
( ) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
( ) KING KONG
Total so far: 6

( ) A Cinderella Story
( ) The Terminal
( ) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Passport to Paris
( ) Dumb & Dumber
( ) Dumber & Dumberer
( ) Final Destination
( ) Final Destination 2
( ) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
( ) The Ring
( ) The Ring 2
( ) Surviving X-MAS
( ) Flubber
Total so far: 6

( ) Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
( ) Practical Magic
( ) Chicago
( ) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
( ) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
(x) I Am Sam
( ) The Whole Nine Yards
( ) The Whole Ten Yards
Total so far: 7

( ) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child’s Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
( ) Ten Things I Hate About You
( ) Just Married
( ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
( ) Sixteen Candles
( ) Remember the Titans
( ) Coach Carter
( ) The Grudge
( ) The Grudge 2
( ) The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask
Total so far: 7

( ) Bad Boys
( ) Bad Boys 2
( ) Joy Ride
( ) Lucky Number Seven
( ) Ocean’s Eleven
( ) Ocean’s Twelve
( ) Bourne Identity
( ) Bourne Supremecy
( ) Lone Star
( ) Bedazzled
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) The Fog
( ) Ice Age
( ) Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
( ) Curious George
Total so far: 7

(x) Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) A Bronx Tale
( ) Darkness Falls
( ) Christine
(x) ET
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Bosses Daughter
( ) Maid in Manhattan
( ) War of the Worlds
( ) Rush Hour
( ) Rush Hour 2
Total so far: 9

( ) Best Bet
( ) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
( ) She’s All That
( ) Calendar Girls
( ) Sideways
( ) Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
( ) Ever After
(x) Wizard of Oz
(x) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
( ) The Terminator
(x) The Terminator 2
( ) The Terminator 3
Total so far: 12

( ) X-Men
( ) X2
( ) X-3
( ) Spider-Man
( ) Spider-Man 2
( ) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
( ) Catch Me If You Can
(x) The Little Mermaid
( ) Freaky Friday
( ) Reign of Fire
( ) The Skulls
( ) Cruel Intentions
( ) Cruel Intentions 2
( ) The Hot Chick
( ) Shrek
(x) Shrek 2
Total so far:13

( ) Swimfan
( ) Miracle on 34th street
( ) Old School
( ) The Notebook
( ) K-Pax
( ) Krippendorf’s Tribe
( ) A Walk to Remember
( ) Ice Castles
( ) Boogeyman
( ) The 40-year-old-virgin
Total so far: 13

( ) Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring
( ) Lord of the Rings The Two Towers
( ) Lord of the Rings Return Of the King
( ) Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
( ) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
( ) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Total so far: 13

( ) Baseketball
( ) Hostel
( ) Waiting for Guffman
( ) House of 1000 Corpses
( ) Devils Rejects
( ) Elf
( ) Highlander
( ) Mothman Prophecies
( ) American History X
( ) Three
Total so Far: 13

( ) The Jacket
( ) Kung Fu Hustle
( ) Shaolin Soccer
( ) Night Watch
( ) Monsters Inc.
(x) Titanic
(x) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
( ) Shaun Of the Dead
( ) Willard
Total so far: 15

( ) High Tension
( ) Club Dread
( ) Hulk
( ) Dawn Of the Dead
( ) Hook
( ) Chronicle Of Narnia The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
( ) 28 days later
( ) Orgazmo
( ) Phantasm
( ) Waterworld
Total so far: 15

( ) Kill Bill vol 1
( ) Kill Bill vol 2
( ) Mortal Kombat
( ) Wolf Creek
( ) Kingdom of Heaven
( ) the Hills Have Eyes
( ) I Spit on Your Grave aka the Day of the Woman
( ) The Last House on the Left
( ) Re-Animator
( ) The Ghost and the Darkness
Total so far: 15

( ) Star Wars Ep. I The Phantom Menace
( ) Star Wars Ep. II Attack of the Clones
( ) Star Wars Ep. III Revenge of the Sith
(x) Star Wars Ep. IV A New Hope
(x) Star Wars Ep. V The Empire Strikes Back
(x) Star Wars Ep. VI Return of the Jedi
( ) Ewoks Caravan Of Courage
( ) Ewoks The Battle For Endor
Total so far: 18

( ) The Matrix
( ) The Matrix Reloaded
( ) The Matrix Revolutions
( ) Animatrix
( ) Evil Dead
( ) Evil Dead 2
( ) Team America: World Police
( ) Red Dragon
( ) Silence of the Lambs
( ) Hannibal
Total: 18

I need input

If you were looking to give me advice on something, I regret to inform you that this isn't the time right now. Actually, it's time for another movie review! :)

A while ago, I had mentioned some DVDs that I had received, and as it turns out, one of them was Short Circuit. You can probably guess how it ends (generically) as there is a sequel, but I belive that this is the first time that I've seen the first movie in a long time, if at all; that's because I was a bit confused and was thinking that this was the movie where Johnny is fixing himself in the Radio Shack, but it is the sequel that this happens in.

Before tackling the actual movie, I want to bring something important to the attention of DVD makers - if you claim that "SHORT CIRCUIT IS PRESENTED IN A 2.35:1 WIDESCREEN ASPECT RATIO", then make sure that the whole movie is actually in that AR. When I put the DVD into the computer to take some screenshots, the actual movie was presented in a 4:3 AR, standard for most TVs, but this isn't disclosed on the box.

Another quite surprising thing about the DVD is the lack of extras. Most DVDs now have English, Spanish and French language and subtitle tracks, but Short Circuit has two English tracks - Dolby 5.1 and Dolby 2.0, and does not have any subtitles (it doesn't even appear to be closed-captioned as there is no CC logo on the box). Additionally, there are no additional features such as a director's commentary, deleted scenes (though the director did put some of them into the closing credits), or the theatrical trailer (see below). In fact, here is the menu for the movie -



Now, the feature presentation...

It all starts with scenes of a computer-type device being formed with the last scene showing S.A.I.N.T. 5 operational, ready to have its manufacturer's tag placed on it. This is all in preparation for a bunch of tanks to come and destroy a very nice flower patch before they get destroyed by these new S.A.I.N.T. machines. Fortunately, they decided to place plastic replica people into the vehicles. Afterwards, the robots are placed into a police line-up where they are praised for destroying these tanks.



You know that there is trouble ahead when you hear thunder in the background, forcing the well-prepared brass to take the presentation inside the Nova offices. This begs the question - if these robots were real, if they had to take the presentation inside, then woulnd't that mean that they couldn't use these robots in their operation GotchaLast if it were raining or snowing in Moscow?

Maybe all these generals were boyscouts?

Now, since the only place they can actually charge the robots is outside, and there's a thunderstorm approaching (you'd think that if it was raining at the demonstration ground, it'd be raining at the Nova building, but it's actually clear when the Trailways buses appear), the general tendency would be to make sure that the electronics are protected from electrical surge, but the numbskull in charge of the charging of the robots just kinda blows it off and, of course, what happens? Yep...



In the meantime, the inventor's assistant Ben is trying to get Newton (the inventor) out and hobnobbing with the brass, including a visiting Senator; of course Newton is the stereotypical geek - insulated to the world, but he uses his robotic hand to give him an assist in replying to Ben's request ;)



A brilliant move on the behalf of the director is to actually use some of the footage from the beginning of the movie during the hobnobbing scenes, before the discovery of the disappearance of Number 5...



Three observations about these robots, and Nova in General -

1. They are incredibly light as a trashcan being pushed by a robot is enough to overpower them.
2. Exposed wiring looks incredibly like a dog's teat.
3. Their security guard can't read the sign at the entrance



Fortunately, 5 manages to get away from the people from "Security" bent on his destruction, and finds his way onto the top of a food wagon that caters "partys"

Who said spelling counts?

Even in the 80s, there was some great product placement - take a look at the ads, commercials and other assortment of cool, old stuff that they got into the movie :)



The one bit of cultural knowledge that Number 5 manages to pick up on the best are the antics of the Three Stooges. The great thing is that he has just enough time to program the other robots to mimic their act. It's interesting that Howard didn't raise a red flag over having not just $11 million, but $44 million of robot out there (like he had done when Ben & Newton decided to take Number 1 along with them and their Apple Macintosh).



The most interesting thing about the movie is the relationship that Newton (the man who hadn't driven for 5 years, but isn't awarded a cake from Ben - clearly 5's driving was worse) and Stephanie make. The meet at first when her van is hijacked by Number 5 and she rides along trying to get him to stop; and that meeting ends in her wanting to meet with him again. By the end, they're planning to go off to Wyoming and live their lives together, despite all the times that she thought that he was lying to her.

Interestingly, in the scene where Number 5 summons Newton to meet Stephanie, radio geeks will appreciate the fact that you could see that they used a labelmaker to make labels to represent the five robots and the FCC licenses that they had taken for their use, but since the movie is 20 years old, the licenses have probably lapsed, thus they do not appear in their online listings.



This is definitely one movie that deserves to be seen, and the main reason isn't the story; it's the fella that steals the show comedically, Ben Jabituya, portrayed by Fisher Stevens. Basically, if he starts speaking, expect to laugh. Below is an audio clip from early in the movie; there's a point where there is a sound that goes pfft (note that this is a poor textual representation of a computer, so the actual sound will be different). You should refer back to the picture of the reply to Ben's request to go to hobnob when this happens ;)



Here's a second audio clip, just because I can do it; this is of one of the more memorable lines from the movie (maybe that's just because there's a radio host in my area who might have used this as a drop-in once or twice); just after Number 5 reactivates himself, and Ben and the other Nova employee stop at the side of the road. The question is "What should we do?"...



Lastly, here is the trailer for the movie. I know I've heard the narrator's work previously in other commercials; his talents used to be quite common on TV, but maybe I'm wrong about that. ;)



Addendum: Sorry for the odeo player deciding to play the audio at double pitch; I really don't know how that happened, but I bet it has something to do with sample rates....

Movies, a whole lot of 'em!

When I was growing up, I never watched that many movies; in fact, I remember people asking what the last movie I was at in the theatre, and I'd say the name of a movie that'd been out on tape for a few years already. We also never watched too many movies at home; we first got cable in 1993, and whenever we would sign up for the movie channels we'd rarely watch them.

So anyway, because of this, there are literally dozens of movies that most people have watched that I haven't watched (or even worse, never heard of). I was happy not having watched these movies because I didn't think that they had any significance to me, but there was cultural significance. Now, I have a list about as long as my arm of movies that I want to watch or should watch. Some of the movies in this list are (in no particular order, and includes some movies that I've watched already) -

Back to the Future trilogy
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Romeo + Juliet
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Pump up the Volume
Top Gun
The Client
Dead Man Walking

Then, we have the Aussie Movies -
Strictly Ballroom
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
Muriel's Wedding

I *know* that I am missing quite a few movies from this list, but what I want to do is make kind of a "master" list of movies that I should watch, and try to acquire them and watch them.

I'd be interested to know if there are other movies that are ones that everyone should watch and that I probably missed out on watching; leave a comment if you have some suggestions for me to take up, and we'll let it go from there. :)

Piracy, 1990 style

No, I'm not talking about Napster or Morpheus or Kazaa. I'm talking about pirated radio, like Radio Caroline. Pirate radio takes center stage in the Christian Slater movie Pump Up The Volume, where the storyline is based around the son of a school administrator who has just moved to Paradise City, AZ from New York who transformed his shortwave transceiver into an FM transmitter.

Using a voice-changing machine, he broadcasts at 10 pm to the students of Hubert H Humphrey High School as Happy Harry Hardon, who encourages listeners to send in their advice. During one of the first broadcasts, we see someone type into a computer "Do you think that I should kill (myself?)", which is printed out and sent to Harry (it's classified on IMDB as a continuity error, but if you think it over, it makes sense). Unfortunately, the sender of that letter wound up taking his life, and Harry wound up taking the flack for it. He was going to discontinue broadcasts after this, but he was inspired by Nora, the only person to figure out that it was him based on the revelation of how he spent his lunch hour. This led to a massive uproar in the school's faculty, and the students were also taking his advice to be themselves by setting a lot of graffiti on the walls and ceilings of the school. In the end, Happy Harry got put off the air, but his message was out there - and a lot of other teens started their own pirate radio stations.

One of the major themes of the movie is to not be who someone wants you to be - be who you want to be. The most obvious example is Harry (whose real name in the movie was Mark) - when he was on the radio he was very open and willing to talk, but whenever he was seen in scenes around the school, he would always have his head down and not want to interact with anybody. His parents expected him to be like he was when he was Back East, but he never fit into the school, at least as himself. When he put the Harry face on, he became who he wanted to be - open and willing to tell people what he thought of things. The pivotal moment for this is right after the suicide, when he encourages his listeners to actually be themselves.

An interesting note, on the technical side - on the last night of his broadcast when the FCC had started to look for him (and where the Commissioner said that it was people like Harry that were the problem with free speech), and he had made the decision to go mobile, technically the receivers in the school carpark should have been experiencing some mobile fade - it's a common occurence when the source of a broadcast is moving. But it is a movie so it doesn't have to be fully accurate to be good. ;)

Overall? It's a good movie with a great message - be yourself. It's seen in everything from the students to the school itself, where the principal is suspended for expelling "bad" students just so that she can tout the school's record as having the highest SAT scores in the state. However, she lied about expelling them and retained the public money from their existence in the school's population.

Some loose ends -

What crimes did Mark end up being charged with? They had discussed pornography and solicitation, and charging him with being involved in the suicide.
How did his parents react to actually finding out that it was him? He had narrowly escaped (with the assistance of Nora) their wrath after the mass meeting and in the last scene, his father was more concerned with the shady dealings of the principal it would seem.

Another Movie

Today, I was (as I am usually wont to do) watching the Nascar race which, due to Notre Dame football on NBC, was airing on TNT. Normally, I'll just change the channel to something else, but today I didn't change the channel. The other thing is that TNT tend to air a lot of movies - most of the time they'll show a single movie at least three times per weekend. The movies that air after races (or, presuming they actually had other sport to run on weekends aside from morning coverage of golf) are often movies that are known, but aren't played too much anymore.

Today, the choice was the 2001 movie I am Sam, starring Sean Penn as the father of a 6-year-old girl named Lucy. The only thing is that he is mentally retarded and has shown to have the intellectual capacity of a 7-year-old. While it was a good movie, there are some things that I missed - first was how did he wind up taking care of Lucy (which i just missed as it is mentioned in a plot summary on IMDB). Next is the question of how he was lucky enough to not have been "found out" as being retarded before the incidents outlined in the movie. Nowadays (even if it is just 5 years later) there would be some parent who, if they were to see this situation, would raise a stink because they wouldn't think that a person in his condition would be "suitable" to raise a child even if the proof shows the complete opposite picture.

Another interesting thing is the fact that despite the lawyer's wanting to ignore him, the fact that she did pay some attention was probably the reason he would come back to her. What I find the most interesting, however, about her is that she wasn't aware of the fact that the firm she works for doesn't have a pro bono section, though that is mostly something that you would see only in the really large firms. Really, though, the only reason that she ends up representing him is that she caught herself in a lie after the party and was forced to take up the case.

Overall, it is a very interesting look into the life of a man who, while his mind might not be working on all of its cylinders, his heart is definitely in the right place with the love he has for his daughter.

One other note - I didn't even know any of the actors in the movie until I looked at the IMDB entry - though it was mentioned to me that the main character was Sean Penn; it was really interesting to see how he really made that particular role work.

Movies...

A while back, I mentioned a box of DVDs that I got. Taking a hard look at what's in there, I don't think I'd watch half of these movies. For example - Agent Cody Banks (1 and 2), Spy kids (1 and 3d), The Fly II, Boa, Mimic 2, The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Seriously, how many copies of that movie were sold? 100 maybe? How about "John Boorman's The Emerald Forest"? What a DVD this one is. The special features are as follows - Original Theatrical Trailer. Oh, and French & Spanish subtitles.

I have to say that the most exciting features are on "The Never Ending Story II" - Interactive Menus! Theatrical Trailer! Scene Access! and the ever exciting Portugues track!

For the most part, I am so glad I didn't have to pay for these videos - I mean, who's going to pay for "Don Juan DiMarco"? or "The Craft"?

I should mention that there are maybe one or two movies that I'd watch - Short Circuit is one. I really don't know if there are others. Some of them have commentary tracks, so that could be interesting viewing.

Let us go to a time...

...when Tom Cruise was still sane! Specifically, 1986, when movie goers were treated to some great sounds coming from the speakers, one which probably sold many home theatre systems when this movie came out on videotape, and later on DVD. So which movie am I speaking of? Top Gun.

Like Ferris Bueller, I don't think that this movie could be made today; not so much because the story is bad, but because I do not think that the Department of Defense would be as willing to give such technical support to movie-makers. The story might have been a little unusual, but you find me someone who hasn't had a crush on a teacher (for me it was my fourth-grade teacher Mrs. M... who had the most darling southern accent, but wasn't too appreciative when I asked a doctor about how long the typical labor lasts while she was very pregnant but I digress).

Interestingly, I had a different experience in watching this movie, as it was 1) broadcast on TV so that meant commercial breaks and language being taken out (that was noticeable only once or twice though) and 2) I had my mom watching it with me and (I'm thinking that this is a common trait) she always has to comment on things, though from time to time she makes an interesting insight. Two comments that she made that are interesting are that 1) This probably was the movie that "made" Meg Ryan, and 2) it was unfortunate that everyone seemed to be shorter than Tom - something most noticeable in the scene at the end of the movie on the carrier deck.

One thing that I was glad of was that I decided to play it on the computer as I have a sound system with a subwoofer on it, and having the bass really helped out the cause. I don't think it would have sounded right only on the TV, plus by playing it on the computer, I couldn't be distracted by other things on the system (though I did allow myself to do things during the adbreaks, one of which came right at the climax of the movie when they were in the final dogfight with the MiGs--and I think it was the longest adbreak of the show).

For some reason, I had thought that the scene in which Maverick's plane goes down was a dream, only to have it turn out to be real when we see him in the infirmary totally distraught. Also, I could have sworn that when they were lifting Goose into the helicopter, he had moved, though I could be wrong about that. :)

This is, I think, a movie that I had seen before, but I didn't remember one thing about it though the scene in the beginning where Mav is told about his wingman's leaving the service. Another thing that was familiar to me was Tom's laugh - one which is somewhat infamous for being so outrageously fake, and is played from time to time (as a long laugh) by a local radio station.

I can't think of much more to say about this film other than that it was good, and if we didn't have the FCC thinking that they can control cable TV and broadcasters who think that they have to clean things up for airing (i.e. taking the word shit out of movies), it'd be a more appreciable experience, but there is always the original movie version out there; one without ad breaks!

Movies

Well, I had said I'd try to get this out before conking out, but obviously that didn't quite work out to plan ;)

In the past I had managed to miss most, if not all, of the movies that have importance in the world of pop culture. Now, the reason is either 1) I was too young to have remembered it or to have seen it at first, or 2) I wasn't interested in watching it.

Among the movies that fit into this category are - The Back to the Future trilogy, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the most recent movie that I have watched, Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

In the modern world of movies, I wonder if one about a high-school student skipping school would manage to be made, but in the '80s, it was allowable for producers and directors to have creative ideas for movies, most of which didn't involve either remaking a movie from the past, adapting a TV show, or a sequel of a previously made lame movie.

Anyway, when I watch a movie, I generally go into it with a clean slate and do not expect anything about it. This time, for the most part, was no different, except for a scene in the beginning. A satellite provider here has been running ads where we see Ben Stein calling the roll and calling for Bueller. Of course, the ad says that he's home experiencing the wonderfully clear digital picture and sound of the satellite system. However, the "reality" of that situation is that he had done a poor acting job and managed to convince his parents to give him his 9th day off for the semester - a problem that he would fix later using the computer his parents had given him (something that is never really resolved, but we can assume that the principal had a few words with *someone* about this).

One thought (honestly!) that I had while watching the movie was whether or not any of the actors had done anything since then, not realising (i.e. not seeing the intro credit that said "Matthew Broderick", and apparently forgetting about seeing Ben Stein) who the people in the movie were.

Moving on, one thing that I didn't know about the movie was that it was set in Chicagoland, something revealed in the very first scene of the film when we hear the radio play WLS. Having been to Chicago, I can say that it is a pretty cool city, and (as mentioned in the credits) the paintings shown in the Institute of Art are ones that are there. The thing that kind of surprised me was that they showed "Nighthawks", but didn't show one of the hallmarks of the collection (more in the pop sense than anything), Grant Wood's "American Gothic".

One minor error (or it could be correct) is that I don't remember a viewing theatre at the Chicago Board of Trade. I believe that you can still go there and view trading on the floor, but that might have changed thanks to someone thinking that some lunatic might go in and try to go after the commodity traders on the floor there. One thing that was also very cool was hearing the late Harry Caray calling a Cubs game with what was the distinctive calling style of the '80s and earlier - let the pictures do the talking, and let people hear the natural sound every once in a while. Nowadays, I think the networks are afraid to not have silence for more than five seconds as they must think that people will tune out if they aren't talking.

I digress, having to mention that you could tell that the carhop in the parking garage was trouble from the get-go just from his look. I was very surprised that he did return the car (despite having driven it a hundred miles or so around the city) when they came back. I also would be remiss if I didn't mention the hilarious scenes with the Principal, a man who seemingly can't catch a break, especially with the dog in the yard. The thing that I was the most surprised about was that Ferris' sister ended up helping him out after being the first one to suss out the fact that he wasn't sick after all.

Some questions to think about...

- Did Sloane get into trouble for not having a dead grandmother?
- Did Principal Rooney get his car back?
- How many pencils were in the secretary's hair?
- Would Bueller be charged with fraud after all these people who donated money found out he wasn't sick?
- How badly did Cameron's ass get kicked?
- Did anyone actually figure out that it was Cameron who was the one that was really sick (unless, of course, that was a ploy too)?

Random thoughts...

I had a chance to see the Steve Irwin memorial service from earlier today. Just a couple of observations on it - first, it's interesting that someone remembered to bring a hat for the PM, yet most of the crowd didn't remember to bring one. Second, how many Aussies had ever heard of Kelly Ripa before today? (In all fairness, how many non-Aussies, myself included, had ever heard of John Williamson before?) Last, it was (to me at least) a definite made-for-TV event. I don't think that it was that bad of an idea to do it that way at all; considering that it was the medium that made him a household name throughout most of the world.

I got a boxful of DVDs the other day (about 40 or so, at the cost of $0); it's an interesting mix of various genres - from Short Circuit to XXX and even American Pie Presents Band Camp. One day soon I'll watch some of them.

And lastly 2 snippets -

1. Knifey has a new piece up on his blog
2. For some reason, Yahoo doesn't let viewers in the US view certain videos from 7; fortunately the one about the new yacht Gotta Love It Seven is permitted for airing here...