Sahara

Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, Penelope Cruz; - I love the way the plot ties together, the imagination of the storyline, and even the comic relief. I was entertained.

Indiana Jones

Of course we're all familiar with the Indiana Jones series.

My favorite line of the film and one that stays with me is at the very end of this 33 second clip.

American History X

Must be a Top 10 flick for it's insight in the causes, and catalysts of problem race relations, as well as in transformation, and consequences.

The Usual Suspects

Has to be a Top 5 Movie of all time for me. I hope you've sat down and enjoyed it all the way through yourself. It's really great.

War Games

1980's Classic

"General you a listening to a machine, do the world a favor and don't act like one." Dr. Steven Falken, War Games. 1983

Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy -

Dirty Harry & Magnum Force

Interesting examples of early seventies film for mood, and issues of the day. I thought they were a little slow, but I guess they really hit it for when they were made. Dirty Harry the year I was born, and Magnum Force with at least one of the gang from Animal House released when I was two years old.

Green Mile

I got to watch a somewhat interrupted version of this over the weekend, but it was enough to remind me how really great a film this was. It also I think inspired me to read some of Stephen King which I've never cracked a page of. I'd like to read his "On Writing" book as well, and I should see "The Green Mile," again too. I think I may have caught it three or four times in various bits and pieces over, what's it been 15 years or so since it was made. I'd like to read King's, Shawshank Redemption someday too. I'll post about that movie again someday. I think both Shawshank and the Green Mile could be Top 25 or 30 movies, if and when I ever get around to making an actual list.

Powder

I caught some clips of this over the weekend, and realized that I'd never seen it, but would like to see in it's entirety. It could be a Top 50 Film for me. Definitely holds the key to a major point I'd like to make if I were making film. Some of the GooGoo Dolls Soundtrack is pretty good too.

Gone in Sixty Seconds

I haven't seen this one in quite sometime, but this was one of the scenes I liked the most. In case you don't understand Italianish, the translation is:



"If his unpleasant wounding has some way enlightened the rest of you as to the grim finish beneath the glossy veneer of criminal life and inspired you to change your ways, then his injuries carry with it an inherent nobility and a supreme glory. We should all be so fortunate. You say, 'Poor Toby.' ... I say, 'Poor us.'" Sphinx https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E18bg6bBcVc

Flash of Genius

I'm already looking forward to seeing this film about a determined individual who they tried to buy-off, and still said no on a matter of principle.

Remember the Titans *

This movie I saw for my second or third time about two years ago.

"People want to know ... Who we are. We are the Titans, the mighty, mighty Titans."

My friend has seen the real coach this movie was based on speak. I hear it's quite a story, what really happened.

This is definitely in my top twenty.



9.22.08 Originally I wasn't going to put up any clips and take a break for a while, but this movie is just too good, and too full of great material.



Here's one a little longer but it's Gettysburg, and the meaning is deep, and profound.



I'm still looking for the speech about the Titans, but no luck as of yet.

"In Greek Mythology the Titans were greater even than the Gods. They ruled their Universe with absolute power. That football field out there tonight, that's our Universe." (the soundbite was in one of the trailers, but it cuts it up a bit. I guess even YouTube isn't perfect yet, but it's still amazing for being just a few short years old.

Training Day

I didn't really like it, but Denzel is a phenomenal actor. I saw this a few years ago and heard a promotion for a showing of it in a couple of days as a reminder.

The Magnificent Seven

Quite a cast - and good for a time when men had guts. There's a lot more to be seen in this one, but I'm too tired to write about it tonight, and I think I'd have to see it again to really get it. - Our nation's changed a lot since the message this film intended to convey.

Young Frankenstein

I didn't get to see the whole movie, but I wish that I had. I enjoyed the satire, and would like to see it again. I also felt encouraged that a movie, intended to be that bad means just about anyone who wants to could do a film and it likely wouldn't be worse. :)

Easy Rider

I never saw this classic until a good friend had me watch it at this place sometime back in 2005. I just caught a clip of it with the song, "The Weight," by the band, "The Band," on Youtube, and that purple mountain majesty made me remember that this is a film worth seeing again. I totally missed any references to that culture that 50 somethings new so well, but got stomped out of my knowledge with the success and merger and acquisition culture of the 1980s'. I think it's almost worth viewing from time to time just for us not to lose track of what that generation was looking for, but failed to find, and keep successfully. Lots of lessons to think about and maybe even learn here, and the soundtrack is pretty darn good too.

Dark Knight - Heath Ledger's Post-Humus Academy Award

The Dark Knight is a classic movie, worthy of seeing again, and again. It's deep, it's well written, great casting, action packed, and theatrically portrayed. On top of all the drama, there's a lot of quotable quotes. I think they did a great job with it. What acting. I can't wait to see it again.

Others at Random

Watched a fun 10 minute movie collage on youtube tonight that caused some note taking and some memory joggers.

I know somewhere along the line of course I have also seen:

Ghostbusters, Titanic, Blues Brothers, Heaven Can Wait, Gangs of New York, and that is one I could probably even see again.



a well edited, and fun - .58 second video that pretty much sums it up.

Movies to See Again

Apocalypse Now



Jaws - I'm ready to see some Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw again.

(6.29.08)









07.18.08 Warriors, Blue Brothers, Ferris Bueller's Day Off - Planet of the Apes -

Movies to See

5.4.08

Kingdom of Heaven

The Departed (Finally saw this a couple of months ago. 2.11.10)

7.17.08

Kelly's Heroes - The Village - Raging Bull - The Jerk - Rebel Without a Cause - Bonnie and Clyde - Old School - Superbad - Treasure of the Sierra Madre (B&W,)

10.10.08 - The Village, by M. Night Shymalan. I think I might like to see this strange film if only for one line that I'd like to see and hear again, but can't find on Youtube.

11.15.08 - Amazing Grace

1.3.09 Chicago, Queen Latifa?, Richard Gere.

2.20.09 Gone Baby Gone, (filmed in Cambridge.?)

Dead Poet's Society

Ray (aka Ray Charles)

I think this movie needs to find it's way into my Top 10. Jamie Foxx did a great job in this role. I was fortunate to see Ray Charles play life in Minneapolis 10 years ago, and I can tell you without a doubt that hearing him play America the Beautiful and all it's purple mountain majesty will be with me for a lifetime. I loved this film, not only for what it said about the man, about race, and about life, but also for how well it cineamatically points out those life situations that can pain us, stick with us, and continue to keep coming back. "Ray," uses the death of Ray's younger brother to portray not only how trauma effects someone not only all through their life, but also in their relationships, and the film ends with an example of what can be done about it. The film portrays the struggles of talent and of addiction and if viewed critically it can be enjoyed not only for entertainment value, but for an important life lesson for everyone as well. See Ray - it just might make your Top Ten too.

Striking Distance

Bruce Willis, Sarah Jessica Parker, - pretty much a horrible movie.

Outbreak

Dustin Hoffman, Cuba Gooding Jr., and the same lady from In the Line of Fire. In fact, I think it was the same director Wolfgang something or other who did The Perfect Storm. I don't know, it was really late last night, and I should've been asleep, and right now I'm even too tired to check out the all informative IMDB I often link to here.

The Perfect Storm

Clooney, Marky Mark - I didn't see it or read Sebastian Junger's book for a long time because I remember the storm so well, even though I wasn't long out of high school, it was even a stormy time in my life then.

Well done flick. Tough watching though. I remember doing a reading at that same church, St. Ann's of Gloucester, where they filmed the memorial service, and standing in that same pulpit as the actress playing the captain of the Hannah Boden, when my friend's Geoff and Heather Duval were married there in June of 2001.

It isn't the quoted scene I wanted to include but if you want to view a 2min24sec well done trailer that moves you emotionally, click here.

Click on this embedded video.

In the Line of Fire

Clint Eastwood

Thank You for Smoking

I saw this last year in the Brigham and Women's Hospital waiting for my best friend to get out of surgery. I haven't made an entry for a while so I thought I'd start putting in some backlog of films I have seen to fill in some gaps. I think I'd see this movie again. It's an interesting look at the tough side of the public relations business.

Cool Hand Luke

I never saw this film until I was 36, but that age old quote was hammered into my mind when I was a little kid.



It's a great line, definitely says it all about my issue with Jessica in Maine. I've thought about it many, many a time.

This movie is certainly worth writing more about. Has a lot to do with the 70's genre that helped make me who I am today, even though I can't ever remember watching it, I'm sure I did, back before I could even remember the difference from one movie to the next.

Second Hand Lions

Great Movie. It did get a little B-ish at times, but the 3rd and 4th times that I've seen this I find I don't see those flaws as much as I used to. There are some parts of this movie I really, really love, and despite some of the flaws I think this movie with Michael Caine, and Robert Duvall, actually places in my Top 10. - Yeah, it might be #10, but it must be in the Top 10, at least I can't think of nine others at the moment that I know would knock it into the Top 15 or 20.

I love the fight scene in the roadside cafe when Hub socks it to the four punks, and gives them a life lesson, then takes them home for a talk, some healing, a lion stalk, and a barb-e-que.

And I love the partial man to man that Hub has with the Kid after he wakes from sleep walking down by the pond.

I don't know if they have those scenes separated on YouTube, but I wish somebody would. I'd post them here, and watch them often enough to ingrain them in my head.

Oh, the film also stars Haley Joel Osment as the Kid and Kyra Sedgwick O'Neill as his whackjob, man chasing mother, with a bad case of "liabedis."

30minutes post posting;

Unbelievable, I guess I'm not the only one who liked these two scenes, because they're both posted on Youtube, along with the Trailer and a couple of pretty well done custom versions.

I haven't tried posting two clips into the same post yet, but I guess it's worth a try.



This scene definitely, although fairly poor in quality like the one above, captures the great quote, but cuts short of a really fun fight scene that I wish they'd kept.

Gothika

I don't remember exactly when I first watched this Hale Berry, Penelope Cruz, and Robert Downey Jr., twisted spirit thriller, but I know it was this year, and I have way too bad of a tooth ache to do any thinking about it right now.

Enter the Dragon

I hadn't watched a Bruce Lee film in twenty years. I don't even remember if this 1973 choice was one of the better ones, but I don't think it was one of the worst. I was only two years old when this was filmed. I remember being a little kid watching the Bruce Lee week on Channel 38's Eight O'Clock Movie. Funny when I think that besides Channel 4,5, and 7 - 38 and 56 were UHF Channels that we were glad to be able to dial in. Those were the days.

The Rundown

I never knew "The Rock" was a decent actor, but I enjoyed this Amazon high adventure with Sean William Scott, of American Pie and Stifler fame. - Another good film highlighting how common greed, and the lust for money corrupts and complicates. Sounds a lot like back in the Katahdin Region.

"Remember your buddy, Mr. Thunder, ... and Mr. Lightning?"

Silverado

A contemporary Western, and another story about how cash can spoil a badge. Something of a topic I'm all too familiar with.

Good cast with lots of familiar faces - Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover, Kevin Costner, Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Jeff Goldblum, Rosanna Arquette, and James Gammon, the perfect western deep voice, just to name a few.

Death Wish II

Bad things seemed to follow our original Death Wish star out to the left coast in this era capturing sequel Death Wish II with Charles Bronson. - Sure seems like the themes in 70sKid era film and sitcoms sure have changed a lot.

This blog is about Movies of our life, but in noticing this change in theme, moral, and culture in the film of our day, I've also been wondering about making a few entries regarding 70sEra Sitcoms commonly shown on channels like TV Land with the hope of taking a better look at seeing whether or not this change is just part of my own perception.

Let's see.

Cold Mountain

I did get to catch Cold Mountain about a month ago, the Civil War drama starring Jude Law, and Nicole Kidman. I enjoyed the historical portrayal of the time depicted in this 2003 film with Rene Zellweger, Donald Sutherland, and Brendan Gleeson as supporting cast members.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159365/

I caught it late at night, and some time ago, so I don't have much to write about it at the moment, but I do recall that I thought it showed some of the Southern Motivation not often taught in Northern School Curriculum.

Sixteen Candles

Sixteen Candles

Classic 80's - Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael-Hall, and a young John Cusack.

Long Duck Dong and his sexy American Girlfriend, "You don't spell it Son. You eat it."

I think my favorite was the younger brother. I think I liked him because he was my own age, and I could relate to him having two older sisters myself. But, as I got older, and caught the classic teen chick flick again, and again; he still made me laugh.

Brings up a memory lane of movies from that time like Fast Times At Ridgemont High, Weird Science, and of course the more late inspired American Pie Series.

Lionheart

I'm still so sick that I even watched a Jean Claude Van Damme movie today. Wow, that was pretty horrible, but I guess if they can spend money making movies like that it goes to show how much we as Americans love movies.

Red Dawn and Crew

I remember when they opened up the then "new" movie theater in the city where I grew up. Originally our city had held the record for the first drive-in movie in the country, so when Sumner Redstone of Viacom fame decided to redevelop and build up his then Showcase Cinema business his first of many mega-plex movie theaters was in our little beach front city. I think I was eleven years old when they (National Amusements) opened that theater. We snuck into see "The World According to Garp," with Robin Williams which you had to do a lot back then, because there wasn't a PG-13 rating yet, and none of us were 13 in the first place. Usually this was done by getting someone's parent to buy the tickets for you, or standing outside the theater to ask some other left over 70's freedom loving person to buy them for us, but we always got to see every movie we wanted to one way or another.

Later that week we got to see "Tron," which I think was sold out, or I got voted out by my pals, I don't remember exactly. I'm amazed to think now that it was now over 25 years ago that we began spending so much time at that movie theater, where we would soon see others like the one I caught most of just today, "Red Dawn," the great eighties movies that highlights so well the reality of the Cold War my friends and I were brought up in. That film with the young Charlie Sheen, Patrick Swayze, and a host of other actors that would later make up crews for movies like,

"The Outsiders, and Dirty Dancing," really captured the essence of the cold war fear scenarios that weaved their way into our young psyches. I think myself and all my buddies hoped for and wanted the day when we might see Russian Troops parachuting in front of our school. We were ready. This movie made us believe, and showed us how. But by the time it came out in August of 1984 we were now 13 years old, not eleven like when the theater opened and we weren't in the fifth grade anymore like we were when they probably began writing that movie, but I can assure you when school opened that September, I wasn't the only kid looking out the east windows of the Paul Revere School onto the baseball field, hoping.

What I Did for Love

I noticed this somewhat silly film as I was flipped through the on-screen guide tonight while watching the Super-Tuesday results coming in from around the country, and I remembered that I saw this film a year or so ago. The movie came off as a little "B-ish" for me, but I liked how they did a decent job of bringing attention to some of the ways and methods of the environmental elite in their pursuit to move the boundaries of land ownership from helping working people, families, and industry. Since that same issue has effected my own life, I take interest in it enough to possibly even see it again sometime.

Death Wish

Charles Bronson; this guy's movies so capture the 70's. Well, he acted in a lot of films, so at least the Death Wish film, as controversial as it was, captured those days. Today I caught Death Wish II before the Superbowl. There's a Death Wish Marathon on AMC today, but I couldn't handle the overload. I saw Death Wish, the original, a few weeks ago. One at a time s'enough for me.

Make History Patriots.

The In-Laws

Michael Douglas - kind of stupid, but still a little funny.

Brainstorming -

I love movies. I so miss the days at Unicorn when there was always good friends around, and movies on the television. Those were great days.

Man - I'm sore, being sick sucks.

I've thought about brainstorming films I've seen. Maybe it's a ridiculous idea to try to keep a record of the movies we've seen, but lots of people keep records of the books they read, and heck with easily accessible technology like that available with these blogs, maybe anything is possible.

There is of course movies like those I saw as a kid.

Jaws, Jaws II, Jaws III, ad infinitum,

Rambo, ( ?)

Rocky, Rocky II, III, IV, V - all on the big screen.

I also really enjoyed the Matrix movies of the late nineties.

The Matrix, II, III -

Halloween, and that terrible series that we were all willing to shell out for.

Friday the 13th, and that whole round.

And heck, there's ( Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang,)

( Mary Poppins, )

( The Love Bug ) and

( Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.)

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider

I never really had much interest in seeing this genre of films in Angelina Jolie's career, but I'm sick the last couple of days, and there isn't much else to do besides watch the boob tude, rest, and sweat out this fever. I'm not really into these kind of films in fact, they're everything I don't really enjoy, and they're about topics that if I were writing film would be the exact topics I'd like to write against. Maybe one day. We need to get our inspiration from somewhere. I know what I want to write, and it's coming along. There's just so much stuff I want to get out. That's the real challenge.

Brubaker

Starring Robert Redford - 70's movie takes on a good look at corruption and horrible depth men will go to for personal gain, - even in a prison where this film was set.

He loses his job for doing it well. I can relate to that. A great film about corruption.

The Princess of Thieves **

Today I enjoyed the 2001 movie starring Keira Knightley, and Stuart Wilson in the story of Gywn, the daughter of Robin Hood. I enjoyed the films underlying tones of man's desire to remain free to the point of self sacrafice, and the deeper cinematic portrayal of loyalty and calling in the everyman to that of the priestly level which exists in all of us. Within this film lies the calling of every soul to live lives of magnanimous proportion in whatever area we are called. Worth the time. Worthy of further viewing and ponder.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272790/