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.