Summer Movie Season 2009

May is over, and the summer movie season has already begun with the big releases of Star Trek, Terminator Salvation, and Up. It’s kinda like Christmas, in how it starts earlier every year. But this year I’m grateful, because they got the movies I most wanted to see out of the way early. I expect to be very busy of the next 3 months to, uhh… 20 or so years, and thus won’t have much opportunity to go to movies. Hollywood was nice enough to accommodate the birth of my first child with one of the worst looking summer movie seasons in years. But there’s still a few that I want to see, so I figure I’d list them here, and let you all volunteer to babysit or something later.

May Recommendations

It’s time for another instalment of me giving quick recommendations from assorted pop culture categories of things I’m currently into. These things may or may not be current, but are things that I’m currently enjoying (or have recently enjoyed) that I think you (the reader) might enjoy as well. Provided that you enjoy things that are awesome.

In the past, I’d write reviews of things that I wanted to recommend, but I don’t have as much time to write those reviews as I used to, so instead of deciding how good something is, or weighing pros and cons, and all those things a responsible reviewer does, I’m just gonna come right out and say “I like these things. They are worthwhile”, which is basically what anyone is looking for when reading a review anyway. And because blogging can (and should) be a two-way street, please feel free to leave a comment with any recommendations you’d think I’d be into.

April Recommendations

It’s time for another installment of me giving quick recommendations from assorted pop culture categories of things I’m currently into. These things may or may not be current, but are things that I’m currently enjoying (or have recently enjoyed) that I think you (the reader) might enjoy as well. Provided that you enjoy things that are awesome.

In the past, I’d write reviews of things that I wanted to recommend, but I don’t have as much time to write those reviews as I used to, so instead of deciding how good something is, or weighing pros and cons, and all those things a responsible reviewer does, I’m just gonna come right out and say “I like these things. They are worthwhile”, which is basically what anyone is looking for when reading a review anyway. And because blogging can (and should) be a two-way street, please feel free to leave a comment with any recommendations you’d think I’d be into.

Spring Movie Season 2009

Apparently, Spring is in the air, and thus its time for me to declare which upcoming movies of the season have caught my eye. Last time out, I listed a total of 17 films that I wanted to see in that period, most of which were actually 2008 releases. Of those 17, I ended up seeing 11 of them, with one movie’s release date being pushed back to this Friday, and another that was pushed back to Friday, so I only skipped out on four I listed. I’ll catch Defiance when it comes out on blu-ray, might still make it out to Monsters vs Aliens (only on 3D though), and think Duplicity is probably worth watching, but will probably wait on that too.

This season will be the last in awhile where I can go to movies at will, and even then, the end of the season could be touch and go. As such, I’m trying to be pickier with my choices. Ultimately, this isn’t the worst thing in the world, given that many of the movies I’ve gone to recently featured various projection problems (scratched prints, poorly framed projection, not projected brightly enough, bad sound), whereas my home set-up has only gotten better.

My Blu-ray Collection

As I did with my record collection, I’m posting my blu-ray collection for your perusal. My reasons for doing this are the same: to have a digital record of what I have, to show off my stuff, to give you the opportunity to judge me from the comfort of your own home, etc. So if you ever want to have a look at what I have (like if you were thinking of getting me a gift, perchance), look for the link on the sidebar (next to my record collection and Amazon wishlist).

Now when we talk about blu-ray, the big question people have is whether or not it’s worth it. And my answer is: that depends. If you have a big enough TV, capable of receiving high definition signals, and care about visual quality, then ABSOLUTELY blu-ray is worth it. I’m in love with it; finding even crappy movies to be watchable simply to look at the improved visual clarity (I’m sure that will wear off after a bit though as the experience becomes more normative, as it did with the jump from standard definition television to high def). But, when I first got my blu-ray player, it was hooked up to a 36-inch, CRT TV capable of a maximum of 1080i. It still looked good, but didn’t blow me away like it did when we got our 46-inch, LCD, 1080p TV.

Now, when I say “care about visual quality”, I don’t necessarily mean “only enjoy flashy movies”. Even quieter, less visually-oriented films look better on BRD, with richer colours, deeper blacks, and greater clarity. But, if you’re the sort of person who is just as happy to watch a movie on your laptop as on the big screen, the improvement might not mean anything to you (or I suppose you have really bad vision).

With my collection, I’m trying not to re-buy my entire DVD collection, in part because not every BRD was digitally remastered very well and in part because I’ve discovered that I own plenty of movies that I don’t rewatch very often (if at all). That was fine when I had more disposable income and received discounts on movies, but not a practice I want to replicate with this new format, especially since it’s a lot more expensive, and probably will remain so for awhile.

Anyway, on to the collection (note that in cases where multiple versions of the title have been released, the version pictured is the version I have)…

2008 Oscar Nominations: Initial Reactions

Why so serious?

The Oscar nominations for 2008 were announced today (posted here). As always, my more complete thoughts on what were the year’s best will appear in both my year-end top ten movies list (which looks to be pushed back to early February this year) and the Andy Movie Awards, which should appear the week of the ceremony. But I thought I’d get some initial reaction on what the Academy snubbed, what they foolishly recognized, and what I have yet to see in my annual, catch-up-on-Oscars viewing checklist.

Winter Movie Season 2009

It’s time to look ahead at the upcoming movie releases to see which ones are on my radar to go see. However, given that this is the time of year that studios dump out the crap they didn’t have faith in for the back end of the previous year, I generally use this time to look back at the supposed 2008 releases that I haven’t seen yet, usually because they haven’t actually been released except for a few theatres in NY and LA. I’ll also take a look at the January to March slate of releases, but I don’t there will be many offerings worth my time.

Sleeveface

To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again

I just found out about the Sleeveface blog today, which posts pictures of “one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion”. So of course, I had to give it a shot myself once I got home. Yes, that’s me in the picture above.

Read more after the jump for more pics…

Winter Movie Season, Part One

Time to once again plan ahead for the movies I’m looking at seeing in the next couple of months. If you’re wondering, no, I don’t necessarily think that anyone else could give a damn what my movie plans are. But if one can’t use their own blog for their own purposes, then what’s the point? Plus, I’m interested in what you all are looking forward to seeing, so feel free to drop a comment.

Looking back at my fall movie list, I listed 14 movies I had my eye on to see. I ended up seeing only half of them, with 6 out of 7 of them coming at TIFF. So, since coming back from Toronto, I’ve only gone to one movie. Part of this was the lack of desire after the 28 film binge, the other part was that there hasn’t been any stellar movies to make me want to get back on the saddle. From that list, I’m still waiting for Rachel Getting Married to come to Calgary, and will go see it when it does, and will probably make time for Changeling, and maybe The Duchess and Body of Lies, although not necessarily in theatres. It’ll all depend on how much I want to see this next batch of movies.

Breaking Bad marathon

Coming off of star Bryan Cranston’s surprise Emmy win for Best Leading Actor in a Dramatic Series, AMC will be showing a Breaking Bad marathon on Wednesday (that’s October 1st for those without calendars handy), airing all 7 episodes of season one starting at 6 pm.

So if you’re like me and missed it the first time around (or first few times around with AMC’s rerun schedule), this is a great chance to check out one of the most acclaimed new series of 2008. I already have my PVR set to record the whole thing, so you probably should too.

Fall Movie Season

I do this prior to every new movie season, where I look ahead at the films to be released and pick out which ones I’m eyeing to eventually see, listing them week by week. For the Summer Movie Season, I listed a total of 14 movies of varying levels of interest. I ended up seeing 6 of them, but of the 8 I missed, I’m still only interested in seeing Hancock, American Teen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Towelhead, which was pushed back to this season. The other four are already dead to me.

But this season, I’ll be taking in 30 (or 31) movies in a week and a half at the Toronto International Film Festival, so my desire to continue going to movies throughout the month will be fairly slim (this also explains why I didn’t bother finishing off the summer movie season with American Teen or Vicky Cristina Barcelona), so to qualify for this list, a movie has to sound pretty darn interesting. But, since some of my favourite movies of 2007 came out in September and October (including 3:10 to Yuma, Gone Baby Gone, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford), I didn’t want to ignore the season completely (and yes, the season only includes September and October for me, since November is pretty wintery where I come from).

My Record Collection: N-Z

Record Collection A-M

My Record Collection: A-M

That’s right, RECORD collection, AKA vinyl, AKA those big old black round things your parents listened to music on, AKA the hipster music accessory for the new millennium. I started to collect vinyl a few years back, for no good reason other than to do it. Sure, aficionados will tell you that music sounds better on vinyl, and talk about audio waves and digital loss or whatever, but I can’t really say that’s true given that my record player isn’t exactly hi-fi.

Instead, I collect records because I like them. I like owning things, but the digital revolution has made that less and less necessary. I download music all the time, so this isn’t some luddite reactionary thing. But in an era when owning music means having something on your hard drive, I guess going back to a clunky, classic format is a way of separating myself from the herd. Any idiot with a decent internet connection can avail themselves of almost any album (and I usually do), so I guess listening to records is my way of showing that I’m more of a fan of music than them. Or maybe I just think it’s cool.

I’m posting my collection here for the usual stupid reasons: to show off my collection (even though I suspect no one cares), to have a digital copy of my collection should something happen (you know, like theft or fire), so I can remember what I have when I’m away from my house (possibly on my way to buy more records on a lunch break), and for the off chance anyone reading this is thinking of buying me a record, they can consult this list to avoid duplication (look for a link to this post on the sidebar of my blog). And, you know, the whole point of being an obsessive collector is to obsess. So feel free to peruse, critique, discuss, blahblahblah.

The Spirit talking posters

This is pretty cool. Head on over to Yahoo here (http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/thespirit_flash.html) to see teaser posters for Frank Miller’s new movie The Spirit. Make sure your speakers are on, then hover over the poster with your mouse to hear them speak.

Yep, talking posters. The future is here. (Also, kind of hard to believe that it’s taken this long for this to happen on the internet).

Hey, no fair!

The internets stole my idea! I wrote my re-review of Fantastic Four over the weekend, posting it to Blogcritics magazine on Monday: http://blogcritics.org/archives/2008/06/16/162336.php

Then today (when I posted it here an hour ago), I click on an article on Cracked, 6 Great Action Heroes (Who Should Be Convicted of Murder), and what comes up? The muthafuckin Fantastic Four and all the ways in that movie that they put human lives at jeopardy through their gross incompetence.

Cracked: “Literally every single problem in this entire movie can be traced directly to the Fantastic Four’s general incompetence. Don’t believe us? Just take the scene when the Thing, in a bold act of heroism, saves a man from being hit by a car by causing a massive car accident that almost certainly killed the driver, and killed him in a way that his widow will never be able to adequately explain.”

Me: “All the crashes, mayhem, and millions of dollars in property damages happens because The Thing decides to hang out on the Brooklyn Bridge, and scares a guy into traffic. Vehicles start crashing, bridge supports start snapping, and firefighters are put into mortal danger due to the panic created by the hero, meaning that the Fantastic Four’s big heroic introduction is basically them cleaning up their own mess.”

Now, I’m not claiming any shenanigans on their part. For all I know, this piece was written a week ago too, and I’m pretty confident that the author never, ever saw my post. Just a really weird coincidence that I wanted to point out, mostly so none of you think I ripped the idea off of them.