Category: movies

Summer Blockbusters

Karen2 Comments

We’re going to see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen tonight, and while I don’t have high expectations of it, just yesterday I found a priceless review by Roger Ebert that makes me think it’s going to be pretty bad:

“If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.”

“The music of hell”? Roger Ebert, you are a treasure. I will think of your review tonight in the theater and probably laugh in inappropriate moments.

And speaking of movies: This site is genius. Genius! Why has no one thought of this before?

Let’s Talk About The Twilight Movie

Karen3 Comments

This movie made it onto the Netflix queue because I was considering the books for trashy summer reading (along with Anne McCaffery and some Ian Fleming) and I thought the movie might give me an idea of how bad the books might be.

And let me tell you, it was bad. Not so much bad dialogue, or a bad plot (well…), but bad for teen girls all over America: How did a book that teaches you that it’s ok to throw all your love at someone who will hurt you–who might even kill you–become a worldwide bestselling romance? Because in real life the person you’re throwing your love at isn’t a sparkly vampire; he’s just going to give you a broken arm. Or worse.

So I don’t think I need to read the books–I’ll spare myself that frustration (and spare Mr. Isbell the rants about women perpetuating these behavior patterns). (Seriously, Woman Author and Women Director and Producers? You think that because a secondary character asks a boy to prom that this makes your book/movie modern and empowering? Wow.)

The movie ended with a Radiohead song, though. I didn’t see that coming.

Dickensian

Karen1 Comment

I’ve been watching a BBC miniseries version of Bleak House this week (yes, I got it for the title) and it’s awesome. I don’t have a lot of patience with reading Dickens, but watching it is great. According to Wikipedia, Bleak House is “held to be one of Dickens’s finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon.” After just the first two installments, there’s already been a Mr. Krook, the bad landlord, a Miss Flite, the crazy bird lady, and someone named Mr. Guppy. And a minor character will die of spontaneous human combustion! Really, what more could one ask for in a miniseries?