Archive for the Movies tag

Mike

Wisconsin 2013 – Movies

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Remember the Titans @ Camp Randall
Bucky hanging before Remember the TitansThe first item on the agenda after I arrived in Madison was to catch a movie. A movie that would be shown on the video board inside Camp Randall. What a great idea. You’ve got this really nice video board. A huge stadium that is only used a few times a year. It doesn’t even have natural grass, so you can sit on the field with no one concerned about the grass. We had a spot in the middle of the end zone, right in front of the goal posts.

I hadn’t seen Remember the Titans in a long long time. It has never been one of my favorites but people always seemed to love it. After seeing it again a few things stood out: 1) I hadn’t realized that my friends repeated so many lines from the movie that I probably heard the entire script, just on shuffle, on a daily basis and 2) having now been to Alexandria, VA a few times, it makes the movie a bit more shocking, given how it’s affluent DC suburb these days. The rest of the movie was typical football movie, which is fine and something I’m all for in this setting. There would be few better choices.

There had been a vote for which movie to watch, the options were: Despicable Me, Oz The Great and Powerful, Friday Night Lights, Remember The Titans, and The Avengers. I was surprised they weren’t all sports movies and two of them were PG-13. Remember the Titans won and I don’t think it was a close fight.

If they pick Little Giants next year, I might have to fly back.

The Way Way Back
We caught this one at a normal theater. Mostly normal. First, the theater was in a mall. We used to have theaters in malls but they all moved out years ago. This was a new mall theater and really nice. The strangest thing was that when we bought our tickets at the box office, we had to select our seats. Assigned seats!

A lot of people haven’t heard of this movie, so here’s the trailer. Or just trust me, cause the trailer covers a lot.

I loved it, you have to see it. I’m calling it my favorite movie of the summer. Keep in mind it’s the only movie I’ve seen this summer. In case you didn’t watch the trailer. It focuses on a teenage boy spending the summer with his mom at her boyfriend’s beach house, along with the boyfriend and his daughter. Steve Carrell is the boyfriend and he is awful, in a good way. So crazy because he is always nice. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the teenager is awkard and doesn’t get along with Steve Carrell. So he wanders off and makes his own friends, which is where the fun begins. Also in the movie, Allison Janney, is the neighbor and should be nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Also, there needs to be some sort of comedy acting Oscar, so Sam Rockwell could win it.

The movie was written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who are both in the movie and you should already know them because the won the Oscar for The Descendents screenplay, and because Jim Rash is the dean on Community. The Descendents was adapted from a book, this one is all theirs. I will see there next three movies, even if the next two are terrible, I’d still give them a third shot.

Mighty Ducks 1 & 2

Random, yes. My friend took me to some of his friends’ apartment warming party with a theme of food from Minnesota & Wisconsin. I thought it would be an outdoor BBQ and escalate quickly. Instead it was indoors and we wound up watching the first two Mighty Ducks movies. They had the box set, but everyone was too tired for the third movie.

Have you seen Mighty Ducks recently? Grab some friends and do it. The first one holds up pretty well. I hadn’t remembered the super cheesy sound effects and that one of the Ducks lines was called the Oreo Line (yes, in a kids movie). I also got to revisit the nickname ‘cake eater’ which when I was little I always felt I didn’t understand so it must be super awful, but no. The first time he heard it, Banks should have just said, ‘you have a problem with cake?’ and it would have been done with. The second one is pretty much the exact same movie. The Ducks become the junior national team, and they only add five outsiders, all from the south!

Mike

More Inbetweeners and More Ellen at the Oscars

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Inbetweeners 2 Next Summer!
I’m really excited about this, if you couldn’t tell. I watched the US version first before going back and watching the British version and movie. I love both versions, probably because they are nearly identical. I’d prefer more of the US one, only because I don’t get all the slang and references of the UK one, but I’ll deal. I’m just excited to have more Inbetweeners. I just hope it makes it to the US quickly.
The_Inbetweeners_-_E4.com

Ellen DeGeneres to Host Oscars
She hosted in 2007. Which made me look up who hosted since. Since Ellen it was Jon Stewart, Hugh Jackman, Alec Baldwin & Steve Martin, James Franco & Anne Hathaway, Billy Crystal (after Eddie Murphy dropped out), and Seth MacFarlane. That Franco/Hathaway one was so bad, my memory is fuzzy on everything before. I completely forgot about Hugh Jackman.

Mike

My Pitch: Creed should be a prequel

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Creed
A Rocky spin-off featuring the grandson of Apollo Creed being trained by Rocky. Are tickets on sale yet? Michael B. Jordan will play the lead. He’s popping up everywhere. And while I’m sure Fruitvale Station is an amazing movie, I don’t think I’d be able to watch it.

PitchSwap
Saw this on the Technical.ly Philly blog. Sounds like this is usually an event where you pitch your ideas but is now trying a web site. It reminded me of ThePult, just before the idea, where ThePult is for after launching. So far there is just one pitch. I like the idea so I’m going to keep an eye on it, hoping to see lots of interesting ideas.

Freakanomics Radio: The Upside of Quitting
I’m finally reading Freakanomics (I think it was really cheap on Amazon), but I’ve seen the documentary and subscribed to the podcast. This is only the second episode that sounded interesting enough to listen. I’m not sure you need the whole hour to get the point that quitting isn’t so bad.

I completely agree, no surprise, since I decided to listen. I don’t think I’ve quit nearly as much as I should have in my life. I quit baseball during high school, that came more from a series of bad coaches than not wanting to play anymore. I quit my job to go back to school. A possibly crazy decision that I’ve never once regretted. Most everything else I muddle through until I get to the finish line.

These days when I think about quitting, it’s a variety of things, from simple to large. Should I delete a TiVo Season Pass for a show that I don’t really like anymore that has become more chore than enjoyment? The most recent examples are Mad Men and The Newsroom. Should I unsubscribe from a podcast or give up on a book or video game that is just average? There is so much good content that I have to raise the bar a bit to great to free up time to write more than one blog post a month.

The more complicated decisions come to projects I work on. Some of them I’ve worked on over a few years, others are some that I just spent a lot of time on recently. Most of them don’t require much time currently, but none of them have been successful, so why bother to continue? One problem is a lack of feedback. No one ever provides feedback, positive or negative. So I never know if my idea or execution is lacking or just poor marketing. At some point I think I’ll have collected enough domains that one of them will come up for renewal and the $10 will push me over the edge. I like cheap domains, but if they were a little more expensive, I’d do a little more contemplating when it comes time to renew.

Mike

Cockneys vs Zombies Trailer

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I never got into the zombie craze. All the preparing for the zombie apocalypse books, and The Walking Dead was so boring I quit watching it in the middle of an episode. However, I’m all in for this.


Cockneys vs Zombies
Mike

Oz the Great and Powerful – Trailer

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Oz the Great and Powerful – Trailer

How did I not know about this? A prequel to The Wizard of Oz. I guess it was about time. Just the idea of the backstory of how Oz came to Oz (which thing was named Oz first, already a question!) had me hooked. I’ll admit to being a little (lot?) disappionted to see James Franco leading this, but I’ll deal.

I mean, did you see the flying monkeys??? (They might be a little too CGI’d, I’d rather the original flying monkeys.)

Found on Den of Geek

Mike

Now on Netflix Instant: Thor

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Such a big deal, that Netflix even made a blog post about it. Well, just that Thor is the first of a few super hero movies Netflix has lined up for the summer. That includes some Transformers, Captain America, Conan, and Immortals (which I haven’t heard of).

NetflixThor

Don’t get too excited, I didn’t like Thor very much. I’m not recommending this for your Saturday night. This is all I had to say about it a little while after seeing it.

[tweet https://twitter.com/jankm/status/177073868803018754]

Mike

Now on Netflix Instant: The Hammer

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Netflix The Hammer
How have you not seen The Hammer yet? Do you not listen to me? Now it’s on Netflix Instant. So you’ve run out of excuses.

What else do you need than Netflix categorizing the movie as ‘Inspiring’?

Mike

Ted

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Movies I’m excited for in 2012, ones that I might actually go see: The Hobbit, The Dictator, Paranorman.

and add to that list, Ted …

Mike

95 movie sequels currently in the works

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95 movie sequels currently in the works
Found this amazing overview of sequels while being curious about Sin City 2.

Mike

When did Netflix last update their Top 100?

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Seems like the Top 100 on Netflix would be somewhat interesting. To see what people are selecting. To find something popular you might not have thought of.

Instead, it just sits there. It’s such an odd list that I’m not even sure when or how it was calculated. Just look …

The movies here range from 2005-2009. I’ve seen all of them except The Hurt Locker (which you can see is in my queue). The only ones I’d actually call good are The Blind Side and Gran Torino. At least Iron Man and Sherlock Holmes are the sort of blockbusters that I would expect to be highly ranked on a Netflix list, most everyone at least checks them out. Of course, that popularity would have faded. Iron Man 2 isn’t even in the Top 100.

Forget it, no more analyzing. Just observe the ridiculousness.

Mike

No Avatar, Again

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I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who didn’t see Avatar last year. Well, that’s not really true. I know a few people. I’m pretty sure I’m only person who wanted to see it that didn’t and the only person who has friends that didn’t want to see it.

I avoided seeing it on Blu-Ray, waiting for some way to see it in 3D. Likely with a 3D TV in a few years. So imagine my excitement a few months ago when I heard that a Director’s Cut would be coming to theaters. Who cares about the extra footage, I just want to see it in 3D in a theater. Also, I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to find a few people at Penn State who would want to go.

This morning I went to check out the times at the local theaters only to find that it’s not playing in State College! What?!? Of course it’s at a few theaters back home. I had to expand my search to 100 miles before finding 3 theaters. That kills my opportunity to get anyone to go. I could talk someone in to a 5 minute drive to the theater. No one is going to go for a 4-hour round trip to see a 3-hour movie.