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Now that I know that worked (see the entry just below this one), I simply have to embed a Spiderman 3 preview. Finally, a clear indication that the filmmakers did not completely screw up the Venom story line.
If you don't like ANY spoilers, don't watch this trailer. But if you have been worried, as I have, that they were really screwing up Venom, the trailer helps assuage your fears.
Oh, and then I also have Hoosiers sitting on the pile. It's that time of year again.
Opinions, anyone?
Yes, yes, I know. I own too many DVDs.
The opinion I was looking for relates to which of the above I should watch next.
Any opinions on that topic?
Hint, the chances I will ever see Bachelor Party are pretty slim. Though I hear there is this one scene...
| Title | Rating | Type | Date | Actors | Notes |
| Jesus Christ Superstar | 91 | M | 2/24/07 | Ted Neely Carl Anderson Yvonne Elliman | What can I say. Excellent music. Great setting. I always want to see it during Lent, and it never disappoints. |
| My Fair Lady | 89 | M | 2/24/07 | Rex Harrison Audrey Hepburn | Such clever lyrics. A fine message about language. If only Eliza had found a man good enough for her. |
| Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe | 91 | F |
05/06 07/06 02/07 | They got it right. The children were perfect – especially Lucy. The world was small enough, and the inhabitants fanciful enough, and the Queen evil enough. |
I watched "Jesus Christ Superstar" on my own. I had company for the others.
Sure, we wish we had been at Leah's performance of "Beauty and the Beast." The storm canceled that. Time to "make lemonade," if you will. We got to build Magic decks, and create scrapbook pages, and do homework -- all while watching movies.
And, if you can believe it, I kept from singing during "My Fair Lady." It was tough, but I did it.
Since I was alone for "JCS," I sang. Plenty!
As an introduction:
I keep track of things. Not all things. I'm not that compulsive. But some things.
I keep track of the DVDs I own. In fact, I keep track of when we've seen them most recently (though, again, I'm not compulsive -- I know I miss tracking some viewings.) And I keep track of the movies I've seen. I have a Word document that has the movies I've seen since June 14, 2000. I keep track of them in a table, like this:
| Title | Rating | Type | Date | Actors | Notes |
| Akeelah and the Bee | 86 | D | 1/25/07 | Laurence Fishburne Angela Bassett Keke Palmer | OK, so it was somewhat predictable, and some of the conflict relied on a too-detached single mom, but the acting was very good, and the emotional payoff was great. And “Javier” was priceless. |
| Click | 59 | C | 1/25/07 | Adam Sandler Christopher Walken Kate Bekinsale | If only Sandler weren’t so enamored with the crude humor, I could have liked this enough to recommend it. Honestly, how funny is it seeing a dog humping a stuffed animal? Again. And Again? |
| Monty Python's Life of Brian | 82 | C | 1/26/07 | Graham Chapman John Cleese Eric Idle Michael Palin Terry Jones Terry Gilliam | Still funny after all these years. The humorous takes on the infighting are some of the best parts. But the very best part is the ending song! |
As you can see, I rate each movie with a number. The scale is 0 - 100. In general, a movie needs to get above a 70 before I would recommend it, and generally movies in the 70-80 range would carry conditional recommendations -- I'd recommend it if I knew a particular person liked something that the movie provided.
I try to make a small comment -- a micro-review -- about most of them.
The hardest part of the whole process is assigning a number, and the examples above demonstrate the difficulty. Do I really think "Akeelah and the Bee" is better than "Monty Python's Life of Brian?" Well, it's hard to say. "Brian" means more to me, and on my own, I'd watch "Brian" more often. But for the general viewer, "Akeelah" is going to be more enjoyable. Still, one of the things I try to do is rate the film very soon after I saw it. "Akeelah" got its rating this way -- it's a very emotionally satisfying film, and I may have rated it slightly higher because of the "high" I was on. "Brian," on the other hand, I first saw many years ago, but just recently saw it on DVD. It aged much better than some films from my youth, but I'm clearly ranking it with many years to come down from the initial "high" it engendered.
Nevertheless, I'll keep doing this. It's fun to go back and think about movies I've seen. It's fun to rate them, even if I do have to think "Is 'Brian' better or worse than 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail?'"
Now the stage is set. I could post these micro-reviews in the future, and I have already introduced the "why and how."
Enjoy, if you can.
Just a spoiler warning -- if you haven't seen it yet, I will be spoiling some things. Don't read any more of this.
Really.
You'll be upset.
Don't go any further.
I mean it.
OK, this should be far enough.
Why do I bother with such a long spoiler warning?
Because no one spoiled it for ME! And I thank all of you who could have. Sincerely.
You see, when "Batman Begins" first came out, I knew I would want to see it. But I didn't get to it. And then lots of people I knew went to it, and I still didn't go. And almost to a person, those people told me they not only thought it was a really good movie, but also that they knew I would like it a lot!
And still, I didn't get to the theater.
So, when it came out on DVD, I had my family buy it (I was away on business that week). And finally, about two weeks ago, I saw it!
Can you tell I liked it?
Look folks, the "Batman" conceived of by Tim Burton was great, and Michael Keaton surprised me along with many other Batman fans by pulling off a believable Caped Crusader. Burton set a great atmosphere and put together a tight story. Keaton and Burton together chose to do a very somber Bruce Wayne, and it worked. I loved that movie, too -- though certainly some of the credit goes to Jack Nicholson, who did justice to the Joker.
But here, in "Batman Begins" we get to delve into the creation of this masked hero in ways that we haven't in other versions of the story. The origin was so much more complete, and tying it to one of Batman's most sinister and believable foes, Ra's Al Ghul, was an act of storytelling genius. (Credit Nolan and David S. Goyer) And, when the Bale/Nolan Bruce Wayne is faced with creating a secret identity, he does what the comics had him do -- he takes on the persona of a rude, spoiled playboy!
Folks, I don't mean to sound like a snobbish purist, but the "playboy" secret identity was a key component of Bruce Wayne for years and years in the comics. The simple fact is that the TV and movie versions of the story simply chose to go other directions.
So Nolan went back to the roots, and pulled it off well.
More "roots" showed up in the appearance of the second foe -- who seemed to be the primary villain for a good portion of the film -- Scarecrow! How excellent! Batman was always the hero who struck fear into the hearts of evil-doers. So Scarecrow was conceived as an opponent who would do the same to Batman. Cillian Murphy, whom I had never seen before, was insidiously wonderful in the role. That Scarecrow and his schemes were the catalyst for all the future supervillains in Gotham City was fantastic!
But the very best part of the story was the twist -- the revealing of Ra's Al Ghul and Wayne/Batman having to face him again. I loved this! And it all fit! Why get Liam Neeson in the movie otherwise?
So, I think this is enough. I didn't talk about Michael Caine's Alfred (not as stuffy as others have played him, but a great fit) or the inclusion of Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox (now the world knows where Batman got all those gadgets!) or Gary Oldman as (the future Commissioner) Gordon.
A sequel might have a tough time living up to the bar set by this movie, but with characters and actors like these, I think it's inevitable.
And maybe we'll see a little more of Katie Holmes?
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