#5: Often, people will discuss writers, directors, actors, and other creative people who they believe are underrated, underappreciated, and just not as recognized as they should be. We’ve done Fivegoos on the subject, I’ve made lists of them, and it’s the kind of thing that, once you start recognizing certain people continually popping up and consistently creating quality performances and movies seemingly out of nowhere, makes you start to remember these people, and watch their careers, eagerly anticipating whatever it is they’re doing next. So, after doing our Fivegoo of underrated directors, after the camera stopped rolling, Josh, Kyle, Dave, and Dancy turned and asked me who I felt was a severely underrated director, and the first name that popped into my head was that of Rian Johnson.

At first, I was hesitant at the time to say that Johnson would be underrated, as he’s only really been an active filmmaker for the last five years, during which he made two movies, Brick and The Brothers Bloom. But, sitting at my computer with iTunes on shuffle, the score from Bloom (by his equally talented brother, Nathan) began to play, and I realized, during my distracted thoughts of all the things I loved about that movie, that if just hearing a theme from one of my movies can take me away from whatever I’m doing and think of his work, than he’s got to be doing something that I really like.

With both of his movies, Rian Johnson has used two completely different styles that, despite their superficial differences, with Brick being a high school neo-noir that takes place over a few days in a single town, and The Brothers Bloom being a con-artist caper story that spans years and a variety of international locations (including scenic New Jersey), feature very specific kinds of characters and dialogue that make it very apparent that the same guy is behind them both. Their plots are twisting and complex, and the truth is never what it seems, or what the characters believe it to be. And while his movies might deal with fairly serious subject matter, be it drug addiction, revenge and murder, they always manage to keep include a good amount of humor to even things out and never let them get too dark or melodramatic. It’s this combination of humor, mystery, and style that made The Brothers Bloom one of my favorite movies of 2009 and Brick my favorite movie of 2006.

As I’ve stated several time so far, Rian Johnson doesn’t seem to have reached a point yet where his movies are appreciated on a mainstream scale, and I’ve heard people who have disliked both of his movies for all kinds of reasons, without knowing that the same person was behind them both. However, I feel like there’s a lot more to come from Johnson, and if his next movie, Looper, a time traveling action thriller starring Bruce Willis and Johnson regular Joseph Gordon Levitt, can live up to its concept and reach more people than his previous movies, than hopefully he can one day become as respected and acclaimed as I consider him to be, and as long as he keeps making movies, I’ll keep watching them.

Way to pick up the slack Dancy.

#4: Memory is a funny thing. I’m convinced that some of my earliest recollections are just my imagined versions of stories my mom has told me a hundred times, that I’ve convinced myself I remember. It seems like every time I tell her I’m going to the movies, or about a something that I’ve watched recently, she reminds me that the very first movie I had ever seen in a theater was Peter Pan, and how I ran to the front of the audience and sang along to all of the songs every time one would play.

Now, this was when I was around two years old, so I’m convinced that I can’t possibly remember it. And, yet, I can picture it in my head, the combination of what I looked like at that age, the theater I was in, Peter Pan on the screen. I think just the knowledge of these things, what they look like and what I imagine it was like to be there, allowed my mind to just fill in the blanks and create what feels like a memory, even though it can’t possibly be.

The only thing that I can’t believe is the whole singing along to the songs bit. Now, look, Peter Pan’s not a bad movie, and if it was the first movie I saw in a theater, so be it, but it doesn’t have the most memorable songs. Off the top of my head, I don’t think I could tell you how any of them go now (except for the way the words “You Can Fly” are sung), so I don’t know how I would’ve been able to sing along to them as a two year old. Unless I just kind of mumbled along until they got to the words that I knew, or I was some kind of prodigy that could calculate the way a song will sound by just hearing the first few notes and understanding the context that it was being presented in. But I doubt it. However, none of this will keep me from, when giving directions that I don’t know to a stranger who’s lost, telling him to the first star to the right and straight on ‘til morning, and then running away while flailing my arms wildly above my head. Nothing will ever change that.

Please post your top ten of 2010. That year ended like a month ago.

Sincerestly,
josh

Full list of nominations for the 83rd annual Academy Awards provided by IMDB.com here

For us movie nerds, this is the moment we wait for all year. The Oscar nods. We wait to see how many, if any, nominations our favorite movies of the year receive. But what tends to be most interesting for me is seeing what was, in my humble opinion, snuffed, forgotten, neglected of recognition, given flase accalade or just plain passed over. FOR EXAMPLE:

INCEPTION was not nominated for direction or editing – the two awards I think it deserved most.
THE KING’S SPEECH was nominated for anything. Which it does not deserve.
127 HOURS’ Danny Boyle was nominated over Christopher Nolan and was nominated for best picture.
TRUE GRIT’s Co Bros were nominated over Chris Nolan. Now, I love everything Coen Brothers. They’re prob’ly my favorite director/writer/editor ever. But TRUE GRIT was not their strongest film of recent.
Lastly, but not leastly, a good surprise: DOGTOOTH getting a nod for best foreign language film. Awesome.

In short – The Oscars are useless. Who cares what wins? I claim not to, but if THE KING’S SPEECH sweeps I’ll fucking vomit.

KAZAAM!

Ok here’s the deal. I was Googling myself and I found a LOLtastic Angelfire website I apparently had my junior year of high school. L O L. From the looks of it, I had some high hopes for this little website. I must have thought I was so damn cool and witty.

The only review it seems I put up was one for Lion King 1 1/2. So here it is unedited and in it’s original format. Seriously, L O L!

Lion King 1 ½

So my younger brother decides to to buy Lion King 1 ½ for my other young brother and sister. Now I was kid when Lion King came out and it will forever remain one of my favorite childhood movies. It has everything a child could want, death, denial, betrayal you name it. So I grabbed the chance to watch Lion King 1 ½.

Plot – 6/10 – Ok, after watching Lion King 1 and Lion King 2 theres only but so much you can expect for this, umm thing. The whole point of the movie is, Timon and Pumba decide to tell their side of the story, how they viewed the whole thing. There are, of course lots of things that happened in Lion King 1 that just “happed” to be the caused by Timon and Pumba. An example would be, Pumba farting causing the animals to collapses causing all the other animals to bow when Rafikee raises Simba in the air. Basically watching this move was like watching an 80 minute episode of Timon And Pumba. They tried, and of course it has its moments. Oddly my 4 year old brother and sister had no interest in it at all.

Genre – 10/10 The movie lives up to its title as a Disney movie. I mean this movie couldn’t have gotten anymore Disney. Disasters, rejection, making pumba out to be an outcast just because he’s different, yup very Disney.

Attention – 5/10 – The movie tries to make kids and adults laugh, but none of my younger siblings, who are poster children for Disney, had any interest in it at all. As for me I laugh for a few minutes but then the laughter stopped and the jokes became to redundant. But like I said what do you expect from a Disney movie.

Acting - 8/10 – I think Pumba played a Wart Hog just a little wrong, I mean I haven’t met wart hog who goes around farting all the time, and sings songs. Same goes for the meerkats I don’t think they sing songs about digging tunnels. Kinda scary actually.

Overall – 29/40 (B+) – Overall this move was here to give Timon and Pumba some movie time. Theres truthfully not much to say about this movie. It was one of those bleh movies where it had its parts.

BONUS: Oh yes, there was a “rating system!”

I rate movies based on 5 things:

Plot – The overall *Schtick* of the story. Can it stick to its point. Is the story crap or not.
Genre – Basically if the movie can live up to its category, comedy, horror whatever.
Attention – This just shows if it held my attention or not. Boring.
Acting – Admit it lots of people suck at acting and lots of people can actually do it.
Overall movie – Bleh.

Each category is based on a score from 0-10 because I said so.
Then the movie will be given a total. If the movie made me crap my pants cause it was so good, the best score you can get is a 40.
There are times I’ll add in an extra point or 2 for extra stuff.
0———–Horrible / F
1-9———don’t waste you time / D
10-19——-Watch it when your bored / C
20-29——Pretty good go see it / B
30-39 —–An interesting movie exist! / A
40 ———Wow a 40 hot damn that was good / A+

Hollywood Video, Blockbuster, Movie Gallery, TLA, Suncoast and others like them are shutting their doors soon because of a little amazing invention called Netflix. Although this is quite sad in some respects, it is also a great thing for collectors of fine digital film discs. What am I talking about? Well I’ll tell you, rock star. Due to their closing, stores such as Hollywood and Blockbuster are trying to cut their losses ass much ass possible. This means they’ve been forced to sell every goddamn thing they own. Including, but not exclusive to -  shelving, bubble gum machines, candy, pre-packaged pickles, office supplies, posters and most excitingly and importantly – DVDS!!!!! It’s fucking great. About a two months ago, a Blockbuster in Springfield, PA announced they were permanently shutting their doors as of the end of May. Previously viewed DVDs started at 10 percent off their original price but I knew this wasn’t as low as they’d go (due to an insider tip) so I waited it out. Five days before the official death of the Springfield, PA Blockbuster I took full advanatage of the ridiculously low prices. By that last week, DVDs were 60-70% off their market value. I got ten movies. 10! PREMIUM USED VIDEOS for 35 dollars. I cried a single tear of joy that day.

I strongly encourage you to seek out these so-called ‘dying stores’ and spend your entire paycheck buying used copies of THE CONDEMNED.

Some Closing Stores:
Blockbuster in Lansdowne, PA
Blockbuster in Old Forge, PA
Blockbuster in Media, PA
Blockbuster in Reading, PA
Hollywood Video in Ewing , NJ
Hollywood Video in Dover, DE
Hollywood Video in York, PA
Hollywood Video in Fishtown, Philadelphia, PA

BOOM!

A Single Reason I LOVE ERASERHEAD:
Every cut starts a new room tone.

For those amateurs out there who are asking “what’s room tone”? – just think…The tone (sound) a room has/gives when audio is recorded in it. A warehouse with a fish tank and an old ventilation system will probably sound like a big, cement or wooden room with some water flowing in it and creeky air flow. Every time a shot changes in David Lynch’s only good movie, so does the sound of the space. It forces the audience to become increasingly uncomfortable and paranoid-two very obvious goals of the film maker to begin with. I love that about ERASERHEAD.

BOOM!

P.S. I feel really lame and gay now.

Not sure what my motivation was to do this. This seems more like an end of the year thing. Instead of writing a review during my boredom, I decided to take Excel for a spin. What does this show/prove? NOTHING!! Except maybe that I watch more newer movies and Dave watches more older movies (due to his Oscar winner thingermabob I guess.) Depression and pizza rolls are to blame.

Please forgive me internetz. It has been 38 days since my last review. I’ve been away exploring the vast regions and landscapes of Cleveland, Ohio in search of the great blue eared turtle slug frog of the east. In my journeys, I’ve had to fight Jewish monks and Saudis. Damn those Saudis are tough. With all the fighting and ass kicking, I’ve had no time to watch movies anymore….UNTIL NOW! Now that I’ve found the great blue eared turtle slug frog of the east, I’ve been able to mend the religious conflict that has lasted 38 days between Ohio and it’s neighboring great state, Pennsylvania (But really come on, if the war were still going on, everyone knows Pennsylvania would kill Ohio in a footrace.)

With a library of great movies in my knapsack and peace in my great state, I will now sit down and write the greatest movie reviews you have ever read…after Wife Swap goes off