Category: media

pam and i just finished watching the modern version of the manchurian candidate. it was a top notch movie. very suspenseful, good plot, etc. it has been so long since i’ve seen the original that i’m not even really sure that i did see the original one. therefore, i’m going to have to go back and watch it or re-watch it depending on the circumstances.

pamela and i are presently watching signs by m. night shyamalan. i love this movie. in fact i really like all of shyamalan’s movies. i watched the village earlier this week. i love the fact that so many people were perturbed by knowing so early in the movie that the “monster” is fake. of course, the movie wasn’t about the monster, it was about the fact that they were trying to “hide away” from the evils of the world outside the village. the movie was a discussion of the nature of evil and the nature of humanity. the “elders” of the village had to deal with the fact that they had brought evil with them into the village when they brought humans who had the GOD given freedom to choose evil.

of course, my favorite m. night shyamalan movie is unbreakable. the development of a hero. now that’s a good movie.

i can’t wait until december 2005 because that is when disney will release the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. c.s. lewis was brillant and i am very excited about this film adaptation of his classic children’s series. they just better not mess it up. the first trailer doesn’t tell much because it is nothing more than customes and such. the film better be good. i’m not sure how i’ll respond if it isn’t. you can’t go messing with a classic unless you do it justice.

anways here’s the trailer for the film.

here’s the trailer for “charlie and the chocolate factory” which is another movie that i really hope the film industry doesn’t mess up. tim burton is doing it and that bodes well for it, but i just can’t imagine johnny depp being able to surpass gene wilder as willy wonka.

some works of fiction are better of not messed with.

i’m a “johnny come lately”. i’m never on the cutting edge of anything. rather, i hear about things that are supposed great, i then usually ignore those great things or think up reasons why they aren’t really very good at all, and then eventually i come around to try whatever it was that everyone was saying was so good before hand. this is my usual mode of operation. sometimes i love those things that i initially ignored.

i’m sadden to admit that it has happened again. this time it occurred with a television shows that i have been hearing was great for two years. the show is “24” and i have been ignoring it for awhile. i heard wonderful comments concerning it. several people i know have brag about. i’ve heard stories about people having marathon “24” weekends in which they watched an entire season in one to three sittings.

yet i ignored the television show even though i knew it sounded like one that i would like. that’s all changed now. tuesday night i saw my first episode of 24 and was blown away by it. it was incredible. so incredible in fact that i went out today and rented the first 8 hours of the first season. i watched the first four hours of the show earlier today while i was working on the material for the “sabbath” retreat that we are doing this weekend. it was great t.v. i can’t wait to watch the next four hours tomorrow while i finalize the last minute details for the retreat. the problem is that i’ll then have to figure out how to watch the remaining 16 hours of video and still have a semi-normal life. actually if anyone has the first series on dvd and can loan me the remaining four discs you would save me about twenty bucks and i would be very much appreciative.

then i have to get the next two seasons of “24” in somehow. that’s allot of video to watch.

a while back pamela gave me the complete tick live action series on dvd. “the tick” was this great, odd comic book that was turned into an animated series and had such a strong cult following that it was converted into the live action series. unufortunately, the live action series only lasted one year. that’s the problem with television, it never notices when it has a truly brillant show and therefore drops the great stuff for drivel.

actually “the tick” was a series that based on quirky humor. you either loved the jokes or simply didn’t get them. most people didn’t get them and therefore it passed off of the television schedule. yet the people who loved the series have continued to love it and it has maintained good sales on the dvd market. hurray for cult followings (pass the cool-aide please).

but what about the animated series? i haven’t been able to find the complete thing and that was frustrating. yet now thanks be to abe haley and his brother micah i have now been able to borrow the entire series. micah found a copy of the entire series that someone had recorded off of t.v. they’re not the greatest quality but they are at least visible and audible. i’ll put up with poor quality audio & video as long as the content is truly great. “the tick” is truly great. so for the past three days i have been watching 3 twenty minute segments a day. i love it. the animated series is so completely stupid.

the whole series reminds me of danger mouse – the greatest of all cult television shows.

thanks abe and micah for the loan of the dvds. y’all are the best.

i’m not the biggest skateboarding fan in the world (though i have one child who is really into it and another who thinks he is). yet, when i saw this video of rodney mullen street boarding i was amazed. this amount of skill in anything is impressive to me. when you can do things that should be against the laws of physics and make it look very easy then you must have an extreme amount of skill. anyways, you need to see this video whether you like skateboarding or not.

here it is. – windows media version
here it is – mpeg version

i took the boys to see national trasure this afternoon and i would like to make a few comments.

first, i became very excited during the previews (sometimes my favorite part of going to the movies). the reason for my excitement was the trailer that appeared for the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. when i saw the trailer all i could say was “don’t panic”. the movie comes out may 6, 2005. i’ll count the days until it arrives. i just hope that it lives up the trilogy – all five books of it.

second, i was excited about the movie for a few different reasons:

• it was nice to watch an adult movie with my kids and not have to worry about the language or content. the movie was clean without being preachy or cheesy. according to screenit.com there were only a few words to watch for within the whole movie.
• it was a suspenseful, action packed, and entertaining.
• for a nicholas cage movie the acting was not all that bad. i usually find cage to be the same character in each of his movies. he was still very much the same in national treasure but i felt like he had toned it down a little and i appreciated that.

third, the movie was a complete rip off from the da vinci code. the only difference is “national treasure” is based on searching for a “lost/hidden” treasure while “the da vinci code” is based on looking for the “lost/hidden” holy grail. it’s literally the same story – just with a changed object to find. it should be interesting to see what happens when the da vinci code movie comes out in 2006 since it seems like “national treasure” may have ripped off their plot already.

fourth, about half-way through the movie strobe lights started going off within the theater. then there was an announcement over the intercom asking everyone to please exit the facility in a calm and orderly manner because there was an emergency. it was the fire alarm. i now know why they say to never shout out “fire” in a crowded theater. the reason is because people start looking out for themselves. even though everyone was confused their primal instincts for survival started kicking in and they started “walking” fast for the exits. the boys and i were on the front row of the middle section and it was hard to get out because the people form the back kept on pushing through. i kept on having the hold the boys back from getting walked over. about the time that i got the boys safely out of the row an employee had come in and said it was a false alarm. thankfully, we were right at our seats and able to plop right back down. it made for a thrilling movie experience.

i watched the way we were tonight. i can not believe that this is supposed to be a great movie. pam fell asleep during it and i merely finished watching it because i figured i had too. it was slow overall and i felt like the whole thing had been made for a bad hallmark commercial. truly a loser of a film.

i have to admit a dirty little secret. i love the reality t.v. show my big, fat boss. i haven’t seen all of the shows so i can’t speak for all their content but the two episodes i have seen have been hilarious. i love the fact that the show’s producers constantly try to throw “curve balls” at the pseudo-contestants within the show. it’s great to see them try to make sense of things and then have the producers change directions on them again and again.