I am sure you will do as well.
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movies. Show all posts
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Astronauts in the Movies quiz
AMC has an astronauts in the movies quiz written by a contributor to sfsignal. I think that if you like movies and science fiction you may find it easy. My score as 100%.
I am sure you will do as well.
I am sure you will do as well.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Guerilla Drive In on Saturday Night in West Chester
As I posted last night we got the chance to see "Back to the Future" at the Guerilla Drive in in West Chester. The Guerilla Drive in isn't a place, it is a guy with a movie projector in the side car of his motorcycle and he arranges secret locations to show movies on 16mm. To get on the list you have to find the MacGuffin, which we did when it was at the hot dog place last year (it has since moved, follow the clues), but haven't gone to one of these movie occasions until now while we sorted out vacations before the baby and the baby after the baby.
The motorcycle, side car, projector and banner.
As part of the "Back to the Future" them he arranged for the DeLorean Mid-Atlantic Club to bring their prized DeLerean's to the show on top of the Biecentennial Garage in West Chester. Having never even seen a DeLorean in person, this was probably the most DeLoreans I will ever see together in one place in my lifetime, there were six, including one tricked out like the famous time travelling DeLorean of "Back to the Future".
Two Deloreans
Four more Deloreans
"Back to the Future" DeLorean drive side.
"Back to the Future" DeLorean passenger side with Flux capacitor.
There was a costume contest, the guy who won is the one on the yellow tyvek above with a very authentic box to carry his plutonium in. There was a girl with an exact copy of the dress that Loraine wore in the movie to the Enchanted under the sea ball, there was a George McFly, and several Doc Browns. One four week old baby had a "Save the Clock Tower" onesie on, who did not win the contest because us spectator judges are heartless , I guess.
The organizer, John Young, picked this garage so that we could see the clock tower in the middle of West Chester while we watched the movie.
Here is my view, with clock tower on the screen and in the background. The West Chester clock tower was NOT hit by lightning at 10:04 PM. He also figured out a way to dim the garage lights around the screen on the top level by using LED lights stuck on the light sensors of the tower lights, clever.
We had a blast and met some nice people, and got our Guerilla Drive In merit badge. We can't wait to do something like this again. How cool and nice is it that guys like John Young do this kind of thing.
More on the Back to the Future West Chester Guerilla Drive In event at John Young's blog.
The motorcycle, side car, projector and banner.As part of the "Back to the Future" them he arranged for the DeLorean Mid-Atlantic Club to bring their prized DeLerean's to the show on top of the Biecentennial Garage in West Chester. Having never even seen a DeLorean in person, this was probably the most DeLoreans I will ever see together in one place in my lifetime, there were six, including one tricked out like the famous time travelling DeLorean of "Back to the Future".
Two Deloreans
Four more Deloreans
"Back to the Future" DeLorean drive side.
"Back to the Future" DeLorean passenger side with Flux capacitor.
There was a costume contest, the guy who won is the one on the yellow tyvek above with a very authentic box to carry his plutonium in. There was a girl with an exact copy of the dress that Loraine wore in the movie to the Enchanted under the sea ball, there was a George McFly, and several Doc Browns. One four week old baby had a "Save the Clock Tower" onesie on, who did not win the contest because us spectator judges are heartless , I guess.The organizer, John Young, picked this garage so that we could see the clock tower in the middle of West Chester while we watched the movie.
Here is my view, with clock tower on the screen and in the background. The West Chester clock tower was NOT hit by lightning at 10:04 PM. He also figured out a way to dim the garage lights around the screen on the top level by using LED lights stuck on the light sensors of the tower lights, clever.We had a blast and met some nice people, and got our Guerilla Drive In merit badge. We can't wait to do something like this again. How cool and nice is it that guys like John Young do this kind of thing.
More on the Back to the Future West Chester Guerilla Drive In event at John Young's blog.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Movie review - it's not good - warning spoilers
This vitriolic review is filled with spoilers. Just a warning if you wanted to see the movie first. Also a warning that you might regret going to see the movie first. I was so annoyed that it has taken me this long to collect my thoughts to spew out like poison upon this (virtual) page.
I should have walked out when I saw the George Lucas writing credit at the beginning of the film.
Hasn't the lost city built for alien gods trope been done to death? When they started trucking out the Nazca lines and then the shot of the alien pictoglyphs in the temple that echoed the Mayan "astronaut" (Pacal the Great) just stretched credibility.
Nazca lines
A Mayan "Astronaut"
I didn't see Erich Von Daniken as a consultant on the movie but he might as well have been. Is anyone else insulted every time one of these movies or books claims that farming and writing and civilization and city building and webkinz were all taught to us by aliens. Did we accomplish nothing ourselves?
The movie was missing a credible young love interest for Indy. They didn't even try to hook up Shia LaBeouf (Mudd) with a girl in the movie. I contend that LaBeouf's character was the love interest for Indy. Shia finds Indy and needs Indy's help, Shia is the newbie young person, he is overly concerned about his appearance and combs his hair all the time. He even squealed appropriately in the dusty caves and digs, when the required rat or bug (scorpions this time) jump on him. Later he transforms into a sword wielding maniac, but he starts the movie as the girl. One possibility for romantic interest in the film might have been Cate Blanchett. Unfortunately, she plays Natasha from Bullwinkle and is definitely not used as anybody's love interest, but as another sword wielding maniac.
Other parts of the movie seemed to be someone's graduate cinema project. There was a recurrent them of backlighting characters and filming them through screens or sheets so that there heads were centered in the shadow of their heads produced by the back lighting. I counted at least four instances, some of Indy, one of the alien skull. I missed the point of why the director kept doing this.
Poor Harrison Ford looked old. I want to believe that the makeup artists made him look old because he looked too horrible for it to be a mistake. He needs to fire someone, perhaps his agent or makeup artist. A purposeful shot of Indy's desk with pictures of his father and Marcus drove home the point that all his friends and relatives were dead as well. I am guessing that they couldn't afford Sean Connery for a cameo, but emphasized the death of Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott, who did actually pass away before this movie was made). The only connection with his past was Marion, who also looked old. They wanted to hit us over the head with passing the generational torch, I can show you the bruises on my (crystal) skull. Was anyone surprised that Mudd (Shia) turned out to be his son?
Previous instalments in this series featured exotic locations with local color, remember Petra in the Last Crusade? This movies was filmed in Connecticut, California, New Mexico and Hawaii. They didn't even bother going to South America with the cast.
Surviving an atomic blast and later the whole crew going over not one, not two, but three huge waterfalls also strained credibility. The jungles scenes start with them requiring a buzz saw tipped jungle cutting vehicle to get through and then end with a chase on parallel roads through the previously impassable jungle. Please insult my intelligence filmmakers.
The "necessary" buzz saw tank just before it is destroyed
Double wide roads (we don't need no grass cutting)
How often do you think that the warriors pop put of the Mayan stone decorations to stop looters?
Warriors upset they are in a bad movie.
Once they kill everybody do they have to recreate the designs? Do they live in their the whole time or do they take shifts. Are they real people or are they undead and only come alive when they must kill intruders?
A Mayan scary skull hidey-hole about to belch forth a warrior.
Please replace when finished. Remember - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
This begs the question for any tomb raider trope/Indiana Jones movie. When the ancients built these grave traps I am sure it took many years, maybe decades. Did they build one and then trigger it to test it, so the heavy rocks move and the sand spills out and the water pours in and they see it works - and then they build another one for the real deal? In the movie you can clearly see others that made it as far as Indy and Son by their corpses and skeletons littering the area. I suppose the system resets after a period of inactivity.
In conclusion, I guess I had to see the movie. It was the long awaiting next installment in a relatively proud line of great movies. I just wish that they hadn't insulted my intelligence so much and that I wasn't such a sucker that had to go see it. Don;t worry, when it comes out on cable I will probably watch it over and over again screaming insults at the television, as I am wont to do with these movies.
(There are 'Crystal Skull apologists out there, Howard didn't think it was so bad, but points to the Editing Room's abridged Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull script which covers all the high points in humorous fashion (low points?).
(Lego Indiana Jones in wheelchair from rong_yiren at flickr)
(many pics and clips from Screenrush)
I should have walked out when I saw the George Lucas writing credit at the beginning of the film.
Hasn't the lost city built for alien gods trope been done to death? When they started trucking out the Nazca lines and then the shot of the alien pictoglyphs in the temple that echoed the Mayan "astronaut" (Pacal the Great) just stretched credibility.
Nazca lines
A Mayan "Astronaut"I didn't see Erich Von Daniken as a consultant on the movie but he might as well have been. Is anyone else insulted every time one of these movies or books claims that farming and writing and civilization and city building and webkinz were all taught to us by aliens. Did we accomplish nothing ourselves?
The movie was missing a credible young love interest for Indy. They didn't even try to hook up Shia LaBeouf (Mudd) with a girl in the movie. I contend that LaBeouf's character was the love interest for Indy. Shia finds Indy and needs Indy's help, Shia is the newbie young person, he is overly concerned about his appearance and combs his hair all the time. He even squealed appropriately in the dusty caves and digs, when the required rat or bug (scorpions this time) jump on him. Later he transforms into a sword wielding maniac, but he starts the movie as the girl. One possibility for romantic interest in the film might have been Cate Blanchett. Unfortunately, she plays Natasha from Bullwinkle and is definitely not used as anybody's love interest, but as another sword wielding maniac.
Other parts of the movie seemed to be someone's graduate cinema project. There was a recurrent them of backlighting characters and filming them through screens or sheets so that there heads were centered in the shadow of their heads produced by the back lighting. I counted at least four instances, some of Indy, one of the alien skull. I missed the point of why the director kept doing this.
Poor Harrison Ford looked old. I want to believe that the makeup artists made him look old because he looked too horrible for it to be a mistake. He needs to fire someone, perhaps his agent or makeup artist. A purposeful shot of Indy's desk with pictures of his father and Marcus drove home the point that all his friends and relatives were dead as well. I am guessing that they couldn't afford Sean Connery for a cameo, but emphasized the death of Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott, who did actually pass away before this movie was made). The only connection with his past was Marion, who also looked old. They wanted to hit us over the head with passing the generational torch, I can show you the bruises on my (crystal) skull. Was anyone surprised that Mudd (Shia) turned out to be his son?Previous instalments in this series featured exotic locations with local color, remember Petra in the Last Crusade? This movies was filmed in Connecticut, California, New Mexico and Hawaii. They didn't even bother going to South America with the cast.
Surviving an atomic blast and later the whole crew going over not one, not two, but three huge waterfalls also strained credibility. The jungles scenes start with them requiring a buzz saw tipped jungle cutting vehicle to get through and then end with a chase on parallel roads through the previously impassable jungle. Please insult my intelligence filmmakers.
The "necessary" buzz saw tank just before it is destroyed
Double wide roads (we don't need no grass cutting)How often do you think that the warriors pop put of the Mayan stone decorations to stop looters?
Warriors upset they are in a bad movie.Once they kill everybody do they have to recreate the designs? Do they live in their the whole time or do they take shifts. Are they real people or are they undead and only come alive when they must kill intruders?
A Mayan scary skull hidey-hole about to belch forth a warrior. Please replace when finished. Remember - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
This begs the question for any tomb raider trope/Indiana Jones movie. When the ancients built these grave traps I am sure it took many years, maybe decades. Did they build one and then trigger it to test it, so the heavy rocks move and the sand spills out and the water pours in and they see it works - and then they build another one for the real deal? In the movie you can clearly see others that made it as far as Indy and Son by their corpses and skeletons littering the area. I suppose the system resets after a period of inactivity.
In conclusion, I guess I had to see the movie. It was the long awaiting next installment in a relatively proud line of great movies. I just wish that they hadn't insulted my intelligence so much and that I wasn't such a sucker that had to go see it. Don;t worry, when it comes out on cable I will probably watch it over and over again screaming insults at the television, as I am wont to do with these movies.
(There are 'Crystal Skull apologists out there, Howard didn't think it was so bad, but points to the Editing Room's abridged Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull script which covers all the high points in humorous fashion (low points?).
(Lego Indiana Jones in wheelchair from rong_yiren at flickr)
(many pics and clips from Screenrush)
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Sunday, December 02, 2007
When the cock crows thrice
From our recent Key West trip, where we went for the Stone Crab claws but also encountered polydactyl cats, and Key West roosters, I was able to capture a movie of one of the famous Key West roosters crowing. I waited for three crows because that is so traditional.
They really do say cock-a-doodle-doo.
They really do say cock-a-doodle-doo.
Friday, September 07, 2007
Movie Quiz
It goes without saying that I found this via Howard and that he got 100% correct. Besides politics Howard loves writing about movies. The questions start with some familiar movies of the past 25 years and then veered into crazyland in the later ones. I felt they were biased a little toward action, science fiction and fantasy which I should have done better in, but did not.
76%
Try it yourself.
76%
FilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews
Try it yourself.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Simpson fan, Simpsonize thyself, doh!
The Simspson movie has all of us Simpsons fans a buzz. You can share in the excitement by taking a photo of yourself and getting it Simpsonized over at SimpsonizeMe. The site is slow and quirky but perseverance is rewarded with your very own Simpsons character based on you. The site is also sponsored by Burger King, but that's OK, they have good onion rings. If you go and do it leave a comment with the link so that I may enjoy your creation.
You can also place the character is various Springfield locations. I have chosen the nuclear power plant to suit my scientific and engineering bent.You can also create one using a collection of characteristics at the Simpsons movie web site. Some preferred that method. I liked the plug and chug method at Simsonize me a little better.
By the way 10 Zen Monkeys has gathered many Simpsons drug references, with clips. Starwars.com has joined the excitement of Star Wars (ho hum) to the humor of the Simpsons by cataloguing many Simpsons Star Wars references.
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