Alphabetical Movie – L.A. Story
I’ve been to a lot of places on vacation and almost every single one of them is a place I’d love to see again.
L.A. isn’t one of those places. For a city filled with movie stars, it just didn’t really feel all that interesting to me. Maybe I went to the wrong parts.
Actually, we were mostly there to spend time at Disneyland. I liked Disneyland. But Disneyland is in Anaheim. Actually, it isn’t really in Anaheim. It is in “magical Disney place” and has nothing to do with Anaheim, L.A. or the real world. While there, though, we took the time to drive into L.A for a day.
Alphabetical Movie – L.A. Confidential
L.A. Confidential is the perfect film to open the L section of the Alphabetical movie project because I have to admit, I’d been rushing to get to the L’s for a while.
I like most of the movies I own. I mean, I wouldn’t own them if I didn’t. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I like some more than others. That means there are some letters that get me more excited than others as well.
Take the letter D, for instance. Man was I looking forward to the letter D. I started out with movies like Dark City and The Day the Earth Stood Still and near the end I got to watch Dr. No and Dr. Strangelove. It was a great letter.
Right off the bat, though, you can see the potential in the letter L. L.A. Confidential is an amazing film. Just knowing I got to start the next batch of movies with such a great one got me really excited.
Alphabetical Movie – Kung-Fu Panda I & II
One night, my youngest was in the mood to watch Kung-fu Panda. It was a Friday night and the entire family was hanging out and enjoying unstructured time. We told him that he could watch whatever he wanted and he said he wanted to watch Kung-fu Panda.
He was telling a lie. it wasn’t a big lie. But it was a lie that had consequences. And not to him.
Shit that Pissed me off this Week – 1/11
Christian Football Fans Decide a Super Bowl ad Featuring a Gay Actor is Offensive
Uh….what????
The ad in question features Neil Patrick Harris, who is openly gay, sporting the date of the Super Bowl in eye black. Like this:
GAY AGENDA!!!!
That’s pretty awful, right? Christians should be pissed off because….um….Tim Tebow used to have bible verses in his eye black and since Neil Patrick Harris is gay it is the liberal media just waving their anti-Christian bigotry in the faces of every Christian in the nation…?
No. That’d be stupid, wouldn’t it?
Well yes, it would be stupid. That’s exactly the problem they have with it, though. Harris is throwing his gay agenda all over the Super Bowl! In the most Christian of all sports – football!
Never mind that Jesus Christ would go down with multiple broken bones in the first play from scrimmage. That scrawny little guy wouldn’t last a second. Besides, if you turn the other cheek, the opposing team is just going to strike that one too.
Hey Christians: I don’t know why I have to keep reminding you of this but you are the majority! By a lot! Even if this is, somehow, an anti-Christian thing (which it isn’t), you can take it. There’s still a prayer circle after every football game and every gay football player is still safely in the closet.
Alphabetical Movie – Kung Fu Hustle
Imagine this. With Kung-fu.
I enjoy Kung-Fu Hustle a lot but I’ve always faced a bit of a dilemma about the film because it wasn’t quite the film that I wanted it to be.
The film itself is a Kung-Fu film set in a world that could best be described as the Warner Brothers cartoon version of a Kung Fu movie. There is even a chase scene that would appear to be straight out of a Road Runner cartoon.
Yet the name of the film and the opening scene made it seem like what was about to be shown was a King Fu musical. Thing about that for a minute. A kung-fu musical. By Stephen Chow. If the concept doesn’t make you salivate, you need to educate yourself on Stephen Chow. Go and watch Shaolin Soccer.
Alphabetical Movie – Knight & Day
I know a few people who really hate Tom Cruise.
Not Tom Cruise as an actor in a movie, mind you. They just fucking hate Tom Cruise.
They hate him so much that they don’t ever want to watch a movie starring him, featuring him or possibly even associated with him. I think that they would avoid movies with the word “cruise” in them. That’s cool, I guess. Everyone has their own opinions.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 12/21
In the wake of a tragedy like the school shooting in Connecticut last week, Mike Huckabee decided the best way to deal with it was to be an insensitive prick. Rather that recognizing that what happened was a random act of violence by a clearly deranged individual, Huckabee decided that all of this could have been avoided if people could only pray in schools.
I get that Huckabee is a religious man but in this particular case, he’s trying to come up with a reason that has absolutely no relationship to the tragedy at hand.
The secondary implication, mind you, is that if we were praying in schools, god wouldn’t let this shit happen. God just sits back and watches because we won’t let Christians pray on school property. As soon as prayer can happen on school grounds, god will strike down the gunmen before they can kill a bunch of innocent children.
Oh but wait! Prayer is allowed on school grounds! It is public prayer that isn’t permitted! So not only is Huckabee a dick, he’s lying.
Huckabee isn’t alone in this either. Bryan Fischer says God didn’t protect those kids because “god won’t go where he’s not wanted.” Eric Hovind also tweeted that the entire affair was probably because the shooter grew up in a school without god.
Dear God: I thought you were omnipotent. Turns out you are just a dick.
I don’t want to sugar coat this or these fucks might get the wrong idea. What they are saying is tone-deaf insensitive grandstanding and if we lived in a just universe (we don’t), they would never be allowed to speak into a microphone again.
Alphabetical Movie – Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
By strange coincidence, I am writing about this movie just as I’ve been thinking about movies I call “gift movies”. By that I mean movies that I like to “give” to people.
If you are a movie fan to any degree, you have movies that fall into that category. You love it too much to keep it to yourself. The Dish has always been a film that falls into that category for me. I’m always eager to give that movie to another person.
I don’t mean “give” in the physical sense. Rather I mean giving the opportunity to share the experience of watching that film with as many people as possible.
Butt-Numb-a-Thon 14
Having prefaced my rundown of BNAT 14 by talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation and an important breakfast experience, it is time, finally, to write about the festival itself.
I’ve read a few comments by folks who didn’t attend complaining about the lineup. I guess that is subjective. For me, I described it as a prozac year. There was not a single film that blew me away but I enjoyed everything. The highs weren’t quite as high but the lows weren’t all that low.
Typically BNAT will feature a fairly even mix of new and classic films. This year featured only four premieres, which is quite low. I love classic film, though, and watching great old movies on the big screen is nothing to complain about. It is something to celebrate. We are all there because we are film fans and I would never complain about watching films from any era. If you are the sort of person who would complain about that – Butt-Numb-a-Thon isn’t for you.
We had a lot of previews and trailers and I’m not going to write about them at all. I loved seeing all of them but I’ve seen a lot of kick-ass trailers that didn’t translate into kick-ass films so I’m not going to write about them. I’ll stick to the full length films that we saw. Eleven in all. Well….more like ten and 97/100ths.
God and Movies – a New Geeks Without God post
I have a new blog entry up on the Geeks Without God page. In it, I talk about theism in film and specifically my response to theistic themes in Flight and The Life of Pi.
Molly has also posted a couple of blogs about memes that have pissed her off.
Enjoy our thoughtful atheistic rantiness!
Also, please donate to Camp Quest Minnesota! Our fundraiser has stalled out at $310 and we’d really like to reach our $500 goal!
Grail Diary 