Alphabetical Movie – The Lion in Winter
Scenery chewing is a lost art in cinema. Many fine actors work in film these days but so few of them just act the hell out of movies any more. The days of the larger than life performances are relegated to villains in Die Hard movies.
The Lion in Winter is filled with scenery chewing. Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn, of course, spend the entire film trying to out act one another. Both of them fail. When Anthony Hopkins isn’t able to draw attention away from them, you will marvel at the amount acting that is going down.
Shit that Pissed me off This Week – 3/22
MegaChurch Pastor Told his Teenaged Girlfriend That Jesus Wanted them to be Together
Jack Schaap has pled guilty to taking a minor across state lines for the purpose of having sex. He’s not the first middle-aged guy who has shacked up with a teenager who looked up to him.
But I’m sure he’s been preaching about the abomination of homosexuality and possibly fornication and then he seems powerless to control his own lust. He even went so far as to tell his young lover that Jesus wanted them to be together.
Go ahead and do her, buddy! I’m behind you 100%! You don’t mind if I watch, do you?
I’m sure he’ll blame his behavior on the devil rather than himself. What will never occur to him (or his flock) is to question how a man so in tune with God could succumb to the same base lusts he condemns in other people. I’m sure he prayed to god for the strength to stop cheating on his wife with a child. Why didn’t god stop him? Why did he instead decide that god wanted him to do it?
It’s like the god he believed in didn’t really exist.
Alphabetical Movie – The Lineup
I love San Francisco. I mean, I like where I live and I’m not looking to move but if I had to move, My first choice would be San Francisco.
My brother lives there and that means I’ve been there enough to be quite familiar with the city. So familiar, in fact, that when I watch a film like The Lineup, which is set in San Francisco, I find myself distracted by where certain scenes are taking place.
For instance, one of the scenes in the film takes place in front of the Cliff House. I’ve eaten in the Cliff House. The film was made in 1958 so next to the Cliff House you can see the Sutro baths, which burned down in 1966.
I’ve walked around the ruins of the bath houses with my kids. It’s national park land now. All I was thinking when watching that scene was how I was seeing what the Sutro baths looked like when they were actually there. I couldn’t honestly tell you what happened in the scene because I was geeking out about the location.
Alphabetical Movie – Lilo & Stitch
As a fan of the Disney theme parks, I have a bone to pick with Lilo & Stitch. Actually, it’s really just Stitch.
See, Stich has become the most popular Disney character who isn’t named named Mickey. He might actually be more popular than Mickey Mouse but you won’t find anyone at Disney who will admit that out loud.
Because of his popularity, Disney is always on the lookout for more ways to make money of off the little blue guy. They can only sell so many mouse ears, I guess. They have to peddle something else.
The result is an effort to find more places to plug in Stitch. So they plugged him in where he didn’t belong. It isn’t his fault, really. I still blame him, though.
See, in Tomorrowland, they used to have a ride called the “ExtraTERROREestrial Alien Encounter” and it kicked holy ass. I’m not saying it was Space Mountain good because that would be crazy talk.
It was pretty close, though.
Alphabetical Movie – Lightning Strikes Twice
Lightning Strikes Twice is a film that wants to be a Hitchcock movie*. I say that because it is about a man who is wrongly accused and a woman who loves him but also fears he wasn’t so wrongly accused after all. Thing is, it isn’t a Hitchcock movie. It wants really badly to be Rebecca but that movie was directed by Hitchcock and this one wasn’t.
There are plenty of films out there that are described as “Hitchcockian” and I would think any director would like their movie to be thought of in that way. Hell, M Night Shyamalan wanted to be thought of that way so badly, he even did cameos in each of his films. He wanted to be Hitchcock so bad, he started spending all of his time trying to be Hitchcock and none of his time making good movies.
Well, he’s been trying. He just hasn’t been succeeding.
Geeks Without God tackles Alcoholism, part 1
We took a different approach to the next couple of episodes of Geeks Without God. We have two friends who are both recovering alcoholics and we wanted to talk to them about their experience. See, AA includes a lot of talk about giving yourself over to god to fight your addiction and how do you deal with that if you are an atheist/agnostic? Rather that the two of them separately, we recorded each podcast with one of them as the “primary” guest and the other one listening in. That allowed for both of them to contribute to a particular conversation.
It was a really good way to approach the topic, I think. Listen to this week’s episode and decide for yourself!
Alphabetical Movie – Lifeboat
For as much of a movie fan as I claim to be, there are far more movies that I haven’t seen than movies that I have. I attribute that to having a life that makes movie watching a luxury in which I can’t always indulge. In a perfect world, I’d be done with the Alphabetical Movie Project and moving on to some other insane plan, like the alphabetical commentary track project.
So while I have no problem admitting that I love Alfred Hitchcock, I must confess that it was only comparatively recently that I began exploring his films. I saw my first Hitchcock film just over ten years ago.
The first Hitchcock film I saw was Lifeboat.
Shit that Pissed me Off This Week – 3/15
I get frustrated when science is doing something cool – in this case sampling water from a lake buried under four kilometers of ice to see if there is life there – and the results are less than thrilling.
I mean, it should be enough that they drilled through four kilometers of ice and took a sample of the lake water to begin with. And I admit, that is pretty fucking cool.
I was really hoping they would find something else there. Maybe they still will but for right now, it looks like the only thing they discovered was water.
Admit it. It would have been way cooler if they’d found one of these!
I don’t want to sound bitter but I’ve seen water before.
*Note: It isn’t over yet. There is a lot more scientific work to be done. For now, though, there are no ice monsters in Antarctica. Dammit.
Geeks Without God Explore a Creationist Science Fair
This week’s episode features newly “out” atheist Rob Callhan, who recently visited a creationist science fair. While we’d hoped for stories of truly horrifying science, there was unfortunately very little to be discovered. Instead, Rob told us about the organization that organizes the fair and their scary rules for the kids to follow. Rob also shares his experience when he came out as an atheist to write this article. It is rather elightening to listen to him talk about his experience because while it is typical, it is not what most might expect.
Rob is another great guest and we were very pleased to have him. Thanks, Rob!
The Wicked Witch of the West – a Tragic Figure??
I took my son to see Oz the Great and Powerful this weekend. When asked if I liked the movie, I just shrugged. It was a mediocre effort that was just about what is to be expected from most big budget special effects films. It felt flat and heartless. It was sort of like a Transformers film in Oz.
Story continuity is something that seems an afterthought in most movies. The main plot may be fine but when you start really exploring the ramifications of a particular character’s story arc, often you discover the filmmakers didn’t really think things through.
Such is the case in Oz the Great and Powerful as it takes a character we think we know and it turns her fate into one of the most tragic stories imaginable. Then they assume we won’t notice.
Since I’m going into spoiler territory, I’m politely providing a cut tag. Feel free to move along if you don’t want to know what happens in the film.
Grail Diary 