MOVIES THREAD

This might get nuked, but since we have a music and book thread, I thought it would be appropriate to have a movie thread.

 

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I saw Mrs Potter over the weekend, and positively loved it. Beatrix Potter books were my favorite when I was a youngling, but I had no idea what a cool person she was. She was an enviromentalist and refused to live life according to the ideals of her time. If you liked Finding Neverland, which I loved, you'll like Mrs. Potter

 

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Thanks for the recommendation.

 

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I'm actually excited about Reno 911: Miami.

 

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Saw Babel yesterday. Good, not great. People are comparing it to Crash, but I don't think that's fair. Crash is much, much better. The films are set up similarly, though.

Again, liked Babel and would recommend it. But Best Picture? Nah.

 

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And the movie thread rises from the dead. You have to understand that I met my wife in a chat room dedicated to movie trivia, whatever that means.

I sent the boy with his mom to watch the pirate movie at the theater. The girl is going to crash in about an hour, which leaves me with a choice to make. It appears I can PPV several movies that were nominated for Oscars.

Babel seems high on the list. Other choices include Blood Diamond, the Last King of Scotland, Little Children, Volver and Notes on a Scandal.

I'm generally hard to please, but I'm open to suggestions. I love dramas, particularly when they're gritty. They don't have to be dark. The one thing I don't like is this popular trend toward mixing realism with fantasy. For example, there are some TV shows and movies that have a complete fantasy theme but throw in something about 9-11 or something in general relating to terrorism. I don't like that. If you want me to suspende disbelief, don't draw me back into the real world with those images and references.

Anyway, I'm thinking a nice drama would be nice. But I'm also open to reflecting on my early teen years, when action and explosions tripped my trigger. Hell, maybe I'll just rent Roadhouse and Stand By Me.

Any suggestions?

 

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I just watched "Who Killed The Electric Car?" last night. It's a documentary on the premature death of the EV1, and looks at the bigger picture of alternative fuels cars and what does and doesn't work. It's very well done.

 

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I agree and like the book and movie threads, Moddy should stick this one.

 

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I mentioned this on the Knocked Up thread and some longtimers might remember my rant after Kill Bill, but what the hell are parents doing taking young children to rated R movies?

During Kill Bill, some parents brought their three kids to the theater. After The Bride killed somebody, I heard the middle one say "Mommy, is that lady dead?" Last night, a couple brought a young child to the 10 p.m. showing of Knocked Up.

Should I complain to the theater manager about that? Should I e-mail the MPAA and get them to change the ratings? Convince our editorial writers to wail on the topic?

 

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the R-rating needs to protect children younger than 10. it should make adult supervision off limits to children that young to protect them from moronic adults.

social services should've been called, imo.

 

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I recall the director of that one being on John Stewart's show.

 

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When I was a kid, my parents never let me watch R-rated movies. I remember being in the third grade and hearing about all of these movies the other kids had watched. I knew nothing of it, but HBO was big in those days. I remember looking for boobs on scrambled HBO. Every five or six seconds, the lines would skip and reveal a few frames of about 25 percent of the screen. I watched about 10 minutes of Revenge of the Nerds like this.

For a short time, my parents had HBO. One night, they sent me out of the room. I went into their bedroom and turned on HBO and watched about 15 minutes of Carlin at Carnegie Hall. It was shockingly explicit. Another night, my dad let me watch American Werewolf in London. There was a boob scene, and he made me cover my eyes, or I did out of sheer embarrassment. But I could see through the blanket.

The R-rated movies of today are much more violent and sexually explicit than those I saw on HBO all those years ago. But I don't have a beef with that as long as parents aren't stupid enough to let their kids watch these shows.

What really bothers me, though, is that there just aren't that many good shows for children. Even some of the so-called kids movies have a PG rating. It seems like a lot of these movies exist, but that's primarily because they market the dogshit out of each one. The truth is that there are only a handful released to theaters each year. Parents know this, because they get to watch Toy Story 25 times a year.