Last movie you watched......

Haven't seen it in a while, but I loved that one. Was a big Gene Wilder fan back in the day.

 

Saw "The Greatest" , the Ali self-starring biopic, on broadcast TV the other day and was slightly surprised at the fact it wasn't off-the-end-of-the-earth horrible. The storyline, plot, etc etc, was actually fairly similar to the later "Ali" and in a couple of respects, maybe better.

I saw it when it first came out in 1977 and thought it was OK.

Ali himself didn't do badly, but it was hard to buy him as the sleek young Cassius Clay when he was obviously the 15-years-older, 30-pounds-heavier Muhammad Ali.

It was also hard to buy the burly barrel-chested James Earl Jones as the tall, lanky and angular Malcolm X. Robert Duvall as a bad-guy boxing commission guy was OK but nothing special.

Kind-of surprisingly, they made no attempt whatsoever to downplay what a horndog Ali was in his younger days (In fact, "Ali" downplayed it much more) and even up to his then-current age. Basically he chases anything in tight pants, and there were a lot of girls in tight pants in the movie, including an amazing 30-second shot involving a bicycle seat and the zoom lens. 8) 8)

They also didn't go to much trouble to make the scenes supposedly set in the early 60s look realistic -- people were walking around in bright-colored polyester clothes, Adidas, shaggy collar-length hair, etc etc. People didn't LOOK like that in the early 60s. About as far as they went to make it look "contemporary" was roll in a couple of early-60s cars for closeup shots (although you could still see people tooling around in 1975 models in the background).

Ali did well enough, certainly compared to other jocks' first forays into film roles, to think he could have been as successful as guys like Jim Brown and Alex Karras if he had gone into acting. If only he had hung up his gloves right about at that point and saved himself some of the poundings he took late in his career.

 

"The Tree of Life"

Genius stuff here from Terrence Malick. Ethereal, his images alone evoking multiple strong emotions. Brad Pitt was spectacular. The film contemplates the meaning of life, filtered through the eyes of a son and his father. Brilliant filmmaking.

 

If you're ever interested in a long-distance relationship that has no chance of ending in anything but hard feelings but which is based solely on love for Ryan Howard and Eternal Sunshine, please let me know.

 

So...who's seen "Breaking Dawn"?

Other than TigerVols.

 

I would rather go back in time to February 1984, track down my mother and father, break into their bedroom and watch them make me than ever see any of the Twilight movies.

So, yeah, I haven't seen it.

 

You're adopted.

 

You know, I've got to be honest. That would make a lot of sense.

Good luck with the Twilight thing though. The main characters are on the cover of this week's Entertainment Weekly and, from what I hear, the movie is pretty much what you would expect so if you liked the others, you'll like this one.

 

I wasn't asking for me. I was asking for YGBFKM.

 

Like Crazy - This one's hard to pin down. Two detestable hipsters (a girl from Britain and a guy from LA) hook up in their senior year of college. They give a long distance relationship a go, but are smacked in the face with the reality of such a challenge. Even though the characters were poorly written and in some instances poorly acted, there are some very painful scenes to behold. The ending is wide open for interpretation, but I liked it and think it will provoke a few heated discussions.

 

People are talking about "The Help", for BEST PICTURE?

Are they INSANE?

My God.

 

Yeah, in a year with such classics as The Human Centipede 2?

No freakin' way.