Jul
01
Himesh Patel stars in Yesterday, a movie that asks the question, “what if only one man remembered The Beatles?”
What a year for movies — a very strange, crazy year.
Two of the Academy Award nominations for Best Picture — Bohemian Rhapsody and Vice — scored in the 60s on Rotten Tomatoes, the number one website for collecting movie reviews. A third film — Green Book — got a tepid 81% score.
And here’s the thing, I think one or two of them should win!
Zoe Kazan and Kumail Nanjiani star in The Big Sick.
ACT I
Maybe it’s the escapism, putting my mind into a different scenario each time the lights dim and the credits begin. Perhaps it’s the shared experience of seeing movies with others. After all, scientists say we all tend to blink at the same time when we sit together watching movies. But for whatever reason, I’ve been drawn to movies all my life at an almost obsessive level.
Taylor poses for Marci outside the Hobbit Motel after a very comfortable night’s stay and well before second breakfast and elevenses.
I’m taking a shower in a Hobbit hole. That’s the lead I came up with as the warm, delicious water washed a day of caves off me. Contenders were The hobbit hole has heated blankets or No wifi in Baggins’ place. The one ring to rule them all is embedded in our bed and I look forward to falling asleep in Middle Earth, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
After more than a year of insane political discourse — pre and post election — it’s good to divert our attention to something a bit less agonizing. But uh-oh, my favorite movies of 2016 also carry political and social baggage. Maybe that’s just a marquee of the times we live in now. We are lucky to live in a society where art can be a protest and a protester can create art. Enough with the previews; here are the five films that captured my attention this year.
Sooooo … halfway through the movie year, there are two films I’d like to share and encourage you to see.
“What,” you ask, “August comes eight months into the year, Rodney, how can you say we’re halfway?”
Welcome to my list of favorite films from last year. I’ve been compiling these since back in the 1990s when I used to just email them to friends. Before that, I had actual face-to-face conversations about movies. Thank goodness those aren’t recorded. I remember once telling high school pals Danny Baron and Jeff Dorchen (director and co-writers, respectively, of the upcoming Brie Larson musical comedy Basmati Blues) that I really enjoyed Olivia Newton John’s terribly maligned Xanadu.
Jan
29
For years my wife and I have started humming the Downton Abbey theme song only to morph it, after the first few bars, into The X-Files opening.
Now that the two shows are on Sunday nights together (for a very limited run), I thought it was a good time to mashup their intros and put our music theory to the test.
You be the judge; the truth is out there!
Don’t hate me John Lunn (who wrote the Downton theme music), or Mark Snow (who penned the X-Files theme).
At some point or another, most TV shows jump the shark. And from there on in, you just know the end is nigh.
Our favorite programs, those that have stood the test of time, know how to avoid that one little slip. But if they jump, they somehow manage to pull on their big-boy water skies and jump right back over the shark cage.
May
22
Britt Robertson stars in the time-twisting Tomorrowland.
As we were driving home from Tomorrowland, my wife offered up an idea for Detroit. “All the abandoned, vacant land could be turned into wind farms or solar panel forests or even subterranean geothermal facilities.”
That’s the sort of thinking that the new Disney film inspires.
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