Tuesday, January 06, 2004
A brief overview of the movies/dvds I've seen recently:
The Return of the King was good, although I think the first half of it should have be cut down a little. I made the mistake of going to see it when I was tired and was fighting (and not always winning) sleep the first half of the movie and I didn't feel like I missed anything. And although everything is well done, I think I'm tiring of movie sword fights. It seems like between movies in the theatres and dvds, I've seen a ton of sword fights the past year or two. I think I'm getting bored with them.
Cheaper by the Dozen was a watchable family comedy, but at times was kind of slow and depressing. It also didn't manage the fourteen main characters well. See Love Actually for a movie that does that well .And pretty much everything related to the dad's job as the head coach of a major college football team is unrealistic. I didn't expect realism, but, come on, they made it seem like a college football team is made up of just 20 or so players who have no qualms with chasing after the coach's kids. One funny moment, though, was a uncredited Ashton Kutcher, playing a wannabe actor, worries about possible damage to his face admits that he's not a good actor and that his looks are the only thing he has going for him.
I got the Indiana Jones Trilogy on dvd for Christmas. One thing I was interested in seeing was the screen test with Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones. Originally, Steven Spielberg wanted Harrison Ford, but George Lucas already had him in two of his movies and didn't think it wise for people to think that Ford was to be in every one of his movies (or something like that), so they went with Tom Selleck who ended up not doing it because the tv show Magnum P.I. got picked up. So they ended up going with Ford. So the screen test is on the dvd and it was basicly Magnum P.I. wearing Indy's fedora. But the interesting thing was the actress he was doing the screen test with was Sean Young. They also so the screen test of Karen Allen opposite Tim Matheson. I'm sorry. I just can't picture Matheson as Indiana Jones. The other interesting thing was that the first choice for Sallah was Danny Devito. That would have made the movie different.
Finally, I got the dvd set of the now-cancelled tv show Firefly. Firefly is a amazing, great sci-fi tv series. Unfortunately, they don't fare well on network tv shows. This could become a hit if it was able to move to the sci-fi channel. The premise is basicly a western in space. Even more so than the original Star Trek was. Planets away from the more established planets have been changed to be able to sustain human life, with the outcome being desert-like environments. Then the colonists are dropped off without much more than the clothes on their back, so they live not-unlike people in the old west. The action centers on the crew of the Serenity. Think the Millenium Falcon with a bigger crew. The captain fought on the losing side of the great interplanetary civil war. He's now jaded and a skeptic. His first mate fought with him in the war. There's a pilot who's married to the first mate, a mechanic who has no real training but a natural gift and can basically talk to the ship, a mercenary who isn't that smart or trustworthy, a prostitute (which is a respected profession), a priest with a secret past and, finally a doctor and his mentally-disturbbed sister who are wanted by the government because of her powers. They travel around making a living doing jobs that are usually less than legal. The show was created by Joss Whedon and has the same great writing as his other shows, Buffy and Angel. If you're a fan of science fiction or just great television, rent/buy/borrow this dvd set.
The Return of the King was good, although I think the first half of it should have be cut down a little. I made the mistake of going to see it when I was tired and was fighting (and not always winning) sleep the first half of the movie and I didn't feel like I missed anything. And although everything is well done, I think I'm tiring of movie sword fights. It seems like between movies in the theatres and dvds, I've seen a ton of sword fights the past year or two. I think I'm getting bored with them.
Cheaper by the Dozen was a watchable family comedy, but at times was kind of slow and depressing. It also didn't manage the fourteen main characters well. See Love Actually for a movie that does that well .And pretty much everything related to the dad's job as the head coach of a major college football team is unrealistic. I didn't expect realism, but, come on, they made it seem like a college football team is made up of just 20 or so players who have no qualms with chasing after the coach's kids. One funny moment, though, was a uncredited Ashton Kutcher, playing a wannabe actor, worries about possible damage to his face admits that he's not a good actor and that his looks are the only thing he has going for him.
I got the Indiana Jones Trilogy on dvd for Christmas. One thing I was interested in seeing was the screen test with Tom Selleck as Indiana Jones. Originally, Steven Spielberg wanted Harrison Ford, but George Lucas already had him in two of his movies and didn't think it wise for people to think that Ford was to be in every one of his movies (or something like that), so they went with Tom Selleck who ended up not doing it because the tv show Magnum P.I. got picked up. So they ended up going with Ford. So the screen test is on the dvd and it was basicly Magnum P.I. wearing Indy's fedora. But the interesting thing was the actress he was doing the screen test with was Sean Young. They also so the screen test of Karen Allen opposite Tim Matheson. I'm sorry. I just can't picture Matheson as Indiana Jones. The other interesting thing was that the first choice for Sallah was Danny Devito. That would have made the movie different.
Finally, I got the dvd set of the now-cancelled tv show Firefly. Firefly is a amazing, great sci-fi tv series. Unfortunately, they don't fare well on network tv shows. This could become a hit if it was able to move to the sci-fi channel. The premise is basicly a western in space. Even more so than the original Star Trek was. Planets away from the more established planets have been changed to be able to sustain human life, with the outcome being desert-like environments. Then the colonists are dropped off without much more than the clothes on their back, so they live not-unlike people in the old west. The action centers on the crew of the Serenity. Think the Millenium Falcon with a bigger crew. The captain fought on the losing side of the great interplanetary civil war. He's now jaded and a skeptic. His first mate fought with him in the war. There's a pilot who's married to the first mate, a mechanic who has no real training but a natural gift and can basically talk to the ship, a mercenary who isn't that smart or trustworthy, a prostitute (which is a respected profession), a priest with a secret past and, finally a doctor and his mentally-disturbbed sister who are wanted by the government because of her powers. They travel around making a living doing jobs that are usually less than legal. The show was created by Joss Whedon and has the same great writing as his other shows, Buffy and Angel. If you're a fan of science fiction or just great television, rent/buy/borrow this dvd set.
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