Movie – Circle of Friends (1995)

At the time I first saw Circle of Friends back when it came to video in the mid 1990s I didn’t realize that I was seeing a cast that would go on to do many more things.  All I knew was that Chris O’Donnell from Scent of a Woman (1992) was playing an Irishman in a movie where a bunch of people in their mid to late 20s were cast as college freshmen.  This was the first film in which I saw Minnie Driver, Saffron Burrows, Alan Cumming, and Aiden Gillen (aka Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish on Game of Thrones).  The movie also has early appearances from Colin Firth and Ciaran Hinds (aka “King Beyond the Wall” Mance Rayder on Game of Thrones).  He plays a professor.

Movie – Tonight You’re Mine (aka You Instead) (2011)

This film is known as “Tonight You’re Mine” in the U.S., but its original title in the U.K. was “You Instead”.  I’m not sure why the title was changed; both of them are pretty generic.  It was shot over only five days at the 2010 T in the Park music festival in Scotland.  It’s not a documentary, though, but a film with actors and actresses in it. Because of the guerilla style of filmmaking and the constant need to react to their surroundings, the music being performed onstage, etc., the movie has a real “you are there” feel to it.  I liked it quite a bit.

Steve’s Selections #7 – My Favorite Year (1982)

This is the seventh of twelve films that Steve at 1001plus has picked for me to watch and review.  He ran across it doing his reviews of Oscar nominated films.  In this case, Peter O’Toole received his seventh (of eight) Best Actor nominations, although he would lose once again (this time to Ben Kingsley in Gandhi).  O’Toole’s performance is mostly comedic – something that is usually bypassed by the Academy – so the fact that he even got a nomination at all might say something.  As a whole, the film is a pleasant experience.  The less comedic/more dramatic moments are understated and fit well within the story.

Movie – Casanova (2005)

The film Casanova is not a biography of the real man; it is a fictional story that uses him as the main character, much like Shakespeare in Love did with William Shakespeare.  In fact, the plot of Casanova the film could have come from something Shakespeare wrote himself, what with the mistaken identities, people masquerading as others, a woman pretending to be a man, naughty humor for the groundlings, and higher concepts for those who appreciate it.  It also has a very good performance from Heath Ledger as Casanova.

June Movie Status

I watched 23 new movies in June, plus re-watched three others.  This was about half the number of new movies as last month.  That was probably due to completing three different lists last month, then finishing a fourth this month.  After that I took it a little easy.

The list I referred to as completing this month is Roger Ebert’s Great Films.  He has a total of about 375, depending on whether you split collective entries out into their components or not.  As it turns out, one of those entries – Looney Toons Golden Collection Volume 1 – was partially misleading.  Ebert actually wrote about three Warner Brothers shorts – One Froggy Evening, Duck Amuck, and What’s Opera Doc as being designated as “great”.  As it turns out, that particular collection only has Duck Amuck on it.  I had already seen all three prior to this anyway, so I finished off the four disks of that collection to complete Ebert’s entire list, no matter which way you want to interpret it.

I will probably work on Empire’s 2008 list of the Top 500 Films next.  I have 22 of those left to see.  Completing this list may present a challenge – the film The Company of Men (1997) is no longer available from Netflix.  I could stream it from Amazon for a few bucks, but I’m not so militant about completing this list that I can’t wait until an opportunity to see the movie for free presents itself.  If months go by with no other way to see it, though, I may change my mind.  If you have a non-torrent alternative to suggest, please do so.

Movie – Head-On (2004)

Head-On is a German film, but it’s about the second generation of Turkish immigrants to that country and how they are caught between the older traditions and the new lives available to them as German citizens.  The focus is on two such people – Cahit (Birol Unel) and Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) – who are husband and wife…sort of.  This film probably contains the best illustration I have ever seen of the phrase “Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.”

Movie – The Station Agent (2003)

The Station Agent is a great little film that I first saw when it came to video/DVD over ten years ago.  At the time I thought to myself, “That guy playing the lead character did a great job.  It’s too bad his height will keep him from getting many other parts.”  This just shows what I know.  “That guy” was Peter Dinklage and he’s now on this TV show you may have heard of – Game of Thrones.  In fact, because of the fame and acclaim he has gained from the show people are seeking out other things he has worked on and that includes this film.  I’m glad more people are getting a chance to experience it.

Movie – Death at a Funeral (2007)

First things first, this review is for the original 2007 U.K version of the film directed by Frank Oz, which had a primarily white British cast, not the 2010 U.S. version directed by Neil Labute which had a primarily black American cast.  The 2010 movie is a remake of the 2007 one.  While the later film kept a lot of the same jokes, I feel the original is funnier.  I will explain why further down.  For now, I want to say that this is a hilarious film.  I laughed my ass off at it.  I’ve given very few pure comedies five stars, but this is one of them.

The Top Ten Lesser-Known Films from Game of Thrones Actors

Note: there are no spoilers in this post for Game of Thrones, regardless of how little of the show you may have seen.

As I write this the fifth season of the TV show Game of Thrones has one episode left to air.  Once again several new characters were introduced.  It was the addition of two of the performers – Keisha Castle-Hughes and Jonathan Pryce – that got me thinking about a couple of great movies they did.  I then started mentally wandering through other cast members and I soon realized that there were quite a few good movies out there that the actors and actresses on the TV show had been involved in.  I decided to build a Top Ten list.

Steve’s Selections #6 – The Changeling (1980)

This is the sixth of twelve films that Steve at 1001plus has picked for me to watch and review.  It’s the first of two horror films he gave me.  Steve is a bigger fan of horror than I am.  I’m sure this is one of the ones he wondered about giving me.  Well Steve, you’ve got no worries here.  This was a very effective movie filled with plenty of goosebump inducing moments for me.  While most horror films lose my attention when they go for the gore, this one stayed restrained (for the most part – more later) and the film has a much greater impact because of it.  And it actually has more going on than just scares.  It’s three parts ghost story, one part murder mystery, and one part political thriller.

Coldplay’s Game of Thrones: The Musical

The members of the band Coldplay are big fans of the show Game of Thrones.  They’ve written some songs to turn it into a musical.  See Tyrion Lannister sing about being a survivor in “A Man for All Seasons (Still Goin’ Strong)”.  See Jaime Lannister sing about his love for Cersei in “Closer to Home”.

You may be wondering “Is this serious?”  The answer, perhaps fortunately, is no.  This is a bit of fun Coldplay and some of the cast of Game of Thrones had for the recent Red Nose Day.

Here is the full twelve minute skit from Coldplay where we see them getting together with the cast to work on the musical.  It includes partial versions of three songs, the two I mentioned above, along with Dany singing “Rastafarian Targaryen”.  I’ve included videos of the more complete versions of these three songs below the main Coldplay video.

May Movie Status

I watched 47 new movies in May, plus watched a season of a TV show.  This was quite a bit more movies than last month, and more in line with what I tend to watch.

During May I completed seeing all 1,000 films on the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They list.  You can read more about that in this post.

With that time freed up, and with having a few days of vacation where the weather kept me inside, I also finished off the 2014 Empire 301 Best Movies list and the 2010 Empire 100 Best World Films list.

I am now working on Roger Ebert’s list of Great Films.  He has a total of 374.  As of this writing I have 11 left to see.  One of them is a four DVD collection that I will have to get from Netflix, along with a few others Netflix will need to send me, so I am unsure if I will finish off this list in June.

An Early Look at the 2015 Edition of 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

Adolytsi gave me a heads up that the latest edition of the 1,001 Movies book has an entry on the U.S. Amazon site.  It will be a hardcover book, so that means it will be published in the U.S.  The release date is October 1, 2015.  I checked Amazon UK, but there is no entry there yet for the softcover version which gets published in that country.

Adolytsi observed that this year instead of having a single image on the cover, they have multiple smaller images of movie posters, all of which seem to be ones in the list.  Assuming this to be the case, he was able to derive from the cover the following movies being added:

I Completed the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They List

I actually completed it a week ago, late Thursday evening, by watching the 1962 film The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.  It was the lowest ranked entry I had left, and the title referenced a marathon-like endeavor so it seemed vaguely fitting to end with it.

Those of you who have been reading my posts for a while know that I am a lists kind of person.  Back in the late 1990s I printed off the year end IMDB Top 250 list to have for suggestions on movies to watch in the coming year.  That led to trying to see every movie, including ones that appeared on subsequent year end lists.  Completing that has led to completing others, some larger and some smaller; some with more popular films and some with films that tend to be liked primarily by professional critics.

For the record, I have completed: all movies to ever be on the 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list, all the AFI lists, both the 2012 Sight and Sound Critics’ Top 250 and Directors’ Top 100 lists, the Top 100 Movies of all time lists from Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly, all Oscar Best Picture winners, and every single film that has been on the IMDB Top 250 at every year end since 1998.  To this I can now add the current TSPDT list.

Steve’s Selections #5 – Elevator to the Gallows (1958)

I find myself in new territory here.  My site has been geared towards writing full reviews of films I would recommend to others.  I knew that one of the things that might happen when Steve and I recommended 12 films to the other to review during the coming year is I might encounter one I would not recommend.  I promised myself that if it happened I would still write a full review to show respect for Steve and for the process.  The problem I am now faced with is how do I write a review of a movie that I felt was just okay?  Do I still write it like any other?  Do I focus on the flaws that kept me from liking it more?  Do I recommend it anyway, since it's close (only a half star away)?  Do I write an analysis of my own reaction and what it might mean about me?  (Or is that too much “navel gazing”?)

For Fans of Firefly/Serenity and The Flash (Not to Mention The Big Bang Theory)

I happened upon this video of three of the cast members of the current TV show The Flash singing a “gospel version” of the Firefly theme song.  Left to right they are Jesse L. Martin, Carlos Valdes, and Rick Cosnett.

Valdes plays a character named Cisco who makes tons of references to cult/geeky things, so it’s very fitting that he’s one of the ones in the video.  My favorite Easter Eggs on The Flash have been the extra-meta references to the TV show The Big Bang Theory.  Anyone who watches that knows that Sheldon is a huge fan of the character The Flash and that he often wears T-shirts that somehow reference him.

Here is Cisco on the TV show The Flash wearing T-shirts that reference The Big Bang Theory character of Sheldon.  (If you can’t make it out, the first one says “Bazinga!”)

April Movie Status

I watched 18 new movies in April, plus rewatched 1 film.  This was a light month, and the total is only as high as that because I realized a few days ago that I had not seen a single entry from the They Shoot Pictures Don’t They list yet this month.

I figured I would start April by watching the final three films that were new to the 2014 yearend IMDB Top 250 list.  The problem was that they were three Indian movies with a combined running time of close to 12 hours.  Once I got done with those, I just didn’t feel like picking up other films.  I’ve had three disks from Netflix sitting on my coffee table for a month now, unwatched.

The Best Movies for Each Letter of the Alphabet – Part 3: R to Z, Plus Some Observations and a Link

Note: For an explanation of my ground rules for this, as well as my picks for letters A to H, plus numbers, click here.  For my picks for letters I to Q, click here.

For those films I have reviewed, I have made their titles clickable to take you to them, if you are interested.  Maybe you are wondering, “Why the heck does he think so highly of that film?”  My review will shed some light on that.

The Best Movies for Each Letter of the Alphabet – Part 2: I to Q

Note: For an explanation of my ground rules for this, as well as my picks for letters A to H, plus numbers, click here.

For those films I have reviewed, I have made their titles clickable to take you to them, if you are interested.  Maybe you are wondering, “Why the heck does he think so highly of that film?”  My review will shed some light on that.

The Best Movies for Each Letter of the Alphabet – Part 1: A to H, Plus Numbers

Note: this was too long to do in a single post.  I will break this up into three pieces and then include links to each one as I go along.

From time to time I’ve seen people attempt to name what they feel are the best films that happen to start with each letter of the alphabet.  (If you have done this, let me know and I will include a link to your post when I am done.)  I find these interesting to read, but I had never tackled it myself because I have an aversion to trying to rank “the greatest ever”.  That is mostly due to the fact that I may have a different choice a month later simply because I am in a different mood.

It’s always been in the back of my mind, though, and it’s not as if this is set in stone.  I’ve done posts on the Top 10 films every year I’ve been running this site.  And I think for all of these I have later seen at least one movie that would have made my Top 10 if I had seen it before I had made those posts.