Archive for December, 2007

Movies I’ve seen before I die

Posted 1971 days ago · Tagged: star wars · 5 Comments

I got this book at Christmas called ’1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die’, and since I’m bored to hell I’ve been looking through it to see how many of those movies I’ve seen. So, without further ado:

1. Nanook of the North (1922)
2. Celovek s kinoapparatom (Man With Movie Camera) (1929)
3. Triumph des Willens (1934)
4. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
5. Animal Farm (1954)
6. The Birds (1963)
7. Goldfinger (1964)
8. Dr. Strangelove. Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
9. Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo (1966)
10. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
11. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
12. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
13. Dirty Harry (1971)
14. Deliverance (1972)
15. The Godfather (1972)
16. Badlands (1973)
17. The Conversation (1974)
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
19. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
20. Barry Lyndon (1975)
21. Jaws (1975)
22. Rocky (1976)
23. Taxi Driver (1976)
24. Star Wars (1977)
25. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
26. The Deer Hunter (1978)
27. Grease (1978)
28. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
29. Halloween (1978)
30. Alien (1979)
31. Life of Brian (1979)
32. Apocalypse Now (1979)
33. The Shining (1980)
34. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
35. Raging Bull (1980)
36. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
37. Das Boot (1981)
38. Gallipoli (1981)
39. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
40. The Thing (1982)
41. Blade Runner (1982)
42. Star Wars: Episode IV – Return of the Jedi (1983)
43. Scarface (1983)
44. The Terminator (1984)
45. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
46. Ghost Busters (1984)
47. Back to the Future (1985)
48. The Fly (1986)
49. Aliens (1986)
50. Top Gun (1986)
51. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
52. The Untouchables (1987)
53. Akira (1988)
54. A Fish Called Wanda (1988)
55. The Naked Gun (1988)
56. Big (1988)
57. Die Hard (1988)
58. Rain Man (1988)
59. Batman (1989)
60. My Left Foot (1989)
61. Jacob’s Ladder (1990)
62. Pretty Woman (1990)
63. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
64. Total Recall (1990)
65. Delicatessen (1991)
66. Thelma & Louise (1991)
67. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
68. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
67. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
68. The Crying Games (1992)
69. Jurassic Park (1993)
70. Schindler’s List (1993)
71. Forrest Gump (1994)
72. The Lion King (1994)
73. Clerks (1994)
74. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
75. Nattevagten (1994)
76. Pulp Fiction (1994)
77. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
78. Riget (1994)
79. Babe (1995)
80. Braveheart (1995)
81. Toy Story (1995)
82. Casino (1995)
83. Heat (1995)
84. Se7en (1995)
85. The Usual Suspects (1995)
86. Fargo (1996)
87. Independence Day (1996)
88. Trainspotting (1996)
89. Scream (1996)
90. The English Patient (1996)
91. Titanic (1997)
92. The Big Lebowski (1998)
93. Festen (1998)
94. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
95. Fucking Åmål (1998)
96. Lola rennt (1998)
97. The Thin Red Line (1998)
98. There’s Something about Mary (1998)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. Three Kings (1999)
101. Den Eneste Ene (1999)
102. Fight Club (1999)
103. American Beauty (1999)
104. The Matrix (1999)
105. The Sixth Sense (1999)
106. Gladiator (2000)
107. Bænken (2000)
108. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
109. Meet the Parents (2000)
110. Wo Hu Cang Long (2000)
111. Memento (2000)
112. Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001)
113. Moulin Rouge (2001)
114. Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (2001)
115. The Pianist (2002)
116. Oldboy (2003)
117. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
118. Good Bye, Lenin! (2003)
119. Lost in Translation (2003)
120. Der Untergang (2004)
121. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)
122. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
123. Little Miss Sunshine (2006)
124. The Prestige (2006)
125. Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
126. United 93 (2006)
127. El Laberinto del Fauno (2006)
128. The Last King of Scotland (2006)
129. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006)
130. Babel (2006)
131. Apocalypto (2006)
132. The Departed (2006)

It’s more or less what I expected, I feel pretty embarrassed that I haven’t seen more of the classics, especially Hitchcock and Kurisawa’s. I disagree with a lot of the movies though, especially the new ones, Meet the Parents for example, what the hell?!

I’ve also uploaded a spreadsheet with the IMdb top 250 movies I’ve seen, you can see it here.

Review: I am Legend [UPDATE]

Posted 1974 days ago · Tagged: crappy movies, i am legend, will smith · 16 Comments

This article contains spoilers.

"In I am Legend a plague has killed most of humanity and transformed the rest into monsters. In New York City a lone survivor (Smith) struggles to find a cure."

The first 50 minutes of I am Legend are incredible, you’re immediately sucked into the desolate, post-apocalyptic world of New York City as we follow the every day life of Robert Neville and his dog, Sam, hunting, transmitting emergency messages, "renting" movies at the local video store and trying to avoid the infected "Dark Seekers". In nightmarish flashbacks we’re presented to his former life, in a deteriorating world some years prior.

We quickly start to find out that the infected are smarter than Neville initially thought, they set a trap for him and set infected dogs after him. He manages to kill them, but not before they seriously injure Sam, who’s infected as well. In an extremely emotional scene Neville tries to save the dog by injecting her with a possible cure, but he quickly realizes it isn’t working, and is forced to strangle his last friend as Sam starts to mutate. He is heartbroken and his desperate longing for human contact climaxes when he goes to the local video store and sobbingly begs a mannequin to start talking to him.

In a fit of rage he goes off to kill some Dark Seekers, probably with the plan to commit suicide as well. You know something big has to happen at this point in the movie, and the easiest way out would be to introduce other survivors. This was exactly what I was hoping wouldn’t happen, I love the abandoned, post-apocalyptic world, and now that Neville is totally alone it could be even more interesting to follow him, unfortunately an introduction of survivors is exactly what happens. A woman (Anna) and a boy saves Smith and brings him home, unfortunately the Dark Seekers follow them and launch an attack on the house.

The movie ends with a weird epiphany, Neville believes there is a god after all and that Anna was sent to him, to take the cure to other survivors. The ending is horrible, not only is it a typical Hollywood ending, it doesn’t make sense either. He becomes a legend because he sacrifices himself and cures everyone, in contrast to the genius, original ending, in which Neville becomes a legend because the "still-living" (infected humans who are partially cured), see him as a horrible, mythical monster, because he kills them and can walk in the daylight. Thus, they punish him for his crimes against their new society. I didn’t know the ending of the novel before I saw the movie, and after reading about it, it’s even more obvious that they didn’t have the guts to make the movie anything else than what it is; a Hollywood blockbuster. Even if they didn’t want to copy the ending from the original, they could’ve still focused on the intelligence of the infected and Neville’s effort to make a cure, without introducing the survivors. Still, it’s worth watching because of the first half and Smith’s superb acting.

I am Legend – 6/10.

[UPDATE]

I can’t believe I actually gave it 7/10, anyway, I’ve changed it now. However, the movie does indeed deserve a 7/10, if you ignore the ridiculous Hollywood ending and consider the alternate one instead. It makes a lot of connections to the ‘legend’ part of the book, just what I missed, and it would really have made the movie a lot better.

Heroes: How to ruin a TV show

Posted 1981 days ago · Tagged: heroes · 1 Comment

Is it really necessary to yell SPOILERS? Anyway, I know the first part of the second season has received a lot of bad criticism already, but I still feel like giving my 50 cents about it, since I just ran through the entire volume and I’m feeling a bit… agitated. One of the main problems with the first season was the huge amount of creative license, i.e. important people randomly meeting each other in the middle of nowhere, and stuff like that. In the second season they’ve upped the ante, they use creative license every other minute, and the writing is just awful, it seems like every time they stumbled upon a problem in the story they just made some weird coincidence happen, seriously, it’s everywhere. For example: Claire’s love interest West not only has powers, but he’s also been kidnapped by Claire’s dad. Hiro Nakamura goes back in time to the exact place of his hero Kensei, and what do you know, he’s the same guy who’s trying to destroy the world 400 years later. And Sylar just happens to stumble upon Maya and Alejandro in the middle of a Mexican desert.

It’s obviously a result of bad writing, it just didn’t seem like they cared, as mentioned there was a lot of creative license in season one as well, but it seemed to mostly be used at important moments, in season two they just use it all the time, and it’s ruining the show. That and the fact that the new stories are extremely uninteresting, I don’t care about Hiro messing around in Japan. The Monica storyline is so fucking annoying as well, I don’t care about her, and why doesn’t she just watch superhero movies and stuff, she’d be just as invincible as Peter. Then she even gets herself taken hostage, even though she could’ve just kicked their asses. So, to sum it up: unnecessary and/or annoying storylines: Hiro in Japan, Alejandro and Maya, Peter in Ireland, Claire’s love interest, and especially Monica being a douche.

The writers also open way too many solutions, and then I just get annoyed when they don’t use those obvious solutions to solve problems, such as Nathan getting shot in the end, just inject him with some of Claire’s blood for fucks sake…

And what’s with all the fucking gullibility?! Maya believes and trusts Sylar in no time, and Peter protects Adam blindly, even though he’s presented to a hell of a lot of proof that Adam’s bad, just because Adam helped Nathan. Mohinder even fucking joins the company, that didn’t really surprise me though, since he’s more or less retarded.

Kristen Bell is hot though.

Trilogy of the Dead

Posted 1987 days ago · Tagged: dawn of the dead, day of the dead, george a romero, night of the living dead · 0 Comments

It’s 5:57 AM and I just finished watching the three classic zombie movies by George A. Romero.

Night of the Living Dead

Released in 1968 this is the first movie in the Dead Series, it’s shot in black and white and is seen by most people as the defining influence on the way zombies are portrayed today. The setting is simple, a group of people hide from bloodthirsty zombies in a rural farmhouse. Before I start criticizing the movie I should mention I have a hard time seeing popular, old movies in the perspective they deserve. A movie like Night of the Living Dead would, of course, be horrible if released today but 40 years ago it was very popular and extremely gory. So, even though the editing is ridiculously bad, the acting is horrible and the zombies are quite comical it’s still worth a watch.

Dawn of the Dead

The sequel came out 10 years later, in 1978. Once again we follow a group of people, this time seeking refuge in a secluded shopping mall. Compared to its predecessor it focuses more on the effects a zombie apocalypse would have on society, and it’s also a lot more comical. I quite liked the 2004 remake and I’ve been wanting to see the original for a long time. As mentioned, the movie isn’t really about a struggle against zombies, sure there are lot of run ins with the undead, but they never seem threatening. They are extremely slow and clumsy, and never seem to be able to bite even though they’ve grabbed somebody. Still, the movie is pretty awesome, I should mention I love post apocalyptic movies, and Dawn of the Dead really nails that part. It’s longer than the other two, appr. two hours and 20 minutes, but I was never bored, even though you just follow the characters around in the mall, barricading stuff and exploring. The make up and special effects are also very well made, even though all the zombies are painted in weird blue or green colors. The gore is very explicit, all gun wounds result in exploding cascades of blood, no matter where the zombies are hit, so you’ll definitely have a laugh watching it.

Day of the Dead

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I knew nothing of the third movie in the series, and didn’t expect much, but it was surprisingly good. This time we follow a group of scientists and soldiers in a military base underground, the scientists’ leader, Dr. Logan, is determined to make the zombies behave as we want them to, as killing all of them is impossible. The soldiers are growing weary and impatient of the lack of results. The movie’s setting is very cool, although you begin to miss nature scenes, especially after watching Dawn of the Dead. The base is built in a huge cavern, most of it is closed off, a huge maze of caves, and that’s where they bring zombies, so whenever they need new specimen to examine they can bring them in like cattle. The special effects are mind blowing, they would be acceptable even today, and this movie is more than 20 years old. Since this was released seven years after Dawn of the Dead they’re now using realistic looking blood instead of the weird ketchup-red stuff they used before. This also makes the zombies a lot scarier than in its predecessor, that and the fact that they’re actually a threat. They still move slow, but whenever they get a hold of somebody you’re done for, this movie has some of the most violent zombie killing scenes I’ve ever seen, and Rodriguez was obviously heavily inspired by this movie when he made Planet Terror. For instance, Doc Block looks exactly like one of the scientists in Day of the Dead (he can be seen at 7:58 in this clip). The movie is mainly interesting because of all the theoretic talk about how zombies work and how they can be manipulated, and one zombie, Bub, has a pretty big role in the movie.

Xbox 360 becomes more awesome

Posted 1991 days ago · Tagged: xbox 360 · 7 Comments

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With the recent fall update of Xbox 360, Microsoft introduced a series of new features. I haven't really gone in to depth with checking them out, except for two. The first one is Xbox Originals, a service that let's you download original Xbox games for the console, they cost 1,200 Microsoft Points, which is around 110 DKK, so far the following games have been released on Xbox Originals:

Halo: Combat Evolved
Fable
Psychonauts
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex
Fuzion Frenzy
Fahrenheit

I've been wanting to try Fable, Fahrenheit and Crimson Skies for a long time, and 110 DKK is pretty cheap for those games. So far I've bought Crimson Skies, it takes up 4.1 GBs of space though, so I have to be careful not to fill my hard disk with games.

The other awesome feature is DivX and Xvid playback, I tested it yesterday by putting an Xvid video of 28 Weeks Later on my USB Drive, inserting the drive into the 360's port and then playing it from the media section. It runs very smooth, you can even rewind and go fast forward, and if you stop watching you can resume the playback later. Now I just want to be able to download tv shows and movies, a feature that's been available in the US for some quite sometime. Today it will actually also launch in UK, Ireland, France and Germany, but it'll probably still be some time before we see it in Denmark.