Owner: Blog Cabins URL:http://blogcabins.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:44:24 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Blog Cabins is your home for insanely important film/pop culture commentary and discussion. Whether you\'re into popcorn flicks or indies, your modest host Fletch has the bases covered. Well, unless you like Nic Cage - then you\'re pretty much s Site statistics:Click here
Fletch's Film Review: You Kill Me 2007-07-18 11:10:00 It's really a privilege to be able to watch Ben Kingsley in action. Now, I know that sounds like some rabid gushing, but it's not quite. Instead, Kingsley could be likened to a Christopher Walken, who (aside from also being a pretty talented guy, despite his inability to say no to anything) is a good actor, but is even more of an onscreen presence. Good luck explaining the appeal of Walken (should the topic come up) to your grandkids. He's hilarious and captivating and a train wreck all at the same time - and is otherwise incapable of being labeled.Kingsley, meanwhile, has more serious acting chops, but is just as hard to pin down. He literally commands your attention when he's on the screen, even in a quiet role like the one he plays in You Kill Me, the latest from director John Dahl (Rounders, The Last Seduction). Despite being a somewhat slight man (5'8" and trim as can be for a 63-year old), he's larger than life, as evidenced by his commanding, twisted role in Sexy Beast.In Read more:Film Review
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Fletch's Favored Five: Renaissance Films 2007-07-11 10:50:00 I figure its high time I class up this joint, and what better way to do so than to honor some films that have gone beyond their appreciation of film stock and enriched our lives with that more respected medium - painting. Keep in mind, I'm no art expert, and I don't know much, but I know what I like...While recently re-watching The Royal Tenenbaums, I was able to fall in love again with the Miguel Calderon painting to your right (and its complement - not shown) that is prominent in one of my favorite scenes. I'd rather not spoil it, so if you haven't seen the film - shame on you, first of all, as it's one of the best of the last 15 years - do so immediately and pay particular attention to a scene between Luke and Owen Wilson that takes place in Owen's characters' apartment.Some other objects of my affection:Much as I'm busying classing up the joint, John Hughes did so some twenty years ago with Ferris Buehler's Day Off. In what some might classify as merely being a teen comedy Read more:Films
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Fletch's Film Review: Sicko 2007-07-11 10:05:00 I'm happy to report that I was wrong. With both his curveball and fastball still intact, Michael Moore's Sicko
is no different in tone than any of his previous efforts. Alternately informative and infuriating, Moore still finds plenty of time for his sardonic wit to shine through.Through possibly an easy task, those that spend their time picking holes in Moore's arguments and/or railing him for his stunts (he attempts to take a group of folks to Guantanamo Bay for treatment, for example) are wasting their time and missing the point. Slanted as Moore may be, and however uninformed he may be in regards to the health care systems in place in Canada, France, et al, Moore's heart and head are squarely in the right place at all times. He sees a (big) problem with the US health care system and is looking at countries that maybe, just possibly, have a better system.Amongst my few complaints with Sicko is Moore's inability to let the past go. Despite my feelings for Bush and his administra Read more:Film Review
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Some of my favorite "characters" 2007-07-10 09:56:00 Steve Buscemi. John Turturro. Eric Stolz. J.T. Walsh. Paul Giamatti. R. Lee Ermey. Samuel L. Jackson.What do these men have in common? Aside from large filmographies, all were known once upon a time as "character actors." The best of them, some would say. Early in their film careers, they were not stars - until the indie scene took off in the mid-nineties, you could argue that none would have ever had the chance at starring in a film. However, as time went on and their profiles grew, they went from being "that guy" that you recognize from 10 other films to quasi-household names (or even more, in the cases of Jackson and Giamatti). Sadly, J.T. Walsh died too young, and Ermey has always been typecast (and rightfully so); but the rest got their due.So just for the hell of it, I'd like to list some of my current favorite "that guys" or character actors or whatever you want to call them. Some are familiar faces, some are familiar names, but chances are you've seen all of them at one time
Fletch's Film Review: Live Free or Die Hard 2007-07-08 21:43:00 Apparently, the critics and movie audiences of the world have lowered their standards. Considerably. To think that Live Free
or Die Hard is currently rated at an 8.1/10 on IMDb, or that the film regularly scores four out of five stars is all a bit disconcerting. Because, really, there isn't all that much to crow about.I guess, in some respects, I can understand it. After all, this is the fourth in the series, and number fours aren't typically very representative of the overall quality of a franchise. The laundry list of fatal fours is long and undistinguished: Batman & Robin, Lethal Weapon 4, The Phantom Menace. Not a decent film amongst them. So, in comparison, Live Free looks like a masterpiece.For a mindless summer popcorn flick, it's pretty effective - just be sure to remember the "no mind" portion. With almost nonstop action (it starts within 12 minutes or so of the opening credits and continues throughout), the movie certainly fulfills its requirement as an adrenaline- Read more:Film Review
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Fletch's Film Review: A Mighty Heart 2007-07-05 15:29:00 How do you make an entertaining film about someone's death? Even more so, how do you do said task when all members of the audience know that the death is coming? Separate from those two questions, why is said film released in summer, at the height of blockbuster movie season?While director Michael Winterbottom (Code 46) is left to deal with the first two questions, the last one must be saved for the studio that released A MightyHeart
(Paramount Vintage).Try as he might, Winterbottom succeeds in making a film that, while painful to watch (due to subject matter) at many times, is still capable of some light humor and tense drama. The story of the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, told through the eyes of his loved ones and pursuers at and after the time of his abduction in Pakistan is not an easy story to tell, to be sure. However, if any director was up to the task, it is Winterbottom, whose multi-culti style of filmmaking and feel for moods is a perfect way to take Read more:Film Review
, Fletch
Songs that must be retired from movie soundtracks 2007-07-03 09:24:00 I need your assistance, as my memory is only so good and all of the internets are only so much help here. Perhaps this post will help other geeks in the future.See, while I was sitting in the theater the other night waiting for the feature to begin, I was subjected yet again to the Fine Young Cannibals' 1989 smash hit "She Drives Me Crazy" playing in the trailer for the upcoming The Nanny Diaries. IMDb lists just three other high profile soundtrack appearances for the song (Hitch, The Other Sister, and Gross Anatomy), but I'm pretty sure that trailer appearances alone don't count towards that total (in case you're wondering, "Good Thing" has two such entries, and I'm not counting TV entries of foreign films). In fact, I'm going to go on the safe side and just multiply any IMDb soundtrack search total by 5 to completely unscientifically and woefully inaccurately calculate a songs' "trailer rating."Outside of the Cannibals, I know that there metric tons of these songs that get ove Read more:movie
Diversion time... 2007-06-28 00:13:00 In honor of the release of the latest Die Hard flick, let's have some fun and caption this picture: Read more:Diversion
A very special episode of Fletch's Favored Five 2007-06-27 12:13:00 Warning: the post you are about to read is in poor taste at best, and possibly offensive at worst. Proceed with caution - and lighten up!"Stupid is as stupid does." - Forrest Gump"I like the way you talk, too." - Karl Childers"Sometimes they're bald because their head is shiny and they don't have hair on it. So their head is just more of their face." - Sam DawsonListed above are some of the most famous quotes that the film world has ever seen (okay, maybe not the third one so much - that's from I Am Sam). Their common thread? The words were all uttered by characters that are, well, let's just say they're "special" in one way or another. A conversation the other day got me thinking - who are my favorite mentally challenged characters? I feel compelled to share with you...Honorable MentionsSam Dawson, I Am SamOnly the man that brought Jeff Spicoli to the national consciousness could have played Sam. Wait a sec, what am I saying? I never saw this, and neither did anyone else. But it Read more:Fletch
TGITDNMAR* (6/15/07) 2007-06-15 08:48:00 If every week's new releases looked like the crop coming out today, no one would ever go to the theaters. Truly shocking, considering that this is one of the prime weeks - mid-June, all the kids are out of school, and with Ocean's being the big release last week and Evan Almighty being the biggest release next, the next mega-film doesn't come out for three weeks (Transformers)! Anyway, here's the major releases being, um, released today:Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver SurferTime for another trip back in time: this time, let's go all the way back to 2005. You've just gotten out of the theater after seeing Fantastic Four.What's that? You didn't see it in the theater? No - you did, but you thought it sucked?Whatever the case, this trip back in time wasn't worth taking, as everyone who saw the original thought it sucked. But you know what the shocking, twister ending to this story is? The sequel looks much better - though I still thinks Ioan Gruffudd has the name of an Irish fr
Fletch's Film Review: Transformers 2007-07-24 10:10:00 Well, I've put this off long enough to the point of irrelevance, but I figured I ought to at least post a short take with my thoughts on Transformers
.It's funny, really. For all the crap Michael Bay takes, he is generally regarded as a good "action director," experienced with big set pieces and complex action with a lot going on, be it gunfire or explosions or - most often - both. However, the big action sequences in Tranformers, expensive-looking as they may be, are probably the worst thing about the movie.Most of the problem lies with the 'bots themselves. With this modern take on the 80s cartoon focused on a bit of realism when it comes to the origins and capabilities of the alien robots, the end result is a semi truck that, when transforming from upright form to truck form, seems to be made of a billion parts. The same could be said for any of the other robots. Now take that complexity and throw it into fight scenes between two or more hunks of metal that change shapes seemingly Read more:Film Review
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