the little movie that should.

i forget exactly where i read about colma: the musical, i just remember them saying it was a musical and vaguely gay. so i added to our netflix a while ago, i finally watched it yesterday, and boy what a suprise it was. this movie brightened my day. they pull off a new take on the musical, similar to hedwig and the angry inch, using pop and rock music successfully. i really appreciated how the songs never took on a concert or music video feel. they seemed natural in a way that is reminiscent of the classic musicals, west side story, guys and dolls, etc. never once did it seem weird or forced that they were singing. i might have to order the soundtrack. as for the acting, it was not always great, but they came off as a real group. lately morgan and i have been noting a lack of chemistry in movies, so it was great see this cast. highly recommended.

viewings from the queue #5.

the secret garden - not as good as remembered, but still fine.

nancy drew - i enjoyed this, it goes into the same category as clueless and legally blonde.

jane eyre - morgan continued foray into female centric english literature movies, this one was alright. it kind of felt like it was made for the hallmark channel.

pierre henry: the art of sounds - an interesting, albeit a bit shallow, look into the mind of one of the creators of musique concrete. highly recommended if you at all interested in electronic or experimental music. i wish it delved more into his music process and how he built his machines. and who were those two women that are always around him?

before the devil knows your dead - i didn’t really like this movie, i didn’t hate it either. it really had two things that i couldn’t get over. one; no good ever comes of ethan hawke. and two; there is far to many shots of marisa tomei’s boobies. so i guess if you can get over those things, you will enjoy this movie slightly more than i did.

dan in real life - i didn’t know this was a disney movie. don’t get me wrong i like disney movies, i just would of gone into it with a different mind set. also i didn’t know that that annoying comic dane cook was in it. i just like steve carrell. i guess i should do more research before i add movies to the queue. anyway. while at times painful to watch, i didn’t hate this movie. it is very disney, it is how disney handles the mid-life crisis romantic comedy. just don’t expect to laugh, you may do a bit a cringing though.

viewings from the queue #4

a state of mind - a thoroughly interesting look inside north korea, told through the eyes of two young gymnasts preparing for the mass games. even with this being a glossy version (approved by the north korean government) of what life must be like in north korea, you still get a good idea of how secluded (and kind of deluded) the north koreans are.

pride and prejudice - this is one of morgans favorite movies, and it made him so happy that i watched it with him (all six hours of it). this is the made for bbc version from the mid nighties. still not a convert to the jane austen fan club.

i am legend - why does will smith keep getting cast in sci-fi movies. he ruined i robot, and now he ruined this. the idea is pretty interesting, if not plotted well. it really could of moved a little faster, they really tried to acheive a pensiveness that eluded them. but the worst thing is will smith, he just always comes off as trying to hard. i would not say that this movie should be avoided, for fans of apocalyptic sci-fi, this is alright, you just have to suffer a bit with the fresh prince.

no country for old men - we sat on this movie for two weeks, breaking our rule of sending back any movie within a week of not watching it. for some reason neither morgan or i were really that into watching it. i knew it is based off a cormac mccarthy novel, i’ve read a couple of his books, and am just not a fan. finally the other night i forced us to watch it, it did get the best picture oscar, so we should give it a chance. we both really enjoyed it. i liked out the movies main subject wasn’t clear, it gave equal time to several characters and you never really know who you are supposed to root for. i can’t help but compare it to there will be blood. both are upridictable, perfectly cast, and shot and directed excellently. in my opinion though there will be blood is a better movie.

the king of kong -this documentary was kind of harrowing to watch. the journey of steve wiebe to become the world record holder in donkey kong was unexpectedly engrossing and frustrating. plus you get to see some of the nerdiest people alive today, and (if i may be a bit crass) one of the biggest douches ever. highly recommended.

viewings from the queue #3

bring it on: in it to win it - i am a huge fan of the cheersploitation genre, it is by far my favorite sploitation. the original bring it on is a masterpeice in the genre, right up there with the swinging cheerleaders, revenge of the cheerleaders, and satan’s cheerleaders (which really didn’t have enough satan). b.i.o:iitwi is the forth in the bring it on series. the second one, bring it on again, is horribly forced and is for cheersploitation fans only. the third one, bring it on: all or nothing, is great. starring the cheerleader from heroes and beyonce’s younger sister, they really bring the cheersploitation. b.i.o:iitwi is very loosely base on west side story, the two rival squads are the strangely pale west coast sharks and the scarily tan east coast jets. they are competing at cheercamp to represent the u.s. in an international cheer tour. one of the girls from the sharks fall for one of the guys from the jets. they end up having a dramatic nighttime cheer-off, horribly trying for another west side story homage, where a few of the cheerleaders end up getting hurt leaving neither squad with enough members to compete. so they forgive their differences and join together (as “the shets”) to defeat the rival cheer camp for the spot on the cheer tour, riveting i know. this movie is full a bad “emotionally revealing” dialogue, and strangely had tons of product placement for the world wildlife foundation. while not as bad as bring it on again it is far from the original or all or nothing. i do hesitate to recommend this to anyone who isn’t a cheersploitation fan.

the tomorrow people - since i recently rediscovered the soundtrack to this old british show i added it and bumped it up. so far i have watched the first disc which had the slaves of jedikiah storyline. and it also introduced the concept of the next step in human evolution, which is a group of british teens now as homo-superiors, or the tomorrow people. they have the ability to communicate telepathically and they can teleport short distances. somehow they have access to a jelly powered supercomputer named tim. with tim’s help their powers are greatly enhanced. this show is full of great sci-fi dialogue and wonderfully bad special effects. this is highly recommended.

michael clayton - i am never one for the big hollywood drama, for some reason the trailer for michael clayton appealed to me. it was probably the presence of the marvolous tilda swinton. this movie didn’t work for me. it was full of overacting and falls into the category i call “heterosexual male fantasy”, basically george clooney is the kind of “guy” that “guys” want to be. there was none of the tension that the trailer promised and it wasn’t at all surprising or shocking. george clooney is kind of sexy and tilda swinton is really good in it, so if that is all you need then you may be satisfied.

h.m.s. pinafore/trial by jury - if you like watching stage productions, and are a fan of gilbert and sullivan then this is for you. this is a production of two g&s operettas by an austrialian compay, they are a solid cast with alright sets. definably for fans only.

viewings from the queue #2.

maxed out - imagine that michael moore made a documentary about credit card companies for pbs, this is what it would be. much like sicko, there is really nothing new here, but it is was good to see it. there was a woman in it whose voice drove me crazy, kind of a whispered nails on a chalkboard, so be warned about her.

abba: the movie - as a young gay i avoided abba, they were too much of a gay cliche for me, secretly i always knew i would love them. a few months ago i got their first couple of albums and got kind of obsessed. this movie was great, if you are in anyway an abba fan, you should see this. it’s kind of a documentary of their 1976 australian tour, with the “story” of a reporter who needs to get an interview with them. above recommended but not quite highly recommended.

beowulf - we mostly watched this out of curiosity. it was a good movie, but highly flawed. the animation of everything except the humans was impeccable. grendel and the dragon were both impressive, and the scenery and landscapes looked almost real. there are many unnecessary shot of scenery that are really just animatory wankery. the humans on the other hand seemed like mannequins that came to life, but still can’t quite move their eyes. so that was a little distracting. the animation company still needs more experience in perspectives. there were several scenes where the characters that were on different levels and one of them seemed giant. especially one scene involving a horse and a spear that was almost confusing. onto the story, which is what saved the movie. they only stray slightly from the original story. i have to give some credit to neil gaiman who wrote the script, this was much better than stardust.

viewings from the queue.

the invasion - i had read several bad reviews of this movie, but i still wanted to see it because of my admiration of nicole kidman and daniel craig. i think they make a hot couple, have you seen the golden compass? this movie was a mess from the beginning. this was a sad sad movie. it was obviously filmed before daniel craig got all buff and sexy for james bond, and they apparently had to reshoot some scenes after he buffed up, the differences were so obvious. the invasion would almost be so bad it’s good, were it not for nicole kidman and daniel craig, so it’s just sad.

creatures from the pink lagoon - this movie was recommended to us by netflix. when i saw it starred nick garrison, one of my favorite actors out of seattle, i added it to our queue. it was a delightfully campy gay zombie (very) independent film.

dedication - this movie got added to the queue becaue amy sedaris was in the credits. it turns out she is only in it for a few minutes. the movie though wasn’t that bad. it follows a typical rom com formula while being a darkly quirky tale of a childrens book author and his illustrators. dedication almost of falls into the trap of trying to be deeper than it really is. the movie did win my heart, sort of, when the author (who is terrified of driving in cars) is riding in the back seat of a car clutching his messenger bag and wearing a helmet. billy crudup really pulled that scene off.