Up is a 2009 computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar …
The film has received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes (the best reviewed wide-released film of 2009 on the site), and grossed over $731 million worldwide …
This was the third time I’ve watched it, a perfect film where I cannot find a single scene or frame to delete.
Many feel this is the best scene. Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Today I bought a FreeAgent® GoFlex™ Ultra–portable Drive from FutureShop.
It came preloaded with pirated Hollywood movies.
Of course I’m outraged.
Somebody is stealing food from Brad Pitt’s baby.
I’ll head back to FutureShop to register my outrage. And to ask why they are encoded in a crappy .wmv format.
🙂
_____
After returning and replacing that drive, the next had exactly the same movies!
Turns out they are preinstalled, encrypted … and cost $10 or more to unlock. Bleh.
I have this friend who was addicted to Scrabble.
Eventually they led her away in handcuffs. She’s clean now, … so far as I know.
“Scrabylon” is an award-winning, critically-acclaimed documentary on the cutthroat world of tournament Scrabble®.
Featuring the most fierce anagrammers, rack balancers, and bingo experts in competitive Scrabble®, “Scrabylon” delves deep into this sometimes wacky, sometimes odd, always compelling subculture. Shot primarily during the World Scrabble® Championships in Las Vegas, “Scrabylon” features players from around the globe and gives an up-close look at why people get so obsessed with that seemingly benign game played at countless kitchen tables.
“Scrabylon” spotlights “GI (gastrointestinal) Joel” Sherman, the world’s only professional Scrabble® player – so named for his various stomach ailments …
Click PLAY or watch a short clip from the film on YouTube.
It’s charmingly unedited. These addicts speak for themselves.
… kind of reminds me of my own unique subculture: gymnastics.
Is it my imagination, or are roles for older women getting better?
… slightly better.
(Not counting Merle Streep. She’s her own industry.)
I just saw Julianne Moore and Annette Bening starring as a lesbian couple living in California in The Kids Are All Right. (My defense? I thought it was a documentary on The Who.)
They’re both older than me. Ancient.
Low budget indie Chloe, with Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried is the most skillful movie I’ve seen in a long, long time. A remake of the 2004 French film Nathalie, the screenplay was written with Julianne in mind. (Neeson’s wife, Natasha Richardson, died of injuries during a ski lesson during filming, adding a poignancy to his always enigmatic performance.)
Sigourney Weaver is still killing it. Andie MacDowell never stops working.
Glenn Close, Helen Mirren, Diane Keaton. … Who else?
What ever happened to Woody Allen being the love interest of the latest starlet?
Related:
• WOMEN & HOLLYWOOD blog
• Could Betty White’s Success Help Older Women Onscreen?
• Hollywood finally abandons its prejudice against older women in romantic roles
Many have spent lifetimes reflecting on the Existence of God.
Of course you cannot debate the question unless you first agree on the definition of God.
Atheists conclude that there’s no evidence that “God” exists.
Believers agree, explaining that you must have “faith”.
I finally saw Bill Maher‘s movie Religulous.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
According to Maher, the title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words “religion” and “ridiculous”; the documentary examines and mocks organized religion and religious belief …
It’s worth seeing. But my first comment is that Maher’s like Jon Stewart, but not nearly so witty. Or incisive.
Organized religion is a pretty soft target. Easy to skewer. There were no revelations in the film for me. Nothing new.
Scientology and Mormonism come off worst. Evangelical Christians the most hateful.
In my opinion organized religions do more good than harm. They bring community and comfort. But at a cost. (I’m quite content not to belong to one, though. Most appealing is Buddhism, though that’s a philosophy, not a religion.)
Personally I’m agnostic. I’ve not yet seen any evidence that there’s no sentient power in the universe more advanced than man.
Some bacteria in my lower intestine might deny that I exist. It would be wrong.
Brian starts teaching Math at a High School in Canada today. Good luck.
He works in a socialist system, far from perfect.
A documentary on the even worse American school system won the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. I really want to see this.
The film analyzes the failures of American public education by following several students through the educational system.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
It features Geoffrey Canada, one of my heros.
Bill Gates opinion of the film.
Thanks Lauraleigh.
Once again I ended up watching Almost Famous at a hostel. It’s a feel good experience that strangers can share.
Almost Famous is a 2000 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Cameron Crowe and telling the fictional story of a teenage journalist writing for Rolling Stone magazine while covering the rock band Stillwater, and his efforts to get his first cover story published. The film is semi-autobiographical, as Crowe himself was a teenage writer for Rolling Stone.
The film is based on Crowe’s experiences touring with rock bands The Allman Brothers Band, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles, and Lynyrd Skynyrd. In a Rolling Stone article, he talks about how he lost his virginity, fell in love, and met his heroes, experiences that are shared by William, the main character in the film. …
Here’s one of the very best scenes.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Kate Hudson is perfect. Her Mom, Goldie Hawn, played similar roles a generation earlier.
This scene has its own Facebook page. I Like.
The cost of infinitely reproducible digital ‘goods’, transferred via the web, will approach zero.
In the States, McDonalds has dropped the price on very good, fairly recent movies to a dollar a night. And that’s for a DVD with real production and transportation costs.
Some of the big Hollywood production houses try to fight Redbox. A losing battle, I predict.
This Matt Damon Hollywood blockbuster The Green Zone brings Iraq back to public interest. It details blunders made and deliberate lies told by some in the U.S. Government.
Iraq’s been largely forgotten, I feel, as attention shifted to Afghanistan. This movie is timely.
… The film was inspired by the non-fiction 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life in the Green Zone, Baghdad …
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
It’s a work of fiction, based loosely on fact. That seems a misrepresentation of history to many critics.
Personally I thought Green Zone a very compelling movie. Not Bourne compelling, but strong.
The only downside is that the plot hinges on WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction).
There are many reasons why the American led invasion of Iraq will go down in history as a mistake as colossal as Vietnam. Lies told about WMDs are one of the lesser reasons.
Ironically, I feel that George H. Bush did the right thing in Desert Storm (1991). An awesome, strategic air strike. And then withdrawal as quickly as possible.
If you threaten the USA, expect the bombers and drones over your capital city within weeks.
I wish George W. had done the same.
Nelson Mandela is a great hero of mine.
I can’t think of any actor better suited to play him in a Hollywood movie than Morgan Freeman. Nor any director better than Clint Eastwood.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
Loved it.
Invictus is a 2009 biographical drama film based on events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted in that country following the dismantling of apartheid. …
The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation. Invictus was released in the United States on December 11, 2009.
Here’s the real Mandella with captain François Pienaar. (much bigger than actor Matt Damon, you notice)
Invictus – the poem
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.William Ernest Henley
hmmm …
How do I get to the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand next year …
Rick McCharles 