Sunday, November 29, 2009

YouTube, I tube...

It's coming up on my 25 Days of Christmas so I thought I would hurry up and write something that had nothing to do with Christmas movies. You'll be getting enough of that in a couple days.

Today we're talking about YouTube. Crazy, huh? I've recently fallen in love with YouTube all over again and it wasn't due to the video of the van getting taken out by the wrecking ball either. It because I have been able to reconnect with a few gems from my childhood that I thought we lost to the sands of time.

One lazy and gloomy day I was sitting in front of the computer with nothing to really do. I had checked all the emails accounts, updated the Facebook, peeped the daily news... and then I did something very random. I decided to look up a made for tv movie that I had seen when I was a child. It was a little movie called Mr. Boogedy and it was a made for tv movie that played during The Wonderful World of Disney sunday nights on ABC. I saw this thing when I was a kid and remember it being really good and the next year they had a sequel pop up on the same program.

I searched the flick and surprisingly found a link that sent me to YouTube. I was expecting a clip or something but it turned out the whole flick was on there in 10 minute sections. I was blown away. This led me to search out other flick from way back and I found a few others that I had been missing since the VHS tapes of my childhood went the way of the Dodo.

The last week or so I viewed a pilot episode for the never picked up Young MacGuyver. Starring Supernatural star Jared Padalecki it was the story of MacGuyver's nephew and his adventures being a secret agent following in the footsteps of his uncle. It wasn't that good but it was a treat to view.

A couple nights ago I watched a made for tv movie that I had seen as a kid called a Smokey Mountain Christmas. It starred Dolly Parton and Lee Majors and was pretty silly but it brought back some good memories of watching Christmas specials each year and looking forward to seeing what the networks were going to have for that year...

Which brings us right back to the 25 Days of Christmas and the first flick I'm going to be watching. It's a little movie called The Night We Saved Christmas and I'm going to be watching it in 10 minute sections on YouTube. Join me if you like but I warn you... it's pretty cheesy.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

25 Days of Christmas

I'm gonna do it. I'm going to try and do it.

That's right, folks. This year I am going to attempt to watch one Christmas movie every day until the morning of Christmas day. That's 25 movies I have to get through. And that doesn't count the ones I will be watching for the various podcasts I am doing Christmas episodes for. It's going to be a challenge to keep on track and not to skip a day here or there.

I'm trying to add as many movies I haven't seen to the list as possible. There are a few of them out there from the last few years that I never got to and this is going to be a catch up of sorts as well as a revisiting of ones I haven't seen in a while.

Here is the list of flicks I have. This is not in any order. I will be watching them as I get them.

1. Prancer
2. The Night They Saved Christmas
3. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
4. A Muppet Christmas Carol
5. Die Hard
6. Die Hard 2: Die Harder
7. Miracle on 34th Street (original)
8. Miracle on 34th Street (remake)
9. It's a Wonderful Life
10. White Christmas
11. Santa Clause: The Movie
12. A Muppet Family Christmas
13. Jingle all the Way
14. Four Christmases
15. Christmas Story
16. Ernest Saves Christmas
17. Christmas with the Kranks
18. Trapped in Paradise
19. The Santa Clause
20. The Santa Clause 2
21. Elf
22. Home Alone
23. Home Alone 2
24. Silent Night, Deadly Night
25. Deck The Halls

So those are the flicks.

The next step in the process will be talking about all these movies. So I'm going to do that here. Each day of the 25 Days I will be back here to blog about the movie of the day! So stay tuned, folks. It's going to be a challenge...

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The world is coming to an end...

Have you seen the new film 2012? I did. Turns out the world is going to be ending near the end of the year 2012. Bummer, huh? If only it were just a movie and not a peek into the future of mankind.

Except that it is a movie. It's not real. This is a made up story written by a writer or two in an office. There is no magic or science behind it. It's for entertainment purposes.

You may be asking why I had to state the most simple of facts in this blog. It's because there are people out there that aren't getting it. They sit on forums and comment sections of the web and argue with people about how at the end of the actual year of 2012 there will not be an alignment of planets that will help bring the downfall of the world itself. They argue that the science of the movie is fake and as such the movie is silly and shouldn't be watched. To all of this I say one thing...

IT'S A MOVIE. YOU DUMMIES!

It doesn't matter if there is or isn't going to be a cosmic event in the year 2012! That was written into the movie as a plot point to get us to the part of the movie where the world goes to crap in a hand basket. This isn't the director trying to show us what he thinks will happen to us in the future and telling us to open our eyes and prepare for the coming doom. The director likes to blow crap up and this is his way of doing a lot of that in one movie.

People need to stop taking the entertainment industry so seriously. Folks need to stop complaining about the science of a big dumb fun action movie and just sit back and enjoy the ride. Critics need to stop bashing a movie that doesn't have a goal of enriching the art or lives of the people who view it. Sometimes a movie can just be for having fun.

I saw 2012 and I had a good time with it. The acting was fine, FX were excellent, and the story had some eye rolling moments but in the end the whole thing was a hoot and I left the theater smiling. So go have fun, people.

It's not the end of the world.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Revisiting Old Friends...

There are movies out there that I watched as a kid that filled me with a sense of adventure and wonder. I loved the characters and the situations that they were put in had me on the edge of my seat as I waited to find out if they would make it through unscathed. I would put these flicks in a special drawer of the movie collection at my house. A drawer reserved for movies I loved and could watch over and over again.

As I grew older and my tastes started to change and solidify into what they are now something happened that saddens me to this day.

A lot of those movies got really dumb.

It's not their fault. They were created to appeal to a kid who didn't exist anymore when it came to my life. The silly adventures of these characters had now been unmasked as unrealistic, poorly written, and in the end... not entertaining.

Every once in a while I will come across a movie I haven't seen in ages and have to make that decision. The decision of if I should watch the movie and run the risk of having it turn into one of the films that has been lost in the same place childhood things go.

There are a couple movies I have sitting at my house right this very second that I have bought on DVD because the memories I have of that film are ones of wonder and excitement and I have yet to watch them for fear of losing them as well. Some of these flicks I have had sitting on my shelf for a couple years.

Some of the movies hold up. They may not be as good as I remember them being but they are fun and still hold a bit of wonder within them. But the loss is too great to chance sometimes. Sometimes I want to hold on to the memories a little bit longer.

I sat with my family this week and watched The Muppets Take Manhattan. I hadn't seen the flick in a while and I wondered if this was going to be the case. Was I going to come away from this viewing thinking that the Muppets were lost to me? Of course not... it's the stinking Muppets!

Are there movies out there like this for you? Which ones?

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Trailer time...

I love trailers.

I make sure that I make it to the theater with enough time so that I don't miss any of the trailers that come on before the movie each time I head out to peep a flick. I makes some of the people I tend to go to movies with think I'm a little nuts. They tend to roll up into the theater right before the movie begins and it's not unusual for them to come in a few minutes into the movie. I never understood how they can do that.

I always saw the trailers as an event in and of themselves. You may be there to see the latest action flick but the chance to get a peep at the latest flicks Hollywood has to offer is like getting an extra present under the tree at Christmas time. It's like getting a desert at a resturant and not having to pay for it. It's like winning the lottery!

Ok... so thats taking it a little far.

The point is... trailers are cool. Some of them are made better than the movies they are trying to sell you. An example...

When the trailer for the first new Star Wars movie in forever and a day came out in the theater people were flocking to the movies houses just to see a peek at the movie. What we saw was magic. Brief glimpses into a world of magic and science that we hadn't seen in years. A world that was now sharper and bigger. The sounds of the classic theme and the hum of lightsabers filled the darkness and we all held our breath in excitment and anticipation.

And then the movie came out.

It wasn't all we had expected from what we saw in the trailer. At least it wasn't for me. I felt a little left down as the epic nature of the trailer did not extend to the film itself. Now I know there are plenty of people out there who will disagree with me about that but it's only my opinion. You can like what ever movie you want. I won't judge.

Another trailer I saw that was pretty cool was for another sci fi flick. I sat in the theater and watched as scenes played out of SWAT teams storming a building, black helicopters, an explosion, and a vast field with a white tent in the middle. I had no idea what this movie was and when a single voice called out a single name to warn the other of impending doom I was pretty stinking excited. That name was Mulder.

The trailer for the X Files movie was cool because you couldn't tell what movie it was until the reveal. I liked that.

A teaser that comes to mind that got a lot of reaction in the theater was the teaser for The Dark Knight. Bits of dialouge mixed with the black background that is torn apart and reveals the bat symbol was awesome. Yoy could hear the people in the theater get excited as they realized what they were seeing. I love those moments.

These are the moments that you are missing when you come to the theater late. I recommend taking in the whole experience next time if you are one of those people who wanders in after the movie has started.

Sunday, November 1, 2009

The Downside of Paranormal Activity...

It happened when Clerks made a big splash back in the 90's. It happened when Blair Witch Project came out as well. If you want to go back a little farther then you just have to look at the original Halloween. They all have the same thing in common. People saw these movies and then said... "I can do that."

After Halloween came out in theaters and raked in a ton of cash after being made for a tiny amount the market was flooded with copy cats. There were a few good ones but for the most part we were flooded with cheap knock offs that were just plain horrible. The thought behind it all was that we could make very cheap movies and even if they turned a low box office amount we would still be in the black cause we didn't really spend money on the thing to begin with.

Clerks had the same outcome. Kevin Smith released his movie and it along with a few other flicks of the same pedigree caused the indie boom of the 90's. Everyone with a camera went out and made cheap movies and Hollywood was buying them up. Once again, we did have a few gems come out of this boom but for the most part it was a lot of garbage.

Blair Witch cause the same series of events to unfold. It even ushered in a new form of film making that hasn't gone the way of the dodo even all these years later. After the release we couldn't go a step in the video store without passing a rip off of that flick. There was even a couple porno titles in there somewhere.

We now find ourselves in the time of Paranormal Activity. The movie made for $11,000 that has dominated the box office and internet chat rooms for a month. And it's good. It's the scariest movie I have ever seen and it's worthy of all the articles and praise. But there is always a downside to success in Hollywood and this type of movie brings with it a particular curse that I fear.

"It was made for $11,000? That's it? I can do that."

Get ready for the flood of wanna be's, folks. It will come in two types. The folks out there with cameras who think they can do it better and for less and the Hollywood execs who want to buy one of these cheap flicks in the hope that it will bring a larger profit.

The people who think they can make it for less may be able to. They might already have the equipment. They might have actor friends that they don't need to pay. That's all great and good but unless you have a story to tell you are just going to be making a cheap piece of... well... you know.

In my opinion it all comes down to the story being told. It has to be compelling. It has to engage the audience. Most film makers out there who are just trying to get the flick done as fast as possible with as little money as possible lose focus on the story and it ends up falling by the wayside. Paranormal Activity didn't have a script. It was add libbed. So was Blair Witch. It's become an option to not even write a script anymore. Now that's scary.

On the Hollywood front it's almost worse. Suddenly Hollywood starts to think that all the millions of dollars they are throwing at these movies isn't worth it. If we can make movies for $11,000 and get millions back at the box office why should we make a lot of those million dollar movies? Why can't we get an Iron Man for a couple million instead of the hundred or so we are spending now? Something we don't want is Hollywood taking a few steps back in quality in search of more cash.

Paranormal Activity didn't make all this money by having a small budget. It was the story. It was the acting. It was the mood. It was the perfect storm of film making that doesn't come along often enough. I think it was mostly luck.

What are we supposed to do with all this information? How are we to safe guard ourselves against watching the crap that's about to start hitting the local video store? Just be watchful and wait till it dies down. It always does.

But then it happens again.