I remember watching this movie as a kid. I was 7 when the movie came out and the trailer blew my mind for 3 reasons:
1) It had Egyptian stuff. I was really into pyramids and pharaohs and stuff as a kid. I can’t really explain this, other than I liked the idea of hieroglyphics. I used to make little booklets with my own hieroglyphics in them.
2) It had Space stuff. Well, that was the impression I was under. I turned out to be quite wrong about it. Star Wars was amazing to me as a kid. Star Trek was much too slow for me to enjoy, because it didn’t have the same kind of dog fights as Star Wars did. Imagine my disappointment when I watched this film and realized that there weren’t any space fights in it at all.
3) It had Kurt Russel. I must have watched Big Trouble in Little China every day as a kid, so he was my favourite actor.
So I bugged my mom and she took me to watch this movie. I feel for my mom, because there’s no doubt in my mind that she hated this movie, but she took me to watch it anyway because that’s what moms do. It’s technically what I do now with Angelina, but I brainwashed her into liking the stuff I like, so she’ll come into my room and ask me if I want to watch some Futurama or Simpsons with her. Score!
Anyway, I’m a massive fan of trailer music (no, not country music), but there’s always a few songs that are a bitch to find because they were made specifically for the trailer. Return of the King is a prime example, because they used a song that wasn’t featured on any of the soundtracks. I had given up all hope of finding this song a few years ago when I decided to look up the trailer again to have another listen. I found out that they released a rarities archive and this was one of the tracks included on it. Seriously, it made my day.
So I decided to look for other trailer music I wasn’t able to find. There was a really cool song that they play on a lot of trailers for adventure movies and I learned that that was actually from the Stargate film!
And there we go. Which is what led me to getting the soundtrack (pretty awesome soundtrack btw), and the movie as well. I love revisiting movies, because you never know what you miss out on the first time around. I watched Lost in Translation again this year and absolutely loved it, as opposed to when I watched it in grade 12 and hated it. Can’t wait to watch this film! I’ll definitely review it (because you know, reviewing movies from 1994 is what I do).
- Used my day planner everyday.
- Watched some disturbing-ass movies.
- Haven’t exercised as much as I want to.
A month into the new year and I’m making some decent progress into things I wanted to do. The disturbing movies I’ve been watching are incredibly violent and graphic. I think what I’d really enjoy are some bizarre movies, not disturbing ones. My friend recommended Taxidermia to me, so I’ll be watching that this weekend. Another friend recommended August Underground to me, and that movie might seriously warp my mind. It’s filmed like a snuff film and it looks absolutely despicable.
*sigh* I do this for you! For my lovely readers!
Anyway, I’ve compiled a mini-list of movies that I intend to watch throughout the year. Stipulations are that they must be movies that:
1) Movies that I’ve avoided in the past. These fall under the “redeeming myself” list (Requiem for a Dream, Salo, Irreversible).
2) Anything that people have deemed as incredibly disturbing. These fall under the “proving myself” list.
Why do I have to redeem myself or prove anything? Because I’m a man and we do these things for no real reason. So! Here’s the list of movies that I need to watch:
- Martyrs
- Frontier
- Requiem for a Dream
- August Underground (this is apparently a trilogy! I’m only watching 1 of them)
- Scrapbook
- Taxidermia
- Marebito
- Eraserhead
- Naked Lunch (I might read the book as well).
They don’t always have to be “disturbing” but I just want to feel like I’m challenging myself. I’ve avoided these movies because I was afraid, but not this year! If you have any suggestions, please comment!
If you hate your part-time job, you should watch Clerks.
If you hate your full-time job, watch Office Space.
And if you just hate people, then Idiocracy might be the film for you.
These movies would make for a great thematic trilogy for bitter people. In Clerks, Dante constantly whines about how he’s “not supposed to be here today”, as his weekend of ball hockey gets usurped from him by his responsibilities at work. Only his job isn’t that important, doesn’t pay well, and isn’t satisfying at all. It’s the worst reason for someone to sacrifice their weekend. In Office Space, you see the inanity of work in an office environment, how bureaucracy “works”, and shitty coworkers and managers. It’s a hilarious film, but it’s so depressingly accurate.
And now there’s Idiocracy. I heard about this film quite a while ago but it slipped under the radar and I completely forgot about it. It’s about an average man (aptly named Joe), who participates in an army experiment where he has to stay in a hibernation pod for a year. If it was successful, the hibernation pods would be used to preserve the army’s best fighters for future wars, so they test it out on Joe so they don’t waste any of their elite fighters. The experiment goes wrong when the leader behind the experiment is arrested and Joe (and another participant) are forgotten…for 500 years. Joe wakes up in the future to realize that everyone on Earth is a complete moron and he is the smartest man on Earth. You’ll immediately recognize the morons in the movie, because they seem like something straight out of an MTV show. Almost everyone is illiterate, fast food can be purchased via an ATM-like machine, and people love their low-brow entertainment (usually dick/fart jokes or ludicrous violence).
The #1 movie in Idiocracy:
The #1 TV show in Idiocracy:
It’s funny until you realize that this isn’t too far off the mark. Isn’t one of the most popular shows on television right now Jersey Shore? I never understood that phenomenon, or any of those other crappy MTV shows, which is why Idiocracy made me laugh so hard. It felt like someone out there understood what I felt too! The premise, however, is a bit snobby and dismissive. It imagines the world to be comprised of people who only enjoy the base pleasures in life, and how pathetic their life must be. Are you saying handjobs at Starbucks is a bad idea? No way man! There has to be balance as well. Can you imagine a world where it’s only high-brow stuff? That’d be an equally nightmarish situation, and Ass would still be the #1 movie, only it’d be filmed in black and white in some backwards chronological order or something.
But for all the haters out there who are knee-deep in stupidity, this is the movie for you.
The other day my sister told me that her class was going to read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe for class. I asked her if she wanted me to get the movie for her so she can watch it first, and she said:
“No, it’s going to spoil the book for me.”
Redford: “But you haven’t read the book yet, how is it going to spoil it for you?”
Angelina: “I don’t know, but I like books more so it’s going to spoil the book for me.”
I like how books can be spoiled by watching the movie, but, movies aren’t really spoiled when you watch it after reading the book. Is this true for everyone? I rarely read the books after watching the movie.
I love working on Monday nights because every lot in my district is dead. You get at least an hour of time to yourself to do whatever you want (besides work) and last Monday we decided to watch a movie. My coworker has a crapload of movies (over 2000) and he brought a good 20 for us to choose from.
“Well, we got Prophecy II, Ong Bak 2, A Prophet…”
Red: “You know I’ve never watched Ong Bak.”
“Never?!”
Then he clears away everything and reaches into his bag and brings out the first Ong Bak. Now when it first came out I remember how everyone watched it but me. This kinda movie isn’t something you watch by yourself, so I’ve been waiting for a chance to watch with a bunch of people but never got the opportunity. So I just ended up youtubing some clips. I’ve seen Tony kick lots of ass but never in any context. So I was quite excited to see what all the hype was about.
Ong Bak was amongst the most stupid films I’ve ever watched in my life and the choreography was crap too. Tony Jaa is amazing, for sure, but there are so many moments in the film (particularly the extended chase sequence) where extras would plant themselves in the middle of the scene and wait for Tony Jaa to do something amazing around them. At the very least, no matter how bad a film is, its goal is to be somewhat believable. A great film makes you forget that you’re watching a movie and you feel like a voyeur in someone’s life. Ong Bak is the complete opposite of that. They made no effort to hide the stunt being set up. It’s like watching this on a stage, and seeing the people set up the background before the actors come in. It ruins the illusion – that’s why they lower the curtains when they’re setting things up.
My friend also had the bootleg version of Ong Bak so the subtitles were shady. Not that I was really paying much attention to it, but the thing that caught me was that the guy he was with through the movie was called “Dirty Balls.” Either this is a hilarious mistranslation, or a terrible script idea. Someone please confirm that the guy’s name was Dirty Balls.
Ong Bak was essentially the Tony Jaa stunt show. Things would be set up right in front of you, then Tony Jaa would jump around and kick ass. It was fun laughing at all the stuff he did and the replays just made everything more fun. I’m not going to take this movie seriously at all, and as stupid as it was, it was hella entertaining.