Doug’s Sounding Board

Movies:
Protocols of Zion – A documentary about “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion” and a look at who believes it to be true. Well mostly about who believes it to be true. If you know about the protocols then it’s mostly seeing how far and wide they have been taken up by people as what is going on.

Zone Troopers – A Full Moon video starring Tim Thomerson (Jack Deth in the Trancers movies) as a WWII sergeant helping his squad trapped behind enemy lines. Eventually the aliens help out. It’s not great, but I’ve seen less entertaining movies certainly.

Hitman – Another movie based on a game. I’ve never played this game, but these movie adaptations are getting better in general. It has some fun action and gun action, but if you really want a fun action/gun movie I think you should check out Shoot ‘Em Up.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry – A lot of stereotypes here but it’s still pretty funny and handled fairly well. It stops making much sense towards the end but there was enough laughing throughout so I didn’t care too much.

Atonement – WWII period piece with great costumes and sets. Why is this rated over 8/10 on IMDB? I think people are desperate for war stories or something. Yes it’s all well done but I’ve been better told stories.

Bad Santa – Finally this years I saw this movie, and I’ve seen it twice now. It genuinely is a good spirit of x-mas movie, though it takes awhile to see how it might get there. According to the IMDb the “badder” version has about 20% more swearing.

Juno – This one was just good from start to finish. See this one!

Poltergeist III – Hey, it was on. I saw it long ago and didn’t think it was that great then but now I see the best part about this movie is the mirror effects. The movie revolves around them so it should, but almost every time they are pulled off perfectly. Watch it to learn mirror effects.

Loser – Hey, this was on too! This movie isn’t inherently bad, but there is absolutely no chemistry between Jason Biggs and Mena Suvari. It seems like this should have been an easy one to get right but something fell apart along the way.

HD Notes:
The Wizard of Oz in HD doesn’t just give you better colors, you get to see things like the burlap texture on the scarecrow’s face!

Flash Gordon in HD let me see that the shiny costumes weren’t just shiny fabrics, many of them were multitudes of beads sewn on.

Superbad – It started off fairly slow but after the first 15 minutes I thought it was pretty funny and it just got funnier as it went on. I also liked the unusual response to alcohol consumption.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – This movie is all over the place. At times it’s fantastic, at times the acting is horrible, the fight scene isn’t very good. But those good moments far outweigh the bad and every scene with Walter Huston was movie stealing awesome. While I was watching it I was thinking about how much it reminded me of Tresspass and looking up the Trespass trivia I found that Treasure is what it was loosely based on.

 The Great New Wonderful – An odd collection of post-911 stories. Some of them work and some you just wait for the more interesting ones to return. Stephen Colbert has the best line which I’m putting in here because it’s cool and you probably won’t see the movie: “No, actually he’s a selfish, incorrigible monster with a heart made of shit and splinters.”

Balls of Fury – I’m not sure I’d want to own a copy of this but it’s the kind of movie that I’d watch whenever I happened across it on cable. On second thought maybe I do want to own a copy; I certainly want to see it again.

I’ve watched some first episodes of  shows and here’s what we’ve found that we might pursue further:

•  Californication – The first thing that’s made me not think of David Duchovny in an X-Files kind of way. It’s entertaining so far.
• Chuck – An odd spy comedy with occasional good action. It has a Greatest American Hero feel to it and I can’t see it lasting long.
• Pushing Daisies – An Addams Family level of dark comedy that’s a lot of fun. I hope this manages to stay around.
• Lipstick Jungle – The stories of three driven career women and how they deal written by Candace Bushnell. I don’t think it’s quite found its rhythm yet. Nicole liked it but doesn’t think it’ll last long.
• The Big Bang Theory – The first sit-com I’ve watched in forever. It’s about two two ultra-nerdy physicists trying to make friends with the new (female) neighbor.  I don’t think this constant level of nerdiness has been shown before and while it was pretty funny, I don’t know how long it’ll continue to be on tv.

The only series we’re currently watching is Mad Men, about Maddison Avenue ad men in the early 1960s. I originally saw part of an episode at Jeanne’s house and decided to give it a shot. At first the misogynistic sentiments and level of cigarette smoke set the stage for the time well but are hard to get past. Once you accept that as the environment for the show you can start appreciating the story going on.

Finally, since we now have a region-free DVD player Nicole was able to bring me back the Spaced  definitive collectors’ edition box set from her UK visit complete with homage-o-meter for seeing all the references in a given scene.