Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Morrigoon]

Awww... batteries not included!!!!! That was cute! Like when the little guy is helping out in the diner and trying to make burgers!

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

I know Batteries Not Included! I've got Harry and the Hendersons on DVD. Love it!

[Prudence]

Oh - I saw Sweeny Todd this weekend. I didn't hate it, and I didn't love it. Mr. Depp seemed to be singing in a rock opera, which annoyed me. Antony had a good voice. And, of course, there was Alan Rickman, which made me happy.

For the most part the filming/staging was okay with me. I though the opening CGI stuff was needlessly and obtrusively modern, and I was really quite annoyed by the CGI motion shot thingy at the beginning between the ship dock and Fleet Street. I didn't care for the contrast of overtly modern production elements and historically inspired set. And I thought the final tableau just looked silly. But, I did like the black/white/red coloring.

I was thinking, as I was watching this movie (specifically the part where they're searching for the kid in the sewers), that what bugs me most about the planned Burton re-do of Alice in Wonderland is that I'd really rather he tackle Through the Looking Glass - as its own work, not as a mashup with Wonderland, as everyone seems to do. Looking Glass is darker as is, and I started mentally casting the Red and White Queens. (I briefly contemplated French and Saunders...)

[CoasterMatt]

Regarding WallE - if you want to see an interesting site - checkout http://www.buynlarge.com/ - it's a website for the company that built the robots.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

*batteries not included made me cry. I saw that movie a hundred times as a kid.

[Snowflake]

Watched Ratatouille with the roomie last night. I loved it, again and she loved it. Also watched Lifted which I missed forst time around, hysterical.

Ratatouille makes me SO hungry when I watch it. Gotta love that!

[Alex]

Is there anybody who was 8-15 years old when it was released that isn't familiar with *batteries not included?

Cacoon (1985), Short Circuit (1986), and *batteries not included (1987) were the sci-fi trilogy of my tween years.

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Originally Posted by Alex

Is there anybody who was 8-15 years old when it was released that isn't familiar with *batteries not included?

Cacoon (1985), Short Circuit (1986), and *batteries not included (1987) were the sci-fi trilogy of my tween years.

I've heard lots of people talk about the first two, but the third rarely ever comes up in conversation, even if a lot of people remember it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Somehow I never saw *bni. I know I wanted to, but it never happened.

[Gemini Cricket]

Films added to the Library of Congress today. Click here.

-- "The Naked City," 1948, filmed on actual locations in New York; this movie won Oscars for best photography and editing. It was a gritty crime film combining slices of several stories.
-- "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," 1977, an intelligent sci-fi film directed by Steven Spielberg in which the climactic scene is set at Devil's Tower National Monument in Wyoming.
-- "In a Lonely Place," 1950, a scathing Hollywood satire with Humphrey Bogart playing a screenwriter, brilliant at his craft yet prone to living with his fists.
-- "Oklahoma!" 1955, brought the fun and famous musical to the screen.
-- "Back to the Future," 1985, explored the possibilities of special effects when a man stranded in 1955 by a time machine must not only find a way home, but also teach his father how to become a man, repair the space/time continuum and save his family from being erased from existence. All while fighting off the advances of his then-teenage mother.
-- "12 Angry Men," 1957, a classic filmed in a spare, claustrophobic style -- largely set in one jury room -- relating a single juror's refusal to conform to peer pressure in a murder trial.
-- "The Strong Man," 1926, features Harry Langdon, widely considered one of the great silent comedians, as a meek man in love with a blind woman.
-- "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance," 1962, director John Ford's last great Western. The film shows that the conquest of the West meant the triumph of civilization, embodied in Jimmy Stewart, over wild innocence -- John Wayne -- and evil -- Lee Marvin.
Also being added to the registry:
-- "Bullitt" (1968)
-- "Dance, Girl, Dance" (1940)
-- "Dances With Wolves" (1990)
-- "Days of Heaven" (1978)
-- "Glimpse of the Garden" (1957)
-- "Grand Hotel" (1932)
-- "The House I Live In" (1945)
-- "Mighty Like a Moose" (1926)
-- "Now, Voyager" (1942)
-- "Our Day" (1938)
-- "Peege" (1972)
-- "The Sex Life of the Polyp" (1928)
-- "Three Little Pigs" (1933)
-- "Tol'able David" (1921)
-- "Tom, Tom the Piper's Son" (1969-71)
-- "The Women" (1939)
-- "Wuthering Heights" (1939)

The Women made the list. That makes me smile.