Ok, I figure it’s better late than never, but let’s have a look at the Oscars for this year. Frankly, I find myself more interested in the choice of hosts than the actual awards. There seems to be so few surprises in the winners anymore that I kind of enjoy the dubious host selections. And this year, Seth MacFarlane was this years lab rat.
DetailsMan, I saw the trailers for this and thought it looked really good. It seemed all moody and intense. And for the most part, it’s exactly that. And then the final act comes along and suddenly it’s like a Die Hard movie. Yeah, it’s a little jarring to say the least. Unfortunately, it keeps Dead Man Down from being a really good film.
DetailsYou’d think by the ubiquitous TV ads for this film that it was going to be a real toss-up as to whether it would be any good. It felt like they were trying too hard to get you to see it. And there’s clearly a LOT of green screen and there could be a lot of that disconnected “watching a video game” type of stuff going on. Fortunately, though, Jack the Giant Slayer managed to avoid that by giving some of the giants more personality than just grunting adversaries.
DetailsTurner Classic Movies has recently restored the concert film/documentary Elvis: That’s the Way It Is, adding “lost” footage, and re-cutting the entire film. The new (2007) two-disc set includes the original DVD release augmented with the new, superior version and a few extras.
DetailsReverb Junkies is a documentary about surf music that’s full of interview segments with concert-goers who are less likely to yell “Freebird!” than “Reverb!” Junkies focuses on the fans of surf music rather than it’s history, but their enthusiasm keeps it interesting, and lots of history seeps in.
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