Last week the Wife and I, along with the Titans, went out to see a movie. What motion picture epic could possibly bring together this amazing group of people, some of which would never agree on one single movie to go out and watch together? The answer is simple: Bruno!
As Stephenstein said, there was a fist fight that broke out just before the show, providing pre-show entertainment. It didn’t amount to much and ended peacefully. There ought to be cinema staff on-hand before show times and during the first 20 minutes of the movie. People coming in late, people haggling over seats, kicking seats, talking, tempers flaring – it would be nice to have someone on hand to kick folks out who cause trouble. That’s what cinema-going has come to. Sad, I know, but there it is.
As for Bruno, I actually thought it was better than Borat. Tighter, more concise story, higher shock value, and more clever (witness the scene in which Bruno has no furniture for his interview guest Paula Abdul so he hires pool maintenance men who bend over and act like chairs for Paula to sit on when she talks up her human rights charities, or when Bruno gets Palestinians and Israelis to agree that Humus is a healthy food). All the jokes were offensive on their face but had a point to them.
5/5
As J-Kraken mentioned, we went to a couple of 3D showings at the Fox Theatre. The first was Creature From the Black Lagoon, which was actually 2D (their distributor apparently sent them a normal print by accident). I’ve seen this movie a gazillion times and 2 things struck me about it. First, I forgot how much action they managed to pack into the 80 or so minutes of running time. I mean, a lot of people die, and the Creature attacks a lot in the movie. And you get to see him clearly on more than one occasion. The other thing was how much information they crammed into the movie (well, into most movies back then) without it seeming like a series of lectures. Just from a few choice lines the viewer knows the basics of what each character’s profession involves (be they archeologist, paleontologist, sponsor, etc.) and what each character brings to the table and how they relate to the adventure. Each guy has something to contribute, like concocting weapons against the monster, deep-sea diving experience, piloting a boat) and whoever doesn’t have anything to contribute dies. I’ve always liked how the writers linked the Creature to man and gave him intelligence by trapping the boat in the lagoon and picking off its occupants one-by-one. Creature From The Black Lagoon is still one of my favourite Universal Monster pictures and holds up amazingly after all these years. Heck, I think the body-count is higher than most horror movies today -- sad.
5/5
After that, we caught one of the gems of obscure 80’s pictures - Starchaser: The Legend of Orin in 3D. I saw this at the Scarborough Town Centre when it first came out and have been tracking it down ever since. Though I own the DVD (which I’ve watched a bazillion times), I hadn’t seen a 3D print since that Winter afternoon in 1985. Until now! Watching it again in 3D is almost like watching a different movie. The 3D experience really lends a lot to the motion on the screen. I liked the look of it, reminding me of old View Master reels of cartoon shows. The layers tend to look like 2D cardboard cut-outs at times, like when bushes appear in a mid-ground plane and look like a cardboard standee of bushes -- bu thte colour and detail really make up for this. And some of the cockpit layering was super-cool, like you can walk in there yourself. The ships swooping towards the screen were well done as well. As always, what I love about this film is that boisterous, adventure feel that seemed to permeate every 80’s action-adventure movie at the time. Everything runs along with a breezy pace with lots of locales, colorful characters and fun action. And I love the design of everything. As J Kraken mentioned, all the characters are more humanoid then cartoony. and the different types of bad guy troops reminded me of the cool armoured Cobra figures they used to churn out in the 80's. Cell animation is the best. It’s colourful and not constrained by harsh lines like CGI. Dagg Debrimi is still as cool as ever with his one-liners and “honest smuggler” code. The ship dog-fight scenes are breath-taking in 3D and the music always sticks in my head. Maybe it helps that I was 8 when I saw this, but Starchaser will always have a soft spot in my heart. MGM, please bring out a 3D edition of hte DVD! And I love that the movie is called Starchaser even though that title is never mentioned at all in the movie – it’s there just because it sounds cool. Starchaser! Hahahaha
5/5
Wow, 5’s all around!
Still haven’t seen Transformers 2. Instead, I’ve been watching my complete set of Transformers: Energon and reminding myself why the Transformers franchise is so damn cool (and it’s not because they pee on guys or have big testicles…).
Till next time, fleshling,
Deceptisean
As Stephenstein said, there was a fist fight that broke out just before the show, providing pre-show entertainment. It didn’t amount to much and ended peacefully. There ought to be cinema staff on-hand before show times and during the first 20 minutes of the movie. People coming in late, people haggling over seats, kicking seats, talking, tempers flaring – it would be nice to have someone on hand to kick folks out who cause trouble. That’s what cinema-going has come to. Sad, I know, but there it is.
As for Bruno, I actually thought it was better than Borat. Tighter, more concise story, higher shock value, and more clever (witness the scene in which Bruno has no furniture for his interview guest Paula Abdul so he hires pool maintenance men who bend over and act like chairs for Paula to sit on when she talks up her human rights charities, or when Bruno gets Palestinians and Israelis to agree that Humus is a healthy food). All the jokes were offensive on their face but had a point to them.
5/5
As J-Kraken mentioned, we went to a couple of 3D showings at the Fox Theatre. The first was Creature From the Black Lagoon, which was actually 2D (their distributor apparently sent them a normal print by accident). I’ve seen this movie a gazillion times and 2 things struck me about it. First, I forgot how much action they managed to pack into the 80 or so minutes of running time. I mean, a lot of people die, and the Creature attacks a lot in the movie. And you get to see him clearly on more than one occasion. The other thing was how much information they crammed into the movie (well, into most movies back then) without it seeming like a series of lectures. Just from a few choice lines the viewer knows the basics of what each character’s profession involves (be they archeologist, paleontologist, sponsor, etc.) and what each character brings to the table and how they relate to the adventure. Each guy has something to contribute, like concocting weapons against the monster, deep-sea diving experience, piloting a boat) and whoever doesn’t have anything to contribute dies. I’ve always liked how the writers linked the Creature to man and gave him intelligence by trapping the boat in the lagoon and picking off its occupants one-by-one. Creature From The Black Lagoon is still one of my favourite Universal Monster pictures and holds up amazingly after all these years. Heck, I think the body-count is higher than most horror movies today -- sad.
5/5
After that, we caught one of the gems of obscure 80’s pictures - Starchaser: The Legend of Orin in 3D. I saw this at the Scarborough Town Centre when it first came out and have been tracking it down ever since. Though I own the DVD (which I’ve watched a bazillion times), I hadn’t seen a 3D print since that Winter afternoon in 1985. Until now! Watching it again in 3D is almost like watching a different movie. The 3D experience really lends a lot to the motion on the screen. I liked the look of it, reminding me of old View Master reels of cartoon shows. The layers tend to look like 2D cardboard cut-outs at times, like when bushes appear in a mid-ground plane and look like a cardboard standee of bushes -- bu thte colour and detail really make up for this. And some of the cockpit layering was super-cool, like you can walk in there yourself. The ships swooping towards the screen were well done as well. As always, what I love about this film is that boisterous, adventure feel that seemed to permeate every 80’s action-adventure movie at the time. Everything runs along with a breezy pace with lots of locales, colorful characters and fun action. And I love the design of everything. As J Kraken mentioned, all the characters are more humanoid then cartoony. and the different types of bad guy troops reminded me of the cool armoured Cobra figures they used to churn out in the 80's. Cell animation is the best. It’s colourful and not constrained by harsh lines like CGI. Dagg Debrimi is still as cool as ever with his one-liners and “honest smuggler” code. The ship dog-fight scenes are breath-taking in 3D and the music always sticks in my head. Maybe it helps that I was 8 when I saw this, but Starchaser will always have a soft spot in my heart. MGM, please bring out a 3D edition of hte DVD! And I love that the movie is called Starchaser even though that title is never mentioned at all in the movie – it’s there just because it sounds cool. Starchaser! Hahahaha
5/5
Wow, 5’s all around!
Still haven’t seen Transformers 2. Instead, I’ve been watching my complete set of Transformers: Energon and reminding myself why the Transformers franchise is so damn cool (and it’s not because they pee on guys or have big testicles…).
Till next time, fleshling,
Deceptisean
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