Catching up with movies I should have seen a long time ago...

Geez!!! This is looking more and more like the Movie Review Weekly, but since I am saving for a trip to Italy, the easiest way to spend an afternoon without the urge to go BUY SOMETHING I DONT NEED is watch movies.



Anyways, somewhere along the way I found a list of the best 100 American Movies in the last 1oo years Courtesy of the American film Institute...
http://www.afi.com/tvevents/100years/movies.aspx




I placed the ones I've seen as a child and didn't get and the ones that I've never seen and should in Netflix queue and kicked back...



Out of the bunch these are the two that wouldn't let me sleep...








The first time I really noticed Dennis Hopper, he was asking Keanu Reeves something in the line of "Pop Quiz, hot shot..." I knew he was considered to be the father of all things badass but didn't quite know why until I watched this movie..., which was by the way directed by the man himself.




Yes, I knew the lyrics to the title and all that crap, so I thought the movie wont be much of a surprise... WRONG

This is THE INDEPENDENT MOVIE. Looking at it the way I've seen it... all I thought was great before it- I was happy to conclude that my priorities were wrong. This is the one who set the bar.

• Cinematography is frigging gorgeous
  


• The characters are engaging, fascinating, fun and dare I say... a little scary in the way they define freedom


• Thanks for the groovy 60's piece of trivia that identified Wyatt- Peter Fonda's character- as a Pisces (sorta of a joke/note of myself to myself)


• Something inside me cried a bit , though, when I realized this movie is about change... how much we want it, how much we are afraid of it, and how quick we are to judge when some one "gets" the big picture before we do...

I don't know, movies about "choices made and chances taken" usually work too much in me.

Next one, another child of the 70's. One sick, sick, brilliant movie, perhaps the best of it's category. Once again, the category is unique:

Okay. I knew the usual movie quote... Robert Duvall in some beach rambling about the smell of Napalm in the morning. I never cared for it because I thought The Deer Hunter is the Reigning King of all Vietnam Flicks.


I still vote for Hunter, however this is the best exploration of madness derived from exposure to the Human Race I've ever seen. I've never seen something so repulsive and magnificent at the same time. And Brando's rendition of T.S. Elliot's "The Hollow Men" made me want to take the books once more...

I thought this would be another product of the times, a make love not war type of film. What I found though , is a piece that is as relevant in it's message today as it was 30 years or so ago. "Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one." Nietzche said it before Coppola captured it on film, but only one of the two had the guts to lay this burden upon Martin Sheen... and that's all I have to say.

There are movies I love and I can yap about for hours and then there are movies like these, my best advise is watch and tell me...

The Quotes:
"I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. " - Jack Nicholson as J. Hanson, quite a nice guy in need of road companions to New Orleans- Easy Rider
"Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not then they are enemies to be feared." - Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz- Apocalypse Now.

Harry Potter takes the FCATS... no spoilers

I will put the book aside, be it Order of the Phoenix or Hollows... there is hype enough about it and I shall not make speculations on a piece I haven't read yet. I know better than to tarnish a great series with my own conclusions. Nope. I'm not a Potter head, but I do recognize excellence when I see it, and I will take a second or two to explain why JK Rowling is the reigning queen of fantasy... eventually.

So far, this is a Review of Order of the Phoenix. No Spoilers meaning that I Loved it.

I met Harry Potter in the Queens Borough Public Library as I worked as Library Assistant for the Children and Young Adult section. I read Sorcerer's Stone in one sitting, as it was required of me to know what kids were reading so I could answer trivial questions and amaze them with my coolness.

I read a lot of books, some, I must confess, far more elaborate than the one written by this JK Rowling person. None were as engaging, though. Harry Potter made it to my must read list, and I would happily recommended to every child that crossed my way ages 10-13. By the end of Winter we had about 30 copies... errr some 25 more than what we originally ordered, all in HOT CIRCULATION. Thus the big Snowball that Harry Potter is started rolling and it goes on strong with a movie release and the culmination of the written series coming at us this summer, almost ten years after I read a story about a boy who survived a curse, o algo...

I'll get to the movie in a second, but before I'll tell you why JK Rowling is the Queen of it all right now... just like Real State, much of a series success depends of LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. By placing her characters in a school environment, Ms. Rowling had the guts to create characters that grow along with her intended audience, and that is a smart move when you write about coming of age...

YEEEESSSSS! I am sorry to disappoint the Christian right and the Liberal Left. Harry Potter is neither about the occult, nor about the growing discontent of the British People with Cornelius Fudge, their Prime... err their Minister of Magic. It is a simple and beautifully laid out story about growing up, year after year, from the threshold of Puberty to Adulthood. Sometimes is brilliant, others funny, awkward, maybe, others sad. Sometimes, like the movie adaptation of Order of the Phoenix will show, it's about 15 year olds trying to claim a place for themselves.

Compared to the other movies. Phoenix is shorter, which only add more weight into the level of darkness it throws at the audience. There is no comic relief, almost no magical wonderful structures to delight your eyes on (You will not see the display of wonder that was the road to Hogwart's or the Arrival of the Magical Academies in the last Installment).

In Harry's world, the mood is set by Potter. The boy is no longer a boy. For those who read the books and sort of read between the lines in the movies, it is easy to see that Harry didn't have much of a childhood. It was in fact miserable. Yet none can deny that Harry is innocent, or was. In the sometimes wonderful, sometimes painful ,always unavoidable road to adulthood there is the most revealing and painful chapter of it all... the Death of Innocence. This movie delivers it.

For the idiots who took their 5 and 6 year olds to a PG-13 movie, it was a bucket of Ice water to see that Harry out grew what they thought was the intended audience. Unlike the intelligent lay out of the written series, meant to grow along with the readers, the visual medium will take anyone who would buy a ticket. Don't blame harry if your 7 year old could not connect with him this time around. Potter is showing the first flares if teen angst and Daniel Radcliffe, whom like his literary counter part has grown before our eyes in this role, channels it to perfection.

To my judgement, this is the simplest of the movies in style, yet the most complicated, because it aims to destroy, and very fittingly, it will open the doors to reconstruct what is left and keep going...

MINOR SPOILER AHEAD: Click and drag if you want to find out.

• One of the praises that I must sing to the visual medium is this: Observe how after the confrontation with Voldemort, after the heat spell breaks all the glass windows, the glass is reduced to sand, and Harry falls on top pf it. The sand however is so fine it might as well look like ashes, from which Potter rises at the end, giving the whole Phoenix concept more meaning than what we initially are lead to believe. It thought the scene concept was just brilliant...

I've written too much already, I'll leave you with the QUOTE:

"LOOK... AT... ME!!!!!"- an annoyed and frustrated Harry as all of the adults around him rather treat him as if he is not there.

10000 BC... In the Teaser History Corner

ERRRRRRRR... I was looking forward to this and now I don't know. I thought the people who fought so hard to turn contemporary structures into Ice Age rubble would put more muscle into it. 12,000 years ago, although most of the physical characteristics of man were left as we see ourselves today, I bet we were still a bit rough around the edges. Mr. Upper Paleolithic didnt look like a model in dreadlocks and Ms. Upper paleolithic didnt look like a beauty queen fresh out of a mud bath.Did I just see mammoths buildidng pyramids... and white people in charge of constructing them- you know the ones who run for cover inside the big building... I'll have a fit afer I come back from Order of the Phoenix.

ARRRRRRRRGHHHHH!!!

Let's start with a well deserved ode to the Honda Civic 2004. Best little car ever!!!! The little green men that make you run smoothly are doing a wonderful job. Honda Civic, you are the poor man's VOLVO...

Car that I love and takes me everywhere...

I swear it was not my fault...

I love my car, it even has a name, T.J. Green. Don't ask me why, it just looks like a TJ to me.

Anyways, here I am, minding my own business in one of the many busy intersections in beautiful, sun drenched Tampa. The street light just turned red and I aligned the car to take a right turn... you know one of those turns that is to the DRIVER'S DISCRETION. My intuition told me that taking the turn as an SUV was making it's way into the intersection with was not the right move. So I decided to wait while the guy makes his U Turn and then it's my time to get going... What do I get in return?

A MORON REAR ENDING ME... Now the fun thing is that the guy hit me about 45 seconds after I made a full stop. It was like WHAT THE HECK? Didn't he just saw me here? What the hell made him think that he could accelerate when he has a car right in front of him?

TJ absorbed the impact completely with absolutely no damage. That was good news for the 5' middle aged Asian guy out of nowhere. I'm not being prejudiced or playing around with stereotypes here, but it really pissed me off when a guy with no Insurance and who could barely speak English just stood there as if nothing happened with the nose of his beat down Toyota all over my bumper...

After a couple of seconds of amazement I got off my car and kindly asked " Sir, what just happened here?" To which he replied, "Yeah, why you stop?" I tried to manage my urge to scream and kindly pointed out that there was a FRIGGING RED LIGHT!!!! to which the guy replied "Things to do, hully, hully."

I told him OK, there is no damage to your car or mine, but at least tell me that you are sorry, after all, YOU HIT ME!!!! The guy just got into his car and drove away because according to him he didn't understand a word I was saying. "NO ENGRISH" should mean call the cops but I only had 15 minutes to get back to work, so I let him go. Nevertheless, sometimes I still marvel at how inconsiderate people can be. FUCK.

This post doesn't have a clue...

Writing for the sake of typing away, just to share with the world a couple of facts... protein diets will make you cranky, who ever told you a bag of M&M's is not the secret key to happiness, has never been totally deprived of sugar.

Next......... saw Hannibal Rising after running away from it for a while... the only two things I found fascinating was the casting of Gaspard Ulliel, which was quite fitting, at a very psychopatological level... Nevertheless, I kept thinking, his facial bone structure could never produce Anthony Hopkins some forty years on... Only other thing that actually saved it for me, well, it actually messed it up real time was the scene in which Hannibal crosses words with the Police Investigator, the first time around. It was clever, it sounded like they nailed the character... and then they forgot about it because it took a turn towards the "Last Cannibal Samurai" or something... by the way they got me thinking that the whole Samurai subplot was intended solely for the scene in which young Hannibal tries on the mask, that is where we all were meant to leave out a collective gasp and say... maybe he got a kick out of wearing that restrain in Silence of the Lambs... this guy is sick!!!! Errr... it never happened. I would do a 15 bullets or less, but then I am cranky as I said before, so let's leave it at this is one good movie that never was

The Quote, a hybrid, and you all know where it comes from: "IIIIIIIIIIII want candy... - with fava beans and chianti."

Vicarious Vacations

All right... sister, brother in law and folks came back from a week at the Island. Of course, I had to go through a very Simpson Moment in which I watched about 5 hours of raw footage (at least it was not a slide show). It went something like this...

Here we are getting on the plane

At the airport

Getting lost at 9:00 am in La Perla - somehow they decided to visit what is considered in the Reggaeton Circles as "the hood"- don't ask me why

Followed by here we are eating in every conceivable corner of the Island... I mean Lysania had a piragua (glorious puertorrican shaved ice, literally in every town they visited)

Errr... here we are being towed after our boat broke down on it's way to Isla de Gata... Lysania and Aunt Edda making their best impression of Open Water, even if they were not touching the water itself....

Here's every single member of your family and their consequent feuds.... and a fourth of July celebration that includes 45 minutes of the dirtiest jokes you've ever heard courtesy of aunt Betty.

Then they did the very hurried Mayaguez tour in which they assaulted Ms. Lightshadow in the sanctity of he home with a sort of hurried video parranda... once again a proof that she is like a sister to me. any other person would have shot them down... and I'm not talking about the camera equipment. I got a glimpse of my Alma Mater at 55 MPH, while they were on their way to complete the car tour of the Island... the consequences of having dad at the wheel... they saw everything and experienced not a whole lot. Well, except for the food. This particular one was baptized "The Mofongo Tour" an Flashy tasty of the Island in four wheels.

Overall, though my dad, whose anthem of late started somewhat like "Puerto Rico my heart's devotion, let it sink back into the Ocean"- consider that the Quote, courtesy of West Side Story... managed to change his view quite a bit. In fact he returned all Boricua, you know with the car stickers and all the junk you can carry. I was thrilled because, the man deserved a vacation.

So did Mom, who put her brand new cardiac stents to the test by going all the way up to Arecibo's radio Telescope...

Grandpa ... I have no idea how they got him back in the plane, but he was all excited about the fact that he served as tour guide through the glorious town of Guanica and ate more fish and cornsticks than a body can handle. He also got to go out into the sea (in a serious boat)... is not like he can't do it over here, but he has this thing for the Caribbean, you see.

Eduardo loved the country more than he did the city, According to him there is a lot of similarities between PR and Matagalpa. He was also quite taken with the amazing fruits that Florida cannot provide, like quenepas that actually have some sweetness to them...

Lysania ate to her hearts content and has decided that the town of Guanica is the best of all she saw around the Island... I must confess that the Godforsaken town has improved... a lot, it even made me nostalgic for a particular Beach spot that I've always been fond of, Bahia Ballena....

I promise to go with you next time guys... after I'm done with Italy, and if the strange Flamenco music stops playing in my head... but that's another story

They are not cartoons... damn it

OK. I'm errr, slightly over 30, but there's a part of me that just won't give up.

I can watch cartoons as easily as my ten year old niece does, without bothering with the woes of the world outside, that is my distraction. If I didn't scape once in a while , how the heck do you think I can look you in the eye and say I'm a Republican. ;p

Now there are cartoons and there is Japanese animation... just like I've been saying for the last 15 years, don't you dare call Graphic novels comic books, if you happen to glance over this incredibly deep and complicated stories and call them cartoons IT'S ON...

My latest obsession comes courtesy Trinity Blood. If you've read this blog before, it is pretty obvious that I've been waiting for the resurrection of the vampire in both literature and film. It seems that I've been looking in the wrong places. The best vampire work in this decade has shown itself in Japanese Animation and Manga publications. Although I must say Hellsing is still the reigning king of it all, the idea behind this plot is so ridiculously sublime that it deserves an honorary mention. Besides, I really love when things are cross referential... there's a Librarian in me, remember?

Let's see...

• Right out of Matheson's I am Legend comes the idea of a post Apocalyptic world in which mutations lead to vampirisim.
• These vampires, though, being the only creatures able to thread on this post apocalyptic world for years, decide to make a stand on their own organizing in clans than both humans and vampires with an iron fist, much like in Masquerade.
• In the midst of this mess, the Catholic church is the only institution left standing, thus the world has reverted to a sort of technologically advanced Middle ages where the word Inquisition is starting to spread again.The church is ruled by families, much like the Borgia's did at a certain time.
• The church also has a secret weapon, a goofy priest with a craving for sugar and a great sense of humor, who also happens to be something of a Keres right out of Greek Mythology, a hyper vampire, if you will.
• Add to this a whole squad of wacky priests and nuns, some of them cyborgs, some of them tramps who joined the church to get to travel the world for free, some others true defenders of the faith, all of them with a certain degree of madness, and you get one of the best action horror/action-comedies ever conceived.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvRT1YfkRUo

Any how, I'll leave it as it is before some Hollywood executive discovers it and turns it into a flick starring Will Smith.... I'll go cry now.

TRANSFORMERS... NO SPOILERS

Ok, it's 4th of July and the sky is gray, promising non stop rain. Anyways, you don't give a crap about the day in the sun because although you've lost enough weight, you are not yet in the tiny weeny yellow polka dot bikini crew... so what do you do?

Round up Michelle, Izzy, the great Ken-Ken and Lysandra to go see TRANSFORMERS. (Thanks Leo for sacrificing bravely and staying behind with Lysanelle)

This is a general disclosure... those who know me know that I'm not much of a girly girl. Although I had my share of Jem and the Hollograms, I also got the kicks out of Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Well, to be honest, mostly off the Decepticons, even at ten years old, I had that knack for bad guys... I am not a rabid fangirl though, so I could put up with the changes...Bumble Bee's Air Freshener, made up for the fact that he was not a VW Beetle, big time!!!

Our group was sort of evenly distributed... let's see

• Lysandra sort of remembered a certain Saturday Morning Cartoon


• Michelle remembered the cartoon, knew the good guys from the bad guys, but did not recall their names


• Kendra is barely starting to catch up with the sorta new wave of Transfomers that is trying to stick in the Cartoon Network


• I knew the characters and their motivations pretty well, yet somehow managed to stay off the hype


• Izzy just looked at us and said... "I'm the Cuban remember, when you were watching cool Saturday Morning Cartoons, I had to put up with Las Aventuras de Elpidio Valdes"

This is what we all agreed upon.

• The SUMMER BLOCKBUSTER HAS LANDED, it will probably crush all competition into smithereens and it will run for a long long time. This is not meant to be a profound movie, although several points of nobility are stressed for the sake of characterization...this is a people grab your popcorn type of film. However, it cleverly combines action, comedy and awkward romance, with the classic coming of age story involving a teenage driver entrusted with the salvation of the world as we know it.


• The actors bring cred to the movie... I mean John Voight as Secretary of Defense... damn Gina! Ahhh! Before I forget, to all of us , avid, rabid Indy fanboys and girls, rest at ease... given the right script, Shia Lebouf can carry his weight around Harrison Ford anytime. I just bought the kid...


• Autobots and Decepticons are a marvel of CGI. The transformation sequences have an organic feel to it. They are in fact living creatures. Their facial expression are priceless and although my only complaint is that they are not given enough screen time to be completely developed as characters, the personality traits and general attitudes are trademarks to each of them, making the good guys noble and the bad guys deliciously evil.


• Although I mentioned actors already I must point out that John Turturro Rocks as his own private version of a government wacko who belongs to a division even more secretive than the Men in Black.

I must say it was one heck of a joyride and we were not the only ones who left the theater believing our cars could be something, or someone yet to discover and feeling like ten year old kids. Kendra of course, felt like her self being the one and only legit ten year old in the group, sometimes calling to order these ridiculous adults...yipeeeeeee!!!

The Quote:

"Ironhide:A rodent has been detected in the vacinity. Shall I destroy it?

Sam : No! No! This is a chihuahua. We love chihuahuas.

Ironhide: He's leaked lubricant on me.

Sam: He did? Bad Mojo! Bad! "

Sam- disciplinig a very bad chihuahua, who dared piss an Autobot

Time to break open the piggy bank....

Heir puts 'Dracula's Castle' for sale
By ALEXANDRU ALEXE, Associated Press Writer Mon Jul 2, 2:18 PM ET
BUCHAREST, Romania - A Habsburg heir is hoping someone will take a bite of his offer Monday to sell "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania.

The medieval Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, "Dracula."
Legend has it that the ruthless Vlad — who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies — spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.
The Habsburgs formally put the Bran Castle on the market Monday, a U.S.-based investment company said. No selling price was announced.
Bran Castle was built in the 14th century to serve as a fortress to protect against the invading Ottoman Turks. The royal family moved into the castle in the 1920s, living there until the communist regime confiscated it from Princess Ileana in 1948.
After being restored in the late 1980s and following the end of communist rule in Romania, it gained popularity as a tourist attraction known as "Dracula's Castle."
In May 2006, the castle was returned to Princess Ileana's son, New York architect Archduke Dominic Habsburg. He pledged to keep it open as a museum until 2009.
Habsburg, 69, offered to sell the castle last year to local authorities for $80 million, but the offer was rejected.
On Monday, he put the castle up for sale "to the right purchaser under the right circumstances," said Michael Gardner, chief executive of Baytree Capital, the company representing Habsburg. "The Habsburgs are not in the business of managing a museum."
He predicted the castle would sell for more than $135 million but added that Habsburg will only sell it to a buyer "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."
Habsburg said in a statement: "Aside from the castle's connection to one of the most famous novels ever written, Bran Castle is steeped in critical events of European history dating from the 14th century to the present."
According to a contract signed when the castle was returned, the government pays rent to Habsburg to run the castle as a museum for three years, charging admission. After 2009, Habsburg will have full control of the castle, Gardner said.
The government has priority as a buyer if it can match the best offer for the castle, he said.
Opposition lawmakers have claimed the government's decision to return the castle to Habsburg was illegal because of procedural errors.
In recent years, the castle — complete with occasional glimpses of bats flying around its ramparts at twilight — has attracted filmmakers looking for a dramatic backdrop for films about Dracula and other horror movies.
Some 450,000 people visit the castle every year, Gardner said.

The Quote... the most appropriate of them all:

"I am Dracula, and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in, the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest." The Count- Bram Stoker's YOU KNOW WHO...