| T |
Beer floats -- we've
all enjoyed root beer floats, but have you ever tried a beer float?
This is an idea that Cami, Jeff, and myself have been toying with for a
while and tonight we finally put it into action. I whipped up a quick little
page about it so you can see what happened. Click here
for the link. And now for the DVD reviews!
Unforgiven
This is the 1992 Academy
Award winning film directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. I'd never
seen this movie before and so I added it to my Netflix queue after hearing
so much about it for so many years. The movie itself was quite good, and
although it is a western, it wasn't your traditional western where the
gungslinging star and his arch nemesis posess superhuman powers of speed
and accuracy. The "hero", as it were, has physical and moral
weaknesses.
The story was well played
out, and interesting to boot. It also features Morgan Freeman who, until
I saw him on the screen, I had no idea was in this movie, and well, I
like Morgan Freeman a lot. So all in all, the movie was pretty good and
I recommend it. I also gotta give some special recognition to the DP,
as this was just one really beautiful looking film. It came in anamorphic
widescreen format, with no special features to speak of.
The
Maltese Falcon
This is another one of
those movies that I should have seen a long time ago, but never got around
to seeing, and so, it too found its way onto my Netflix queue. It's a
classic Bogart movie featuring him as the detective Sam Spade, complete
with the office with the frosted glass window on the door.
Frankly, I was somewhat
disappointed by this film. It just didn't bring me in. I didn't get wrapped
up in the plot, and I didn't really care what happened to them. There
were a number of plot twists, but, again, I didn't really care. In some
ways, I feel like I only watched this movie because it's a classic and
was supposed to be really good. What I found though was that this movie
was just as cheesy as the countless parodies I've seen of this genre.
Oh well. At least I saw it. This DVD was presented in standard 4:3 aspect
ratio (although I'm quite sure that this film predates Cinema Scope).
Special features included
a trailer for this movie, as well as a documentary on Humphery Bogart
movie trailers, which I did not watch. The trailer for The Maltese
Falcon, I did watch, and I thought it was interesting because the
way they edited the shots together were rather misleading and not representative
of what the movie was really about. But it did make the movie sound exciting.
Plus, old movie trailers are cool.
The
Godfather DVD Collection
I've been waiting for
a long time for this thing to come out, so when October 9th rolled around,
I had to go out and buy it! The first note I want to make is that if you
want to buy this thing, shop around!! I first went to The Wherehouse.
They wanted $99.99 for this collection. That seemed a bit steep to me,
as I had long since seen Amazon pre-selling this boxed set for $75. So
I headed to Best Buy to see if they would have a better deal, and they
most certainly did! $69.99! That's a full $30 off the price that Wherehouse
wanted! $30 is enough to buy one or even two other movies! What a ripoff!
Anyway. This set is great.
I won't even talk about the movies because I'm sure most of you have either
seen the Godfather trilogy, or at least heard how great these movies
are, so instead, I will talk about the three hours of bonus footage.
There are a couple of
different sections. First, I will talk about the deleted scenes. At 200
minutes in lenght, The Godfather: Part II is already a damn freakin'
long movie... and most of these deleted scenes came from that movie! I
swear if they didn't cut it down, it would have been four hours long!
The arrangement of the clips is interesting in that they are arranged
not in the order of the three movies, but in chronological order according
to the story, starting with the late 1800's going on up into the late
1990's. Many of the deleted scenes are quite enlightening.
There are two documentary-type
things on here. One is a recent one, which I enjoyed quite thoroughly,
with interviews with many of the stars, and insights into many of the
"inside" stuff that went into this trilogy. Particularly interesting
was the recounting of how Paramount did not want to use Al Pacino to play
Michael... and they auditioned just about everyone they coold for that
part, including Robert DeNiro, Robert Duvall (who played Tom Hagen) and
James Caan (who played Sonny), and of course these numerous screen tests
were included! It was great seeing "Sonny" play Michael's character!
It was also quite amazing to see just how much work they went into making
the 1912 period section from Part II -- the parade scene... that wasn't
done on a movie backlot, they actually converted a real section of a New
York street! Amazing!
There's also a bunch
of production stills, a neat "family tree" feature, a short
on the notebook that Francis Ford Coppola used to map out the orignal
Godfather movie, some storyboards, and an old documentary from
1971 about the film. Also, somewhat loosely hidden is a scene from the
HBO show The Sopranos where the characters talk about their favorite
scenes from The Godfather. All in all, the bonus features disc
was one of the best I've seen. Also, the main movie discs contain a second
audio track with director's commentary. Needless to say, due to the length
of these movies, I didn't go back and watch them all with the commentary
on.
One (very minor) disappointment
was that while the movies themselves were presented in full anamorphic
("enhanced for 16:9 TVs") widescreen format, the bonus features
disc was not. But I am definitely satisfied with my purchase and it was
definitely well worth the wait! The movies themselves look way
better than the versions I have on VHS tape, especially since the DP who
worked on these films liked to underexpose a lot of scenes. If you are
a Godfather fan, I highly recommend this set!
South
Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut
We borrowed this movie
from Ben and watched this as we enjoyed our beer floats tonight. I hadn't
seen this movie since it was out in the theaters, and man, it's just as
funny now as it ever was! The music is great (and certainly deserving
of the academy award nomination it received), the story line is quite
witty, and well, what can I say? It's just hilarious!
This DVD is presented
in anamorphic widescreen format, and the special features consist of three
theatrical trailers, including my personal favorite, the very first one
they showed in the theaters with the big rant about using the latest in
animation technology and a $630 million budget. Definitely a fun movie!
So, are you sick of
hearing about DVD's yet? Oh well. Oh yes, there is one more thing I need
to mention -- the other day a random fan AIMed me after trying for some
time to guess what my screen name is. DrStrangelove, I salute you for
your diligence.
Friday, 12 October 2001
11:59pm
| G |
Here we see me riding
on one (click to enlarge the pic) of the more difficult ones to ride.
Because the front wheel is so small it's hard to maintain balance and
also due to the rake of the forks... the slightest steering angle input
makes the thing swerve like crazy! But man is it fun to ride (rinde!)
While we were there,
the guys from Seattle informed us that the Taco Bell restaurants in Seattle
serve an item called "Mexi-Nuggets". WTF is a MexiNugget? And how much
do you want to bet that no one in Mexico knows either? These boys stepped
into a Taco Bell down here (the first time they ever went to one where
real Mexicans were working at) and asked for MexiNuggets and only got
blank stares back from the workers. Well, I've never heard of them either.
And I imagine it'd be pretty dumb for Taco Bell (which isn't even really
Mexican food in the first place) to try to sell something like that so
close to the real Mexico!
I've lived most of my life in Southern California and thus have lived my life around a lot of hispanic people... I'm not exactly sure how I'd feel living somewhere that has so few hispanic people that you don't even see them working in mexican restaurants. I bet you can't even get a real taco anywhere in Washington State!