So put your little hand in mine…

… wake up campers and put on your booties, ’cause it’s cold out there.

Today was “Groundhog Day”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_day in the United States, which is too silly to explain; unless of course you are a film fan, in which case the film by the same name is much more silly, fun and deep. And it stars Bill Murray.

“Radio Open Source”:http://www.radioopensource.org, which is a Boston-area public radio program and web podcast that is fantastic, had an episode on the film today. TRO assembles their programs based on suggestions on the blog, and one of my comments was brought up on the show today. On “today’s Groundhog Day episode”:http://www.radioopensource.org/groundhog-day/ my comment comparing Groundhog Day to Hermann Hesse’s “Siddhartha”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486406539/galaxyfaraway was brought up (at about 11:10 into the show) and discussed. Very cool stuff. Continue reading →

Terrible idea. Terrible, terrible, terrible… terrible idea.
Let me elaborate. The story is that certain groups (read: theater owners), with the “intention of rescuing the film industry”:http://upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051217-074635-6362r from the depths it has descended to, are pushing the FCC to block rude behavior by jamming cell phone signals in movie theatres.

What? In the first place, I was under the impression that jamming may be illegal, so what they really may be talking about is permission to circumvent the law in order to “rescue the ailing film industry”. I have two issues with this logic: Continue reading →

And the Prophet said, ‘And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.’

King Kong is a glorious film- it succeeds just as gloriously as it fails. The best thing Peter Jackson has going for himself here is that he respects Kong. The scenes between Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) and King Kong (Andy Serkis in a Gollum-suit) are magic; they play like a beautiful romantic silent film. The two sunsets and a poignant playful ice dance between them are pure movie magic. The choice of actors is perfect- Jack Black, Colin Hanks and Adrian Brody are just right.

The trouble is that the middle act suffers from Lost-World-itis; a disorder of directors of creature flicks who have been told that their creatures make their movies great. They believe that more creatures will make it greater. It is the juvenile, sugar-high, Tarantinoesque obsession with more. Tarantino usually gets away with his distractions; mainly because his films are entirely distractions strung together until they gel into a coherent mess. Not so with King Kong. The middle act on Skull Island involves multiple creatures over and over and over and over and over…

There were 2 hours of the best film this year hidden in 3 hours of mess.

UPDATE: The “script/program to get your Netflix Ratings”:http://www.scienceaddiction.com/2006/03/03/fetch-your-netflix-ratings/ is now ready for others to use. It is still in very early stages of development, but it has worked for a lot of people. Enjoy!

One of the things I love about my “Netflix”:http://www.netflix.com account is my ratings. As of now, I have 1323 DVDs (not all DVDs are films, but most are) rated there. This is a tremendous resource about my preferences that Netflix (and I) have. The trouble is that the only way I can get at them is by going to the website, logging in to my account, clicking through 2 pages to get to my ratings page. Continue reading →