We're all about spending our time wisely around here. But we also like movies. Thankfully, here comes Movie a Minute to the rescue.

Armageddon

NASA: An asteroid is coming. We are in trouble.

Nerd: You must blow it up from the inside. Probably.

NASA: Let's teach drillers to be astronauts, on account of drilling is too hard for astronauts to learn.

Bruce Willis: Instead for a ninjillion dollars, we will only do it if we don't have to pay taxes anymore, because audiences can relate to that.

Audience: I can relate to that. Therefore, I love it.

The End

Labels: Film, Life

Being that it is Friday and laundry day, I just spent the last hour or so taking care of business. By taking care of business I mean drinking coffee and browsing through the classic film posters at the Polish Poster Shop.

Polish versions of American films! Who knew these would be so breathtaking. The graphic design on some of these is just fantastic. L and I have been in the market for some new art in the house. This may be the answer. Give 'em a look y'all.

[via]

Labels: Design, Film

Has anyone else noticed that Robert Redford is slated to star in the upcoming Untitled Jackie Robinson Project as Branch Rickey?

I just crapped my pants.

The question then, of course, is who will play Jackie. L says Jamie Foxx, but I'm not convinced. The imdb message boards also suggest Will Smith, Cuba Gooding Jr., Eddie Murphy, and Derek Luke. None of these choices seem appropriate, though I recognize I may be an overzealous Jackie fan. Anybody else got any ideas?

Labels: Baseball, Film

Last night I made L. watch The Peanut Butter Solution.

She had never seen it. She was not privy to the hit Canadian-made horror/comedy about a kid who loses all his hair then applies a magical peanut butter solution to his head which causes his hair to grow incessantly.

I had completely forgotten how crazy-weird this movie is. Like, for instance, the part where Conrad, the lovable subpar-acting Asian sidekick, applies the peanut butter solution to his crotch, and the hair starts growing out the bottom of his pants.

Or how about the fact that The Signor kidnaps little kids and forces them to work in his magic-paintbrush-making sweatshop? Forgot about that. Or the fact that the magic-paintbrushes create life-like paintings that you can walk right into? Nope. Did I remember that Conrad starts pretending to be the Signor's son for some reason. Not at all.

It's a weird movie. It's creepy, and I feel like I should be a whole lot more messed up than I am for watching it such an impressionable age. It is truly bizarre, and you can watch the whole thing on Google video. So you should.

Labels: Film, Fun

Watch this movie.

It's got everything you could possibly want.

Trains.

Johnny Cash.

Johnny Cash on Trains.

Johnny Cash singing about Trains.

It's utterly amazing. I almost cried.

Labels: Film

I just finished a piece for one of my classes. It is a social criticism of the upper middle class and their cathartic relationship with main-stream media, especially focusing on the destructive culture of fear. I think it is pretty successful, though a but cloying at times.

What are your critiques?

Too obvious?

Labels: Film, School

Make sure to check out this beautiful trailer for the new movie Heima, featuring Sigur Ros.

Labels: Film, Music

Here's a fun a thing I learned today during an apartment-search break: Back to the Future, one of my favorite films of all time, was filmed twice.

On November 26, 1984 filming began on the movie, with Eric Stoltz in the role of Marty McFly. After more than four weeks, Spielberg and Zemeckis decided that the chemistry between Stoltz and Christopher Lloyd wasn't working. So they recast Michael J. Fox in the role. Apparently there are a few of Stoltz's scenes still in the movie, most memorably, the long shots where Marty drives the Delorean in the mall parking lot. While we may not ever get to see the first cut of the movie, there are tons of great stills here.

You learn something new every day.

Labels: Film, Fun

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Labels: Books, Film

We watched Godard’s Bande à Part this last week, and I can't get it out of my head.

The Criterion collection has a wonderful feature pointing out the numerous subtle references that Godard makes. Kafka, Billy the Kid, French Série Noire, Chaplin all spread out before Godard as he seems to pick and choose his references at will. It could easily come across with the same tongue-in-cheek quality that appears to drive so much of Tarrantino’s work, but it doesn’t. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s something singularly remarkable about this film.

If you haven’t seen it, do.

And if you have, watch it again, and make sure to read Joshua Clover’s fantastic essay from the Criterion Collection website.

An excerpt on the infamous Madison scene.

There’s something of both in the joy and alienation expressed equally in Arthur, Franz, and Odile’s dance, choreographed to bar jukebox and internal monologue. Never have three people been so alone together, a band and apart, in a singular double-exposure of one moment arriving as another passes away.

Indeed.

Also, make sure to check out the Nouvelle Vague Dance with Me / Bande à Part Madison Scene mash-up. L thinks it’s a fantastic example of the 21st century consumer's proclivity for referential media and the internet as a tool for that process as a band named after both the French New Wave movement and the New Wave punk movement of the late 1970s covers a song from Dead Can Dance who were prominent in the latter, and it gets superimposed on one of the premiere films of the earlier (after which, said band named their album). I agree.

Labels: Film