The Great Movie Review: Love Actually

I had planned for two choices for this evening. But after buying a Christmas tree, brewing a pot of wassail, and listening to Christmas music, I just couldn't get around not picking something Chrismasy. "But it's still November," blurts Kyle. Indeed, but Thanksgiving is over, and that means fair game.

I've always wanted to see this movie (mostly to get Netflix off my back, after recommending it to me over and over.)

EVERYONE, is in the movie. We literally spent the first five minutes going, "That's the guy from ______. Oh and she's from ______."

The movie opens and ends with shots of real people greeting each other at the airport as if they had not seen their loved one in a long time. I'll admit, I had trouble keeping the tears in my eyes for that bit.

What did I learn? Don't buy gifts for women that are not your wife. Don't ever start making out center stage behind a closed curtain. And NEVER be left alone in a room with the president of the United States. (especially if his name is Billy Bob.)

All in all, we enjoyed it! It's charming; it's funny. And, everybody has an English accent. What's not to like. Any good sensible guy should and would enjoy this movie.

If I may quote myself a second time, "What is this, Crash?"

Love Actually

Stevox: 4
Val: 5
Kyle: 3
Micah: 4

Averages to 4 whiny but cute English children out of 5.

It shares this rating with Rope, Seven Samurai, Casablanca, Children of Men, Tootsie, Network and Contact.

The Great Movie Review: V for Vendetta

This past week we watched “V for Vendetta” directed by James McTeigue. Set in near-future London, “V for Vendetta” depicts a power hungry British government utilizing the weapon of fear in order to control and dominate its people. Emerging from out of this oppressive environment is our protagonist named “V.”

V is determined to bring clarity and liberation to the British people while simultaneously seeking vengeance for cruel things done to him in the past. In the midst of his journey, circumstances bring Evey (a girl working at the nationalized TV station) into V’s path, and he decides to make her his ‘project.’ As life experiences have allowed him to be free of fear, he desires to do the same for Evey by putting her through physical and psychological challenges she never thought she could face.

At the same time, an inspector is attempting to identify and capture V before he can continue to carry out his acts of rebellion and revenge. Throughout the inspector’s investigation, hidden truths about the government begin to surface shedding light upon the deep-rooted corruption of the government. In the end, V succeeds in uniting the British people while also sparking a revolution that will inevitably change the face of Britain.

Though a few of us had seen the movie before, it was enjoyable to watch it again. Often when people speak of this movie, they tend to either love it or hate it. We came to the conclusion that if you came into the movie with the expectation of suspense, fast action, and intense fighting scenes – you’d be sorely disappointed since the movie takes more of a philosophical approach in somewhat of a “Shakespearen” style. However, if you came into the movie with no expectations, you tend to enjoy the movie more. Your opinion of this movie will likely be influenced by your views of government and politics as well.

Bottom line: It’s a thought-provoking movie with some unexpected twists making it a very intriguing and entertaining film. We gave it 3.2 Guy Fawkes masks out of 5.

Waking Ned Devine

Group Rating (out of 5):

Stevox: 3
Val: 3
Kyle: 2
Micah: 2
Jenny: 3

Averages to 2.6 breezy motorcycle rides back to the house out of 5.

Shares this rating with All The Presidents Men.

So if you haven't heard I have a habit of bringing movies that bomb...Or they just make you wish someone would drop a bomb on the house to stop the depressing film from continuing. In light of this information the film I brought this week was Waking Ned Devine.

As the movie goes on you can't help but ask yourself "where the Hell are the kids?" this film has one child the whole movie and he is giving advice to the interim priest. Something is wrong with this picture. The last film I saw with a cast like this was Cocoon or Grumpy Old Men. You would think its pretty risky to cast your in tire crew with people who could have a heart attack at any moment. But any way enough with the old people.

The film has to do with Money, Death, Money, Love (in a way), Friendship, loyalty and naked motor cycle driving!

Notes on a Theme: Indiana Jones

So we've been talking about Indiana Jones a lot here at The Great Society of Movie Watchers. Micah's been walking around our house (Micah and I are roommate's) waiting for me to pick up things so he can belt them out of my hand. It's starting to get annoying.

References to these movies are everywhere. Here are two examples:

Scrubs (Awesome Show BTW)



Family Guy



There are tons more examples but I'm feeling lazy and don't want to look for more.

So yeah, Raiders is pretty good. It's probably the most well known of the three in the trilogy. This movie lays the base work for the other two. It sets up his character, the style of the films, and the tendency for poor female leads. Poor as in bad characters, not poor as in financially lacking.

So i know that Raiders sets up every thing for the movies, but Tod still takes a wide divergence from the first film. It's incredibly dark. Short Round is annoying. The female lead is even more terrible than the first, and it just sucks by comparison.

I love Last Crusade! They took all the good stuff from Raiders and added more greatness to it. Sean Connery for one. A good female lead for two. And character development for Indy. For the first two films he doesn't grow as a character. They tried to in Tod by trying to make you care about Short Round, but it just doesn't work. The relationship that they create between Indy and his Father is wonderful. It is an incredibly satisfying way to end the trilogy.

If you want to see more Indiana Jones movies the pickings are slim.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)























They tried really hard with this movie. They stayed true to the style and tone of the old film, but ultimately they failed. I have to recommend against seeing it. You're not missing much.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones (1992)






















Now I haven't seen all of these. But I remember one where he was trying to find out something about a cult that was mummifying people alive. There were dudes in black hoods shooting people with psychotropic poison darts and they would hallucinate themselves to death. For example this old guy sees this small stone dragon statue comes to live and crawl into into his coat sleeve. So he freaks out and starts stabbing himself to death. I was around twelve at the time and it was intense.

Thus ends our adventure with the man with the hat. Tune in next week when Micah* kicks off our new theme. Which should be an adventure in and of itself.

* I have to tell this story. Micah doesn't have a strong track record for bringing stuff. When we were still doing Oscar winners he brought The Conversation one week. Which was a great movie, but was only nominated for an Oscar, it didn't actually win. That same semester he also brought us the choice between Mystic River and Million Dollar Baby. Which are both shoot me in the face type movies. So that was strike two. We're not mad at him, it's just really funny to us.

The Great Movie Review: The Last Crusade

Nazis. I hate these guys. I've been waiting like a month and a half to show this movie. This movie is one of my favorites. It's currently number 4 on my top 10 list of my all time favorite movies. Right behind The Village, Harvey and The Incredibles. Aren't you glad you pushed through Tod?

So this movie takes it back to the tone and styling of Raiders. It's pretty much a self contained movie. Really all three of the movies are self contained, but this one contains the best exposition. There's no need to see Raiders or Tod if you see The Last Crusade. I say that, you really should watch all three, but if you were going to pick just one, let it be Last Crusade. Also, it has Sean Connery in it. Interesting fact from the special features, Sean is only about 16 years older that Harrison. How weird is that?

And while we're talking about girls ... we finally get a lead female character with more than one dimension. I don't know what Val's opinion was this time. She wouldn't say. Which I assume means she now has a new role model, or something really close to that.

Honestly, I don't know what to say. It's the best of the three. There is good character development, humor, solid acting and all of the gunslinging, whiplashing and Indiana Jonesing that we've come to know and love. If you watch any of the Indy movies, WATCH THIS ONE!

PS - He takes out this tank!

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Group Rating (out of 5):

Stevox: 5
Valerie: 3
Kyle: 5
Micah: 4
Jenny: 4

Averages to 4.2 flaming mechanical rats out of 5.

Shares this rating with The Apartment and Almost Famous.

In a zombie outbreak; The Apartment. Because they can hole up until the National Guard shows up. Almost Famous wouldn't make it through the initial outbreak due to intoxication, and Indy can't stay out trouble for more than five minutes.

The Great Movie Review: The Temple of Doom

Talk about your let downs right? I know I made it out be all kinds of mind blowingly coolness through all the movies, but I had to get you to push through. You just gotta push through the Temple of Doom. Not only is it the most ridiculous, it's also the darkest and least humorous. It's just not very fun to watch. They also made the classic kid side kick mistake. I can't decide which is more annoying Short Round or Willie (the female lead). Now, I realize that these movies are made to be an homage to the serials of the 30's, but holy cow (get it, because it was set in India) this was too much.

So let's compare Temple of Doom, henceforth referred to as Tod, with Raiders. * Spoiler Alert! In Raiders we open with a great transition from the Paramount logo to an actual mountain. We then have the exchanging/taking of an artifact. Dr. Jones is then gets into trouble and a chase scene ensues whereby he escapes by boat plane. Tod pretty copies the opening event sequence: Mountain transition, check; Priceless Artifact, check; Dr. Jones getting into trouble, double check; Chase scene that ends with Indy getting on plane; check and ... check. I don't know if it was intentional, but it happened. And if it was intentional, it probably just follows the 30's serial format even more.

So we watched Tod on Halloween. Which was my plan all along. It is so creepy. There has got to be at least one thing in this movie that makes your skin crawl, or at least throw up in your mouth a little. For me it's when they cut open the snake surprise. SURPRISE! It's live eel. Blech. And they pull out a dude's still beating heart! Think about that for a couple minutes. Or don't because it's just weird.

Valerie being our only girl this week pointed out what a terrible representation of a woman Willie, the female lead, was. She was incredibly girly, and couldn't do a thing for herself. The only helpful thing she did in the whole movie was to release the trap in the room of spikes. Which she promptly set off again. I say that, there were a couple things she did really well. You could count on her to hate everything, to whine and complain at all times, scream at everything and be a general waste of space.

I'm not going to talk about Short Round because he shouldn't have even been in the movie.

Micah grew up on these movies. Apparently he would watch them over and over, back to back as a kid. Which, to me, explains why his belt makes him feel secure and ready for anything. Need to lash yourself to something, belt. Need to beat up a bad guy, belt. Need to restrain someone, belt. Now take belt and replace it with whip. That's right, Micah is Indiana Jones.

So the next time you are looking for a movie that combines all of your favorite elements: musical numbers, gross out scenes, unnecessary heart surgery and wacky mine cart rides just remember Tod.





















Also, Dan Aykroyd (yes it is really spelled that way) is in it briefly.