Results tagged “movies” from BrainDrain

You may have seen the commercials that have started running this week, the ones that look like public service announcements from a company called MNU and which ends with the tagline "Keeping humans safe by keeping non-humans separate" superimposed over a smiling nuclear family. These commercials remind me of the interstitial commercials that showed up in the RoboCop movies.

They are for an upcoming movie called District 9 which is slated for release on August 14. This film is bring brought to the US by Peter Jackson (the guy responsible for bringing us the Lord of the Rings movies), and is directed by Neill Blomkamp (who is, I believe, from South Africa). District 9 is based on a short film created by Blomkamp, called Alive in Joburg, which is available on YouTube. It looks to be a very thought-provoking flick, which I am assuming (based on what info I can find on the website and in the videos) is about race relations using a sci-fi spin on the races. Whereas Alien Nation was a similar story with the aliens integrated into society, this one seems to be perhaps a treatise on refugees and slavery as the aliens are apparently used as slave labor and not allowed to leave.

All I know is that this film looks really good and I'm looking forward to seeing it, and I also wanted to bring it to your attention. Check out the website as well; it's pretty well done and you can get a better sense of what the point of the film might be after spending some time there. The real gems are the videos, as they tend to explore some of the socioeconomic ramifications of the content within the context of the movie.

We all have them - movies that will always stop and watch whenever we come across them on the dial. Well, I figured it was time for another inane Top 10 list, so here it is - the movies which I will always stop and watch, some of which I am embarrassed to admit that I will watch over and over again. Don't judge me - I know you have some pretty embarrassing stinkers in your pet movie files, too. This isn't exactly a true "top" list, but they're the first ten movies that came to mind.

'Ere we go....

1. Road House
2. The Hunt for Red October
3. 10 Things I Hate About You
4. Top Gun
5. The Matrix
6. Any Indiana Jones movie (except that last one)
7. Live and Let Die
8. Ferris Beuller's Day Off
9. Karate Kid
10. Tommy Boy

I enjoy exposing people to new things or possibly things that one should do at least once in their town but just haven't gotten around to doing. It was with this in mind that our home team decided to do some "Austin firsts" with our crew for some that haven't yet partaken in some of the uniquely Austin-y things to do.

We started off our evening with a trip to Frank & Angie's Pizzeria, some of the best pizza in Austin. With great names for the pies like The Travolta (a white pizza), the Scorsese (a meaty pizza) and the Chairman of the Board (a supreme pizza), the atmosphere is as much fun as the food. It usually fills up pretty quick, and the parking is pretty limited, but if you can get down there before the rush it's a great experience.

From there we headed on down to the Congress St. bridge to see the bats fly. There are several massive colonies of Mexican Free-tailed bats that live in various parts of Austin, with the most popular location being the park near the offices of the Austin-American Statesman newspaper. We've had several folks that have lived here for many years and still haven't been down to see them fly, and it's definitely something that every resident should do at least once. It's amazing to see - they start circling under the supports of the bridge, a little at a time, and then one makes a beeline out from underneath to start; perhaps he's some sort of scout or something. Within 10 minutes of that one leaving, the rest of the flying population leaves to go bug-hunting in one giant column that can take an hour and a half or more to complete. At this time of year, the viewing was okay, but the females had just given birth so the entire colony isn't yet flying. By the end of August and into September all 1.5 million of them will be leaving on a nightly basis at the fall of dusk to go keep Austin mosquito-free. It's a wonder of God's creation.

Finally, we ended up the evening with a viewing of Better Off Dead - John Cusack at some of his most amusing. It's one of those John Hughes films that everyone should see because it's just so much fun to watch (even though it's highly cheesy). We had a fairly large percentage of our group that hadn't seen the movie, so some of us that are "in the know" on these things decided that this would be a perfect movie to kick off a "movies everyone should see" series. There are so many movies out there and to know that someone is going through life having never seen "Ferris Beuller's Day Off", well....that's just tragic.

So all in all, we had a good night of fun and hangin' out, and now I feel like I've helped enrich the lives of my surrogate family by given them opportunities to experience some of the awesomeness that Austin has to offer. The next outing should be quite fun as well. Anybody got any good ideas on what we might want to do next? Something that every Austinite should do at least once?

Do tell.

Speaking of movies, I was thinking about doing this a while back and am just now getting around to it. I like movies. I like them a lot. I like to watch them, quote from them, dissect them, be snobbish about them, and discuss them ad nauseum. Thus, in the spirit of mildly relevant innanity, here are my top 10 favorite movies in order:

1. The Matrix
2. Raiders of the Lost Ark
3. Snatch
4. So I Married An Axe Murderer
5. Aliens
6. Top Gun
7. The Empire Strikes Back
8. Better Off Dead
9. TRON
10. The Hunt For Red October

What's your Top 10 list?

I sit corrected: State Of Play doesn't suck. Completely in spite of Ben Affleck, State Of Play was a pretty good flick and I was pleasantly surprised and engrossed in the film. I thought that the interplay between Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams was well done and well-acted, and it didn't degenerate into some bizarre sexual tension or love interest. It may be a little far fetched, what with the press solving the crimes and withholding evidence from the police and not getting arrested for it, but the story moved fast enough that I didn't get bored.

I'm a big fan of DMZ, which is a fiction story about a green reporter being stranded in the demilitarized zone of Manhattan island during another US civil war and suddenly finding himself being forced to decide if he is a journalist first or a friend of the people first. The notion of privatizing Homeland Security has been a target both of DMZ and this season's 24 (with the requisite fears of massive armies of mercenary soldiers being responsible for the security of the country), and State Of Play fits right alongside its brethren in the explorations of the implications of such a scenario. State Of Play handled the corruption in the government with a style reminiscent of Tom Clancy's, and I found myself making correlations with some of the Jack Ryan stories while watching this movie. I'm sure that the lives of the journalists portrayed in the movie are a caricature of the real thing (as they were more detectives than journalists), but that issue was a side issue in the grand scheme of things. Plus, the movie had a lot of star power to back up the roles being portrayed.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am no friend of Ben Affleck - in fact, having that name in the credits is usually a good enough reason for me not to see a film. I don't think the man can act to save his life and I put him in the emotionless one-trick-pony dustbin along with Keanu Reeves and Christian Bale (although Bale is not as much a deterrent to my enjoyment as the other two). That being said, I was mildly impressed with Affleck's performance in this flick and the fact that he actually moved from stoic to grief-stricken in the course of one pivotal scene was a big credit to him. While his acting style was still mostly wooden, it fit for the role he was playing of the do-gooder Senator who wanted to stop corruption and inadvertently became a part of it, and the exchanges between his character and Crowe's were enough to make me feel the sense of conflict that a real life journalist would face when forced to decide between journalism and friendship.

I also liked the cinematography and the direction, and I thought it was an all around good movie to see. Suspenseful, thought-provoking, and for the most part pretty clean. I don't think it is going to be the best movie of the year, but it's definitely a good one and I think that Russell Crowe should be proud of his performance in it. Thus, if you haven't seen it I'd recommend that you do, especially if you like the Woodward & Bernstein era or the reporter-as-cop story. It's good stuff.