In Theater Viewing - Suck

After a long day of classes, I took my mountain bike up Geary in SF to the 4 Star Theater to watch a movie I'd only seen a trailer for on Facebook. It was a Vampire movie about a band that didn't play very well until their band started to become Vampires. One by one they turned. It was a funny movie, so there were lots of heckles from the audience. When I had first gotten to the theater it looked like it was going to be an intimate evening with only 6 of us in the auditorium. That's what happens when you get to the theater over an hour early. When it got closer to show time, however, the red tiled ceiling dimmed down to about 30+ vampire fans eager to see how this mix of actors and musicians turned movie "stars" would work. It was a very tame movie with little blood splatter and no skin. For a vampire movie, even a comedy, it was pretty tame. The story was cool, some of the actors has some good one liners, and the stop motion "driving scenes" were pretty cool. Rob Stefaniuk wrote/directed & acted in his film that was released last year.

Homework movies - Cop Out (2010)

Directed and edited by Kevin Smith, Cop Out pays tribute to all things cop movie. Including the gritty look of the film. Cinematography done by long time Smith collaborator, David A. Klein, this looks like it was taken out of the footage from the Lethal Weapon series, or any other buddy cop film in the last three decades. The story was written by Robb & Mark Cullen, who have written mostly for Television's Las Vegas until 2007.

The story puts Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan together as the "Riggs and Murtaugh" with the roles reversed. Willis plays it straight while Morgan gets to be the outlandish character portraying any and every cop cliche out on his witnesses, co-workers, and ultimately the sports obsessed gangster that sends these two on a mission to retrieve a stolen car. It's a very funny movie with plenty of Smith trademarks thrown in. Other notable actors in this cop comedy are Kevin Pollak, Adam Brody, and Sean William Scott playing a parkour moving thief that gets caught up in the mix.

Homework movies - Goonies (1985)

Goonies is an action adventure written by Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus in 1985 and directed by Richard Donner for Amblin Entertainment. Cinematographer on this film was Nick McLean, who has worked as various titles in the industry since the early 70's.

I would watch this movie before I started my day of my third grade summer. The great cast, which includes the very young Josh Brolin, Sean Austin, and Corey Feldman in a Haim-free roll of the 80's.

The film was mostly shot with an orange glow creating a warm mood. But when the bad guys, the Fratelis, were on screen there was a crisp blue tone. The warm tones were in a soft focus suggesting an ethereal feeling of hope and dreams. The Goonies were on a mission to save their parents homes due to foreclosure. Hope was all these kids had, and that was enough for them to go to such depths, to follow a legend and a map.

Extra Credit - Baby Mama

Having a sick loved one, you may come across some movies that you may not want to watch, but you end up watching because they want to. This was a pick for my girlfriend who isn't feeling her best at the moment. I picked Baby Mama up at our local library, which coincidentally has a great DVD selection that rivals some chain rental houses. We watched this after some reheated chinese food together and it was a really funny movie. Sure there were parts that I was watching through my fingers because it was painfully funny, but it was funny. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are hilarious together and the other cast rounded out by a former SNL alum, Steve Martin, and Sigourney Weaver makes this a heart warming movie about what lengths a single woman could go to in order to have, truly, it all.

Extra Credit - Dr. Horrible's Sing - Along Blog

I couldn't keep myself from laughing, even the third time I watched Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in the same week. The fact that it's such a short movie is not a deterrent. All that comedy in such a great small package. The fourth wall broken for such a long time is not a bad thing when it comes to the premise to the movie. The fantastic characters that are so layered in the short time just adds to the interesting part of the movie. For instance, a villain (Neil Patrick Harris) that doesn't want to meet with a nemesis in a crowded park because of the children? A hero (Nathan Fillion) that exclaims how he's "Totally had sex" with a new girlfriend? All of the main dialogue is sung and the lyrics are so catchy that after leaving the movie at home, I catch myself singing the songs (to the best of my ability, cause I really can't sing). It's a great view for fans of catchy comedy and fun musicals. Written and directed by Joss Whedon in 2008, it was only released online, but is packaged as a tv miniseries.

In-Class Movie - Sullivan's Travels

Sullivan's Travels was written and directed by Preston Sturges in 1941. The movie stared Joel McCrea as the title character, and the lovely Veronica Lake as The Girl. As the story unfolds, we see that Sullivan is a big time Hollywood movie director that wants to make a movie about living the life of a hobo, to which his producers tell him he knows nothing about being a hobo. He tells them that he will go out and live that way and then come back a report on it. They agree and then he's on his way. But much to his surprise, they follow him for the first leg of his travels. It doesn't work and Sullivan finds a ride from a young boy to prove a point. I thought it was rather funny to see the "Land yacht" going through the field and wreaking havoc in the passengers inside (including the cook going through the roof for a moment). He explains to his producers that he'll give them Hell if they follow him more and they agree to not follow him further. He's made his point and we see him attempting to make his own way. He finds Veronica Lake's character in a diner where she buys him ham and eggs and he gives her a ride home. She pleads with him to take her with him on his search for trouble. They continue their travels and get into many different catastrophes that are easily solved.

The movie is a great fish out of water story. Sullivan tries to go somewhere he knows nothing about in the beginning and finds out more about human nature than he would have imagined. I noticed that when there were large crowds the dialogue was replaced with montages. It was and still is a good way of transitioning many scenes together at a time. Like when "Sully" and the Girl are in the soup kitchen. It takes up a few moments of time in the movie but it is shown to have been days in the film. I urge anyone who enjoys films to see this movie more than once. For more info, check IMDb.com.