March 2009 Archives

So I was bored this weekend and hit the mall, something I rarely do.  I thought I'd head into the local video store to see what I could find.

I came across  2 for $20 section and found the 20th anniversary edition of Dirty Dancing and since I know my wife loved the movie I thought I'd pick it up.

It had been a few years since we watched this movie so I thought it would be a good way to spend a Saturday evening.

We put the DVD in and right away it seemed different - I didn't remember it starting the way the DVD does.

The movie, in case you haven't heard of it, is about a 1960's family which goes on vacation to a summer resort in upstate New York's Catskill Mountains.  It focuses mostly on the youngest child, nicknamed "Baby", played by Jennifer Grey.

She is opposed to the idea of a family vacation but soon gets over it when she sees the resort's dance instructor Johnny (Patrick Swayze).

Through a series of events she Baby ends up in a dance contest with Johnny and it is through the practice and preparations for the dance competition that they fall for each other.

Baby's father finds out about the affair and forbids Baby to see Johnny again, and shortly after Johnny is fired from his position for a crime he didn't commit (stealing people's wallets). 

In the end, though, Johnny returns for one last dance with Baby at the final event of the resort's season.

One thing I've always thought is that music is the unsung supporting character in most movies.  The movie's soundtrack can make or break a movie.

With this one, the music definetly helped it along.  If you are a fan of late 50's and early 60's music then you will like this movie (if you haven't already seen it that is).

And to me, that's the best part of this movie.  Don't get me wrong, the movie is alright, but the music is the best part.  I mean, it's a dance movie, and the dancing is good, the acting is ok, but it's the music which really sets up this movie.

And since this is a 20th anniversary edition, it is longer and comes packed with a bunch of bonus features.  For example the bonus disk has a bunch of deleted scenes including a few scenes which were removed from the beginning of the movie.

It also has some of the screen tests done by actors in the movie and has a pretty good clip with what looks to be a fairly recent interview with Patrick Swayze.

Should you watch this movie?  Well if you haven't seen it then probably. If you are looking for a "chick flick" to impress your girlfriend or wife, yet want something you too can watch then most definitely watch this.

Sometimes when you are bored you will stray from the top rentals and find a movie you've never heard of.

Of course, more often than not, the movies found in the middle aisles are old or lame or both.

But sometimes you come across one you've never heard of but are impressed by the cast so you figure "what the heck, how bad can it be?"

That was the case recently when I found this DVD - The Way of the Gun.

What caught my eye was the cast - relatively big names in a move I'd never heard of before, or at least don't remember hearing about.

In this movie, Phillippe and Del Toro are a couple of guys who prefer the shadier side of life.  The movie starts with them starting a fight and Del Toro hitting a loud mouthed woman a few times in the face!

These guys kinda drift through life until the find out that there's a woman who is pregnant and worth a million dollars to the father.

So they arrange to kidnap her, ending up in a gun battle with her security before managing to grab her.

The story follows them as they head for Mexico to hide out and arrange for the safe return on the girl upon payment of a large sum of money.

They soon realize, however, that the father of the unborn baby is actually a well known mobster

The movie ends with the 2 in a big gun battle with the mobsters men. 

They almost get away with it too, but are stopped at the end with gunshot wounds to the legs and hands, effectively hobbling them until the police arrive.

The reason I liked this movie is because there seem to be a lot of subtle things going on that make you wonder if things will work out for these guys, or even if one might end up stabbing the other in the back.

In the end you hope they do make it and you start to cheer for them.  You find that they aren't necessarily as bad as they seem.

Would I recommend you run out and buy this film?  Not unless you are a huge fan of one of the actors and have to have every movie they've ever done, but I would recommend getting out and renting it. 

I give this movie a 7 out of 10.

It has been a while since I watched this series, and my family has never seen it so we decided as a family to sit down and watch the 3 movies.  While we didn't do it back to back, we did watch them all over the span of a few days.

Even though it has been at least a year since I watched them I have to say that I'm still incredibly impressed with these movies.

Not only that, but my wife who isn't a big scifi/fantasy fan really enjoyed them as well.  In fact it was at her urging that we finish these off this weekend, which we did.

In case you don't already know, this trilogy is based on the three books in the series of the same name.

They are about one hobbit's trek through foreign, often dangerous, lands on a quest to destroy the "Ring of Power."

A lot of people didn't think that the Lord of the Rings could be made into movies.  After all, we're talking of over 1,000 printed pages of a mythical and magical land where Elves, Dwarfs and Orcs interact with humans and each other.

If you've ever read the books then you know how detailed the book's Author, JRR Tolkein gets in describing what the various characters see around them.

And this isn't lost in these movies.  In fact, as I was watching them these past few days, a thought occured to me - both the musical score and the scenery found in these movies should be considered characters in the movies as they are essential to our appreciation of the scale of this story.

Not only that, but I also found something else.

You see, when I first saw this trilogy it was on my 27" TV at home.  We recently upgraded to a much larger screen and I found the movies much more entertaining.  Not that they weren't before, but I found myself immersed that much more into the stories.

The other impressive thing about these movies is the special effects.  You generally can not distinguish between what's real and what's manufactured.  From Hobbit homes embedded into the hillsides to impressive large statues carved out of stone that look so old, you'd believe not only are they real but they've existed for thousands of years.

One thing about these movies which could be a detractor for some viewers is the length of them.  They all top out around 3 hours a piece.  The extended director's cut versions are even longer.

But they have to be for you to appreciate the depth of the stories involved.

Despite that, I give this trilogy a very enthusiastic 2 thumbs up and rate it a 10 out of 10.