Ponderous Personal Projects

Tonight’s double feature sees Stephen Fry orchestrate a heist to liberate some bad scottish art from the clutches of the evil banking system, while Michael Cera gets it on with Ellen Page.  Much drama ensues.  Stephen double crosses Mike the Scott, Jason Bateman double crosses Jennifer Garner, Mike the Scott’s girlfriend saves the day while Michael Cera is the secret envy of the football team.

“It’s got nails!”

Title:	Doors Open / Juno
Director:	Marc Evans / Jason Reitman
Keepsake:	Ellen Page
Score:	4/6 / 5/6
Drink of the day:	Yet another Dark and stormy!

I tried googling some analytical text I could rip off about the Machinist, but all I could find was articles about how thin Christian Bale is. Surely there’s more to this movie than that.  I spent most of it confident that Bale was replaying history with both Ivan and Nicholas in the roles of himself, both Maria and Stevie as his mother, and both himself and Ivan as his father.  I can say this without spoiling the movie.

“Insomnia’s a bitch!”

Title:	The Machinist
Director:	Brad Anderson
Memento:	How thin Christian Bale is.
Score:	4/6
Drink of the day:	Dark and stormy (again!)

The cleavage.

Hand grenade.

Rambo, sweet talking the ladies.

Oh, the cleavage!

Rambo, trying to get a date.

Immer Spaltung.

Zippers!

I have a violin and I’m not afraid to use it!

“Get back there and retard spark 4 3°.”

“Toro!” (actual line)

Rambo tries to impress the ladies.

Drink of the day.

Paul Bartel’s 1975 vision of the future of sports and politics sees Nero the Hero, Calamity Jane, Frankenstein, Rambo and Mathilda the Hun racing coast to coast while racking up points for running over women (10p), teenagers (40p), senior citizens (100p), etc. 

Think Rollerball with cars. And more cleavage.  

There isn’t really much to say about Death Race 2000. There’s an incompetent resistance, an evil dictator, a sudden plot-twist involving the allegiance of the antagonist, gratuitous violence, cleavage, yada, yada, yada. Nothing wrong with any of that, although the following year’s Cannonball (also by Bartel) was a definite improvement.

“Mister President is in his summer palace in Peking. He loves everybody, and everybody loves him.”

Title:	Death Race 2000
Director:	Paul Bartel
The memories:	The mammaries
Score:	4/6
Drink of the day:	Hamar & Lillehammer Julebrus

The first horror hairdo to cross over into sitcoms?

My little project is off to a flying start with what can only be the greatest movie ever made. A sweet little tale of boy-meets-girl-then-tortured-by-baby-and inlaws. Also the greatest soundtrack ever made.  Allegedly, Eraserhead won every academy award for 1977.
From here on in, it can only get worse.

 “I’ve seen it more times than I’ve had a Rusty Trombone.”

As with all great films, every time I see Eraserhead, I discover something new.  This time, I noticed Henry lives in apartment number 26, which is not how old David Lynch was when he joined the fatherly ranks.

Film:	Eraserhead
Director:	David Lynch
Cherished moment:	Julee Cruise singing in the radiator
Score:	11/10
Coctail du Jour:	White Russian

White russian (badly made).

Not the actual films I’ll watch.  Or are they?

Let 2014 be the year of film.

For years I’ve been plagued with feelings of guilt over not seeing enough film.  Every couple of weeks, I’ll sit down and binge on 3, 4, 5 films, but is it enough? I don’t think it’s enough.

The Complete Columbo came in a cardboard cigar box!  I am disappoint! Or am I?

So for 2014, I hereby pledge to watch (at least) one movie a day.  I’m not quite sure what the CDO demands yet, but I know do that they have be real movies.  My 60 unwatched Columbo episodes don’t count, even if they are 90 minutes.

Lars thinks I should double whammy my film watching with a cocktail du jour. Brilliant idea. Will I stick to it? Who can tell! You can, because I’ll keep you posted!