Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Archive for category Movies

Pathfinder

Mar 28

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Inside Blogging, Movies | No Comments

Brian Noggle must be made of stronger stuff than I, because he titled a post “I Can’t Wait For Joe Williams’ Review“. What’s next, “I can’t wait to be smacked repeatedly by a large mackerel”, or “I can’t wait to have a bucket of bricks dumped on my head” or “I would really like to have my toenails pulled out one by one”.

I have to say, I saw the same trailer while I waited to see “300” the other day, and at first I was intrigued – nothing gets my intrigue up like seeing helms with lots of horns, wings, and assorted dodads and swords of destiny – but when it was clear that the movie was going to be a post-modern morality play dressed up in ornate plate armor I lost most (but not all!) of my interest. Yes, ornate plate armor is just that irresistable.

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300

Mar 22

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | 1 Comment

I saw 300 last night and I have to say it wasn’t as bloody as I thought it would be after reading the reviews. 300 is a mythic epic, well worth seeing in the theater if you like that sort of thing, and like action movies filled with buff men, flying blood (they really really like their blood spatters) and flying heads (of the chopped off variety). But the biggest reason to see it in the theater is to see it it on a big screen. Sometimes I hear movies described as visually stunning, but believe me, this movie is visually stunning. The director, Zach Snider, doesn’t forget for one frame that he is visually telling a story. The movie represents a Spartan survivor of the battle telling the tale to his country men on the eve of another battle against the Persians, so the movie has a certain Homeric cast to it. And there are times the creepiness factor got a bit too much for me and I actually turned away from the screen.

After watching it, I have to wonder if I saw the same movie as some of the critics — were they expecting a documentary? Maybe it’s just me, but I got the impression they were sort of hoping that Greek civilization, and thus Western civilization, got strangled in it’s cradle this time. Because if it had, we wouldn’t have been faced with the horror of people proclaiming about freedom while owning slaves. We would just would have been faced with people owning slaves and never once even mentioning freedom.

What motivated 300 hundred Spartans and 700 Thespians to fight to the death against the Persians in 480 BC? It sure wasn’t a desire to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, end poverty, envision world peace, save the Whales, end Global Warming, or some other modern worthy enterprise. The world was much simpler then – or at least the struggle for survival was much clearer (and harder), and the extreme Lycurgian laws that Sparta lived under were all about how civilization could survive. Sometimes we forget the idea that love of country, a conviction that our culture is superior, and a devotion to duty and others are important values and not just quaint ideas without power to be forgotten or mocked.

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Sweet Smell Of Success

Feb 1

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

I like movies. A lot. But the other day, 3/4 of the Murphy Family tried to pick out a movie at our local Hollywood Video and failed. Or almost failed, as after we all agreed we couldn’t find anything we wanted to see or see again for free, I noticed The Sweet Smell of Success. Well, I just had to get it, after reading Libertas:

Have you guys ever seen The Sweet Smell of Success? Man! What a great flick. Cancel your Netflix account now and use that money to buy The Sweet Smell Of Success. And everytime you get an urge to watch the latest piece of junk — liberal or otherwise — that emanates from Hollywood, watch The Sweet Smell Of Success. You’ll thank me for it later.

You know what? Thanks, whichever one of you there that wrote that. While I was the only one to watch it (horrors, it was in black and white!), I loved it enough for all of us. And I never thought I’d ever say this, but Tony Curtis was a better actor than 95% of the people in the business today. I knew about Burt Lancaster, but not Tony.

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A Night At The Museum

Jan 6

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

Some of the Murphy Family saw Night At The Museum and were very pleasantly surprised. At least I was, as I didn’t expect, but it was funny and enjoyable and a good popcorn movie. Yes, it is stupid, but entertainingly so, not annoyingly so. I guess I don’t mind preposterous history in an unserious film (or at least a film that doesn’t take itself seriously). And it’s a treat to see Dick Van Dyke (I thought he was dead!) again, and to see him dance at his age in the final credits was worth whatever my wife paid. This is only the second movie Owen Wilson didn’t set my teeth on edge — so they must have done something right (like given him a supporting role).

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Can The Dead Sue for Defamation of Character?

Oct 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

I watched Kingdom of Heaven the other night, not all of it though, because I just couldn’t take it anymore. It’s a wretched movie, and I suppose what galls me the most is if you’re going to make a work of fiction, don’t try to pass it off as based on fact. And by that I mean don’t use a real setting, with characters named after real people, with some events from the world of reality but most from some other world of make believe. It’s just despicable.

The Wisdom of James Woods

Oct 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

James Woods makes the uncomplicated easy to understand.

Restaurants:

I like to use the metaphor of my buddy Dan Tana. At his (restaurant’s) 40th anniversary, somebody asked me, “Why do you think his restaurant’s successful?” I said, “It’s really very simple. He serves good food and it’s a comfortable place to stick your ass while you’re eating it.” It’s not rocket science. You know these places: You go in and there’s some froufrou guy has fixed everything and they spent five million dollars on the f@&^ing chandeliers and you’re eating some crap on a plate with a bunch of swirly crap on it. If they give you steak, French fries and a f@&^in’ booth, they’ll be in business for a hundred years. You think some guy wants to sit perched on a little wooden chair eating a sliver of somebody’s liver?

Movies:

I look at movies and they’re all so f@&^ing terrible. People ask, “Why aren’t movies more successful?” It’s really a simple answer: It’s because they stink. Three simple words: Because they f@&^ing stink. That’s four words, but you can’t write the f@&^ing word. They stink, they stink, they stink, what’s wrong with you? They stink. Do better movies.  Finally, I saw a good movie : “The Departed.”  And look what it took: It took Marty Scorsese, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson, (screenwriter) Bill Monahan — and it’s based on another movie.

There is an amazing parallel between the movie and restaurant businesses though – good product and a comfortable place to park your keister while partaking. That might sum up a lot of businesses actually.

I’d love to hear how he’d uncomplicate women, but I imagine I couldn’t post it here.

Thanks to The Mayor of Television for the interview, and Libertas for the pointer.

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Digital Film Projection…In Somalia

Aug 9

Posted by Sean Murphy in Movies | No Comments

Strategy Page had an interesting nugget buried in the middle of their recent roundup on events in Somalia:

August 4, 2006: […] There are hundreds of impromptu theaters in Somalia, where entrepreneurs use digital projectors, powered by a portable generator, to project DVDs or electronic film files (often taken from pirated collections found on the Internet) onto the inside, or outside, walls of buildings. A small admission is paid, thus providing entertainment for many Somalis. […]
(see http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/somalia/articles/20060809.aspx)

It seems to me that this could also be a model for developing world education, and perhaps a model for how to disseminate information after natural disasters (at least those that leave a wall standing). Digital video cameras would allow current events to be easily captured and disseminated–instead of relying on pirated content off the Internet–you would just need some “out of region” file servers and at lest intermittent Internet connectivity.

The entry was part of a larger piece (buried in those ellipses) on how the Islamic Courts (the name of one of the ruling factions) is trying to censor “non-Islamic” content and tax the “theatres” which, being something of a moveable feast, I would suspect are to assess taxes against or censor.

One of the reasons it caught my eye is that I attended a July 27 Churchill Club event on The Future of Movies that was billed as “a digital age cinema executive roundtable.” It was a good talk, and the Hollywood execs were extremely intelligent and articulate. One of the key barriers to digital film adoption seems to be that exhibitors bear the expense of new digital film projectors while most of the benefits of moving from film to electrons will accrue to other parts of the industry. This isn’t true for the smaller scale Somali “exhibitors” who can probably make do with LCD projectors that are just a few hundred dollars and don’t have any existing infrastructure).

It’s worth listening to the podcast and adding Scott Kirsner’s CinemaTech blog to your list if digital cinema or movie technology is of interest. He did an excellent job preparing the panelists and moderating. Rich Karlgaard also has a good write-up.

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King Kong ZZZZ

Jun 28

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | 3 Comments

I’ve been sick and busy lately (funny how often the two go together, with the former leading to the latter), but I did watch Peter Jackson’s version of King Kong over the weekend. I have to say, it showcases everything great about Jackson, and everything wretched. And here, the wretched outweighs the great. Far outweighs. The only reason I actually watched the whole thing is that (1) I never voluntarily stop watching a movie or reading a book once I start and (2) I didn’t feel much like getting off the couch. I think perhaps Mr. Jackson should just produce giant spectacular movies, and leave the directing to somebody else.

The movie is actually quite boring despite, well actually because of the non-stop action. There is about 15 minutes of plot puffed into three hours of movie (kind of like a three hour porno movie — if anybody was crazy enough to make one that long — and just as believable) and it doesn’t take long before it becomes clear that the criterion was that it didn’t have to make sense, it just had to look good on film. And I’m not saying if you thought about it, it didn’t make sense; it just obviously didn’t make any sense the moment the photons hit your retinas. I don’t mind suspending my disbelief, but I don’t like to be insulted. If more is less, there wasn’t anything at all to this movie, and more is less. I like movies that seek their proper length, whether that is 90 minutes or almost 4 hours, but there is nothing worse for a movie than to be very long and very boring (see The Horse Whisperer).

I should have paid more attention to Dirty Harry.

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The Da Vinci Code

Jun 13

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

I read the book, enjoyed it even though I thought it slandered the Catholic Church and was generally a bunch of hogwash. So to sum up, I thought it enjoyable hogwash. One of the things that struck me as hogwash is the oft repeated idea that somehow Christianity singled out women to deprive them of freedoms they had as pagans. Steve Sailer has a great look at the Da Vinci Code and women, and you just can’t beat his last line. Thanks to Tim at Random Observations for the tip, and for his reminding us that pagan infanticide is still with us, on a scale probably greater than ever.

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My Favorite Bond Reparte

May 26

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Movies | No Comments

One thing the Bond movies are known for, besides his women, is his wit. My favorite Bond movie, Thunderball, has my favorite example:

Bond: That gun, it looks more fitting for a woman.
Largo: You know much about guns, Mr. Bond?
Bond: No, but I know a little about women.

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