Knight Moves

A Knight's Tale
Director: Brian Helgeland
Cast: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk, Paul Bettany, Shannyn Sossamon, Berenice Bejo, Laura Fraser
Released: May 11, 2001
Viewed in theaters: May 11, 2001

This was Heath Ledger's first movie where he played the lead. There are three main instances where he became known in the public eye. The first, was this, his first starring role; the second was his Oscar-nominated turn in Brokeback Mountain; and the third was his critically-acclaimed performance in The Dark Knight which was sadly overshadowed by his death. Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but I was a Heath Ledger fan (oh, okay, fangirl!) before any of those movies. Heath had a lot of female admirers before 2001, but, trust me, A Knight's Tale cinched many more! I know this for a fact because after 10 Things I Hate About You and The Patriot, I raved about him to my friend. Did I praise his amazing talent and tell her to watch out for a few Oscar nominations in his future? Haha, please! I was a shallow college student! I was going on about how hot he was and how I loved his Australian accent (those are seriously the best!) I was a little infatuated, you could say. My friend agreed he was cute but she wasn't as into him as I was....until she saw A Knight's Tale (more than once!) and suddenly starts raving to ME about how hot he is and I'm thinking, This is what I've been telling you all along! It was like she suddenly saw the light. It was pretty amusing!

I wasn't the biggest fan of this movie the first time I saw it. I just couldn't get past how these 14th century people could sing Queen and dance to David Bowie when obviously that music didn't exist back in those days, duh! (Or, in the words of Wat, "Hellooooo!") But after seeing its sort-of-but-not-really sequel, The Order (same director and stars Ledger, Addy, and Sossamon), I came to appreciate this movie and realize, despite a few flaws (and if you can look past the music, which I have), it is quite an entertaining movie. Or maybe The Order was just that bad! Ha!

Ledger plays William Thatcher, a poor peasant who takes on the alias of Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein so he can compete in jousting tournaments. He has to hide the fact that he is poor because only nobles are allowed to compete in tournaments. He practices jousting with his friends, Roland (Addy) and Wat (Tudyk). They meet famous writer Geoffrey Chaucer (Bettany)  - even though they don't know who he is - and he's the one who comes up with William's new name and forges his signature so he can compete as a noble.

"Excuse me, did you just say you named
your son Audio Science?!?"

William falls in love with the beautiful Jocelyn (Sossamon) who is wealthy and only knows him as Ulrich. She is a little weary of his courting at first as he is just another guy trying to get her attention. I used to think she was a major bee-yotch for making him lose those jousting matches to prove his love for her, and furthermore, I thought he was a love sick fool for going through with it and letting her walk all over him, but now I can kind of understand where she's coming from. It doesn't mean anything to her that knights tell her they'll win a tournament for her because that's expected of them anyway. Making him choose between her or winning the match was brilliant on her part. Evil, but brilliant. It's a great ultimatum for every woman to have! And it was sweet of him to lose to show her that he did love her, but honestly, if some guy, no matter how hot he was, came up to me and said the things William said to Jocelyn, I'd probably laugh in his face. Or roll my eyes. "Love has given me wings so I must fly!"; "If I could ask for one thing, it would be for time to stop so I can be in this moment with you forever!"; "I would give my ears just to hear your name!" And let's not forget the love letter. Good Lord, that was filled with cheesy goodness.

There are two actresses (basically the other two that aren't Shannyn Sossoman since there are only three women in the whole movie!) who would go on to become more well known in projects much later on in their careers. The first is Berenice Bejo who would later go on to play the female lead in The Artists ten years later. (A perfectly nice movie, but a bit forgetful even if it did win the Oscar). She plays Jocelyn's lady-in-waiting, or personal assistant. Wikipedia says her character's name is Christina, but honestly, I don't even remember her ever being called by her name. At first, whenever she is on screen she doesn't have any lines (early practice for The Artist, ha!), but she does eventually get to speak. I would be totally annoyed if I were her because whenever she's around Jocelyn, Jocelyn gets complimented about her looks by everyone and they just treat her lady-in-waiting like she's invisible when she's a very pretty girl too!

And then there's Laura Fraser who plays Kate, the blacksmith, who joins William's entourage and makes William a new suit of armor that's thinner, but still as strong, so he can easily move around in it. Fraser is best known for playing everyone's favorite stevia-addicted neurotic who can provide an "ocean of methylamine." That's right, I'm talking about Lydia Rodarte-Quayle from Breaking Bad, which just so happens to be my favorite show of all time. It's a good thing William wasn't interested in Kate since we know she's not into blondes! (Oh, Todd, you poor, creepy, guy). She's very fresh-faced and cute and not so uptight in this film! And she does speak with her own natural Scottish accent. There's not a murderous bone in her body! 

"Will, I am!"

After reading Michael Crichton's Timeline (which also takes place in the same century), I became quite intrigued with the time period. There's a chapter where two characters are jousting against each other and I didn't realize what a dangerous sport it was until I read that book. I mean, from the movie I could tell it looked a bit painful, but it takes a lot of precision and you can easily get killed if someone aims the lance at your head. Which is why the last scene where William jousts without his armor or a helmet AND just got stabbed in the chest if a little bit WTF?, but I think everyone knew he was going to win. After all, his blind father was "watching". Supposedly they have modern-day jousting with "strict guidelines" (yawn!) and "development of the use of breakable lance tips for safety" (boring!) You know it's lame compared to the bloodshed and excitement of the real thing. Don't you wish you lived in the 14th century? Yeah, me neither. 

The saddest hour of TV

I usually only talk about movies, but I have been known to delve into TV talk from time to time (as I'm sure you all know and love my Beverly Hills, 90210 season recaps!) I've been rewatching Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I'm listening to two different podcasts that discuss each episode. One of the podcasts is alternating between Buffy and Angel (which is my first time watching) so they just finished the fifth season while the other podcast is almost done with the series. That one is the Buffy Rewatch. Both hosts have seen the show before, but keep it spoiler free. They have a very structured podcast where they discuss external and internal references (such as pop culture references and references to past episodes), the fashion, and Buffy firsts and lasts (this is the first time we are introduced to a certain character, this is the last time we ever see this location).

The other one, PotentialCast, is a group of four people who are often joined by a guest. Only of of them has seen the entire series and the others are watching it for the very first time...and are trying to be spoiler-free as possible. They kind of go all over the place when discussing each episode and can get a bit off topic which can get annoying, but it's always great to hear their reactions at certain key moments. They have listener feedback and voice mails and rate the episodes and say their favorite quotes.

I started watching and listening to the podcasts in mid 2011 and I've only just finished the fifth season, so as you can see, with two seasons left, I still have a ways to go. I first watched the entire series in just a few short months from late 2004-early 2005. This time around, when I got to season 5, I was kind of dreading it...and season 5 is actually a pretty good season (although I am partial to seasons 2 and 3). 

Let me just pause here to warn everyone that I am about to reveal a huge major spoiler, although if you don't know about this spoiler, I would be very shocked, Buffy fan or not! I feel like I found about this spoiler the night the episode aired in 2001 even though I didn't watch it until 2005! (But I do slightly spoil other things that aren't people's deaths!)

Of course I am referring to Buffy's mother's death. Joyce Summers was just an ancillary character and while she and Buffy had a nice mother/daughter relationship (even though there was that time when she kicked Buffy out of the house....not cool, Joyce, not cool!), there have been more prominent mother/daughter relationships in other TV shows. (I never watched Gilmore Girls, but considering the two main characters are mother and daughter, I would assume that would be one of them!) Joyce was featured heavily in a few earlier episodes ("School Hard"and "Ted" are ones that come to mind), but she didn't have a character arc until season 5...which is she starts getting sick, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, gets operated on, finds out her youngest daughter isn't really a human, starts dating again, dies. You know, in a nutshell!

"The Body", the episode that deals with her death, is not only probably the saddest hour of TV ever, but also probably the hardest TV episode to watch. I was dreading watching this again! And it had been nine years since I had last seen it! It's a very good, well-done episode, but perhaps a little too well-done as it is a little TOO real. The cliffhanger from the previous episode has Buffy coming home and finding her mom dead on the couch with the creepy bonus of having her eyes open. And her, "Mom...Mom.....Mommy?" is so heartbreakingly sad! The cold open of "The Body" begins right where we left off and  during the opening credits, we see a happier time when Joyce was alive during Christmas dinner with her family and Buffy's friends. This was only thrown in the episode so they didn't have to show the credits during the very serious scenes of Buffy reacting to finding her mother dead. I have never watched the commentary, but apparently that is what Joss Whedon tells the audience.

I have (fortunately!) never been in a horrible situation like this, but I can only imagine my reaction being very similar to Buffy's: confused, in shock, terrified, numb, all rolled into one. When she calls 9-1-1 to tell them her mom's not breathing, the operator asks her if she's administrated CPR and Buffy replies that she forgot how to do it and panics when she breaks one of her mom's ribs while pressing down on her. She tells the operator her mom is cold and the reply is, "The body is cold?" to which Buffy exclaims, "No, my mom is cold!"

There are deliberate camera choices such as a lingering shot on the phone's buttons as Buffy stares at it, Buffy talking to an EMT and only showing the bottom half of his face on screen, Buffy leaving the room in a daze to throw up and going outside for a few seconds to get fresh air. It is a very surreal scene. It also feels very voyeuristic - like you are actually watching this young woman reacting to her mother's death and you feel like you are prying. It's certainly how I felt! I think it is suppose to be a very uncomfortable situation for the viewer.

There is no music at all in this episode and it is very jarring because you know something is missing and TV shows without music just seem odd and disconnected. Something interesting about this episode is that you could watch it without having to see any other episode before it. You may not know who Buffy's friends are and you might not get Anya's heartbreaking speech about not understanding why Joyce had to die since she herself was not born originally human (like Dawn!) and does not understand the concept of mortality. That speech made me bawl like a baby and I don't even like Anya! The scene where Buffy has to tell her sister always got me the most the first time I saw this episode (and the second time will also be my last time watching it!)

The only thing that takes me out of this episode (and reminds me what show I'm watching!) is the vampire at the end. They didn't have anything of the supernatural sort until that moment at the end and it was like they threw the vampire in there as an afterthought.

Sarah Michelle Gellar knocks it out of the park in this episode and it is a shame she wasn't even nominated for an Emmy!

Movie montage 3

Hey everybody! I created my third movie montage, so check it out! Thanks! 

You can see my other movie montages here and here.

Let's play a game of

Hardball
Director: Brian Robbins
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Diane Lane, John Hawkes, Michael B. Jordan
Released: September 14, 2001

This movie is interesting as it is probably the film most associated with 9/11 that doesn't have anything to do with 9/11 in its plot. As you can see from its release date, it came out three days after that day. I remember watching some documentary I found on YouTube about 9/11 and the aftermath and there was a segment about the pop culture angle. A commentator said this movie did fairly well for a movie of its size at the box office because most people wanted to escape what was going on in the real world and have a temporary distraction and this was a nice, uplifting movie, which it is, but it is also pretty depressing and I think it would just add to the extreme sadness I already was feeling during that time!

This movie is very similar to The Mighty Ducks, as both movies deal with a law-breaking citizen who is sentenced to coach a crappy sports team of ragtag kids. The only difference is that it's baseball, not hockey, and all the kids are black instead of an all white team with a couple black kids. One amusing similarity is that both movies feature an actor who would grow up to be on a TV show. The Mighty Ducks had Joshua Jackson who would go on to be in Dawson's Creek and Hardball had Michael B. Jordan who would go on to be in Friday Night Lights (I wonder if he and Todd were pals? Haha....I have never seen that show, but I know Todd from Breaking Bad was on it). I was curious to see if I would know any of the other kids in anything, but looking at their IMDb pages, it appears this was their only credit or they were in only a couple of other things. Jordan is the only one to have gone on to have a career of some sort. I thought all the kids did a good job in the movie, except for the youngest one who you could not understand at all when he talked.

Keanu Reeves plays the coach, Connor O'Neil, who is a gambling addict and he owes a bunch of people a lot of money. Obviously, he never saw that episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 where Brandon gets in deep with gambling and has to learn a hard lesson! But Connor doesn't have a Nat to bail him out of trouble! Instead, he keeps stupidly betting on more sports games in order to pay off his debts. He goes to a friend who helps him out by telling him he knows a kids' baseball team that is looking for a coach because the old one left and he will be paid $500 a week. Connor isn't thrilled, but needing the money, takes the job. He is the worst coach ever. These are all inner-city kids who live in a bad part of Chicago where gangs are running rampant and he lets practice go on longer than it should have because he's waiting for a ride and one kid, while walking home after dark, gets beaten up and robbed. After the kid's mother yells at Connor for being an idiot, he realizes he needs to be more careful and follow the rules.

Diane Lane plays the boys' sixth grade teacher, Miss Wilkes, and tells them they need to finish their book reports before they can play baseball. She's not so sure about Connor at first, but after all her students are giving him glowing reviews, she decides there must be something special about him and there's some cute flirting that goes on between them. They only have one little kiss at the end of the movie when the team wins the game. So lame! (The kiss, not the game). I would have liked to see more of their relationship and how it progressed. They get into this huge fight at one point (a scene in which Keanu is pretty laughably bad in, but hey, at least he is nice to look at!), but then quickly make up.

One of my biggest wtf? moments is what happens with Jordan's character, Jamal. The other coaches call to Connor's attention that Jamal was born two weeks before the age cutoff and is therefore too old to play for the team so he has to leave. It is really sad and you feel so bad for him. In another scene, when the little bad actor kid and his older brother, who is also on the team, are walking back home, they come across Jamal who has become a part of a gang and acts like he doesn't know who his ex-teammates are. A drive-by occurs and I thought for sure Jamal was the one who was going to get shot, but it was actually the young boy. Everyone comes together for the deceased boy and win their last game of the season as a dedication to him. The only thing is, where the hell is Jamal? He wasn't at the funeral! We never see him again after the little boy is shot. I thought we would see him leaving the gang since an innocent boy was, you know, murdered in front of him! I thought they would make an exception for him and let him come back to join the team so he wouldn't be cavorting around with gang members, but nope! Never hear from him again! So did he just stay in a bad situation while all his friends got to play baseball and have fun? Doesn't seem very fair to me!

I really loved the song of the same name that L'il Bow Wow, L'il Wayne, and friends sang for the soundtrack and am so disappointed I can't find it on Spotify!

Pretty Little Thieves

The Bling Ring
Director: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Katie Chang, Emma Watson, Tassia Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Leslie Mann
Released: June 21, 2013

This movie about teenagers stealing from celebrity homes is based on a true story that happened in 2008-09. Apparently I wasn't checking the TMZ sites (which I NEVER do so no wonder!) so I had no idea about this story until it was made into a movie.

I watched a little feature-ette on the DVD after I saw the movie about the real crime and teens and it looked like Coppola took some liberties with the movie. For instance, the real teens didn't come from much money (as it was reported), but in the movie, most of the teens seem to be pretty well off and live in nice houses. Since I'm not familiar with the actual true story, I'll just base my review strictly on the movie and not worry about technical little changes. Even the names of the characters are not the same as the real people they are based on.

The (bling) ringleader is Rebecca (Katie Chang), a girl who is a hard core kleptomaniac. After she meets Marc (Israel Broussard), the new kid at school who's a bit of an outcast, she takes him under her wing and they become fast friends. While at a party, they go outside and Rebecca starts checking car doors to see if they are unlocked. If they are, she looks inside to see what she can take and finds purses and iPods which she takes. It's amazing the valuable things people leave in an unlocked car! Marc is a little hesitant at first, but wanting to impress Rebecca and keep her friendship, he joins in with the car robbing. Continuing on with their heists, they raid the nice home of a kid Marc knows whose wealthy family is out of town. They find thousands of dollars under a bed and blow it all the next day on a little shopping spree. Rebecca even "borrows" their Porsche with intentions of bringing it back in time before they return because even she knows she can't get away with stealing a car and a nice one at that.

They get even bolder in their breaking and entering when they are reading a celebrity blog and come across an entry about Paris Hilton being in Las Vegas for an event. They look up her address (because on the Internet, you can find anything) and Google Earth her house to find the best entrance. These kids live in Calabasas, California, which is part of L.A. At Hilton's house, they FIND A KEY UNDER THE DOORMAT! OMG, Paris, are you kidding me? They enter and start "shopping" (or should I say "shop-lifting") in her closet. Paris let Sofia use her real home for the movie and, oh my God, it is everything you would expect Paris Hilton's home to look like. You will not be disappointed. She is ever the egotistical narcissist with throw pillows that have her face on them, there are photos of her from magazines blown up and plastered on the walls along the staircase, and she even has her own "club room" with a strip pole. (Of course she does). Her closet, which is bigger than my apartment (I'm guessing...looks that way!) is full of so many clothes that I doubt she would even notice if anything was taken! Same goes for her shoes and jewelry...she had so much crap that it would be impossible for her to know if anything was missing. But that wasn't the only time her home was burglarized as Rebecca and Marc go back several times. At one point, Rebecca even wants to steal Paris's rat-dog to sell, but Marc puts his foot down on that one, pointing out it would be too obvious that even Paris would notice her dog was missing!

Rebecca tells her friends, Nicki (Emma Watson), Sam (Tessa Farmiga), and Chloe and they're all impressed and want to go to Paris's as well to score some sweet stuff. This sets off their string of Hollywood burglaries and they realize with the Internet it's easy to find when a certain celebrity they want to target will be out of town and it's easy to find their address with Google Earth. Even with all that, you would still think it would be difficult to break into a high status person's home with security and camera, but nope, a lot of the celebrities' homes they broke into didn't have alarms that went off and more surprisingly, they could easily find an unlocked door!

Besides Leslie Mann, who plays Nicki's mom, Emma Watson is the only well-known name in the cast. She does a very good job at speaking in a spoiled teen valley girl accent (not sure if that is a compliment!), but it was kind of distracting seeing her in this movie that is about these girls (and one gay guy) who want to emulate their favorite Hollywood celebrity stars. I'm sure if Emma Watson lived in L.A. (I'm not really sure where she lives to be honest), she would have been one of the stars that would have been targeted as most of their victims were young Hollywood female stars known for their style. And girlfriend has some cute clothes! Emma Watson is as famous as many of the celebrities they robbed from, if not more. Uh, hi, Audrina Patridge. The only reason I even know who she is, is because my brother (who is heterosexual and in his 30s, mind you) is for some unknown reason I still can't comprehend, a fan of The Hills. For those who don't know, this was a reality show on MTV and it is probably the most stupid and pointless thing I have ever seen. (Now I have never watched Jersey Shore, so I'm sure it has competition!) All they did was follow around these sorta rich, semi-attractive people and all of their (boring and manufactured) drama. Audrina was one of the "characters" and she lives in a nice house so she's doing pretty well for herself even though I still don't know why she's "famous"! The point is, Emma Watson is a more well-known face and name than Audrina.

They also steal from Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr, Lindsay Lohan, Rachel Bilson, and Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green. They actually steal a gun from Megan Fox. (I don't know why she needs a gun when she has David Silver to protect her!)  When they steal stuff, they keep some of it for themselves, but they also sell some of it to make money of their own.

Even though these celebrities do seem to be careless with leaving their doors unlocked, they do have video cameras, though the teen robbers do their best to conceal their faces. They do get careless when they start bragging to other peers about their conquests and posting on Facebook how their stuff used to belong to certain famous people. When the celebs start going to the police to file complaints, the police start investigating and it isn't long before they are told by other kids what Rebecca, Marc, and the others told them about breaking into certain stars' homes. They also see Marc's face in one of the security videos when he gets too careless. The interesting thing about Marc was that he seemed to be very hesitant about what he was doing and you could tell he knew it was wrong because he was always rushing the girls when they wanted to stay and ooh and aww over all the swag. However, the real life guy he's based on seemed to be enjoying it as much as everyone else, if not more, as he was the one who bragged about it on Facebook!

They're all caught and sentenced to jail (up to a year for many of them) and even though what they did was stupid and wrong and they deserved what they got, I did feel a little bad for them because they were just stupid, young kids who probably thought what they did wasn't that bad because they were just taking stuff and celebrities have a lot of stuff and they have a lot of money to buy more stuff. I'm sure all the celebs weren't happy with their stuff being taken, because who likes having their stuff taken? Nobody! Burt most of all, I'm sure they mostly didn't like that these kids were going into their homes and going through their stuff and acting like they owned the place (like they did in the case of Hilton's) and use it as their hang out as well as their thrill for stealing stuff. That is a massive intrusion of privacy and nobody should have to worry about someone breaking into their home, even Paris Hilton, who I can't stand!

Inspiration from Rita Hayworth

The Shawshank Redemption
Director: Frank Darabont
Cast: Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, James Whitmore, Bob Gunton, William Sadler
Released: October 14, 1994

Oscar nominations:
Best Picture (lost to Forrest Gump)
Best Actor - Morgan Freeman (lost to Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump)
Best Original Score - Thomas Newman (lost to Hans Zimmer for The Lion King)
Best Adapted Screenplay - Frank Darabont (lost to Eric Roth for Forrest Gump)
Best Sound (lost to Speed)
Best Editing (lost to Forrest Gump)
Best Cinematography (lost to Legends of the Fall)

Warning: Spoilers for a 20 year old beloved movie that everyone and their grandmothers have seen! 

Perhaps it would be cliche to say that The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies, but The Shawshank Redemption is one of my favorite movies. Definitely in my top five. Even though some pretty horrible stuff happens in this film, there's something very comforting about watching it. I don't know how many times I've seen it (just saw it for the first time on my new Blu Ray!), but I do know that with each viewing, I still love it as much as the last time I saw it. 

Everyone knows this movie's "rags to riches" story: it was a bomb at the box office; nobody saw it. But after it was nominated for seven Oscars, people started to take notice and it became a huge video rental and I believe it was TBS (or TNT?) that aired it constantly and soon from word of mouth, became a very popular and beloved movie. It's always usually ranked #1 (as of this writing of this review, it is) on the IMDb Top 250. And this is out of all of the movies in the world that have ever existed, so being in the top ten, let alone in first (or sometimes second on a bad day - ha!) is pretty impressive. The IMDb Top 250 can be a bit of a head scratcher at times. It doesn't surprise me at all to see movies like The Godfather (and its sequel), Star Wars (and it's sequels - NOT prequels!), Lord of the Rings, (and it's sequels), Schindler's List, Pulp Fiction, and Forrest Gump (the last two are at #5 and #14, respectively and were also nominated for Oscars the same year as Shawshank...1994 should be proud of itself!) in the top 20. I may not be a fan of all those movies (:::coughcoughStarWarscoughcough::::), but I can see why they're all ranked so high. Then you have a movie like Inception ranked at #13 which just boggles my mind because I hated that movie so much! There's no way that movie should be ranked so high when Back to the Future is ranked at #49! That is so messed up! Back to the Future is way better than Inception AND more of a classic (hell, Inception is no way near a classic...it is one of the most boring movies I have ever seen! Well, maybe that's not true....there are other movies that could compete for it in that category! But I just could not get invested or interested in it and kept looking at my phone to check the time...you know that's a sign when you're not into a movie!)  I know it's all subjective, but I just don't understand how Inception can be so high at #13! Do people really love it that much? Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent so let's get back to the review.

I don't think I was really aware of The Shawshank Redemption until a few years later when my mom was watching it on TV and I came into the living room for a few minutes and asked what she was watching and she told me, but since I don't like to start watching movies in the middle (especially ones I've never seen before), I just watched for a few minutes then left since I really had no idea what was going on. My first true introduction to the film was when I was a sophomore in college. My dorm would sometimes have movie nights on the weekends and one night it was The Shawshank Redemption. We would usually watch movies on the TV (10 Things I Hate About You and Music of the Heart are two I remember), but they had a screen and movie projector for Shawshank which was kinda cool. The screen was nowhere near as big as what you would get in a theater (obviously!), but it was much bigger than the TV, so that was nice. That was the first time I watched the movie all the way through and just remember being enthralled the entire time. I've since seen it several times and like I mentioned above, own it on Blu-Ray. Before that, I would watch my parents' DVD of it (which I gave them for Christmas, of course!)

Interestingly enough, The Shawshank Redemption is a two-hour movie that's based on a short story by Stephen King called "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" that's probably no more than 30 pages. It's a short story from a collection of stories called Different Seasons which also includes "The Body" (which was made into a movie better known as Stand By Me) and "Apt Pupil". I've read the short story, but it's been awhile. I would like to revisit it, but don't know if I still have the book. 

A lot of names were thrown around for who should play Andy Dufrense and Red, Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford being among them, but it's hard to imagine anybody other than Tim Robbins as the young banker who was wrongly accused of murdering his wife and her lover and sentenced to two life sentences at Shawshank or Morgan Freeman as the inmate who can get anybody whatever they need. And in the book, we learn Red gets his name because he is an Irish man with red hair! I love how they address it in the movie when Andy asks Red why he's called that and Red just says matter-of-factly, "Maybe because I'm Irish." And it works. 

Having seen this movie numerous times, it's easy to forget that there's a twist ending. I already know that the reason Andy asked Red for a poster of Rita Hayworth (which later becomes a poster of Marilyn Monroe, then Racquel Welch) and a rock hammer is because they are both instrumental for him to escape. But he never tells anyone about his plan (although he sort of does to Red, although he's very cryptic about it when he tells Red if he ever gets out, then he wants him to go to a specific place and find a box that he has yet to place there) and anyone watching the film for the first time finds out about Andy's escape at the same time as the warden (Bob Gunton), Red, and all the other inmates. The reveal of it is a great scene no matter if you're seeing it for the first time or not.  

Andy was in prison for 20 years before he escaped. That's a long time. It's gotta be bad enough to go to prison even if you are guilty, but being innocent and having to be in prison for 20 years, that's just unimaginable! 

The portion of the movie where Brooks (James Whitmore) is released from prison after having been there nearly all his life and has thus become institutionalized is so heartbreaking. I was listening to a podcast where they said that they didn't like the Brooks narration because it didn't make sense to have Red narrate the movie, then all of a sudden, Brooks is narrating the movie for a few minutes in the middle. This has never occurred to me and it doesn't bother me because we're hearing his voice reading a letter he wrote to his friends at Shawshank. Sure, you could have Red narrate the letter or show Andy reading the letter to the others, but I think it works fine with the voice over from Brooks and it's much more effective since we can see the effect the outside world has on him. One of my favorite lines in the movie is how it's been a long time since he's been in the "real" world and says, "The world went and got itself in one damn big hurry." The movie starts in 1947 and by the time Brooks is out, it's the late '50s, so you know he's been in Shawshank for the better half of the twentieth century. So you can only imagine how much has changed since he was last a civilian. I remember watching the Oscars where James Whitmore was in the In Memoriam montage and I hadn't realize he died. When they showed him, they showed a scene from Shawshank (I'm pretty sure it was the scene in the bus like the picture above) and I remember going, "Aww, Brooks died!" But then I wasn't really that surprised since the movie came out in' 94 and he was already pretty old then and this was 2009 or 2010. 

Just like the last movie I reviewed, The Man in the Iron Mask, this movie also has a connection to The Count of Monte Cristo, another movie I have recently reviewed. It's when Andy and others are in the library going though books that other libraries have donated to him and that's one they come across and Andy makes a comment that they would like it because it's about a prison escape. Since it had been seven years since I've seen Shawshank, (I know for sure because I am a cine-nerd who documents the month and year when I watch a movie), I had totally forgotten about this scene, so it was just a pure coincidence. I'm sure if I had watched this movie first, it would have inspired me to watch Monte Cristo, because, let's face it, unlike Shawshank, everyone kind of forgets about that movie! 

Why do people love this movie so much? It is that everyone loves a great prison escape story? Is it the friendship between Red and Andy? Is it the brilliance of Andy laundering money for the warden, but keeping it all for himself when he got out? (Saul Goodman may have taught me everything about money laundering, but this was probably my first introduction to it.)  Is it that one single scene where Andy defies the warden and prison guards when he sneaks into the office to play an opera song, "The Marriage of Figaro" for all the inmates to have this few minutes of something different in their lives? Is it because the quote, "Get busy living or get busy dying" inspires something in everyone, including Jack Shepard from Lost, who I am sure his own quote of "Live together, die alone" was inspired by that quote?  (Come on, I'm sure it was!) I'm guessing it's all of the above. 

The twentieth (!!!) anniversary will be arriving next fall and while I doubt a 3-D version of this movie will ever be released (but then again, you never know), I would love for it to be re-released in theaters as I would love to see this movie on the big screen (a REAL big screen!) 

His Royal Douchness

The Man in the Iron Mask
Director: Randall Wallace
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, Gerald Depardieu, Gabriel Byrne
Released: March 13, 1998

Like The Count of Monte Cristo, this movie is also an adaptation of an Alexander Dumas novel. Even though there are some similarities, I liked Monte Cristo a lot better. In The Man in the Iron Mask, King Louis XIV (Leonardo DiCaprio) rules France as a total jerk. He is pompous, sleeps with many women, and only cares what he looks like as he's always pawing at his locks and wearing fancy silk frocks. (Ha, that rhymes!) Basically he rules the country like if any of the Jersey Shores idiots were the POTUS. (Ugh). He does not care about anybody but himself.

Jeremy Irons, John Malkovich, and Gerald Depardieu play the Three Musketeers (another Dumas-penned story) - Aramis, Athos, and Porthos, respectively. Athos has a son who is engaged to be married to a woman that Louis decides he wants for his own and has him sent to battle where he is killed. Louis then takes Christie into his home...and his bed! Seriously, he sleeps with her, like, the next day!

The King does some more appalling things and the Musketeers decides it's time to overthrow the little a-hole. Aramis has the perfect plan. He knows that Louis has a twin brother, Phillippe, who has been imprisoned for six years. Louis didn't want the country knowing that he had a brother so he ordered for an iron mask to be made for Phillippe to wear so nobody would ever know his identity. Since it covers his entire head, it's more of a helmet, but The Man in the Iron Helmet just doesn't have the same ring to it. Put anyone in an iron helmet and they're going to look ridiculous. And it does look ridiculous. Just look at him in that picture and tell me it doesn't make you laugh just a little! The Musketeers teach him what he needs to know to be King, including family history and what to do in social situations and their plan is to lure Louis out of a party, kidnap him, and replace him with Phillippe. There's a few snafus, but by the end of the movie, Phillippe becomes the true King of France without anyone realizing that one brother has been swapped for another.

You would think with such an interesting premise, this movie should work, but it just doesn't. For one thing, even though I thought the mask, er, helmet was ridiculous, you really don't get the sense that Phillippe was wearing it for six years and he seems to accept becoming a King just like that. I don't buy it. They also try to make this movie into too many things: a romance! A comedy! An action picture! If you watch the trailer, they advertise it as all three back to back. It starts out decent enough, telling the general plot of the movie, then it goes into Louis courting his women, then we get a bunch of jokes, then some action shots. It is so bad! The "comedy" portions of this movie is the worst - I did not laugh once. Now I don't think The Count of Monte Cristo is the best movie ever, but compared to this movie, it's a masterpiece.

However, if Leonardo DiCaprio had never been in Paris filming this movie, then I never would have had this "amazing" story to tell. Click the video to hear my "amazing" Leo story!

Late reaction to Oscar nominations

If you're curious about the reaction of this year's Oscar nominees from someone who has only seen two of the movies  nominated in the main categories, then you came to the right place!

Best Picture:
American Hustle
Nebraska
Gravity
12 Years a Slave
Captain Phillips
Philomena
The Wolf of Wall Street
Her
Dallas Buyers Club

I have only seen Gravity and Captain Phillips. So far the former is my favorite movie of the year and the latter will most likely be on my top ten list. I would love it for Gravity to win (hey, it happened last year when my favorite movie of 2012, Argo, won), but most likely it will be 12 Years a Slave. I will most likely rent that when it comes out on DVD, but it's hard to drag myself out to a theater to watch such a brutal and horrific movie.  I will also eventually see American Hustle but I am worried it will be more like The Fighter (which I didn't like so much) than Silver Linings Playbook (which I liked). I had never even heard of Philomena until it was nominated and still don't know what it's about. I will eventually see all (or most) of these, but I doubt any of them will top Gravity for my favorite movie. 

Best Actor: 
American Hustle: Christian Bale
Nebraska: Bruce Dern
The Wolf of Wall Street: Leonardo DiCaprio
12 Years a Slave: Chiwetel Ejiofor
Dallas Buyers Club: Matthew McConaughey

First of all, where the hell is Tom Hanks for Captain Phillips? I thought for sure he was a shoo-in for a nomination! Everyone loves Tom Hanks and he hasn't been nominated in a long time and this was the perfect opportunity to do so! I'm sure he could have easily edged out Christian Bale. Now I haven't see any of these so I don't know who is the best, but I imagine it's a dead heat between Matthew McConaughey who's been winning all the big surprises or Chiwetel Ejiofor who everyone is buzzing about. It's hard for me to live in a world where McConaughey has an Oscar (it would be just so weird, but the again, Nicolas Cage has one!) I feel like they're going to give it to Ejiofor at the last minute. Just a hunch I have. 

Best Actress:
American Hustle: Amy Adams
Blue Jasmine: Cate Blanchett
Gravity: Sandra Bullock
Philomena: Judi Dench
August: Osage County: Meryl Streep

I would love for Sandra Bullock to win, not because she's the only performance from this list that I saw (well, that might be part of the reason!), but she was great and held her own. After about 30 minutes she was the only one in the movie. It's kind of a shame that she won five years ago for a decent performance in a not that great of a movie. Would she have won this year if she hadn't won for The Blind Side? I don't know, it's possible. But I think since she won so recently that may have hurt her...of course it didn't hurt Hilary Swank or Christoph Waltz! Most likely it will be Cate Blanchett. She won Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for The Aviator, but that felt more like a make-up oscar than anything else, so I feel like this will be her "real" Oscar if you know what I mean. Remember when she was first nominated in 1999 for Elizabeth and Gwyneth Paltrow won and everyone said Cate should have won? Well, not only will Cate (most likely) have two Oscars, but she's also been nominated five more times since her first time. How many times has Gwynnie the Pooh been nominated since she won? A big fat whooping ZERO! I've even read articles about Oscar votes who voted for Gwyneth who said they probably would have voted for Cate if they could redo their votes that year! I really dislike the GooP in case you haven't noticed. So while I would love Sandra to win, I would be very satisfied with a Cate win! Also, since Meryl Streep won for The Iron Lady a couple years ago, I thought they would cut back on her nominations. Wasn't the reason she was getting nominated for everything prior to 2012 was because they desperately wanted to give her that 3rd Oscar? I really haven't heard anyone rave about her performance. I have heard everyone raving about Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks (another movie I haven't seen yet but want to) so I was surprised she wasn't nominated.

Best Supporting Actor:
Captain Phillips: Barkhad Abdi
American Hustle: Bradley Cooper
12 Years a Slave: Michael Fassbender
The Wolf of Wall Street: Jonah Hill
Dallas Buyers Club: Jared Leto


I've only seen Abdi's performance and while he did a great job for his first film I can't say he was the best until I see the others. Leto seems to be the front runner for now. I've never watched My So-Called Life, but that's what I always associate him with. Unlike the other acting categories, this is the only one that doesn't have a previous winner. 


Best Supporting Actress:
Blue Jasmine: Sally Hawkins
American Hustle: Jennifer Lawrence
12 Years a Slave: Lupita Nyong'o
August: Osage County: Julia Roberts
Nebraska: June Squibb

There's no way they're giving this to anyone other than Lupito, right?


Best Director:
American Hustle: David O. Russell
Gravity: Alfonso Cuarón
Nebraska: Alexander Payne
12 Years a Slave: Steve McQueen
The Wolf of Wall Street: Martin Scorsese

I would love for Cuarón to win this because he is an amazing director and I could see him winning. He did win the Golden Globe so that could be in his favor. Or it could go to Steve McQueen since his movie is most likely to win the Oscar. I really have no idea. But I'm giving the edge to Cuarón. I mean, have you seen his movies? They're so good!

'90210' Tribute

I only have three episodes to go before I finish the entire series (10 seasons!) of Beverly Hills, 90210 and as a little tribute I made this video. Enjoy! 

Bad Simbas!

The Ghost and The Darkness
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Cast: Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas, John Kani, Bernard Hill, Emily Mortimer, Tom Wilkinson
Released: October 11, 1996

Oscar nominations:
Best Sound Effects Editing - won

I recently listened to a podcast of Stuff You Missed in History Class and they did an episode on the man-eating lions of Tsavo, Kenya who were feasting on the railroad workers back in 1898. Because the lions were like apparitions, they were known as The Ghost and The Darkness. The hosts mentioned that many film adaptations have been made about this story, but this movie is the only one I am familiar with. I had never heard of this story until I saw this movie for the first time back when it was released on video. I hadn't seen it since and after listening to that particular podcast, decided to revisit it.

John Patterson (Kilmer) is a British engineer who is sent to Tsavo to be in charge of working on a railroad that is behind schedule. There have been reports of lion attacks so Patterson stays awake in a tree all night and kills a lion that approaches the camp. Everyone is happy and celebrates and they get back to work. The only problem is, the lion Patterson killed wasn't one of the two man-eating lions known as The Ghost and The Darkness that wreck havoc on the camp, killing several people in a short amount of time. Being a true story, Patterson was a real person and claimed that 135 people were killed by the lions, but it seems the number might have been more accurate to 35....perhaps that "1" was an ink blot in his journal?

These lions prove to be quite difficult to kill as they are very sneaky and crafty and work together. After one of the lions has mauled a worker in the middle of the day, Patterson and a few other men follow it where it has dragged the body to start feasting on it. Patterson has his gun aimed at it, but the lion seems unfazed. This was before anyone realized there were two lions so they were not expecting the second lion that has snuck up on them on a roof of a shelter they're nearby and leap onto one of the men and kill him, causing distraction and for the two lions to trot away.

Charles Remington (Douglas), the expert hunter who comes to help hunt the lions is totally fictional. In real life, Patterson was the one who killed both lions. Remington kills the first lion. He does it by using a poor baboon chained to a wooden post as bait. He appears securely safe in a tree, but Patterson, on the other hand, is sitting atop a wooden structure that isn't the most secure and everytime he turns around (which was whenever he heard a sound, which was quite often), it wobbles. Not long after the first lion is killed, the other lion, apparently out for revenge, kills Remington. So one lion and one man are left and now it's Patterson's turn for revenge and with the help of native Samuel (Kani) who has been a trusted ally since Patterson arrived in Tsavo, manages to kill the lion and end the killing and chaos.

When I first saw this movie back in 1997, Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas were the only actors I was familiar with, but watching it again, I couldn't help but think how familiar the local doctor looked and I knew I had seen him in something and was thinking, "That's not the guy from Lord of the Rings, it it?" (Yes, I realize that doesn't really narrow it down). But after confirming with IMDB, yes, it was "that guy" from LotR, Theoden, played by Bernard Hill, who I also know quite well as the captain in Titanic. I also found out Tom Wilkerson plays Patterson's a-hole boss who tells Patterson that he doesn't care about those who have died and wants his bridge to be built in a timely manner. I didn't really become familiar with Wilkerson until 2000/01 when he was in The Patriot and In the Bedroom. And Emily Mortimer, only in a couple scenes, plays Mrs. Patterson. She's since gone on to be someone I recognize in stuff from a guest spot in 30 Rock to Hugo.

The real Ghost and Darkness.

The most fascinating things about The Ghost and The Darkness (which are on display at the Field Museum in Chicago - I really want to go there one day!) was that they were maneless lions. Seeing as these particular kinds of lions are rare (and probably not the most trainable), the movie used lions with manes. (And really bad fake lions for whenever one leaps onto a person to attack).

The cinematography of the African landscape is breathtaking and makes you want to go on a safari when you see all the different animals, that is, until the lions start attacking and eating people!

Sweet Revenge

The Count of Monte Cristo
Director: Kevin Reynolds
Cast: Jim Caviezel, Guy Pearce, Richard Harris, Luiz Guzman
Released: January 25, 2002
Viewed in theaters: February 8, 2002

According to Wikipedia, this is the tenth adaptation of Alexander Dumas's novel, but I think it is the only one I've seen. Edmond Dantes (Caviezel) and Fernand Mondego (Pearce) are best friends, or at least Edmond thinks so. Fernand is jealous of him because he is marrying the beautiful Mercedes (Dagmara Dominczyk) and has been promoted to captain, both are things that Fernand wants even though he is wealthy (Edmond is poor) and educated (Edmond can't read).

Edmond is betrayed by his so-called best friend when he is arrested for treason. He was set up to deliver a compromising letter and when he runs away to seek help from Fernand, that's when he realizes that Fernand was behind the plan to help get him sent away to prison. He is sent to a prison on an island called Chateau d'If. There he is thrown into a stone room and only gets fed once a day and his toilet pail is emptied once a day. His only human contact occurs once a year on his anniversary of being in prison when he is chained to a wall and whipped. After being there for one year, he attempts to hang himself, but the message he chiseled into the stone wall, God will give me justice, stops him. Four years pass and that's when he discovers he had a neighbor prisoner below him all this time when a priest (Harris) comes tunneling out of the floor, thinking he was headed for the outside. He asks to stand on Edmond's shoulders so he can see a sliver of sky and thanks him, saying he hasn't seen the sky in eleven years which is the saddest thing ever.

Since neither have anything better to do, the priests teaches Edmond reading, writing, math, philosophy, and how to fight with a sword among many other things. Since they are only interrupted twice a day by the prison guards, they have the rest of the entire day to work on Edmond's education. That's not the only thing they're working on as they are also creating a tunnel to escape.

 

Unfortunately, with just months left before they make it to the outside, the ground above collapses on the priest. Edmond drags him back to the cell. In his dying breath, the priests confesses to Edmond where a fortune of a deceased Count is located. He was imprisoned for not revealing it. He said he didn't know where it was, but tells Edmond that he lied. This information comes in very handy for Edmond later on.

For an actor of his age, Richard Harris sure does a lot of physical stuff - he's dragged by his arms, he climbs up and down holes, he runs around the cell as he teaches his prodigy how to sword fight. He was sure a spry old man!

It had been a very long time since I last saw this movie (12 years) so I felt pretty smug when I knew how Edmond was going to escape. When I saw the large bag the prison guards put the priest's body in, I blurted out, "He's going to use that bag to escape!" Yes, I know, it was so obvious, but I was pretty proud of myself. When a guard goes to feed Edmond and his bowl is not produced in front of the door, that is when the guard becomes suspicious and sees the priest's dead body and goes out to warn the others that they are taking out a live person. Why he just didn't have his bowl already ready to go, I don't know. Maybe he wanted them to know he had escaped? What I had totally forgotten was that they threw the bag over the cliff which the prison sits upon! And I'm like, "Oh sh--", even though I know he survives, duh. But that was a long fall with lots of rocks waiting to meet him at the bottom. How he managed to miss those rocks is only a miracle. Luckily he was able to grab the keys from the head guard before he was thrown so he could unlock his shackles.

Altogether, he was in that prison for 13 years of his life and enjoys his freedom quite immensely when he escapes. He washes up on another deserted island where he meets a band of pirates who want him to come work for them. They are to kill one of their traitors, Jacapo (Guzman), but Edmond convinces them to spare his life and Jacapo tells Edmond he will be forever indebted to him for the rest of his life.

Edmond's first stop is to get the treasure the priest told him about and after he and Jacapo haul out eight huge trunks from an underwater cove, Jacapo declares him the richest man he's ever known. Edmond decides his new alias will be the Count of Monte Cristo. He invites everyone to a lavish party on the ground of his new mansion where he makes his grand entrance on a hot air balloon with acrobats and fireworks. All I could think of was if I read about some rich person doing this it at a party, I would roll my eyes so far back into my head. Cinematically, it made a pretty cool scene. But he did make an entrance, which is what he wanted. Unfortunately the two people he most wanted to be there to see his entrance weren't there.

He vows revenge on those who were the reason he was sent to prison, especially his ex-BFF, Fernand who, he learns, has married Mercedes. He's not too happy with Mercedes either when he learns of this, especially since she promised him 13 years ago that she would never take off the ring of twine that symbolized her eternal love and faithfulness for Edmond. Well maybe not eternal faithfulness anymore seeing as she and Fernand have a sixteen-year-old son named Albert (played by Henry Cavill who played (plays? - I suppose it's an ongoing franchise) Superman in the latest movie that I never saw and don't intend on ever seeing). Edmond gets through to Fernand and Mercedes by fake-saving their son after he has him set up to be "kidnapped" by his old pirate friends. He is invited to their (ridiculously opulent) home to be thanked for saving their son. Mercedes immediately has suspicion of him, telling him he reminds her of someone she knew quite well a long time ago. It isn't until she sees him playing with his hair -just like Edmond used to do!- that she knows it really is him and demand to know where he's been all this time but he pretends to not know what she's talking about, declaring, "Edmond Dantes is dead!" Of course she calls him out on knowing that name if he claims to not know who she is talking about. Duh! He finally admits it is really him and is angry at her for marrying Fernand so soon after he was sent to prison. Remember when I said that Albert was Fernand's son? Well, he was actually Edmond's son and that's why Mercedes had to marry Fernand so quickly. It's just like a soap opera!

In the end, Albert gets his revenge and lives happily ever after with his family. By far the most interesting part of the movie is when he's in the prison with Richard Harris.