Barbie (2023) - 4/5 Barbies
A truly fantastic movie. An amazing commentary on society from top to bottom, delving into what it is to be human.
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Kalki 2898 AD looks awesome as hell!
This is being hailed as the most expensive movie ever to come out of Bollywood. And from this trailer, it looks awesome and I am definitely going to try and see it.
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IMAX requires a 21-year old Palm Pilot to run in theaters
Several fascinating tidbits in this article, primarily around the use of the 21-year old Palm Pilot, but also just around the fact that only 30 theaters in the world can actually project the film as Christopher Nolan intended.
The Palm-powered QTRU system is actually a relatively high-tech part of an otherwise extremely manual process. Yves Leibowitz, a longtime projectionist, has made a number of popular YouTube videos documenting the process of loading a film, which requires setting up the enormous reels in exactly the right place, manually threading film through a number of rollers and platters, and constantly checking and rechecking to make sure everything's lined up and ready to go.
In most of his videos, you actually get a brief glimpse of a Palm device set up next to the QTRU, but Leibowitz never seems to need to touch it. In every case we've seen, though, it's an actual physical device. The emulator appears to be a new phenomenon, and in fact, IMAX told Vice it was created specifically for Oppenheimer. "IMAX Engineering designed and manufactured an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film projectionists," the company said. The emulator, if you're curious, appears to be running on a Winmate W10IB3S-PCH2AC-POE Panel PC, a 10.1-inch Windows tablet that appears to have been designed to live outside of conference rooms and help people control schedules and video conferencing.
The obvious question here is, why in the world would IMAX still run its systems on a 21-year-old device? And why, when faced with the need to update it, would it choose to simply emulate said 21-year-old device on a crappy Windows tablet? Other QTRU systems have a controller built into the machine itself, which seems better in every imaginable way.
For IMAX, like so many other companies that rely on generations-old technology, the answer is simple: it works. And it's not like it's a booming industry in need of reinvention. There are only 30 theaters worldwide that can even show a full 70mm print like Oppenheimer, 19 of them in the US. Most IMAX experiences are digital now, like most moviegoing experiences in general.
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As I continue to re-listen to Project Hail Mary, and be inundated by Oppenheimer marketing, I can't help but think we should get a movie of the book in this same vein. Heavy. Serious. About a race to understand a potentially world ending disaster.
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Fast X (2023) - 2 out of 5 car explosions
The movie is a montage of cameos, nonsensical plots and over the top stunts all in the name of family. As a die hard fan of the franchise, I loved it. As a moviegoer - wow it was thin.
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Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - 4/5 red jackets
Tonight we watched this classic for the first time. The story is a bit hard to follow and reading more about it reveals how much subtext there was which we missed, but it was still an excellent movie and makes me so sad that we didn't get to see more of James Dean.
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The Booksellers (2019) - 2.5/5 Rare Books
Watched from LA to Seattle today. I came across it on Amazon Prime and downloaded to my plane for the flight.
Overall it was interesting, but there was no central tentpole aside from looking at rare book buyers, etc. It starts to suggest books are dying, then it points out they aren't. It says the book buyers are the final generation, and then has some who are optimistic.
It was an interesting insight into these people, but yeah - it meandered and left me at the end wondering what I could have watched instead.
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The Lost Leonardo (2021) - 4/5 Mona Lisas
I ended up watching this documentary on the way down from Seattle to LA and found it quite interesting and entertaining. It's an interesting story with a lot of twists and turns along the way.
It follows a story about a possibly discovered lost painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, the "Salvator Mundi" aka "The Savior of the World" which depicts Jesus Christ. I was recounting the documentary to friends last night and it is a wild story. It also puts, front and center, the very real truth that high end collector art is used for washing funds (central to this story is a Russian oligarch) and also for general tax evasion, etc.
It also definitely reminded me how much I enjoy documentaries. Need to watch more.
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To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) - 3.5/5 high heels
What a delightful film from a bygone era.
"I don't think of you as a man. And I don't think of you as a woman. I think of you as an angel."
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Babylon (2022) - 2 out of 5
Continuing our Brad Pitt theme today, Katie and I found ourselves watching Babylon this evening. And, I think the two featured quoted on Rotten Tomatoes really nail it.
Babylon's overwhelming muchness is exhausting, but much like the industry it honors, its well-acted, well-crafted glitz and glamour can often be an effective distraction.
Babylon has some entertaining moments and its ambition is impressive, but the movie's chaotic and disjointed execution makes it difficult to really enjoy.
I found it slow and uninteresting once it left the frenetic initial pace of early film making. And ultimately I asked myself why I cared about this movie and I struggled to find an answer.
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Bullet Train 2 in the works
I just watched this with Katie, having watched it myself a few months ago. It's like a cross of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie good time. And I'm glad to hear they're working on a sequel.
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Heat (1995) - 4 out of 5 Guns
Finally watched this movie with Katie tonight. Neither of us had seen it before. The cast in the movie is incredible.
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Watching Air on Amazon with Katie and while I am enjoying the movie, I have to say it has an absolutely incredible soundtrack.
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Seattle International Film Festival buys Cinerama
Cinerama was the movie theater that Paul Allen funded as a fan of movies. It closed in 2020 and has been since then. Well, that changes soon. SIFF announced it has purchased Cinerama.
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) - 3 out of 5
Definitely overdue in watching this, but I just couldn't make it to the theaters and haven't had a major drive to dive into the movies again (still haven't seen the new Ant Man either.)
We put it on tonight and overall I enjoyed it. I loved the silent opening montage to honor Chadwick Boseman, and overall I liked the story. I enjoyed the Mayan origin they gave Namor and think it's an interesting way to manage the dynamic of the character.
It's also interesting to know more characters after having played Marvel Snap. I didn't know who Ironheart was, for example, and now I do.
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Sharper (2023) - 2 of 5
I mentioned in passing yesterday that Katie and I watched this on AppleTV+ yesterday. The cast looked solid and is what pulled me in.
Sadly, this movie was very lackluster. The plot was formulaic and predictable at almost every step of the way. Additionally, one of the cast members was just a glorified cameo. I won't say who, but they were one of the main reasons I was interested in watching and were only in a fraction of the film.
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1989 Movies
As a joke tonight I had my wife randomly name a year, to which she responded 1989. I then said we should watch a movie from that year. As it happens, we ended up watching Sharper on AppleTV+. However, now that we are looking at the movies from 1989 I can only be in awe of the movies from that year.
- Batman
- When Harry Met Sally...
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Little Mermaid
- Dead Poet's Society
- Road House
- Do the Right Thing
- Back to the Future, Part II
- The Abyss
- Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
- Ghostbusters II
- Steel Magnolias
- Uncle Buck
- National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
- Say Anything
- Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures
- Major League
- Glory
The list goes on. Literally.
Given the modern era of movies, this seems simply incredible.
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Warren Beatty retains Dick Tracy movie rights to 2027
As pulled from this Mastodon post with a screencap from another social network:
In 1990, Warren Beatty made a Dick Tracy movie. But no one would let him make another one, and even tried to do a TV show without him. He got so mad he decided to find a loophole in his contract and get decades of petty revenge.
Every couple of decades, he makes a no-budget 20-some minute TV special where he complains to Leonard Maltin while wearing his old costume, and releases it unannounced in the middle of the night on TCM. This week, at 85 years old, he premiered his new one, called Dick Tracy Zooms In. He didn't even have to show up on set. However, he has gone to court to make sure that they legally count as sequels, and thus renew his rights to the character. He does this solely so that no one else can legally use the character for anything.
This new special will make the character his until 2027, when Dick Tracy goes into the public domain and anyone can use him for free.
This is art. This is some A+ Andy Kaufman-level trolling. I will never watch either of these specials, because the whole point is that they are unwatchable, low effort, and awful enough to be a middle finger to some bean counting whipper snapper who made Warren Beatty mad in the 90s. But I am so happy they exist. I'd rather know these bird flips by an old man taking a grudge to the grave are in the world than a Dick Tracy Disney+ show staring Chris Pratt.
I completely agree with the original author's feeling that this is some Andy Kaufman-level trolling.
PS - Fuck the American copyright system.
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Man, rewatching Casino Royale and Jesus does Bond take some beatings in that movie. From the poisoning to the awful car crash as he avoids Vesper.
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A few Bond thoughts
Just rewatched 'No Time To Die' and it wasn't as bad as I remembered. It wasn't great, but I will remember fondly Daniel Craig's tenure as James Bond. I still feel Pierce Brosnan is my preferred Bond, but I can't deny the raw power and animalistic tenacity Craig brought to the series.
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Bullet Train (2022) - Four Lady Bugs Out of Five
What a crazy and over the top movie. A neon lit, Tarantino-ver-the-top, and with an incredible soundtrack. A good way to spend my already altered mental state of sickness this morning, cuddling with dogs, and watching it on Netflix.
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