Day: January 4, 2009

58 things I learned from being a movie buff

  1. If you call in a robbery in progress, and the robbers have automatic weapons, and you hang around to watch, you will be LUCKY if you only get what’s coming to you. (44 minutes).
  2. If you are cool, your life has a banging soundtrack.  If you are not, the soundtrack of your life is your neighbour’s dog, Viagra come-ons and shills for feminine protection. (all of them)
  3. You can kill a guy with a carrot, more than once, although you’ll need a new carrot. (Shootemup)
  4. You can kill multiple guys while having sex without making the baby cry or breaking your girl’s concentration (Shootemup).
  5. Princesses are grumpy (all of them).  If she’s not grumpy she’s probably not a princess.
  6. People will do really whacked out things to get home (Wizard of Oz, Eric the Viking, ET).
  7. Horses don’t need food, guns reload themselves, nobody needs to take a dump at an awkward time and somebody’s always got a map.  (all of them)
  8. The obesity epidemic isn’t happening. (all of them)
  9. There are no atheists. Everybody’s always thanking god, seeing a priest or minister, or going to weddings, funerals and christenings. (all of them)
  10. I learned to feel sorry for people who aren’t getting money for the product placements in their kitchens. (pretty much all of them),
  11. The walls pull away so you can get a better shot. (all of them)
  12. Natalie Portman, in addition to being able to act, looks fabulous with her clothes off (Darjeeling Limited).
  13. George Lucas should goddamned well retire. (and I need to prove my point because???)
  14. The Wachowskis only had one good movie in them because they STOLE the idea for the first one.
  15. The Wilhelm scream was by Sheb Woolley, and once you know about it, you hear it all the time.
  16. Video games don’t make good movies; they are just an extreme case of product placement.
  17. There are movies that nobody has seen that everybody refers to.
  18. Remakes should all have a generic title “The beancounter, the asswipe screenplay, the washed up actor and the witless director”.
  19. Steadicam oners are da bomb.
  20. Script first, direction second, editing third, lighting fourth, actors fifth, catering sixth.
  21. Whoever’s editing action movies these days needs remedial help. (Notice how bad the fight scene editing was for Dark Knight?  It sucked hair off a mop).
  22. Vancouver City Hall is screwing up the local industry by being chuckleheads.
  23. Not a single movie has been made in the last thirty years that realistically depicted the use of firearms.
  24. Being a science fiction movie fan is a lot like Waiting for Godot.
  25. The ratings system is hopelessly fouled up, and the creeps responsible for it should be bastinadoed with licorice while listening to “It’s a Small World after All”.
  26. It chapped Spike Jones’ ass that the most money he ever made was on Inside Man.  Mind you, it’s the best American caper film in years.
  27. Acting doesn’t run in families.  Doing what your folks did for a living runs in families.
  28. Milton Berle had an enormous penis.  I actually know this because I was working in a hotel he was staying at and he kept answering the room service knock with no trousers on and a big stogie in his face.
  29. Computers are simple to break into and all operating systems are easy-peasy and graphical. (Where do I start?  The Net, the Matrix, Jurassic  Park, Untraceable, and on and bloody on….)
  30. Your phone only rings when that chunk of dialogue is complete. (All police procedurals)
  31. You always have your phone ready to hand.
  32. Bad guys have lousy teeth. (All of them).
  33. There’s a picture of Johnny Depp in an attic somewhere. (It’s not just his bone structure, folks).
  34. Not all actors are gay, but that’s the way to bet. (This is a joke…. based on repeated and increasingly truncated conversations with Jeff).
  35. Set decoration is an art form and I salute its practitioners. (I’m thinking of True Blood).
  36. Heroes drive convertibles (this is actually a family saying, but I thought I’d throw it in.)
  37. If there’s been a movie that realistically depicted aircraft in the last 100 years, I’d sure like to hear about it.
  38. Virtually every actor I admire has a serious, serious work ethic.  Screwoffs burn out or drop dead.
  39. I loathe continuity errors, and I’ve been catching them since I was ten.
  40. It’s just as hard to make a frothy comedy as a serious drama, but you don’t get praised for doing it well.
  41. The risk free life is not worth living.  I would rather have a good bunch of people give me two thirds of a good movie trying to do something unusual than the usual gang of idiots playing it safe.
  42. I wish Charles Laughton had directed more movies. (Night of the Hunter was his only one).
  43. If the people who made SF movies spent more money on the scripts I would be happier.
  44. I really don’t like horror films – even psychological ones like The Haunting – and I only watch zombie movies as a concession to my brother.  I realize my inability to stomach violence is a serious personal flaw, but there ya go.
  45. I am prepared to forgive a movie all kinds of lapses if it’s stylish.
  46. Graphic sex is not nearly as disturbing as graphic violence.
  47. Henry and June was HOT.
  48. Watching people smoke cigarettes is a drag, especially if they don’t smoke and they are faking it (Keira Knightley in Domino, William Petersen in Manhunter).
  49. When I want to watch a movie again, it’s almost always because of the nature and quality of the human relationships in it, not because it was visually stunning or had cool special effects.
  50. I really like long takes.
  51. I really like eating takes.
  52. Most of the time, the critics are wrong.  When they aren’t wrong, they’ve still missed something.
  53. Anybody can walk into your hospital room, get hold of a doctor, get hold of a nurse, and have plenty of room to stand around and chat.
  54. It’s easy to be in the same room as a corpse.
  55. Your closest relatives can die and it doesn’t completely f*ck you up for months afterwards – you just keep on working and doing whatever you were doing.
  56. Work is just an excuse to hang out with your friends (why not, works for me).
  57. Men like to kiss way more than they let on in real life.  Women- at least usually.
  58. Food happens instantly in restaurants.