I’ve never been to Paris, or anywhere in France for that matter. I’d love to tour the country. And now I have one more good reason to go.
A Foreign Affair, one of my favorite Billy Wilder movies, has never been released on DVD anywhere until now. Universal finally decided to release a dozen Marlene Dietrich films on DVD, many for the first time: Blonde Venus (the one where she dances in a gorilla suit), The Devil is a Woman, and Morocco. Their new transfer of The Scarlett Empress is said to be better than the Criterion DVD (Universal probably had access to a better master print).
I love watching Marlene Dietrich, so you can imagine how excited I am. Except … the DVDs weren’t released in the United States. They were only released in France.
whatever possessed me?
Anyone who’s been reading my site for awhile still might not remember the meltdown I had two years ago in December, when I decided it would be fun to make photo calendars for my family members. I was working from two computers and two printers to get everything to print properly, which it didn’t, and it drove me crazy. I promised The Beau that I would never ever attempt to create photo calendars again, especially elaborate ones with multiple photos per page. I re-promised him last year when he thought I might weaken.
I did ask him this year before I broke that promise and he didn’t give me a funny look, so either he forgot about the degree of craziness the project inspired, or else he figured I am less likely to get stressed about the project this year, since the computers behave better and I don’t have the workload I had back then and I just plain haven’t been as stressed about the holidays this year.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: 2005, dir. Andrew Adamson. Seen at Alamo Village (Dec. 15).
(Warning: I will give away elements of the plot in this review.)
I loved the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was younger—middle-school age, I think—so I was intrigued to see how this adaptation would fare. I liked many of the little touches: the transition between wardrobe and Narnia, the White Witch’s scary black-hole eyes and expression, the understated look of Father Christmas. I liked that they replaced the “battles are ugly when women fight” lines with simply saying that battles are ugly, period.
But there were so many other details I disliked: the sniggering bits of humor throughout, such as the drawn-on glasses and mustache on the animal at the end of the movie (Adamson also directed the Shrek films); Edmund being imprisoned with Mr. Tumnus, which seemed unnecessary; the voice of the head wolf, which had a Dana Andrews-like quality that jarred with the rest of the cast and their generally British accents; and the Blitz sequences in the beginning, which didn’t quite work for me. (Also, I cannot see the word “evacuees” right now without thinking of something else entirely, which is a distraction, but that’s sadly unlikely to affect anyone not on the Gulf Coast.)
Continue reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)
farewell, good and faithful Netflix queue
We hated to do it, but we finally succumbed and cancelled Netflix yesterday.
It felt a little sad. Our queue had 250 DVDs, mostly movies with a little TV sprinkled in for variety. The queue has had at least 200 movies in it since about a week after we joined. Sure, we would watch films quite frequently sometimes, but every time someone said to me, “You know, you really ought to see such-and-such movie,” I added it to the queue. (Well, almost every time. There are limits.)
The last three movies we need to send back are Monsters, Inc., which we watched over the weekend, me for the first time, and quite enjoyed; Inherit the Wind, which The Beau watched and thoroughly hated, to the point where he could not discuss any movie afterwards and I feared for the safety of the DVD players; and Big Fish, which we’ve had for weeks and not watched, because it is rather long and we can’t seem to get in the right mood. I don’t know if we’ll watch it before sending it back.
oh, celluloid tree …
I have not been in the mood this year to do a lot of Christmas-y stuff. For one thing, all this ruckus about “It’s Christmas and we should say Merry Christmas and not Happy Holidays” tends to sour me a little on the holiday season. Arguments and expressions of prejudice should not be a part of a holiday, no matter what your relatives may tell you at the holiday dinner table.
Or maybe that has nothing to do with my reluctance to decorate the house, send greeting cards, shop for gifts, and generally participate in the flurry of holiday activity common to this time of year. It could be a million reasons. But I decided late last week that I didn’t want to mess with putting up and decorating our Christmas tree this year.
You may have seen photos of the tree from previous years. It is pink and sparkly and usually features a lot of snowflake and snowman ornaments, plus a few penguins and some more subversive decorations. For example, we established a tradition with the Drinky Snowman. We also had a cute SpongeBob candy cane, but it was real candy and finally dissolved.
risking a numb butt at Alamo
“The lining up will take place at 10 am stretching towards the parking lot – south of the Drafthouse. There’s no need to arrive earlier than that. You’ll need your sleep and your rest. … Each person in the line will be given a raffle ticket. They will then be drawn beginning (estimation) around 11:30-11:40 am – giving you plenty of time to purchase your ticket, go through security and get your goodies and seat. You folks may want to bring an ass cushion as the folks drawn later in the process will most likely end up in folding chairs. Which can get a bit brutal on da buttocks.”
—Ain’t It Cool News article on standby procedures for the seventh annual Butt-Numb-A-Thon, Dec. 10-11, 2005
The Butt-Numb-A-Thon (aka BNAT) is an annual Austin 24-hour film festival run by Harry Knowles. I remember hearing about the first one and considered going. Back then, anyone could sign up online, although it sold out quickly. It was billed as the ultimate filmgoer test of stamina, and in fact you had to pay to leave the theater if you left before the 24 hours were over. I wasn’t sure I could make it through all 24 hours, wasn’t sure I’d like the films (they all appeared to be B-movies or even Z-movies), and didn’t think I could afford to leave early. Also, I knew it would screw up my sleeping schedule and my Christmas shopping-and-stress schedule, which is important when you are working a full-time-plus office job.
the news, not buried
I have been accused of burying the lede when I have news to share. “Burying the lede” is a newspaper term for hiding the most newsworthy facts of a story deep within the body, instead of in the first paragraph (which is called a lede). For example, in this entry, I chat about all kinds of stuff before noting in the second-to-last sentence that The Beau and I are now engaged.
Tonight I am not hiding the good news. One of my essays is being published in a book, early next year.
Did everyone see that? Good.
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang: 2005, dir. Shane Black. Seen at Regal Gateway (Dec. 4).
Arrrrgh. How do you write a clear, coherent review of a movie when all you want to say is, “Go see this! You liked Ocean’s Eleven? You get a kick out of riffs on noir with references to Raymond Chandler? You appreciate the rare film with clever dialogue? Well, find this movie and watch it before it leaves theaters, even though it mostly already has and you’ll have to dig it up in a discount theater or something.”
If you haven’t heard of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, that’s a real shame. I would gripe that its marketing/release campaign was poor, but how the hell do you convince people to see a weird-ass movie like this? The narrator stops the film at times and rewinds it a bit or jumps it to a different scene, fully aware he’s narrating a movie. I think the last movie where I saw this conceit was Elmo in Grouchland, which I cannot believe I am even mentioning in this review, and which is about 180 degrees different from — well, actually, if you think about the storyline …
Look, I had no idea I was going to like this movie. I skipped it at Austin Film Festival because it was showing only once, late at night, and I figured if the movie was any good I would catch it in theaters later. I thought it would have a wider release than it did, which proves that I didn’t know much of anything about the actual film. I heard that Harry Knowles was running a “Save This Movie” campaign, urging everyone to see it, but he is so happily exuberant about so many movies that I didn’t pay much attention.
Holidailies: it’s live
Holidailies is live and kicking and you should check out all the wonderful posts if you haven’t already. It’s a great way to find new stuff to read.
Meanwhile, lots of Holidailies participants will soon wander over to this site for the first time, possibly not knowing what to expect. I like the idea of a little introduction, which I notice other participants have done.
Hi. I’m Jette. This is my movie blog. I write about movie-related stuff most of the time, except when major hurricanes wipe out portions of my hometown and I feel compelled to write about that. I live in Austin so I write about a lot of Austin movie events. Austin is a wonderful town if you like movies.
happy DVD! happy Jette! part two
Fan site MarsDust has published excerpts from an interview with Bruce Campbell in which he asserts that The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. will finally, finally be available on DVD in the spring of 2006. (Thanks to Twitch for the news.)
I have most if not all the episodes of the single season of Brisco County on videotape; years ago, when I lived in a house with roomies who could not exist without cable, I taped the show off TNT. I am sure my boyfriend will be pleased to hear that we can throw out the stack of videotapes sometime next year and replace them with a tidy little boxed set.
I hope this news is true and not just smoke and mirrors … news about Bruce Campbell-related projects often appears to be dubious, and even Campbell’s own interviews should sometimes be taken with a grain of salt. However, he’s surely had to do some sort of work related to the Brisco County DVD release (commentaries or featurettes or whatnot … even a bare-bones release might necessitate something), so I tend to think he’s right this time.
I liked Brisco County a lot, and not simply because it had Bruce Campbell in it. It’s funny and odd and has a really cool horse. The supporting cast was good—I particularly liked Julius Carry—and while I normally find guest-star cameos annoying, I liked seeing R. Lee Ermey and Tracey Walter and John Astin.
But I know some of you are thinking, “Yeah, you’re not excited about this because you get to see Comet the horse in clear, crisp DVD glory with no commercials. You still have that little thing for Bruce, don’t you?” Of course not. I have outgrown childish infatuations. If I were a drooling Bruce Campbell fan I’d be complaining that Jack of All Trades isn’t out on DVD, and let me tell you, that is one TV show we can afford to live without.
And I don’t have Xena or Hercules episodes on DVD either, but that’s more of a budget thing: those boxed sets are rather expensive. I can get maybe three Simpsons seasons for the price of one Xena season. Someday maybe I’ll get cable and record the few episodes I liked. Yes, most of the episodes happened to have Bruce Campbell or Ted Raimi in them. That’s incidental; I feel the shows were at their best when they were funny. Honestly.
Woo hoo, Cary Grant and Bruce Campbell for Christmas!