Sugar

Yes, and Yes. Damon found this movie, and it is right up our alley.

I Heart Clint

We saw Gran Torino last weekend, which prompted me to realize that I heart Clint Eastwood. Yes I know, this is pretty obvious. It's like watching a baseball game and noticing that Omar Vizquel plays pretty good defense. Eastwood plays this crochety old man who uses racial slurs the way Derek Jeter grounds into double plays in the post season (often.) But it's impossible not to kinda like his character.

Oh and it has the Jo & Laurie factor, a.k.a. "The Little Women Phenomenon." Men feel free to stop reading. Come on girls, you know, in Little Women, how you desperatly want Jo & Laurie to be together? Only they never end up together. But no matter how many times I've read the story or seen the movie and know that it can never end the way I want it to, I always watch it again thinking that just maybe this time it just might end differently. Same thing in Gran Torino. It can never end the way I really want it too...but I get the feeling I'll keep rooting for the same thing if I ever watch it again. I kinda like that.

What's your favorite "Little Women Phenomenon" movie?

Tagged: Alphabet Meme

I got tagged by Gal to list a favorite movie for each letter of the alphabet. Rules are below...Here goes! (This game originated at the Blog Cabins blog!)

The Rules

1. Pick one film (your favorite film) to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.

About a Boy

Brown Sugar, honorable mention: Batman

Christmas Story

Dave Chapelle's Block Party

Elf

For Love of the Game

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, honorable mention: Good Will Hunting

Halloween

It Could Happen To You

John Q

King Kong

Legends of the Fall

Miracle on 34th St. (the original)

Not Without My Daughter

Outbreak

Psycho, honorable mention: Philadelphia, Parent Trap (the original), Pretty Woman

Queen, The

Reign Over Me

Scream, honorable mention: Sandlot

Temptations, The, honorable mention: To Kill a Mockingbird

Urban Legend

Vanishing, The

When A Stranger Calls

X-men

Yours, Mine & Ours (original duh)

Zoolander

I guess I'll break the rules and only tag a couple, not the required 5. So Scanson & A-Ross, consider yourself tagged.

The Dark Knight

Along with just about everyone else in America we went and saw The Dark Knight this weekend. I am a big fan of the Batman series (Actually, I don't really recognize the middle 2 - Batman Forever & Batman & Robin as a legitimate part of the series. So lets pretend those never happened for the purposes of this blog) Little known fact: Batman is my favorite super hero, and the original 1989 Batman movie is probably one of my all time favorites, one of the few movies that I've seen over and over gain. So anytime there is a new Batman movie made it has a lot to live up to in my eyes. I refused to even see Batman Begins until long after it had been released on video, because I didn't want to be disappointed again.

Long story short, The Dark Knight did not disappoint. I really enjoyed it (although it was probably about 30 minutes too long.) and it got me thinking about two things: 1) What makes a great sequel? and 2) Which version is better? So here goes:

1. A great sequel must be able to stand on it's own. It should be enjoyable to watch and make sense even if you haven't seen the first one.
2. A great sequel should capture a similar style and vibe as the original - they should fit together.
3. A great sequel should leave you wanting to go back and see the originals again.

I think that The DarkKnight did all these things, and did them very well. Its interesting because the Batman Begins & The Dark Knight are really completely separate entities from the first 2 Batman movies, but they still somehow feel like they go together.

Batman was actually on TV last night, so we ended up watching that again, and it was really fun to compare the two. It got me thinking about which Batman, Joker and Batmobile I prefer. So check out the pictures below, and then vote for which one you like best!

Michael Keaton, pictured above as the original Big Screen Batman - Or Christian Bale and his moderized version?

Jack Nicholson's sophisticated psycho - or Heath Ledger's Batshit Crazy rendition?

The original Batmobile -

Or the new big wheels version?

Reign Over Me

Zeb and I went to see this movie last weekend, and we both really liked it. Definitely not "classic" Adam Sandler, but still really good. Don Cheadle is really good, I think I like him in pretty much every movie he is in.

And a little known fact about Don Cheadle, according to Zeb, is that he has a twin brother named Jon Cheadle, who, again according to Zeb, stars in The Ladies Man. See the thing about Zeb is, no matter how much he knows he's wrong, and how much I know he's wrong.....he just keeps on going with it. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's maddening. Most of the time it's both.

Oh, and the most important thing about this movie is that it has a REALLY good Bruce Springsteen reference, including a jam session to some of The Boss' tunes. (I really shouldn't have to explain this to anyone to claims to be my friend, but The Boss is Bruce Springsteen.)