So bring the kids along it's good clean family fun...

Family Films

Now that our son is three we watch movies with him from time to time. Then again, I would have seen these movies even if he wasn’t around.

5. Finding Nemo (2003) – My son’s favorite movie tends to change every few months. (Right now it’s Robin Hood, the 1973 Disney movie.) Regardless of what his favorite movie of the moment is, Finding Nemo is the one he has liked the most and for the longest. His birthday party this summer had a Finding Nemo theme. I’m glad he wasn’t as concerned as I was with the fact that we ate a cake that looked like Nemo and then beat the hell out of a piñata that looked like Nemo. Anyway, this movie has a great story and it’s really funny too. At least it was really funny the first 100 times I saw it.

4. The Incredibles (2004) – Aden hasn’t seen this one yet. I can’t bring myself to let him watch a movie that begins with a car chase and lots of shooting. That doesn’t mean that I didn’t like it though. This film gets lots of cool points for featuring the voice of Sarah Vowell.

3. Holes (2003) – This is another one that Aden hasn’t seen. He hasn’t developed patience for non-animated entertainment yet. I haven’t read the book that this is based on, but Amy has and she says the movie is very faithful. This movie was incredibly refreshing to me. Most times when you see this age group in movies or TV shows they are really annoying or playing above their actual maturity level. This movie let kids be kids and had an entertaining story to go along with it. (While I’m thinking about this…Scott, did you guys ever see this one?)

2. Monsters, Inc. (2001) – Those PIXAR people are 10 kinds of great. I like this one better than Finding Nemo, but Aden does not. He does like Monsters, Inc. but he’s not as devoted to it as with FN. My guess is because the two main characters are grown-ups in this movie whereas he can really identify with Nemo because Nemo’s a kid that has a dad and goes to school just like him.

1. The Harry Potter Movies – Again, Aden hasn’t seen these but watching them reminds me of the movies I really liked when I was a kid. I appreciate and admire the ability of people to create complete new worlds that are fascinating and completely engulf you while reading about them or watching them. I haven’t seen the one that is in theatres right now. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to while I’m off work for Christmas.

To watch a man with a face like mine being chased down a busy street...

Action / Science Fiction

I’m not usually taken with these particular genres. Even the best action or science fiction movie leaves me wanting more. No. Actually they leave me wanting less. I find action sequences incredibly boring. They can make anything look real now. What’s the fascination anymore? And fight scenes just get longer and longer. Is this what people want in a movie or are the filmmakers just forgetting how to write dialogue and are covering it up with more ass-kicking? Anyway, I’ve come not to bury these genres but to praise them…sort of. You’ll see.

5. Batman Begins (2005) – Well, it wouldn’t have taken much to improve on those last two Schumacher attempts. Does this movie seems so good by comparison or is there really merit? I’d say it has merit. Although they could have taken out Katie Holmes and about 100 ninjas and it would have been a lot better. Still, very enjoyable.

4. The Bourne Identity (2002) / The Bourne Supremacy (2004) – I guess these are odd choices for a man who doesn’t like action sequences. Truth be told I did get a bit bored at times during the especially long action sequences, but this movie gets a lot of usually tired, thriller clichés right. It gets things so right that I can leave all logic at the door and just be entertained. I hope the next one is as solid as the first two.

3. Spiderman 2 (2004) – I had to do a little fast forwarding through some action sequences here, but I thought it ran circles around the first Spiderman movie. Maybe it’s because I had some extra time to get used to Tobey Maguire as Spiderman or maybe it’s because Spiderman is just more human in this movie. I know that probably sounds incredibly dumb, but that’s what made the film unique. How often do you feel sorry for a superhero? I’ve liked Superman my entire life but I have rarely thought to myself, “It must suck to be him.” Who knew that was what was misssing?

2. Black Hawk Down (2001) – After I first saw this movie I couldn’t decide if I really liked it or not. When I walk away thinking that, I usually end up really liking it. This is what happened with Black Hawk Down. It’s an action movie with no hero. An action movie that makes no real attempt to make sure the audience knows what is going on. It’s an action movie that as accurately as possible portrays what really went down in Somalia in 1993. Also, it’s beautifully shot which sounds awful to say considering the subject matter, but it’s visually stunning. I just checked imdb and the cinematographer is Slawomir Idziak. After looking at his credits I’ve only seen two other movies he was involved with. He was the director of photography on Gattaca which was had a lot of rich blues and purples (and a small appearance by Gore Vidal) and he was cinematographer on Men With Guns. I don’t remember much about that movie visually, but that could have been due to budget constraints considering it was a John Sayles movie.

1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy – There’s absolutely nothing about these movies that would make me want to go see them, but I took my brother-in-law to see the first one and then I ended up asking him to go see the last two with me. My words would be wasted talking about the merits of these movies. Just the fact that this kind of movie is usually not my cup of tea and yet I loved all three and eagerly looked forward to the last two should be enough.

I was sittin' at a crummy movie with my hand on my chin...

I have been aiming to write about movies for months and months now. I’ve started and stopped, started and stopped, but mainly I’ve just had other distractions like relocating our office at work. Now it’s the last two weeks of the year and I have some free time. I could do a best of 2005 in movies but I just haven’t seen enough movies that were released this year to make it that interesting. I still watch a lot of movies, just not a lot of new movies.

When I first got the urge to write about movies I was going to try to determine why there just weren’t that many great movies anymore (for a better take on this read here). Then I saw Elizabethtown and decided that indeed that was a good topic. I started going back through the movies I’ve seen and really loved then I narrowed that list to movies only released since the year 2000. I realized that there have been a lot of great movies released in the past 5 years; it’s just that I watch a lot more crappy movies than good movies. A good reason for that is that more crappy movies are made than good movies, but that's a good reason and not a very good excuse. I should know better. I knew I wouldn’t care for, uh, let’s say The Whole Ten Yards but I watched it nonetheless. That’s my fault. I could go with the proverbial ‘I wish I had that two hours back’ but do I really? Granted the movie sucked but I knew that before setting the TiVo. I read the reviews. I saw the previews. I knew that it was a happy accident that The Whole Nine Yards was entertaining in the first place. Truth is I’ll watch anything. I won’t actually go to the movies to see just anything but if it’s to where I don’t have to leave my couch, my standards are lowered considerably. Perfect example: Presently I have a made-for-TV movie taking up TiVo space that stars Bob Newhart, Olympia Dukakis, and Noah Wyle where Dr. Carter plays some bumbling librarian that has to save the world. What the hell is wrong with me?

That question will not be answered today. Instead I’m going to concentrate on the good things I’ve watched over the last five years. I’ve broken the movies down into different categories and we’ll start off with the best documentaries of the 2000s...so far.

Documentaries

5. Jazz (2001) – Say what you will about the Ken Burns style but the man has a passion for his subjects. Maybe he over romanticizes but there’s a lot of information passed along in the process. If you still aren’t convinced that this is a good documentary you should try watching it and The Blues which also aired on PBS. Despite The Blues being directed by Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders, etc. I’d bet most people would find Jazz a more satisfying documentary. I know I did.

4. Comedian (2002) – Comedic theory is neither comedic or a theory. There’s nothing absolute when it comes to making people laugh, but analyzing it is fascinating…at least to me. The go-to guy when it comes to overanalyzing the funny died last year, but don’t let Alan King’s passing fool you into thinking that you won’t have to put up with comedians talking about what makes funny funny anymore. If you like that kind of talk (and chances are you don’t) Comedian is a good thing to watch even if you don’t like Jerry Seinfeld or his new material.

3. Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport (2000) – It has been said that the year there’s no holocaust documentaries is the year that the Academy Awards will do away with the documentary category. I think Spike Lee said that or maybe it was me. I don’t know. The point of that is that there are a lot of holocaust documentaries and it would be hard to make one that wasn’t both important and moving. This one just happens to be one of the most moving and also very important.

2. Startup.com (2001) – If they’re looking for a film to capture the late 90s dot.com startup phenomenon to add to the national film registry, this should be it.

1. Capturing the Friedmans (2003) – I still haven’t been able to shake this story from my mind. It’s a frightening story that’s masterfully told. The questions raised by the Friedmans’ story go beyond the details of their family and its undoing. There were times while watching this that I wanted to convince myself that part of the movie was staged and made up even though I knew that it was not.

Next category coming soon.

O Pioneers!

On this day in 1873, Willa Cather was born in Winchester, Virginia.

A few years back the Braves had a relief pitcher named Mike Cather. I loved making Wila Cather references everytime he pitched. If he got a strikeout, "O Pioneers!" When Bobby Cox would trot out to the mound to take him out of the game, "Death Comes for the Archbishop." Yes, there has never been a limit to how geeky I allow myself to be. Just imagine how bad it would have been if the Braves ever employed James Baldwin.

(This was well worth the wait in between posts, right?)