Movies to watch in order to understand geeks.

No, I don’t know why I’m writing this one, either: most of my readership consists of geeks.  But, hey, content is content.

A quick note: I am operating under the assumption that you don’t need to be told that you should watch the Star Wars, Star Trek, and/or Indiana Jones series; lots of people who aren’t geeks have watched those films, anyway.  I also don’t mean to suggest that No True Geek would have not seen (or not liked) the movies below: merely that in my experience these movies have informed the geek collective worldview in significant ways.  Keep in mind as well that this list is not comprehensive; there’s plenty of other films that could be on this list.  Lastly, none of these are necessarily the best movies in the world, or even the best geek movies.  Merely influential, oft-quoted ones.

Anyway, in no particular order:

Continue reading Movies to watch in order to understand geeks.

You have got to be kidding me.

So I get to have a weeknight off, for a change – we have a babysitter and everything – and I think to myself: Hey, you could go see a movie!

…except that they all look like they suck.  Anybody got a suggestion?  As you may have gathered, I am more or less Jerry Bruckheimer’s target audience – so assume that I’m going to be not down with the rom-coms or the art films or the… anything where there’s no explosions, really.

Apollo 18 Trailer.

This is apparently coming out on September 2nd.

I seriously doubt that I’d be able to watch this film without shouting out the errors in as loud a voice as possible.  I saw three howlers right from the start, and I’m not even trying hard.

On the other hand, while I have no problems with shaky-cam I imagine that there’d be less of it in this film, which might appeal to some.  After all, at one-sixth gravity the shakiness would be really, really sllooooooooooooooooooooooooooow.

So, movie night tomorrow.

Originally, it was going to be Thor… but apparently Fast Five didn’t suck (but I haven’t seen any of the other ones) and Rio doesn’t look that bad (haven’t seen any reviews for it).  Priest is in a couple of days, and I guess that Green Lantern isn’t for another month.  Maybe I can still find Rango, although that’s looking like a DVD special.

Thoughts?

New Thor Trailer.

Which makes it look less… problematical.

It might even not suck, contra my earlier reaction.  I’ve noticed this happening before: first trailer makes me think that the movie will suck, second or third trailer maybe convinces me otherwise, movie turns out fine.  You’d think that they’d just do good trailers from the start and be done with it.

Also: Ace (H/T, by the way) is infuriated with The Adjustment Bureau over its lie of a trailer, and I can’t blame him in the slightest.

#rsrh Big Hollywood’s Top 25 Leftist films.

If you have an hour or so to kill, go to the bottom of this page and start scrolling up.  John Nolte does a very good job in both analyzing not only why a movie is Left-wing, but why it’s still good in spite of that particular and lamentable character flaw.  I haven’t seen all of these films, but the ones that I did see I liked.

And I’m going to check out Dead Man Walking pretty much on Nolte’s recommendation; I liked Bob Roberts in spite of itself, and if Tim Robbins made a better film…

Moe Lane

PS: John, if I can make a guess… the reason why you hated the movie Pleasantville is possibly because you didn’t watch it as it should have been watched: as a Cthulhu Mythos-style cosmic horror film.  I’m being perfectly serious: Ken Hite worked out that interpretation, and it makes a good deal of sense.  As much as your argument that Apocalypse Now reflects a literal wandering through Hell…

Anybody see the Sherlock Holmes flick?

Howard Tayler liked it, Aint It Cool News ditto, Rotten Tomatoes seems to be having a disagreement between fans and film critics.  I’m on the cusp between deciding to see it now and waiting until DVD, and this is one film where I’ll be unhappy about the latter if I like the film; it looks like it’ll be more fun to watch on the big screen.  Anybody go see it yet?