Author: Ga2so

  • One-Third of June

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Me (2024) & It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

    It's Such a Beautiful Day movie bar

    More stuff I want to show to my students who worry that they don’t have the tools or skills needed to make a decent movie. Hertzfeldt tells a more engaging and compelling story with pencil drawings of stick figures than most big studios do with huge budgets and millions of dollars worth of actors, locations, and graphic effects.

    Side note: they fixed the shake machine at the Alamo Drafthouse and I had a reward for a free treat, and that automatically improves a film.

  • Retro Movie Adventures: Run Lola Run (1999)

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    Why has it taken me 25 years to see this movie?

    I teach digital media to middle school kids. One of the things they love is filming chase scenes, and I always end up telling them the same things: It’s too long. It’s too repetitive. You need a clear, sensible story to carry the action or the audience will get bored.

    This movie is basically one long chase scene repeated multiple times with a story that shifts every time it repeats, but good golly it works. I may have to show this to my classes (in an edited-for-language form) and say “here’s why this long chase is engaging and yours are less so.”

  • Legitimate Stage Adventures: A Strange Loop

    When I first heard about this play I wondered if it had anything to do with Liz Phair, who has a song with the same name. Then I heard a very brief description of the show and thought “oh, not related at all.” Then the pre-show music started, and there was Liz Phair. Then I read the credits for the show, and no mention of Liz Phair for the music (it’s a musical). Then the show started and the link became clear. Lots of mental whiplash.

    The show has some great stuff, but I struggled with a couple of things that made it less enjoyable for me.

    Thing one: Stories about writers struggling to write rarely work for me, and that’s a central focus of the show. It helps that the musical he’s struggling to write is supposed to be the one we’re watching (and that it makes fun of that).

    Thing two: I’m old. Specifically, my ears are old. If music isn’t mixed just right for my ears, I miss a lot of lyrics. That’s fine when it’s a song on the radio, but not great when the lyrics are giving important story beats. I’m sure I missed at least a quarter of the words in most songs. It’s an easy fix: just custom tune every musical production specifically to my ears.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: The Watchers, Furiosa (yes, again)

    I saw two movies this weekend, both of them because I had been walking around all day and needed a break.

    The Watchers

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    Actually, because I accidentally bought tickets to the Spanish subtitled version it was called “Observadores.” That was the biggest surprise in the movie. Some other surprises: how many pointless red herrings were in the film, and how obvious the “twist” was. Ishana Night Shyamalan has learned a lot of lessons about movies from her father. Unfortunately, it seems like she’s mostly learned the wrong ones.

    Furiosa, again

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    Still fun the second time around. My only complaint: The projection in the San Francisco Alamo Drafthouse (in the smaller theater at least) was surprisingly pixelated.

  • I made a dumb thing

    You need to be from a very specific subset of nerds to understand this, let alone appreciate it.

  • Movie Pass Adventures: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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    Normally, a movie with a title that mentions a character not actually in the movie is a bad sign, but I liked this more than Fury Road. There’s still a ton of over the top action, but it felt like there was more story in there to hold it together. Also, it has a guy named Scrotus, which made me (and no one else in the theater) laugh.

  • Streaming Movie Adventures: The Last Stop in Yuma County

    The Last Stop in Yuma County movie block

    Call it a crazy hunch, but I think Francis Galluppi (who directed this) is a fan of the early work of the Coen Brothers. It’s clear from the very beginning that things are not going to go well for pretty much anyone.

  • Gone in 68 seconds

  • Movie Rewatch Adventures: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

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    Raimi Marvel Movies from best to worst:

    • Spider-Man 2
    • Spider-Man
    • Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
    • Spider-Man 3

    The fingerprints of Marvel executives are way too visible on this one. Lots of good stuff- the Zombie Strange with Soul Cloak Action is pretty darn cool- but I wish I could see a version of this where Raimi wasn’t forced to shoehorn in cameos and irrelevant fan service.

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