Day 47: Enemy at the Gates & Escape From New York

Enemy at the Gates

Whose Movie: Matt's

Rating: Better than I thought.

Typically, I'm not a big fan of "modern history" nor am I the biggest fan of war movies.  However, I found that I enjoyed this movie.  It helped that the main character was Jude Law and the secondary character was Joseph Fiennes.  The acting was really good, and the story was also really good.  It also made me really happy that the story was based on a true story.

Escape from New York

Whose Movie: Matt's

Rating: It's a bad Kurt Russell movie, so not very high expectations

And we're back at John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.  This movie isn't very good, but I have an emotional attachment to it because Matt and I watched it the night we got engaged.  I love the fact that it's a movie set in "the future" but everyone is dressed decidedly 80s.  I also love the fact that Kurt Russell is super hot and he took his shirt off a lot.

Next up: Escape from LA, Evil Dead I & II and Fanboys

Day 46: Edward Scissorhands & Emperor's New Groove

Edward Scissorhands

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: It's Tim Burton, of course it's awesome

This is my favorite Tim Burton movie.  Matt says it's the music, which I have to admit, is awesome.  It's my favorite composition from Danny Elfman.  Everything about this movie is wonderful.  Tim Burton is such an amazing director/writer.  And Johnny Depp was wonderful in the movie. And so was Winona Rider.  Matt loves the movie because of Vincent Price.  He loves Vincent Price.  He was confused with the cookies...did Vincent Price make cookies? Was that what his factory was?  I could watch that movie a thousand times over, and still cry on cue as the music swells up and Winona Rider utters the final line: "If he weren't up there now, I don't think it would be snowing."

Emperor's New Groove

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: It's about a LLAMA!!! A LLAMA!!!

Everyone who knows me, knows of my major love for Llamas.  My dream is to OWN my very own Llama.  This movie is HILARIOUS! I can quote this movie all the way through.  I have seen it a million times, but I still laugh hysterically  at all the jokes.  I guess I'm very easily amused.  But you can never go wrong with a good Disney cartoon!  Especially one about a Llama!!!

Next up: Enemy at the Gates, The Escape movies, & The Evil Dead Movies.

Day 45: Drag Me to Hell & Dune

Drag Me to Hell

 Whose Movie:  Mutual Buy

Rating:  Awesomely Great

Technically we didn't watch this tonight. We bought it recently and then watched it out of order.  we love this movie.  We love awesome Sam Raimi horror flicks, as you'll see when we get to the E's.  So, we watched this back when we were in the C's still, but didn't blog it because it was out of order.  Now that we've come across it again, we opted to just skip over it, and blog about it.

Dune

Whose Movie: Matt's

Rating: *sigh*

Okay, so Matt has seen this movie a million times.  He has read the book like 3 times.  He's a huge fan of Dune.  Me? I found this movie confusing, I found the pacing to be off and don't even get me started on the inner monologue!  At first Matt wanted me to watch the extended version, but when we were three minutes in and I was confused, he changed us back to the theatrical version.  This movie was paced badly.  It moved really slow and then crammed everything into the last 10 minutes.  What I liked most was Sting in his underwear.  Totally serious.  Oh, and there was a creepy weird kid. In all it's not a movie that would watch again.

Next up: We move to the E's. Edward Scissorhands and The Emperor's New Groove

Day 44: Dracula

Dracula

Whose Movie: Matt's

Rating: Awesome and corny at the same time

Okay, the only real complaint I have about this movie is Keanu Reeves! OMG he can't do an English accent to save his life! Sometimes he spoke with one, sometimes he didn't! The good part of the movie was Gary Oldman. He was AMAZING in this movie! Totally amazing!   You could also tell that they spent very little money on the sets and special effects, and more money on the a-list stars they hired.

Next up: Two more D movies left! Drag Me to Hell and Dune!

Day 43: Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: Corny, but in a good way

So, in the first 10 minutes of this movie we find out that the mom is leaving town, the 5 kids have a babysitter, the babysitter turns out to be a crazy old lady who's super strict, she dies, and the kids take care of the body. Whew.  Fast 10 minutes. The whole movie is like this.  Fast paced, getting through A LOT in a short amount of time, and everything gets more and more unbelievable as the movie goes on.  I bought this movie from the $5 Wal-Mart bin, and I bought it because I liked it when I was a kid.  So, it's one of our nostalgia buys. Matt was rolling his eyes at the fashion choices Christina Applegate's character made, and we both found ourselves rolling our eyes at the tidy plot wrap up in the end where everything worked out just fine.  But we can't complain, it was good fun entertainment for an hour and a half.

Next up: Dracula, Drag Me to Hell and Dune

Day 42: Dr. Horrible's Sing A Long Blog & Dogma

Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: A PhD in HORRIBLENESS (Not really horrible, AWESOME)

This "movie" technically isn't a movie, but our DVD collection is divided into two sections: TV Shows and Movies.  If it's not a serialized TV program, it gets filed with the movies.  So that is why every once in a while our collection will pop up something like Dr. Horrible.  This is what made me fall in love with NPH.  I mean, I was already a fan, and I loved him on HIMYM, but this what made me fall in love with him.  Everything about this web-movie screamed awesome. Joss Whedon, the man who created the best show ever, Buffy, wrote and directed this. NPH starred in it.  The music was awesome. The acting amazing.  The ending made me cry, what more could you want in a movie??

Dogma

Whose Movie: Mutual Buy

Rating: Very Well Made Movie

Lately I've been watching things where the writer/director *cough*AllanBall*cough* will slap the audience in the face like they're stupid. They TELL instead of SHOW like any writer has been told in writing 101.  Kevin Smith, is just the opposite.  He assumes the audience is intelligent and doesn't feel the need to beat them over the head with his writing.  This movie is VERY well done.  Smith does a great job at SHOWING the audience things rather than spelling things out.  This movie is FULL of great actors and actresses.  Our second Alan Rickman film! (Too bad we own ZERO Harry Potters at this time, or there would be TONS more) In summary, the film making is great, the writing is great and the acting was awesome!  Great movie all around.  

Day 41: Dirty Dancing

Dirty Dancing

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: Swoon worthy

Okay, as you can imagine, Matt hated this movie, but this is in my top 5 movies of all time.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this movie.  I can't peg what it is. The plot? The Music? Patrick Swayze? All three combined?  All I know is whatever I LOVE about this movie causes Matt to hate it.  He said that sitting through it was like pulling teeth.  Typically this is the type of movie Matt would stall at, but we're 1 movie away from Dogma, 3 movies away from Dune and a handful of movies from the Escape and Evil Dead movies, so he wants to power through the "crap" and get to the "good stuff"

Next up: Dr. Horrible, Dogma, Don't tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead and Drag Me to Hell

Day 40: Die Hard 3 & Live Free or Die Hard

Die Hard 3

Whose Movie: Mutual Buy

Rating: Almost as good as the first

Okay, Matt and I were talking about which Die Hard movie was the best.  I said the first one was the best.  Matt said it was a tie between the first and the third.  I can see that.  The third one reincorporated all the things that made the first one successful, and then added a buddy.  Samuel L. Jackson totally kicks ass in this movie, and he adds to the plot.  He is an active "buddy" in the buddy film, and he doesn't slow Bruce Willis down.  This movie also used music the same way the first one did, but instead of Ode To Joy, they used Johnny Comes Marching Home.

Live Free or Die Hard

Whose Movie: Mutual Buy

Rating: Disappointing Buddy in a Buddy Flick

For a buddy movie, the buddy kinda sucked.  I love Justin Long, but after watching Die Hard 3 where the buddy kicked ass, this one was disappointing.  All he did was whine and need saving.  He didn't even kick ass until like the very end.  Other than that, the movie was awesome.  Bruce Willis still can kick ass.

Next Up: Dirty Dancing, Dr. Horrible, and Dogma

Day 39: Die Hard 2

Die Hard 2

Whose Movie: Mutual Buy

Rating: An honorable sequel

Okay, so not as great as the first one, but still totally awesome.  I do have to mention this is our second William Sadler movie!  I didn't even know we had another movie with him, but we do! He played Death in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, and the villain in this one.  And you know what?  He was pretty hot, considering I only knew him as Sheriff Valenti in Roswell.  Anyway, this movie was great, even though Matt was able to call the double cross before I did, of course he had an advantage: he's seen the movie before, this was my first time.  I was getting kinda worried when we had 10 minutes left of the movie and we hadn't had the Yippee Ki Yay yet, but then it didn't disappoint.

Next up: Die Hard 3-4, Dirty Dancing and Dr. Horrible :)

Day 38: Die Hard

Die Hard

Whose Movie: Mutual Buy

Rating: Wicked

This movie is really awesome.  No matter how many times we watch the movie, it still has that awesome factor.  We noticed this time around the liberal use of "Ode to Joy." Watch the movie and listen to the background music.  It's used as a celebratory song and it's used as an ominous mood setting song.  We also noticed how well the movie is made.  They successfully build up the tension throughout the movie, making you wonder when Hans Gruber is going to find out that Holly is McClain's wife.  I can't wait to watch the rest of the movies, and see if they are able to maintain that level of intensity.

Next: Die Hard 2-4, Dirty Dancing.

Day 37: James Dean Collection: Giant

James Dean Collection: Giant

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: LONG...really, really LONG

Okay, to be honest, I own this movie because I'm a huge fan of James Dean and it came in my James Dean collection.  Before tonight, I had only seen this movie one time, back when I was like 13 and just beginning my love for James Dean.  I forgot 90% of what happens in this movie.  I also forgot how SLOW the movie moves and how little James Dean is actually in the movie. Matt really didn't like this movie.  He was bored through the whole thing, and I don't blame him.  This is my least favorite James Dean movie, in fact I found it boring too.  It's almost three and a half hours!!! And I bet if you combined all the footage that James Dean was in, it would add up to about half an hour.  I'm glad we got this out of the way, because now we don't have to watch it again for a while.  And it's the last long movie we have in our line up until we hit Gone with the Wind.  But at least GWTW doesn't feel like we're sitting there for three and a half hours.

Next up: The Die Hard movies!! Followed by Dirty Dancing.

Day 36: James Dean Collection: Rebel Without a Cause

James Dean Collection: Rebel Without A Cause

Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: Still manages to make me cry after the hundredth time watching

Another classic.  This has to be Dean's best performance.  He packs such an emotional punch into every scene that he's in it's amazing.  The movie spoke for a generation, and it still resonates today.  No matter the decade, teens will still feel their parents just "don't get it."   All of the actors in this movie were amazing.  No matter how many times I watch this film, I am just in awe at the amount of talent packed into one film, and then remember that the three main actors all died young and tragically.  

Take a look at this video that highlights Dean's performance.  Warning: it does contain spoilers, so i fyou haven't seen the movie, you may not want to watch, unless you don't mind seeing the end of the film.

Next Up: James Dean: Giant, Four Die Hards, Dirty Dancing.

Day 35: James Dean Collection: East of Eden

James Dean Collection:  East of Eden

 Whose Movie: Steph's

Rating: Classic, and emotional.

So it's been a while since we've been watching our own movies.  Between looking for a job, working, moving and getting movies from the library, it was hard to get back into watching our movies.  Add to the fact that Matt's not a James Dean fan, there was a huge stall at the end of the C's and the beginning of the D's.  But after being reassured that if we just get through the three James Dean movies, we can move onto Die Hard, Matt felt like we can do it.  So tonight, we watched East of Eden.

This movie was directed be Elia Kazan, and he is known for his unique directing capabilities.  This was Dean's first movie, and if you went into this not knowing that, you wouldn't be able to tell.  Dean is a strong actor and he brings the emotions of Cal right to the forefront.  He demonstrates that "neglected" feel that Cal has throughout the movie.  He acts the hell out of every scene he is in, and you forget that he's a 24 year old in his first major movie.

Next up: James Dean: Rebel w/o a Cause, James Dean: Giant, then the Die Hard Collection.