Random Factoid #355

18 07 2010

Relax, no “Inception” spoilers here.  Although if you were like me a few days ago and want to know literally nothing about the movie, I’d stray away from this post.

And if you were expecting me to shut up about “Inception” once I saw the movie and posted my review, dream on.  I’m just getting started.

What a crazy ending.  Didn’t want to talk about it in the review, but it has everyone talking.  The internet is aflutter with theory after theory, and all I can say is woah.  I could barely take in the plot in one sitting, and you all were able to take this away?

Moviegoers like that absolutely astound me.  And by that, I mean that I don’t understand how people can get so deep into the core of a multi-layered movie like “Inception” in one setting.  No, I am not one of them.  I can only look with amazement at the people on the open InContention thread or the EW PopWatch post.

I doubt I will ever be able to come up with a sophisticated theory on a movie, mainly because I’m just not that kind of a person.  I can piece together my own theory but only after reading several others.  I’m not capable of watching a movie and then coming up with my own with only what I have ingested as my guide.

If anyone wants to post their thoughts on the ending, I guess I can open up the comments to theories and what not.  Spoilers are fair game and welcome, in fact, there.  So if you haven’t seen the movie, DON’T LOOK AT THE COMMENTS BECAUSE THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!


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Random Factoid #354

17 07 2010

This picture was taken from the post.

This is a question mainly for WordPress bloggers – mainly because I don’t know how Blogger/Blogspot does things.

You know that weird section on your “blog stats” page called INCOMING LINKS?  It’s where you see who has linked to you; I guess a sort of alternative pingback.  Mine is usually filled with LAMBscores, LAMB Chops, etc.

But recently, there has been a strange link in there that just will not go away.  It’s a post from a sketchy looking site called “The Blog Conglomerate” called What Are New York’s “Boyfriend Politicians” Doing to Single Women…

Now, I don’t write about anything other than the movies, so it struck me as very strange that I would be linked to from this post.  I looked around and eventually found that my Random Factoid #325 was listed under their “Related Websites.”  That factoid, for everyone’s information, was about the late Pixar animator Joe Ranft.  Nothing to do with politics.

So I have to ask – has this happened to anyone else?  This is just really, really strange, and I don’t quite know what to make of it.


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Random Factoid #353

16 07 2010

To your left is a sight that I’ve been waiting to look at for nearly a year – my ticket for “Inception.”  In a little less than four hours, I will be basking in the glory of Christopher Nolan’s latest feature.  At the time this post is published, I would be in the theater at the midnight showing of the movie.  But life has a way of surprising us.  If everything went according to plan, it wouldn’t be life.

So I guess I’ll use this factoid to kind of wrap-up everything leading up to “Inception.”  Thanks to everyone this week that has been reading all of my reviews of Nolan’s films; I’ve been seeing the stats and reading the comments, and everything has just been incredible.

You may recall that back in April, I described my desire to avoid all things “Inception” leading up to the release.  I’ll quote that post, Random Factoid #275, here:

I am attempting to do the impossible: avoid the media blitz surrounding Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” and walk into the theater on July 16th without knowing anything about the plot.  I am not going to read plot summaries, watch trailers, or read any sort of specific review.

I am prepared to do whatever it takes not to have this movie spoiled.  I will start bringing either headphones or earplugs to tentpole summer movies where previews will most assuredly play.  If I see any feature on the movie, I will shield my eyes and go away.

First of all, I want to issue a blanket apology to any friend of mine who put up with my obsession for the last few months.  Particular apologies go out to anyone who has seen a movie with me, where during an “Inception” trailer, I would plug my ears, close my eyes, and hum to drone out the noise.  This was a good way to clear out the other folks on my row, but my friends never abandoned me.  Another apology to anyone who has watched TV with me because I would often demand a channel change when a commercial for “Inception” came on.

But hopefully my persistence pays off tonight.  I have not watched a trailer since the teaser, and I know next to nothing about the plot.  I avoided looking at posters and slogans, didn’t look at any plot descriptions, and have only seen about 10 stills from the movie.  I think that’s pretty impressive.

And I’m so ready to absorb the movie that I’ve bought several magazines with spotlights on “Inception,” including the American Cinematographer, which features a discussion with DP Wally Pfister.  (Trade tidbit: DP is short for “director of photography,” which is another way of saying cinematographer.)

And all my technology has been decked out in “Inception.”  Both my phone background and computer desktop are artwork from the movie.


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Random Factoid #352

15 07 2010

I just finished my first book of summer reading, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer, today.  The first of four.

I really do love to read, and I used to use my free time to do a whole lot more of it.  It’s such a therapeutic thing for me to do, and it’s great for building vocabulary as well.  I have a huge bookshelf in my room filled with shelves of books I haven’t read.  I really do intend to get to them some day, but it’s hard to find the time.

And reading is another thing that gets pushed to the side doing movie blogging (like TV, which I described in Random Factoid #259).  It’s so hard to resist the temptation to get the full satisfaction of watching a plot arc develop in around two hours in a movie, while it takes days and days to read through a book.  Reading a book has less immediate gratification, something I’m constantly told my generation has a problem with.

Just so you know, the blogging may be slowing down a tad so I can finish up my summer reading.  It won’t be too noticeable, but I really do need to get this reading done.


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Random Factoid #351

14 07 2010

I have a new addiction courtesy of iPhone 4 (which works FINE with a case, all you Apple haters).

Thanks to multitasking, I have begun to love listening to the arts & life segments from NPR.  Thanks to Apple’s innovations, I can listen to NPR while checking Facebook, writing an email, sending a text message, or blogging.  A lot of times I will leave it on while cleaning my room or just casually walking around the house.

I’ve heard some really fascinating segments recently.  I’ve listened to plenty of movie reviews, and some very interesting editorials, including one on the declining impact of box office draws.  But what I’ve enjoyed most are the interviews.  I heard a great one with Steve Carell, and I have a 25-minute interview with “The Kids Are All Right” director Lisa Cholodenko saved in my queue.  I plan on listening to it now that I’ve seen the movie.

By far the most fascinating was an interview with Mark Ruffalo around the release of the aforementioned movie.  I don’t know how to embed the audio, but click here to be taken to the article and listen.  You will find out a whole lot you didn’t know.


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Random Factoid #350

13 07 2010

Is it worth it to see animated movies in 3D anymore?  That’s the question Cinematical posed on their site, and it’s the question I’m answering in the random factoid.

18 out of the 28 weekends this year have been dominated by 3D movies, 8 of which were animated movies.  The latest to claim the top spot was “Despicable Me,” which exceeded each and every expectation the industry laid out for it.  However, only 45% of its profits came from bloated 3D ticket prices.  This is good news to me because it gives me hope that America doesn’t just blindly drink the 3D Kool-Aid.

Seemingly every animated movie being released is in 3D, and often times it does add something.  But how do you know when to go and when not to?  I haven’t paid for 3D since “Clash of the Titans;” however, through free screenings I have had the opportunity to see “Shrek Forever After” and “Toy Story 3” in 3D.  Had I paid extra to see them in 3D, I wouldn’t have been too happy.  It’s cool but not worth $3.50 because it doesn’t really add much to the experience.

So my new rule of thumb is unless I have heard that the 3D is spectacular, or the movie is shot in 3D, I will not be paying those premium ticket prices.  Even if it does make the unicorn look fluffier.


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Random Factoid #349

12 07 2010

Viral websites.  Aren’t they fascinating?

It was really Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” that revolutionized their use in a movie’s advertising campaign.  I remember there was a site for just about everything in Gotham – the newspaper, the bank, the police, even the pizzeria.

Sure enough, “District 9” carved out a nice audience for itself using a similar campaign the next summer with the “Humans Only” signs on bathrooms and benches and such.  And Nolan’s own “Inception” is doing the same now.

I slap myself for not getting more involved with “The Dark Knight” viral sites.  They really did reward the people who stuck with them.  I remembered hearing that the people who put their names in had been sent free advanced screening passes to see the movie in IMAX.  Of course, only then did I scour the websites looking for a way to get my hands on the passes.  It was to no avail; I even called the number on the pizza site.

And for the record, my self-imposed moratorium on intake of “Inception” has kept me from joining their viral site.


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Random Factoid #348

11 07 2010

I’ve developed a new way of working out that makes it more fun, worthwhile, and quick.

Thankfully, I work out at a gym that had stays very up to date with technology. On most of the card machines, they have an iPod cord that allows you to play a video on the TV in front of the machine that’s stored on your iPod. I hadn’t utilized this capability until recently.

In the past few weeks, I’ve begun bringing up my surprisingly durable iPod from 2006 and watching some of the nearly 30 movies I have on it. So far, I’ve chosen three very different movies to watch: “Knocked Up,” “Crash,” and “Inglourious Basterds.” The latter took three visits to finish; the others took two. It really makes my work out a lot better because it adds an aspect that I enjoy to something I generally don’t really like to do.

So I guess the next step is to put a treadmill in front of my TV at home…

UPDATE: Thanks to my dad for telling me that I had a typo in this post before he told me “good morning” when I woke up today.


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Random Factoid #347

10 07 2010

The Bible has a lot to teach us, but you might be interested to know that it can actually lend insights into cinema.

For instance, on my Wilderness trip, I read the entire book of James.  There’s a passage in that book, James 1:5-6, that really stuck out to me:

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.

Ever since I saw “Doubt” back in 2008, I wondered why John Patrick Shanley used the violent weather, particularly the wind, as a motif throughout the movie.  And now I know; it was a clever Biblical allusion.  At least that’s what I’m going to assume.


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Random Factoid #346

9 07 2010

Last night I got rejected from my second straight advanced promotional screening.  I’ve got some bad karma working, hopefully I’ll turn it around next week.

Anyways, the theater was nicer than any other I’d been to for these screenings and offered discount prices on all other movies.  All you had to do was surrender the pass at the box office.  I had four passes for two people, but I still printed them all out anyways.

I happened to see my Sunday School teacher and his nephew there to see “Toy Story 3.”  After my friend and I had exchanged our two passes for tickets, basic math would tell us that I still had two passes left.  Basic math is correct in this situation.

A thought then entered my head, and I decided to make someone else’s night.  I went up to my Sunday School teacher and gave him the other two passes.  It ended up saving him about $6.  As I handed them to him, I said, “Take these, it will save you money.”

As I made this exchange, the lady in charge of the screenings happened to be watching.  I walked away with a big smile on my face, and I happened to catch a glimpse at her expression.  She was less than pleased, as if I had just committed extortion or cheated.

And I didn’t care what she thought.  She got to see the movie, and I didn’t.  I did something good for someone else and made the best out of a bad situation.


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Random Factoid #345

8 07 2010

After following some links, I wound up on Movie Mistakes, a site that charts all the technical errors made in a movie.  They’ve been keeping track of 2010’s most mistake-filled releases, and in case you didn’t want to click the link, I’ll list the top 10.

  1. Iron Man 2
  2. Shutter Island
  3. The A-Team
  4. Kick-Ass
  5. Alice in Wonderland
  6. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
  7. Hot Tub Time Machine
  8. Sex and the City 2
  9. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
  10. Robin Hood

And “Iron Man 2” has a solid 11 mistake lead over “Shutter Island!”  Jon Favreau should give his production team a big slap on the back.

I know I’ve caught errors in movies before, but they aren’t something I actively seek.  If something is really glaringly obvious, I can probably catch it.  But I usually trust the filmmakers to catch that stuff before they send it out to audiences.

Have YOU ever caught an error in a movie?  Perhaps you’d enjoy looking at the list of the best mistakes of 2010.


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Random Factoid #344

7 07 2010

Thankfully I wasn’t anywhere near a movie theater whenever Teams Edward and Jacob united to watch “Eclipse.”  I refuse to talk about the series on my blog; in fact, I avoid mentioning the word at all in case I were to draw traffic of girls thinking they were getting “Twilight” gossip.

Most people just hate the series on principle.  Don’t get me wrong, I most definitely do.  Chelsea Handler, in her piece from Entertainment Weekly‘s decade wrap-up edition called “The Vampire Craze? It Kind of Sucks,” sums up so much of what I feel about the series:

I don’t quite get this whole lusting-after-vampires thing … thisTwilight/True Blood craze is being taken a little far. I recently read that grown women were stealing cardboard cutouts of Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner from Nordstrom. I don’t understand how; the wind resistance alone should slow them down. Security can’t be to blame; obviously those women were on a mission. I for one would certainly get out of the way of a crazy cougar running down the street with a cougar cosmo and a fake vampire …

… I worry more about the younger girls that are ”Twihard” fans. For the record, I did not come up with that name, nor do I feel good about the fact that I just used it. I don’t know if the Twilight stars are very good role models. They always look exhausted, and none of them seem to be very happy about being famous. Although I sympathize with anybody who is forced to stay up all night and is deathly allergic to the sunlight, I would think the $12 million paycheck they’re supposedly getting could boost their spirits. I also don’t know if girls should be aiming to find a guy who only wants to suck on their neck. That usually results in a hickey, and the only way to cover one up is with a turtleneck, which I don’t recommend under any circumstances, including the Olympics.

Unfortunately, I also hate the series out of experience.  Before my freshman year, I read “Twilight” for summer reading.  I bought in sixth grade before I knew what a sensation it would become with tween girls.  So, seeing it on my shelf, I figured it might make a nice read.

Worst.  Decision.  Ever.

Unlike a movie, which can be over in the relatively painful lifespan of two hours, I spent prolonged periods of time reading about the two star-crossed lovers showing affection in fields.  It didn’t get horrible until about 200 pages in, and by that point, there was no turning back.

So you can call me a hater, but you can’t call me ignorant.


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Random Factoid #343

6 07 2010

A random moviegoing pet peeve that I can’t believe I haven’t shared.

I can’t stand whenever the picture is off the screen. The projectionist can change the size of the screen, so why don’t they?

This factoid prompted by my experience watching “Knight and Day.”


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Random Factoid #342

5 07 2010

Another Real Life Movie Moment, a factoid-type I wouldn’t have if it weren’t for that darned “M. Carter at the Movies.”

The movie: “Toy Story 3”

The moment: The last fifteen minutes … look, I don’t want to spoil the movie, but you need to see it now if you haven’t already.

The correlation: During some summer cleaning, my brother decided to give away some stuffed animals.  My mom told me to go in and look through the garbage bag to see if there were any of them that I wanted to keep.  Of course, going through the bag brought back a flood of old memories … oddly enough, I couldn’t get the score from “Up” out of my head.


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Random Factoid #341

4 07 2010

A last second e-mail over a week ago has turned into a contribution on a blog post, so I thought it might make a good factoid.

Right before I left for Wilderness, I got an e-mail from Frank Mengarelli, the “Pompous Film Snob,” asking me what my favorite trailer ever was.  I instantly replied because I knew my answer, but on the way to the airport, I saw his reply asking for a bit of a write-up.  I scribbled down some rationale for my choice, and while I was gone, he ran the favorites.

It’s some of my favorite bloggers who contributed, so the whole post is worth checking out.  Here’s what I wrote about my favorite trailer ever, the teaser for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.”

I love the teaser for “Benjamin Button” because it perfectly captures the magic of the movie.  It shows the aging process without ruining anything except the breathtaking cinematography.  The “Carnival of the Animals” playing in the background only adds to the sense of wonder.  I hadn’t even heard of the movie when I first saw the trailer, and it absolutely knocked me off my feet.

Coming in at a close second is probably the “Up in the Air” teaser.


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