First Poll Results Post!

28 05 2010

I’m trying out some restructuring of the site, particularly in the sidebar and in the categories column.  In respect to the former, I’m working on reordering the boxes.  I moved the subscription box to the bottom of the sidebar and the LAMB logo to the middle.  As always, feedback is appreciated.

But this post concerns itself with the latter of my concerns, the categories.  I’ve made the first big move already; I took the “Marshall and the Movies” category and removed it as a sub-category of “About Me.”  Now, I’m using the category as an umbrella for all the activity on the site that pertains to the blogosphere as a whole.

One sub-category of “Marshall and the Movies” is dedicated to polls.  I run them fairly often but don’t post the results (with the exception of the monthly most anticipated poll).  Since they are a fairly big part of gauging the opinion of my readers, I decided it was time for me to start sharing them more often.

So here goes nothing!  The first polls ran during the Oscar Moment about “Toy Story 3.”  Using the success of last year’s “Up” as a talking point, I posed two poll questions wondering if Pixar could carve a niche for themselves in the Best Picture race.  The results were fairly definitive.

The polls show that most people think “Toy Story 3” will be nominated for Best Picture, and most people think Pixar’s movies always deserve a Best Picture spot (although by a smaller margin).

Onto the next poll, which was on the Oscar Moment for “How to Train Your Dragon.”  After the unexpected box office and critical success, I wanted to see if people thought it had a chance at winning Pixar’s category.  The results gave little to work with.

As you can see, the same amount of people think that it can win Best Animated Picture as think that it can’t.

The next poll ran with the Oscar Moment on “Robin Hood.”  At the time the post ran, a Ridley Scott-Rusell Crowe combination and a Cannes opening seemed to bode well for its Oscar chances.  Clearly you all weren’t fooled by my writing and saw the writing on the wall.

And you all are 99.9% right, barring some sort of a miracle.

You fell for it in the next poll.  In the poll on the “Iron Man 2” Oscar Moment, I suggested that Mickey Rourke could be a contender for Best Supporting Actor.

And you are very, very wrong.  If Mickey Rourke is nominated for an Oscar for this role, the world will come to an end.

I’ll save the “Get Low” results for another post, but in the meantime, vote on the June poll!  2 votes are unacceptable, people!


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Random Factoid #304

28 05 2010

I love Christmas, don’t get me wrong.  I pull out the Christmas music at the beginning of November, and I even have a “Christmas in July” day where I pull it out just once to get me energized … six months in advance.  So I’m hardly your Grinch type.

But honestly, HBO, do you really need to be showing “Four Christmases” in the middle of the summer?  It’s almost like a cruel taunt, poking us and saying “7 months left until Christmas” with a sinister smile.  I liked that movie, but I’m not going to sit down and watch it during the wrong season.

Anyone else feel the same way?  I wouldn’t classify my feelings as anger, but I just think it’s strange that HBO would subject us to holiday entertainment at this time of the year.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (May 28, 2010)

28 05 2010

I’m officially out for summer! Senior year, baby! It’s time to celebrate with the first “F.I.L.M. of the Week” of summer vacation! This calls for a comedy – something like “Mrs. Henderson Presents” ought to do the trick. Starring the always incredible Judi Dench in her third of four Oscar-nominated performances of the ’00s, the movie tells the story of a widow with nothing to do but create a stir. Set against the backdrop of British boys going to fight in World War II, director Stephen Frears provides some drama if you’re looking for a little of that as well.

The movie opens with the funeral of Mr. Henderson, where his widow (Dench) is dealing more with boredom than grief. She scoffs at the idea that she should stop her life to observe a period of mourning. After trying her hand at the conventional hobbies of older women, she discovers she needs to be entertained in more lively and energetic ways. Along with the help of Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins), Mrs. Henderson opens a theater that revolutionizes the business in London first by presenting their shows non-stop.

But the second way is what the movie concerns itself with the most, and that was Mrs. Henderson’s bold decision to present nude girls in the show.  Using some skillful connections associated with her status, she gets permission to let the clothes come off as long as it remains art – which means that the girls had to be in tableaus when exposed.  It’s clear that Mrs. Henderson has a reason behind doing this other than making money or creating controversy, both of which she manages to do anyways.  The reason becomes more clear as the crowd that packs her theater becomes less of the musical theater group and more young men, most of whom are heading off to fight a war.

“Mrs. Henderson Presents” is one of those gems that does have something to offer pretty much everyone.  It’s well-made, well-acted, and very entertaining.  It has great vaudevillian music and some spectacularly choreographed sequences on the stage.  Dench is funny and poignant as the outrageous Mrs. Henderson, and she and Bob Hoskins mix very well.  As foes, foils, and friends, they play every scene with the right energy.  Not to mention, this movie isn’t sore on the eyes (if you get what I’m saying).


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Random Factoid #303

27 05 2010

What’s in a name?  (And no, the answer is not “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” all you Shakespearean scholars.)

I was browsing the web as usual and reading some interesting articles.  One particularly grabbed me from the New York Times website, an article by Brooks Barnes called “Invasion of the Big, Scary, Long Film Titles.”  Here are some interesting excerpts:

Pity the high school students whose summer jobs involve changing movie theater marquees. Hollywood has come down with a serious case of title elongation. That is, if you can figure out the title at all.

Consider the latest “Shrek” movie, which DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Pictures released on Friday. Just what is its title, anyway?  “Shrek Forever After.” But billboards and newspaper ads seem to use another name: “Shrek: The Final Chapter.” More than a few theaters have just listed it as “Shrek 4,” perhaps running low on patience, or just colons … add in simultaneous 3-D offerings, and splice that into subcategories — “Shrek Forever After 3-D,” “Shrek Forever After: An Imax 3-D Experience” — and the listings become even more confusing.

Elaborate titles can bring danger. “The more a title describes the story, the less effective it generally is,” said Dennis Rice, a marketing consultant who has held top positions at Miramax, United Artists and Disney. “You want people to know what they’re getting. But you also want to leave them wanting to learn more.”

And in a very practical sense, wordy titles take up a lot of time in a 15-second television ad and a lot of space on a poster … none of these titles are selected without debate by studio executives and, in some cases, they are determined by focus group testing. With sequels, the strategy is generally to avoid adding a numeral, and to come up with a subtitle that makes the movie seem less of a rehash and more worthy of standing on its own … in some instances, long titles result from an eagerness of studios to piggyback on a brand that already has currency in the marketplace.

I can’t stand long titles, and if a movie has a long title, I try to find a way around saying the whole thing.  “Shrek Forever After” is “Shrek 4” in my jargon.  “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” is just plain old “Prince of Persia” to me.  And you won’t ever catch me even writing the unwieldy post-colon addition to “Precious.”


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Random Factoid #302

26 05 2010

Boo yeah!

The first full day of summer kicked off with a bang.  I went to return some CDs and a movie to the library, my main source for movies, this morning.  Sometimes I have to work the system to get more movies, which requires me to go up to the desk instead of using the electronic checkout.

And when I went up today to checkout, they knew my name!  “Hold on a second, Marshall,” the lady said.  I’ve always dreamed of being known by a ticket person at a movie theater, but this is the next best thing.


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REVIEW: More Than a Game

26 05 2010

“More Than a Game” fulfills all the basic needs for a good historical documentary (even when that history is seven years ago).  It gives us good perspectives on exactly what happened.

But it doesn’t go beyond the ordinary.  I didn’t really feel the emotion pumping through the veins of this movie.  I didn’t feel inspired or tense in the team’s big games.  Heck, I really didn’t feel anything.  I acknowledge that it’s not an inspirational sports movie, and it isn’t concocted to get all those warm feelings out of our system.  But “More Than a Game” was as emotionless and matter-of-fact as Tiger Woods’ public apology.

It was cool to see LeBron James as a high schooler; it was cool to see how “the king” became the king; it was cool to see what the Sports Illustrated cover has the power to do for someone.  Yes, it’s cool to see all of these things.  But eventually, cool gets old.  I wanted something deeper; I just saw basketball, nothing more than a game.  This documentary gives the scope of a reality show, and that’s kind of disconcerting.

Metaphorically speaking, “More Than a Game” is like that little kid who hangs on the rope dividing the shallow end from the deep end at the local pool.  There is depth in sight for the kid, but he plays it safe instead and sticks with what he knows.  I felt like this documentary was on the cusp of making some very interesting revelations, but it ultimately decides to explore what it knows best.

And by no means do I mean to imply that the motives or filmmakers had shallow intentions.  They explore the lives of each of the “Fab Five” players and what they brought to the team that helped propel them to greatness.  But that’s all just information, and “More Than a Game” becomes all facts and no analysis.  I wanted more from the movie than an ESPN highlight reel and some interview snippets, which can be entertaining and enjoyable at times.  It’s just not a premise that can sustain an hour and a half.  B /


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Random Factoid #301

25 05 2010

IT’S SUMMER VACATION!

That means that all the movies I have on loan from the library and my collection of personal favorites can come out from under the TV cabinet!

That’s right, I literally hid them so I wouldn’t be distracted by them while studying.


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Random Factoid #300

24 05 2010

Wow, Random Factoid #300.  Is this Sparta?

As I struggled to find something momentous for this milestone factoid, I kept coming back to the movie “300” and how it has become particularly iconic with people my age.

But alas, I was relatively unriveted.  I’m like that; I usually don’t click in with a lot of the movies that guys my age love.  And that’s about all I can come up with in finals mode.  Sorry; I’ll be in full force for 3 months starting tomorrow!


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REVIEW: The Lovely Bones

24 05 2010

I generally agree with the consensus opinion on popular books, movies, and other works, despite how you might interpret my Rotten Tomatoes average of agreement with other groups that lingers around 75%.  But every once in a while, there is that one which I just can’t seem to embrace like everyone else;  Alice Sebold’s novel “The Lovely Bones” was one that fell into that category.  I found it overly melodramatic and an unrewarding experience after enduring three hundred pages of wrenching gloominess.

Nevertheless, I went into Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of “The Lovely Bones” with an open mind.  Maybe I would be able to tap into that love that everyone felt for the book.  In a nutshell, I didn’t feel much other than apathy, a pretty pathetic feeling for a movie that involves the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl.  That’s the kind of the thing that should rattle some cages, right?  Jackson can’t get the emotions in focus, and the whole movie in turn suffers from a pervading chilly feeling.

It’s hard to capture heaven on film because no one actually knows what it looks like.  But Jackson’s vision doesn’t really align with any sort of popular conception of heaven, and it gives off all sorts of weird vibes.  At times, it gets so crazy that it almost becomes laughable, particularly when flowers bloom underneath shelves of ice.

These vibes infect and contaminate the real world, which Jackson isn’t terrible at capturing.  However, anyone who has read the book can clearly see that Jackson wanted us to sympathize more with Susie Salmon’s family as they grieve her disappearance and assumed death.  I wanted to kill Susie’s mother (played by Rachel Weisz) in the book, yet here she gets a pardon.  Her most hideous actions are simply omitted.  The role of the police investigator (Michael Imperioli) and the grandmother (Susan Sarandon) are reduced to basically cameos.

The only part of this movie that was really good was Stanley Tucci, who plays the creepy neighbor that murders Susie.  He is startling, delivering a performance that is deep and truly haunting.  As the hairs on your spine stick straight up, you will most definitely be wondering what happened to the sweet little man who made us laugh in “Julie & Julia” and “The Devil Wears Prada.”  Other than Tucci, the only other cast member who’s any good is Susan Sarandon, but she has no screen time and looks 20 years too young to be a grandmother.  Rachel Weisz can’t make us feel anything towards her character, Mark Wahlberg is too intense for his own good, and Saoirse Ronan is just awful.  She screams and cries, and I didn’t buy any of it.

The only reasons I could give for watching this movie would be to get depressed or to watch Stanley Tucci’s transformation.  The latter is the only legitimate excuse; there are much better movies to get you in a melancholy mood.  C /


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LAMB Alert: “Virginia Woolf” Casting

23 05 2010

Another day, another blogging event.  A few days ago, I told you I was committed to being more involved in the blogging community.  In the words of Horton, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.  An elephant’s faithful, 100% percent!”

This time, it’s over at the Large Association of Movie Blogs (LAMB).  Every once in a while, Andrew at “Encore Entertainment” does a little event he calls “LAMB Casting.”  I find the idea fascinating: he takes a classic movie from decades ago and then asks us to recast a present-day remake.  People can submit their own casts, and then those casts are presented to the public for voting.

The latest edition of “LAMB Casting” dealt with Mike Nichols’ 1966 film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” At the time, the movie was incredibly controversial due to its sexual content and language, pushing the boundaries of censorship to their breaking point.  But there was more to the movie than just history being made, as I saw when I watched the movie several months ago.  There is an incredible screenplay based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by one of my favorite playwrights, Edward Albee.  Perhaps above all, there are fabulous performances by all four leads.  Everyone earned an Oscar nomination; Elizabeth Taylor won Best Actress, and Sandy Dennis won Best Supporting Actress.

Knowing “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” fairly well, I felt compelled to submit a cast to the event.  Now, it is one of the six that you can vote for in the poll.  In the spirit of voting for truly the best cast, I can’t reveal which of the six is mine.  But I encourage you to go and vote.  Perhaps you will agree with my casting.

Let the games begin.


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Random Factoid #299

23 05 2010

All of a sudden, I’m obsessed with the music from “Chicago” again.

I admitted back in Random Factoid #240 that I became hooked on the music back in 2002 after hearing a few bars on TV.  But now it’s like 2002 all over again.  Every time a song comes up on shuffle, I stay on the track and listen.  Now, I have the movie on hold at the library and the music is coming close to “Top 25 Most Played” numbers on my computer and iPod.

Favorite song of the “First ‘Chicago’ Revival” is Queen Latifah’s “When You’re Good To Mama.”  Boy, she can sing that song.


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Blogathon Alert: He Shot Cyrus’ “Best Post”

22 05 2010

Hello all.  Hope this post finds you in good cheer.  It most certainly does for me, seeing as this is my 500th POST!!!

Anyways, enough with the pretenses and onto the main event.  I’ve got a stake in a big blogathon over at “He Shot Cyrus;” it’s the first time I’ve ever really gotten involved in one of these things.  Fellow bloggers are submitting a piece that they believe to be either their best or their most underrated.

It’s definitely worth a look; after all, it’s all your favorite bloggers (including myself) presenting their best work.  What’s not to love?

The piece I chose to submit was my feature from a few weeks ago “More Reflections on Avatar.”  I spent a lot of time writing it, and I do think it has a lot of good analysis and some of my deepest thinking yet.  I’d love for you to give it a second glance.  It may not be the best thing I’ve ever written, but I’m sure it’s one of my most underrated.

And don’t just go and look at my piece.  Look at everyone’s stuff because it’s all phenomenal.  It’s a great way to remind yourself of all the talent there really is out there, and I’m proud to cohabit the web with them.  Today is the second day of the three day event, so be sure to head over and do some great reading.  You might wind up discovering some new sites, much like I did.

And a big thank you (or perhaps “muchas gracias” is better) to El Gringo, who wrote some very nice comments about the post and the site in his write-up.


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Random Factoid #298

22 05 2010

I’ve got a lot of soundtracks in my iTunes library, and I won’t try to hide it.  What I haven’t revealed yet is that I buy a whole lot of songs because I hear them in the trailer of a movie.  I’ll hear a tune and Google it to find out what the song is called.  Click, click, it’s in my library.

Here are some of the songs that are now proudly stored in Marshall’s iTunes library thanks to movie trailers.

“Help Yourself” by Sad Brad Smith, trailer for “Up in the Air”

“You’ve Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger” by Beth Rowley, trailer for “An Education”

“Photograph” by Ringo Starr, trailer for “Funny People”

“The Beginning is the End is the Beginning” by Smashing Pumpkins, trailer for “Watchmen”

“Wild is the Wind” by Nina Simone, trailer for “Revolutionary Road”

“Rock Me Sexy Jesus” by The Ralph Sall Experience, trailer for “Hamlet 2”

“Paper Planes” by M.I.A., trailer for “Pineapple Express”

“Iron Man” by Black Sabbath, trailer for “Iron Man”

“Heart of the City (Ain’t No Love)” by Jay-Z, trailer for “American Gangster”

And probably countless others than I can’t remember.


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F.I.L.M. of the Week (May 21, 2010)

21 05 2010

I thought I would give a one-week reprieve from the heavier movies. Now, the “F.I.L.M. of the Week” takes a step towards the wrenching with “Monster’s Ball,” a movie with the power to conjure up all sorts of emotions. You might remember the movie because of Halle Berry’s emotional Oscar speech after becoming the first African-American to win Best Actress. But as soon as you watch the movie, you will remember the movie because of her performance, which is the film’s heart and soul.

Berry inhabits the character of Leticia Musgrove, a woman who is stuck in circumstances she can’t stand. Her husband (Sean Combs or whatever shortening of his name he goes by now) is set to receive the death penalty. Her son (Coronji Calhoun in a mesmerizing and powerful debut performance) is morbidly obese, and she can’t get him to lay off the candy bars. Her car is busted, her house is about to be foreclosed, her job situation is hectic. Most of all, her soul is weak under all these burdens.

Billy Bob Thornton plays Hank, a correctional officer at the prison where Leticia’s husband is executed. He is a cold-hearted racist and doesn’t hesitate showing it. He can’t stand his son (Heath Ledger) who is trying to follow his own moral compass. He is bitter for being straddled with the care of his ailing father (Peter Boyle), an even more extreme racist than himself.

Don’t Leticia and Hank sound like an unlikely pair?  Moreover, doesn’t Hank’s shoulder seem like the least likely place for Leticia to cry into?  Yet as events unfold, the two connect in surprising ways, shocking the traditional Southern community around them.

Halle Berry is absolutely astonishing, hitting every emotional high and low with pin-point precision.  There’s no doubt that she deserved the Oscar.  I haven’t seen “Things We Lost in the Fire,” her only non-comic book or action movie since her win, but I’m a little upset that she has squandered such incredible talent on such unworthy material.  She needs to get back to roles like these, ones that accurately showcase just how talented she is.  Maybe Mo’Nique and “Monster’s Ball” producer Lee Daniels will give her a role in the Hattie McDaniel movie – here’s hoping!


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Random Factoid #297

21 05 2010

It’s funny  what a little commercialism can do to you.

I got the soundtrack for “An Education” a few months ago, and I absolutely love it.  However, one of the songs I always skipped was the theme to “A Summer Place” by Percy Faith.  It’s a nice sounding song, I was just never in much of a mood to listen to it.

However, now the song is lovely background music to a Toyota commercial:

And I suddenly really like the song.  I’ve stopped and listened to it when it has come on shuffle in my car.  Amazing, right?  Just a little television commercial…


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