Eileen and I have seen three movies in the last week or so, and being a movie buff I quickly developed a few opinions about where these movies fit in my very own personal categorization scheme.

Last weekend we saw King Kong directed by Peter Jackson. He also did the Lord of the Rings trilogy; I had to point that out even though its completely obvious to everyone over the age of six. :^)

Much like Tolkien with regard to LOTR, Peter Jackson needs to learn when to cut material that may be interesting but isn’t moving the story forward. Tolkien’s book drags on and on at points, many times spending pages and pages with nothing but singing Elves, and yet this extraneous material was omitted from the movies in order to keep up the pacing. In a very similar way King Kong is three hours yet could easily been cut to two hours or so. The original King Kong story is basically a story of:

1) move from NYC to the island
2) meet the natives and the big ape
3) capture the ape
4) get the ape back to NYC
5) put the ape on stage so he can escape
6) chase the ape up the Empire State building
7) watch the ape fall from the Empire State building

Peter Jackson spent way too much time on 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6. He spent the right amount of time on 7. He also spent a lot of time with the “gross out the audience” scenes with giant bugs eating the extra cast members, and way too much time watching Kong vs. Dinosaurs fight scenes showing off the wonderful effects he could buy. Lots of extraneous backstory was inserted into 1 & 2. The first half the movie is wrapped up in getting the characters to the island, the second half primarily deals with meeting natives and chasing the ape, the last fifteen minutes deals with NYC and the falling ape, and frankly its boring, predictable and downright lazy. 6 out of 10 at best.

Today we saw two movies back-to-back. The first was Casanova. My expectations were low based on the advertising, but we got a positive recommendation from friends so we went anyways. It was very funny and the comparisons to Shakespeare in Love are quite appropriate at multiple levels. Heath Ledger does a reasonably good job of acting but Oliver Platt and Jeremey Irons give way better performances. Its a clever, witty story that moves along at the right pace. 8 out of 10 minimum, recommended by both Eileen and myself.

Next up was Capote. This is the story of Truman Capote and the writing of his prize winning novel In Cold Blood. It was a really fantastic movie with excellent acting by the entire cast. Eileen knew way more about the story than I did but we both found it very enjoyable. It’s a powerful story and its quite an interesting and entertaining story. If you don’t know anything about Capote then please see this movie as you’ll be introduced to one of the most significant American writers of all time. Easy to see why this movie is getting a lot of buzz. 10 out of 10.

Just finished watching Crash on video-on-demand. Two comments: video-on-demand is cool; Crash is an awesome movie. Wow! The movie is hard to explain, but highly recommended as worth seeing.

There is a tremendous amount of racism portrayed by this film. That is the whole point. Many times I laughed because the dialogue is funny, in a twisted sort of way. Its not a funny film. Its a wonderful commentary on the attitude of people as they perceive the world around them. There is something that we can all recognize in our own behavior, whether its the time we shyied away from Black people on the street or its the time we disregarded those of Persian or Arab descent or its the time we poked fun at the Asian kid behind the counter. Towards the end of the film most of the characters find something like redemption or at least recognition of their own failings. This part is unlikely in real life, as most people surround themselves with people who think, act, talk and otherwise behave like themselves, and as a result continue their bigoted attitudes and activities. But maybe a few people will become enlightened. Even if one person sees this film and rethinks their view of the world, its worthwhile.

The video-on-demand service came via Shaw (our cable service). I also get high-speed Internet service from them. Both services are good, certainly the cable modem provides great service with nearly zero interruptions. This is probably the second movie we’ve purchased via the video-on-demand service. Just awesome. We rent a fair number of DVDs from Rogers Video but I think I’ll be looking for films from Shaw more often. You get pretty much the same experience as a video tape with play, pause, etc. but without going to the store. I’ll miss out on the “DVD extras” but honestly I don’t get much value from seeing the seven different crappy trailers included as the bonus material. For those films that really have good material, we’ll get the DVD. But I wouldn’t rent the DVD for the bonus material without knowing in advance that it was going to be worthwhile. So that is a hint to the movie studios: when advertising your DVD releases, make it known what bonus material will be included and why its interesting. Otherwise I can’t be bothered to spend time at the video store anymore.

Eileen and I went to see the movie Walk the Line yesterday afternoon. Wow, it’s a great story and the acting is good but the most impressive part was the singing. Both Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon did their own vocals and it really added something special to the show. Highly recommended if you are looking for a well-made movie.

Johnny Cash’s life story is pretty sad, overall, but I guess that is the perfect backdrop for a successful country singer. I didn’t know about the death of his older brother but it must have been a powerful influence on his life. It was really great to imagine all those great artists (Johnny, June, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.) all traveling together on the road. Those shows must have been really excellent to see performed live. I can only imagine what sort of hell they raised along the way. :^)

I immediately went home after the movie and purchased a Johnny Cash “best of” album from the iTunes Music Store. I’m listening to Folsom Prison Blues right now. The tempo of all his music runs along at the pace of a speeding locomotive but his vocals are steady, level, even sedate. His music is very distinctive and a welcome change from some of the miserable noise produced by the music industry these days.

I definitely will be listening to a lot more of this music over the Christmas holiday. It mixes well with the Black Eyed Peas and the Caesers.

I recently watched the five disks in HBO’s From the Earth to the Moon series. I purchased the DVD set even though I’ve previously seen most episodes on broadcast TV as well as rented the video tapes. There is something incredibly emotional about the stories presented in this series. I absolutely love this stuff. Tom Hanks did an excellent job with this series and I really appreciate HBO for supporting it.

I also own the Apollo 13 DVD and watch it occasionally as well. One of my favorite parts is when the engineers are presented with a box of seemingly random gear and a challenge: make an air purification filter to fit into the Lunar module’s panel using only these things in the box. Cool. That has to be the sort of Right, Time To Save The Day situation that engineers (like me) dream about. Watch the special content for both DVD sets, its really interesting to learn additional backstory for the series as well as the making of Apollo 13.

The DVD package includes a coupon to see the IMAX 3D film “Walking on the Moon” so Eileen and I went. Unfortunately our local IMAX theatre wouldn’t honor the coupon; they had some annoying excuse that went something like “we are IMAX/CN, not IMAX” which is totally stupid since they are benefiting from the brand name. But we paid full price anyways and its really worth it. I didn’t know what to expect but found it quite interesting and also educational. I’d recommend seeing it if you can.