A few months back I was going to take the kids to see the new Harry Potter movie.  When my ex-wife found out, she registered her displeasure and it finally came down to me agreeing that if the kids had nightmares I would get a phone call to talk them down from it.

I read that particular HP book, and except for near the end it was actually less scary than the previous few of the series…it was PG when the previous few were PG-13.  There were no nightmares.

A few weeks ago Geoffrey told me he had watched the first part of The Dark Knight at a friend’s house and his mum got mad.  I, too, was unhappy to hear that, as that movie is too dark for a 7-year-old, IMO.

So, it seems that PG movies are okay and PG-13 are not.  But wait! Here are a list of PG-13 movies I would let my kids watch:

Ever After
Fantastic Four
Goldeneye
Pirates of the Caribbean
Spiderman
Stardust
Star Trek
X-Men

How can those movies be counted in the same list as 1408, The Dark Knight, and The Ring? The ratings system is just nuts.

I’m a time travel movie geek. I made Lara watch The Philadelphia Experiment last week, and while it was painful (Nancy Allen must have given good casting couch, because she was HORRIBLE in the movie), the amusement of seeing “contemporary now” from 20-25 years ago or what they thought of the future back then is in itself a kind of time travel, which makes it doubly awesome.

Here are other old time travel movies I can think of…can you think of any?

• Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (and Bogus Journey)
• A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court
• The Final Countdown
• Somewhere In Time
• Star Trek IV
• The Terminator
• Time After Time
• The Time Machine (the original)
• Timerider
• Trancers (and sequels)

Because sci-fi wasn’t mainstream back then, you can find surprising actors in some of those movies (Helen Hunt in Trancers, Christopher Reeve in Somewhere In Time, Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas in The Final Countdown, Malcolm MacDowell and Mary Steenbergen in Time After Time).

If Neo had swallowed both the red and blue pills, what would have happened?  Would he have woken up in the real world but forgotten how he got there?

Below is the Entertainment Weekly’s list of 100 Classic Movies of the past 25 years.
Bold the ones you’ve seen, underline the ones you plan to.

1. Pulp Fiction (1994)
2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03)
3. Titanic (1997)
4. Blue Velvet (1986)
5. Toy Story (1995)
6. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
7. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
8. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
9. Die Hard (1988)
10. Moulin Rouge (2001)
11. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
12. The Matrix (1999)
13. GoodFellas (1990)
14. Crumb (1995)
15. Edward Scissorhands (1990)
16. Boogie Nights (1997)
17. Jerry Maguire (1996)
18. Do the Right Thing (1989)
19. Casino Royale (2006)
20. The Lion King (1994)
21. Schindler’s List (1993)
22. Rushmore (1998)
23. Memento (2001)
24. A Room With a View (1986)
25. Shrek (2001)
26. Hoop Dreams (1994)
27. Aliens (1986)
28. Wings of Desire (1988)
29. The Bourne Supremacy (2004)
30. When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
31. Brokeback Mountain (2005)
32. Fight Club (1999)
33. The Breakfast Club (1985)
34. Fargo (1996)
35. The Incredibles (2004)
36. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
37. Pretty Woman (1990)
38. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
39. The Sixth Sense (1999)
40. Speed (1994)
41. Dazed and Confused (1993)
42. Clueless (1995)
43. Gladiator (2000)
44. The Player (1992)
45. Rain Man (1988)
46. Children of Men (2006)
47. Men in Black (1997)
48. Scarface (1983)
49. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
50. The Piano (1993)
51. There Will Be Blood (2007)
52. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad (1988)
53. The Truman Show (1998)
54. Fatal Attraction (1987)
55. Risky Business (1983)
56. The Lives of Others (2006)
57. There’s Something About Mary (1998)
58. Ghostbusters (1984)
59. L.A. Confidential (1997)
60. Scream (1996)
61. Beverly Hills Cop (1984)
62. sex, lies and videotape (1989)
63. Big (1988)
64. No Country For Old Men (2007)
65. Dirty Dancing (1987)
66. Natural Born Killers (1994)
67. Donnie Brasco (1997)
68. Witness (1985)
69. All About My Mother (1999)
70. Broadcast News (1987)
71. Unforgiven (1992)
72. Thelma & Louise (1991)
73. Office Space (1999)
74. Drugstore Cowboy (1989)
75. Out of Africa (1985)
76. The Departed (2006)
77. Sid and Nancy (1986)
78. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
79. Waiting for Guffman (1996)
80. Michael Clayton (2007)
81. Moonstruck (1987)
82. Lost in Translation (2003)
83. Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987)
84. Sideways (2004) – never even heard of it, and IMDB is no help.
85. The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
86. Y Tu Mamá También (2002)
87. Swingers (1996)
88. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
89. Breaking the Waves (1996)
90. Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
91. Back to the Future (1985)
92. Menace II Society (1993)
93. Ed Wood (1994)
94. Full Metal Jacket (1987)
95. In the Mood for Love (2001)
96. Far From Heaven (2002)
97. Glory (1989)
98. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)
99. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
100. South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999)

So I had a dream the other night about a scene from No Country for Old Men, where the intense guy with the 70′s hair demands that the shop owner bet on a coin flip but doesn’t tell him what he’s betting on.  I haven’t seen the movie yet, but it seems I want to so much I’ll fill in plot points from the other stories I’ve had in my head recently, most notably the Ender and Shadow series’ of books from Orson Scott Card, as I surmised that the guy was an assassin going around killing all these old men because a war was going to start and they had been part of Ender’s “jeesh” a long time ago, and therefore dangerous to the warmongers.

If you’re very confused right now you probably haven’t read Ender’s Game.  Kindly go do so and come back…I’ll wait.

New Transformers clips!

Saw The Departed tonight. Aside from non-Bostonians trying to do Boston accents, it was a very good movie: 9/10. Lots of twists and turns, and the juxtaposition between Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio’s characters was very well done. I’ll be trying to find meaning in the virtual orbits they did around each other for a while.

They’ve announced the sequel for Batman Begins. One problem with having big name actors portraying the superheroes and supervillains is what I call “Mask Off Syndrome”, where the filmmaker has to come up with reasons for them taking their masks off so the actors get as much “face time” as possible.

In Spider-Man 2 the hero lost his mask while saving an elevated train, and later took his mask off to convince Octavius to save the day. The Superman movies don’t have this problem because he doesn’t wear a mask and people want to see Superman more than Clark Kent anyway. At the end of Batman Returns Michael Keaton ripped off his mask while he was still in costume, which looked ridiculous.

In Batman Begins Bruce Wayne took centre stage as the story of his origin and quest for justice was told. It all worked in the framework of the story. I’m worried that in the next film there will be less reason for him to spend time as Bruce Wayne, so they’ll do something silly to have him take his mask off while in costume.

Oh well…I guess we’ll see.

Saw Pirates 2 last night at the Cottonwood theatre. It was quite good; a worthy sequel. It is definitely the second in a trilogy.

We walked into the theatre to find the only seats together were right in the front row. By halfway through the movie my neck was sore and by the end I had a major headache. I couldn’t make out all the action because we were so close, and several times I just couldn’t make out what they were saying. Going to Silver City and Colossus has really spoiled me.

Oh, and the dumbasses who want to make comments while the movie runs. Luckily they shut up once the movie really got going so I didn’t have to get all uppity on them.