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By the time you’re reading this it is either Valentine’s Day or past Valentine’s Day. Please check out the Memories section to responses from folks about romantic films and dating at the movies.

The major release this Friday the 13th is the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore comedy 50 First Dates, which I’m not seeing today. I am saving that film for the entry for Valentine’s Day. I will conduct a little field research for this website about the dating and romantic aspect about going to the movies. So check for that entry.

Today I will be seeing a film that has sparked controversy due to its NC-17 rating, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers. All that I have heard about the film is that the distributors planned on releasing the film anyways even if it was rated NC-17. There have been plenty of good films that were released with an NC-17 rating like Poison and the unrated cuts of Requiem for a Dream and Kids. And there have been plenty of bad NC-17 films have been released like Showgirls. I personally think the NC-17 rating is bullshit. If your film is NC-17 that means you are not allowed to run ads in newspapers or TV and some theatre chains will refuse to carry your film. I know the MPAA rating system is designed for parents but who in the hell will take a child to see a NC-17 film? This is like the sick idiot who took a five year old to see House of 1,000 Corpses. It is not the filmmakers who need reform its the stupid parents who need to wake-up and realize that part of parenting is common sense. For example: would you take your child to see a PG-rated teen comedy or the NC-17 Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!? Think about it. And also Jack Valenti needs to retire or die, whichever comes first. I have never seen this man stand up for the little independent film guy, only the big major film studios. Did I mention he is an old senile bastard?

For some the NC-17 rating is like garlic to Dracula. For me I could care less about the rating, just as long as the movie is good and not shocking for the sake of being shocking. So I proudly bought my ticket to see this film as well as other people curious to see this film.

The Dreamers follow a young American exchange student and film buff named Matthew in France back in the 1960’s during France’s student riots. He strikes a relationship up with a brother and sister who share the same love for cinema as he does. When the parents of the siblings go away on holiday they invite Matthew to stay. They talk about films, culture, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, and have tons of hot wild monkey sex. A majority of the time a film gets an NC-17 rating is when it contains depiction of graphic sex and lemme tell you this film has lots of it. But this film is not pornographic by any means. The sex and nudity in this film serve a purpose by showing us the sexual frankness and freedom of the 1960’s.

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up on the 14th of February I decided to take a poll of my fellow employees, close friends, students, film professors, and movie buffs about romantic films. Later this month I will be dropping by Bob Sheppard’s Cinema 100 class at Palomar College where his film series this semester is “Isn’t It Romantic?” You can view the schedule and his response as well as other’s in the Memories section of this website. Continue reading →

Today’s question will sum up my feelings for today’s entry. The question comes from several people: “Zeb, I enjoyed the film thirteen but you said you didn’t. What gives?” Well for starters I spell it Thirteen with a capital “T” it’s like k.d. lang is K.D. Lang, I refuse to spell it with lower case letters. I didn’t hate Thirteen before I actually saw it, the trailers and the reviews made it seem worthwhile to go to. I was wrong. The movie was slow, predictable, and tried to be shocking but failed. The only redeeming quality of the film was Holly Hunter’s performance. It was an independent film which is good but I read that the film was written in six days and co-written by a thirteen year old. That is your first clue that this movie would go to hell. I have written screenplays and have worked on both professional and guerilla film crews and anyone can tell you that a script needs more than six days in order for it to be good. Need more proof? How about the Robert Rodriquez vanity project Once Upon a Time in Mexico? The movie was confusing and there wasn’t really a plot, all thanks to a script that was written over the weekend. Thirteen had so much potential but was wasted for cardboard acting (with the exception of Holly Hunter) and a storyline that read like an after school special written by pedophiles. Continue reading →

The groundhog came out of his tree stump and saw his shadow, I could kill that groundhog. The weather service was reporting heavy rainstorms and the Emergency Alert System went off two times today: one was for an APB on accused child killer Richard Tuite who escaped from Sheriff’s custody and the second was to watch out for mudslides and flash flooding in all of San Diego County. So with a psychopath on the loose and the possibility that we’d be flooded out I decided to seek shelter in the local multiplex to watch a horrible film. Continue reading →

I refuse to repeat a movie on this project and will do anything not to repeat a movie. Would you see The Butterfly Effect or My Baby’s Daddy again? I think not. So for today I got out of KKSM early today and drove all the way to Hillcrest to catch a movie I haven’t seen yet. Luckily it was an early showing and I beat the traffic getting there. Continue reading →

Erik in Albuquerque, New Mexico writes: “When you go to the movies, what do you snack on, if you snack at all.” I know some theatre owners are going to hate this but I sneak in Post Shredded Wheat (non-frosted) and a bottle of water. For me it’s healthy and tasty. But I do buy popcorn and soda whenever I’m in the mood for it, but very rarely since I always get hit by the smell of popcorn when I walk into the lobby. If I’m at a Landmark theatre I always get the coffee and sometimes a pastry but always coffee. Surprisingly since I started this project I have lost weight rather than gained it! Screw the Atkins diet.
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Before I begin this review there is one movie I’m hoping to see this year that is playing at Sundance: Super Size Me. Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock documented his experiment of eating nothing but food off the menu of McDonald’s for 30 days! And I thought this project was a test of endurance! Continue reading →

My apologies for this late entry for the Sunday film, I was busy watching the Golden Globes and going through a huge stack of videos. Continue reading →

Sorry for the late post today, I was watching the results of the Iowa caucus coming in. My other passion besides movies is campaigning and politicking. Speaking from a campaign manager’s perspective (having been one for several political campaigns) I was shocked at the results of Iowa. I was expecting a better showing from Dean and never expected Edwards to be in second place. But enough about politics, onto movies! Continue reading →

Before I begin on today’s entry I want you folks to head on over and see this Quicktime trailer for the film The Battle of Algiers. The film was banned in France upon its release and was screened for the Pentagon last year. This movie was made in 1965 and the story still holds true today. The film is being re-released in 2004; I consider this film one of the most important films ever made on a social issue . Continue reading →