Movies watched in 2008

The list topped out at 186 movies viewed via the theater, cable or Netflix. The full list can be viewed on my IMDB page here.

The stand outs:

The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Burn After Reading
Michael Clayton
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
La Via En Rose
The Orphanage
The Darjeeling Limited
The Fall

Honorable mentions:

No Country for Old Men
Superbad
There Will be Blood
Charlie Wilson's War
Transiberian
Step Brothers
Into the Wild
The Foot Fist Way
Son of Rambow
Sunshine
Eagle vs. Shark
Next Door
After the Wedding

Favorite Documentaries:

In the Shadow of the Moon
Jimmy Carter - Man from the Plains
Encounters at the End of the World

4th of July weekend pt. 2

Other stuff that happened over the three day weekend:

I hung out and drank too much with 'Clover', 'Schaf', 'Litl', 'JimmyAndrewForest' and a bunch of others. Everyone ended up at 'The Castle' for afterhours but I wussed out and went home.

On a whim I went and saw 'Wall-E' with my friend 'Torque Smackey'. Clever film but not as good as 'The Incredibles'.

I spent a good amount of the weekend trying to load the music sequencer and recording software Pro Tools M-Powered onto my computer. A bitch of a time but I finally got it working properly.

And last but not least, I took advantage of my museum membership and went to the Carnegie Museum with 'Evil Genius' and 'Litl' for an afternoon. I finally checked out the new Dinosaur exhibit and the impressive Carnegie International 'Life on Mars' exhibit.

Van Halen, Pittsburgh (Finally)

The curtain rose as the band jumped right into 'Pretty Woman' while Dave screamed to the crowd 'Better late than never. Right, you motherfxckers?!?' alluding to the fact that the show was postponed since March. From that point on I had chills for most of the night; It brought back so many memories hearing and watching those guys. Dave was super cheesy but I got used to it ... I started to see some of his 80's antics, that I remembered and loved, still creeping out from behind his shaved chest, short hair and marching band costumes that he's into today. Eddie and Alex were spot on ... no complaints there. It was great to see them so happy, laughing and smiling and getting along. Dave yelled at Eddie once for jumping into a song too early saying, 'Damn, are you in a hurry tonight?' but they all just had a chuckle. Dave forgot lyrics but Eddie didn't mind ... and there were some feedback issues that Dave kept complaining about, getting testy with the sound guys, 'They paid for a show, not for feedback ... fxckin' fix it.' Yeah, Diamond Dave was dropping F bombs the whole night; it kind of felt like the aging rockstar was trying to still seem so cool complete with his continuous sexually promiscuous jabbering during and between songs all night long. But the vibe on stage seemed very light, super fun and super tight; it genuinely looked like they were having fun performing together ... and that's all I could ask for.

Overall I loved it. I had seats in the upper section, center stage, and the crowd around me was a 'sit down' crowd but I didn't mind. I was able to fully watch everything on stage with no distractions.

Setlist:

01. You Really Got Me (from Van Halen, 1978)

02. I'm the One (from Van Halen, 1978)

03. Runnin' With the Devil (from Van Halen, 1978)

04. Romeo Delight (from Women and Children First, 1980)

05. Somebody Get Me a Doctor (from Van Halen II, 1979) w/ a bit of The Who "Magic Bus' Jam

06. Beautiful Girls (from Van Halen II, 1979)

07. Dance the Night Away (from Van Halen II, 1979)

08. Atomic Punk (from Van Halen, 1978)

09. Everybody Wants Some (from Women and Children First, 1980) w/ a bit of Eric Clapton "Crossroads" Jam

10. So This Is Love? (from Fair Warning, 1981)

11. Mean Street (from Fair Warning, 1981)

12. Pretty Woman (from Diver Down, 1982)

13. Alex Van Halen Drum Solo

14. Unchained (from Fair Warning, 1981)

15. I'll Wait (from 1984, 1984)

16. And the Cradle Will Rock (from Women and Children First, 1980)

17. Hot for Teacher (from 1984, 1984)

18. Little Dreamer (from Van Halen, 1978)

19. Little Guitars (from Diver Down, 1982)

20. Jamie's Cryin' (from Van Halen, 1978)

21. Ice Cream Man (from Van Halen, 1978) w/ acoustic Diamond Dave Intro

22. Panama (from 1984, 1984)

23. Eddie Van Halen Guitar Solo (incl. "Women in Love" intro, "Cathedral", "Eruption")

24. Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (from Van Halen, 1978) w/ a bit of Deep Purple "Smoke on the Water" Jam
Encore
25. 1984 (from 1984, 1984)

26. Jump (from 1984, 1984)

Last night was a movie night for me ...

but not in the sense that I watched movies. Well, I did actually start watching Sweeny Todd before I left the house but anyway ...

Last night around 9pm, as I was heading out for my usual Tuesday night rounds (bar crawling) in East Liberty, I ran into some filming of the new Julianne Moore thriller 'Shelter' outside of the East Liberty Presbyterian Church. The whole street, and the front of the church, was lit up like it was daylight. There were a bunch of huge spotlights perched on top of the surrounding buildings lighting the area. To give an idea, this church is pretty big, taking up a whole block. I checked it out for a bit since there was no security blocking the area. The place was buzzing with crew doing various things but nothing exciting really happened. I assumed it was mostly second unit filming since no actors were present while I was there. After thinking about it for awhile, I also thought that maybe they were filming in the church and were using the spotlights to simulate daylight through the windows. Bah ... anyway ...

After that, I proceeded across the street to my hangout to meet a friend of mine who I haven't seen in awhile for a drink. I told her about the filming going on outside and she starts telling me that she is actually involved in another movie being filmed right now called 'She's Out of My League'. Weird coincidence. I had heard about this movie being filmed; it's been in the news and I know they did some filming with the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team down at the arena. Anyway, my friend ended up inviting me to a cast and crew party for the film next Wednesday down in the Strip District. Nice ... except after IMDB-ing the movie I noticed that I do not recognize any of the 'stars' in the film. Oh well ... free party.

I drove me friend home and then went back to the bar (it was only 10:45pm) only to run into another friend who just got done working on the film 'The Road' starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron. We sat at the bar for a good time and chatted about it all. He mentioned he'll be a part of the crew for a new 3-d horror film 'My Bloody Valentine' that starts filming in May. This is getting good.

Very interesting how Pittsburgh has been all a buzz these last 6 months with all of the movies being filmed here ... celebrity sitings at local spots such as Whole Foods and dive bars.

In fact, I ran into another friend about a month ago while I was out shopping for shoes. I knew this woman was a local designer who owned her own boutique but I was confused when I saw her at the store shuffling through 4 or 5 boxes of shoes, clipboard in hand, looking like she was restocking and not shopping. After we said hello, I almost made the mistake of asking her if she was working there (you never know) but luckily she noticed my confusion and told me she was shopping for the production of Kevin Smith's new movie 'Zac and Miri make a Porno'.

It's awesome to see that many of my friends are getting involved in this movie action; local talent being employed to work on these big Hollywood films. Great opportunities for them and our city.

HD or Blu Ray?

Blu Ray has just won quite a victory in the High Definition format wars the other day with Warner Brothers Studios committing to producing its newest line of high-definition DVDs in the Blu-ray format.

The company said on Friday that it would abandon the competing HD-DVD format in May and distribute all film and television discs in standard DVD or Blu-ray.

Dammit.

The war is far from over but it's not looking good for HD DVD anymore.

I have already bought a Toshiba HD DVD player and my HD film library consists of a few films (Planet Earth Series, Casablanca, The Shining, 2001 Space Odyssey) ... I'd hate these items to be worthless someday.

but then again ... if Blu Ray wins I'll just have to go out and get a Playstation 3.

Oh darn. :)

Movies I watched last year ...

The people over at The Internet Movie Data Base website have set up a nifty little system where you can store and rate all of the movies you have ever watched. You can then further store your list into any subcategories you want such as years watched, genres, want to buy, etc.

I've taken advantage of this system over the years to list the movies I've watched ... categorizing the films by the year I viewed them.

Now that we are into 2008 I can take a tally and it looks like I watched about 187 movies in the 2007. The full list can be viewed here.

Movies that topped my 'watched in 2007' list:

2001: Space Odyssey - Of course, last year wasn't the first year I saw this film ... it probably shows up on my list every year. It's on here because I bought the HD DVD version of the film at the end of the year. The ultimate Light and Sound show.

Angel-A - Just when Luc Besson said he may never direct again, he comes up with this beautiful film (6 years since his last directorial effort). The cinematography is brilliant and the acting is captivating.

Everything is Illuminated - Liev Shreiber's Screenplay Writing and Directorial debut is refreshingly original and surreal. I have never read the book the movie is based on but the film just shines with it's imagery and the Ukrainian broken English spoken though out the film is priceless.

Idiocracy - This is definitely not that great of a film technically speaking, and it barely makes my top viewings of 2007, but the subject and content is hilarious and hit's home in so many ironic places. This plus the fact that the movie is so damn quotable. Idiocracy is Mike Judge's (creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and the movie Office Space) look into the state of America 500 years into the future where everything in life has been dumbed down because of the laziness of our people.

Curse of the Golden Flower - This was the last film in Yimou Zhang's trilogy (the other two being Hero, and House of Flying Daggers) and was hated by critics. This film was my favorite in the trilogy. Taking place during China's Tang Dynasty, the movie focuses less on dazzling wire-fu fights of the previous films and more on the grand cinematography of epic war battles. Critics called the fight choreography unimaginative and the color palette too bright but this is what drew me in. I thought the film was beautifully shot and the vibrant colors breathtaking.

Playtime - 1967 French Jacques Tati film. Another one I have seen before 2007 and a film worthy of repeat viewings year after year. I reviewed the film here when describing 5 of my favorite films of all time.

The Prestige - I just like the way Christopher Nolan (and his brother Jonathan) tell a story ... and where else do you get to see David Bowie acting as Dr. Nikola Tesla?

The Shining - I bought this one on HD DVD last year also. The pale color palette of the film never looked so detailed before ... and the brilliant score has never sounded more haunting ... worthy of repeat viewings, blah, blah, blah.

Honorable Mentions:

Volver - I have a thing for Pedro Almodóvar movies.
Shortbus - Softcore where you actually care about the characters.
El Topo - The genius (or madness) of Alejandro Jodorowsky.
Diggers - Written by Ken Marino from the sketch comedy show The State
Children of Men - Reminded me of greats like Blade Runner and Brazil.
This is England - Growing up in England in the 80's. Enough said.
Tom Petty, Running Down a Dream - Clocking in at 4 hours long and I never got up once.

Speaking of promoting ...

I also spent the weekend hanging out at the ALTO Lounge in Shadyside ... doing, ah, research ...

Starting Friday December 14th, 'Brother Mike' and I will be resuming our duties as hosts for the only 'House and Techno' music DJ night in the Eastside. We'll be residing over a weekly dance party at this place - every Friday night - offering up soulful house music and funky techno in a loungy, chill out atmosphere.