The Godfather

Rewatched this for the first time in about 12 years. The last time I saw it I don't think I was ready to appreciate it's brilliance, as it was a tad slow for me back then. Glad I did.

There's no real point reviewing it, basically most people know what's it's about and know it's universally regarded as one of the best movies of all-time. Here's some reasons why.

-Brando as Don Corleone. Brilliant
-Pacino as Michael. Brilliant.
-The directing of Coppola. Brilliant. Beautifully shot movie with some landmark scenes, most notably Sonny's death and the restaurant scene.
-Excellent story

The movie holds up very well, albeit it's a bit slow at times. Here's 3 scenes that could have been improved.

-Michael moving his father in the hospital. Should have been some guys inside who Michael had to fight off.
-When Sonny beats up Carlo. Really poorly done.
-The restaurant scene. Didn't use the suspense enough, could have drawn out some more.

A brilliant movie, must-see for major movie factors.

For Your Consideration

Stumbled across this is the comedy section at "Video Busters" the other week, a section i thought I'd exhausted.

"For Your Consideration" is the latest offering from Christopher Guest and co, this time the movie is about a seemingly ordinary movie that out of nowhere gets some Hollywood buzz and greatly excites the crew of newcomers and veterans. That's pretty much the story, but it's not done in their normal mocumentary style, it's more of a movie. The cast is the same, featuring Guest, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Harry Shearer, Jennifer Coolidge, Fred Willard etc. There's also a cameo from Ricky Gervais, albeit it for just a few scenes.

Pretty average, and very few laughs. The style didn't work and the characters had little to work with. The last few from these writers has dropped off quite a bit, with "Best in Show" being the last real decent one, largely thanks to Fred Willard. Give it a miss.

Fame

"Fame" is the latest Ricky Gervais stand up offering, joining the stable that includes "Animal" and "Politics".

In "Fame" Ricky talks at first about being famous, then gets onto his pet topics of homosexual men, God and Adolf Hitler. It's pretty much more of the same and amazingly I've gotta say it was full of yawns. A couple of ok jokes, but most of it was rubbish and stuff we've sort of heard before. He really mailed this one in. I then tried out the special features, but again more of the same old stuff ie annoying Robin. He's pretty much a one trick pony and his act is getting a bit worn out. he's been doing it for 8 years now and needs to come up with something fresh to avoid becoming Eddie Murphy.

Disappointing.

Revolutionary Road

"Revolutionary Road" reunites "Titanic" stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in a story about a couple who become unhappy with where their life is and decide to set off for Paris. Leo plays Frank, a business man who is becoming increasingly bored with his life and has realised he's not where he wants to be. Winslet plays April, a stay-at-home mum who still yearns to become a great actress (her character, not Kate Winslet) but realises that part of her life has probably passed her by. One night April confronts Frank that they should up and move to Paris, a place Frank loves and that may enable him to chase his true dreams. At first Frank comes up with all the negatives, but soon realises "why not!". They start making plans but things get railroaded when April gets pregnant and Frank gets offered a way better job with a lot more money. Will they still chase their dreams, or will their responsibilities keep them home?

Something different, as the movie leaves it to you for the most part to decide whether life is about chasing our dreams, fulfilling our responsibilities...or a bit of both. Well acted and a good story, but it got a bit too silly for my liking in the last 30mins. Worth a look.

Valkyrie

For the first time in recent memory, I was overwhelmed with choices when I popped into "Video Busters" last night. There was plenty for me, but also a decent range left that wifey might be interested in too. Being a long weekend, I got a stack of videos and for the overnighters grabbed this and "Revoltionary Road".

"Valkyrie" is based upon a remarkable true story of a group of brave men who attempted to assasinate Hitler and seize power of Germany during WW2. That has to rank as one of the gutsiest things to attempt ever. Heading this group is decorated war hero Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise, in his finest work since "Top Gun"),perhaps the most important Colonel ever behind Colonel Sanders. The plan is reasonably complicated, but if they can pull it off, they will see Hitler and a bunch of his key men killed and a coup occur where the SS will be shutdown and the country can be placed in safe hands and will consequently surrender to the Allies. It won't be easy though. The plan relies on being able to get key army people to be willing to commit treason and to get Hitler to unwittingly sign a document that will essentially enable the coup to occur should he be killed. Tricky. Will The Colonel pull it off? See it to find out.

Reasonably well done, except for the fact everyone spoke English and without a hint of a German accent. That made it seem a bit weird. Cruise was ok at The Colonel, but there would have been about 50 better actors they could have used eg Russell Crowe, Tom Hanks or Sean William Scott. Amazing story and well worth seeing.

Tiger

For the first time ever, I took part this morning in the "Tiger" experience. I'd had fears about going with them due to bad stories and their reputation for being very "tight" on a lot of their criteria. Was it all a media beat-up? I was soon to find out.

I got to the airport nice and early, just in case they decided to close the gate a bit early, and walked straight up to one of their counters. They had 3 counters, running,

"Hobart"
"Melbourne"
"All Flights"

I decided to line up in the "Melbourne" queue (because I was going to Melbourne). After a few people checked in, confusion broke out as we all were apparently in the wrong lines, plus they weren't taking Hobart passengers in the "All Flights" queue. We rearranged ourselves and got in the right queues. I got served pretty well, but was a tad surprised that they weighed hand luggage. Each to their own though.

I went and got some food and a paper and headed to the gate with plenty of time to spare. I sat for a while and then heard them call out a "final call" for all passengers going to Melbourne. Bewildered, I joined the small line, only to discover this was for an earlier Melbourne flight. I sat back down again and time started to get close to our departure time. A voiceover then came advising we'd be boarding in 45min, which turned into an hour. I wandered around, looked through the bookstore, then headed back to the gate.

Once onbaord, I sat down, got comfy and pulled out my magazine. I then heard some loud talking going on, which sounded like a couple of blokes mucking around. Turns out 2 guys were feuding because an older man born in a different country had reclined his chair, which squashed the younger guy, who said he "had long legs", to which the older guy replied "that's not my problem". The older guy then went on a rant, to which the young guy replied "we'll sort this out in Melbourne". Cool, a fight on the tarmac! The flight attendant attended to the matter and just asked the younger guy to swap seats with his partner. All was soon sorted and we were on our way.

We made up some time in the air, but landed an hour and a bit late. Annoying. Also annoying is the long walk from the tarmac to the terminal, but I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too. By the way, the young guy with the apparent long legs was the same height as me. Lame.

In summary, delays happen on all airlines, but not a great first experience with the new kid on the aviation block. Will try and avoid them in the future.

Tv Update

A lot of people have been asking me what I'm watching on tv these days lately, so here's an update.

TALKIN 'BOUT YOUR GENERATION
Generally if you pop Shaun Micallef's head on the tv, I'll watch it. This show isn't bad. It pits 3 regulars from the Baby Boomer generation (Amanda Keller), Charlie Pickering (Gen X) and some annoying guy from Gen Y (?), with a guest celebrity each week from the same generation to answer some really easy questions based around standouts from each decade (ie fads, tv shows, music etc). The questions are a little too easy and the guests get a little too much time to rabbit on, but it's decent. Probably a bit like an hour long version of "Spicks and Specks" at about 1/3 of the pace. Micallef is the highlight of the show with his quirky faces, one-liners and intersting intros. Pretty good, but not gripping ie good show to watch while doing odd jobs. Here's a sample



SPICKS AND SPECKS
One of the best Aussie shows, which generally now gets really good guests. There's a good mix of easy and tricky questions, with a stack of interesting facts (which I love). Not "must see", but if I don't watch, 8 times out of 10 I'll record. Here's a clip



LIFE ON MARS
Gave up on this a while back when they started jerking around the timeslot. Overall maybe a little too slw, but maybe I'll get it out on dvd one day.


24
Due to the dumb timeslot and my laziness at bothering to record it, I decided a while back I'll wait til it's out on dvd. When it is I'll probably take a few days off and get right into it- if it's good. Early reports are the start was awesome but it waned near the last few hours (as it normally does).


THANK GOD YOU'RE HERE
Think I'm a bit over the show, just too many guests that suck. Needs to stick with male comedians as a general rule I think. My favourites have been Bob Franklin, Tony Martin and Merrick Watts thus far. Here's a clip from Bob's recent show



CHASER
Last night's show was a bit of a let down. The guys just keep pushing the boundaries and pretty much all the jokes tried to contain an element of racism, sexism or similar. Getting away from some of their clever, wittier stuff and just going for the off joke. Bummer.

ONE HD
Watching a fair bit of this, mainly the NBA but also a few other bits and pieces, especially One Week At A Time, which is solid. The best addition to tv since "Webster".

24: The Game

On the Easter weekend I started playing a game I'd barely touched since I got it 2 years ago- "24". My lovely wife surprised me with a PS2 for my birthday in 2006 and got me this game plus some other one that wasn't as good (I think I sold it on ebay). I played it a couple of times but thought it was pretty crappy, mainly because I couldn't work out some of the key features and am not great at these games generally. With a fresh attitude and time on my hands, I pulled it out on Good Friday and once I'd completed the first 2 levels I was hooked.

From what I followed, there is a home grown terrorist (Madsen) who is going to wreak havoc on LA by generating earthquakes. You generally play Jack, but also a little Chase (who is undercover in Madsen's crew), a little Tony and even some Kim and Michelle. The best part of the game is the variety of scenarions: from driving cars, to just shooting people, to helicopters, to interrogating people, cracking codes...plenty of variety. Some are not as fun, but you appreciate a break from just blowing people's brains out. There are probbaly about 5 or 6 really hard levels where I decided to get some "assistance" (read cheating by getting infinite health and/or ammo). Most of the levels I struggled on were acknowledged as being hard by the walkthrough notes, so that made me feel better.

It took me just over 6 weeks and maybe really around 24hrs to complete. I used a combo of holidays, late nights and time home alone to work on it and enjoyed it immensely. I used cheats for the last 1hr6mins, where the amount of men coming at you was mental.

Overall a really good game. I'm not a gamer at all, but I liked it, probably mostly because I love the show and it wasn't ridiculously hard. If you're still not sold, check out this awesome trailer.

Lebron

Had the opportunity Saturday to sit down and watch some NBA- Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Cavs and the Magic. The Cavs were heavily favoured to win this series easily but lost Game 1 at home, putting them quickly on the backfoot. Game 2 started well for the Cavs and by halftime they had a good lead, thanks to LBJ and my fantasy basketball favourite, Delonte West. In the 2nd half thought the Magic came out smoking and kept it close until the 4th, when they hit the lead in the dying minutes and had a 2pt lead with 1 second left. Then Lebron, the freak, did this



Just amazing. You'd be pretty gutted if you were the Magic. Should be another awesome series and must go to 7.

Seven Pounds

Got this out Friday night for our weekly dvd night. I'd heard mixed reviews and was unsure if Tara would like, but knew she'd like it more than "the Wrestler", so gave it a go. Here,s my review.

"Seven Pounds" is a the story of Ben Thomas (Will Smith, in his best work since "Hitch"), an IRS agent who seems to be on a mission he help radically alter the lives of a bunch of strangers. Gradually his story unravels that brought him to this point- in a nutshell he killed seven people in a car accident and seems to be trying to make up for it. His wife also died in the accident which really set him off.

Ben stays reasonably detached from the people, until he meets Emily (Roasario Dawson, in her best work since "Josie and the Pussycats"), a lovely lady who needs a heat transplant bad. Ben starts getting very close to her, so close in fact he expresses his love physically with her. Ben must decide if he'll let her know his secret and if he'll go through with his plan. Will Ben go through with his plan or will he give it all up for Emily, who may die anyway if no donor comes forward? See it to find out.

***************SPOILER ALERT********************

I'd heard mixed reports and some about the unusual ending, although I gotta say it played out pretty much as expected. Something different, but nothing to write home about. Another semi arty-farty movie by Will Smith that doesn't cut the mustard.

The Jordan Rules

Have been slowly re-reading this classic over the last few months, mainly in spurts of 1 or 2 pages as I spend time in the quietest room in the house.

"The Jordan Rules" follows the Bulls for a year, luckily it turned out to be the year of their first title in the dominant Michael Jordan era. It follows the team on the road and give great insight to the inner sanctum and the experiences of all the team, from the superstars like Jordan and Pippen, down to the crappy ones like Stacey King and Dennis Hopson. It shows Jordan's strengths and weaknesses ie he can be a massive jerk, the strategies of Phil Jackson to motivate his team, especially MJ, the workings of GM Jerry Krause......all a basketball junkie would be interested in knowing. An especially good re-read 18 years after the book was written, considering Jordan's early exit from the game, where the young guys ended up and what became of the team. One of the best basketball books I've ever read, and I've read about 7 of them, so..........

Death At A Funeral

"Death At A Funeral" is the story of a bunch of family and friends coming together for a funeral. The funeral gets off to a rocky start due to some feuding between brothers, the accidental drugging of one of the guests and a midget with an agenda. Yep. Soon all of these wacky circumstances become entwined when the midget threatens to expose the secret life of the deceased unless he gets some money. Before you know it someone gets knocked out, the drugged guest strips down and threatens to jump off a roof.....hilarity ensues.

A quirky Britsih comedy which takes a while to get going but the last 20mins are right up there with the best dark comedy around. A solid cast and great storyline make this one of the better "laugh out loud" movies I've seen in the last few years. Well worth a look.