I Love Lucy (Season 2)

Just before I finished watching this season I went out to buy the next one because I knew I would want MORE Lucy. The gal at the store said "Oh, 'I Love Lucy'! What a great show! I think I've seen every one and it's still hilarious." I had to agree. I KNOW I've seen every one (I marked them off in my companion book) but never restored like these. Great stuff that I never got to see in syndication. This season Little Ricky is born--and makes television history.

ER (Season 4)

One of my FAVORITE seasons of ER, ever. Alex Kingston joins the cast as Elizabeth Corday, and the chemistry with her and Dr. Benton is HOTT. Also there are some great out of the ER eps with Ross and Greene on the road to San Diego. And, come one, three cheers for Ross and Nurse Hathaway back together, and Carter getting a little bit of a comeuppance from his family, and flirting with Dr. Delamico. Just great drama. And a live broadcast to kick off the season! Love NBC for that stuff. The ten plus minutes of cast cutups and outtakes are PRICELESS. Clooney, you are so FINE...and funny!

I Love Lucy (Season 1)

How can you go wrong? The classic series begins at 623 East 68th Street (an address that would have been located in the East River, actually) with the Ricardoes and the Mertzes and all their hijinks. This DVD series is very well executed, with great bonus material like flubs, guest cast lists, production notes, episodes of "My Favorite Husband" (Lucille Ball's radio show pre-Lucy days), and other goodies. Tons of restored material. Still laugh-out-loud good.

Funny Ha Ha

I think I read about this one in a New York Times article about great movies of 2005. I wouldn't call this great, really. It was good. Very indie. All bad audio and handwritten credits and grainy video and small town MA atmosphere. Awkward performances. Lots of long pauses and uncomfortable phone call scenes. Weird relationships. Small town people who drink too much.

Heights

I was more excited about this movie before I watched it, and that excitement waned steadily as the movie progressed. What I liked were the seemingly disparate storylines, and the fact that they found a way to weave together, but ultimately I found nothing redeeming about any of the characters, and kind of hated all of them, and didn't care one way or another where they ended up, if their marriages failed, if they got cheated on, or if their careers went down the toilet. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep during the movie, woke up a little while later, kept watching, and didn't miss a beat.

The Last Seduction

I remember distinctly that there was buzz around this film when it first came out. I even remember, not too awfully long ago, someone referencing this dark thriller-esque indie film, and me wondering why the heck I had never seen it. I was in the mood for something about someone who was sexy and kind of powerful. Linda Fiorentino, in what was, as I recall, her sort of "breakthrough" role as Bridget/Wendy, fit the bill fairly well, although the film wasn't anywhere near as raunchy or edgy as I'd hoped, which is perhaps due in part to the ten plus years lag in my seeing it since its release. Bill Pullman was creepy/annoying as her screwed over husband, and plots like this one, where someone is continually scheming and accomplishing misdeeds like murder and extortion and such, makes me wonder "are there really people like this in the world?" I suppose, yes, there are. I liked that I never got too far ahead of the plot myself, but I wished I was more sucked in and awed by what I saw. I really liked, but not loved, The Last Seduction.

2005 in Review (AKA Playing Catch-Up)

Life happens, and even though I spend a lot of my life watching movies, either at home thanks to Netflix or my own quietly growing collection, at the movies (hooray for the ArcLight), or via my beloved tv-on-dvd addiction, I don't always write up a little something about what I watched. Obviously that's the purpose of this little tangent blog. So I kind of stepped aside for a few months. Oops. Oh well. I added to the sidebar the names of all the movies I saw, or things I watched. Some, like Mary Poppins, are obviously re-watches. Some, like Match Point and Brokeback Mountain I just saw over the past couple of weeks in the theatre. Here's a quick lowdown on 2005.

Best movies I can't believe I never saw before, AKA "Hello, Barbra!": The Way We Were and Funny Girl.

Best movie with a young and scary (the hair!) looking Megan Mullally: About Last Night. You must know, I love Ms. Mullally to the moon and back. She cracks me up in this movie. Her hair is also scary in Risky Business, but if you blink you will miss her pass by on a staircase, cig dangling out her mouth.

Worst musical I paid money to see: Rent.

Best movie-with-music I paid money to see: Walk the Line.

Most laughs out loud in a theatre: 40 Year Old Virgin. Who knew?

Worst Netflix decision: Best Man in Grass Creek. Dear god, I couldn't get it out of the dvd player fast enough.

Best movie shot with a hand-held digital: Everything Put Together. (I liked this one more after listening to the commentary. Before then I didn't take it too seriously, but hearing about how it was made led me to respect the production a hell of a lot more.)

Best tv show I fell in love with the year before it ends: Will & Grace.

Best tv-on-dvd: This is a tough one. I love Will & Grace's Seasons 3 & 4 releases because of the bonus features. I also really think the I Love Lucy dvds do an amazing job of adding features, despite the fact that it's really hard to do that with a 50 year old show, but their quality blows me away. I was really excited for Cheers to get past the "Diane" years, but there are no bonus features and the packaging is ugly; I am happy to watch though, because those shows are terrific. Brady Bunch is also ugly packaging, but fun to watch (I forgot to list that in the sidebar). The O.C.'s second season was nowhere near as good as the first. ER is addictive, but not a high favorite, for some reason. I was really looking forward to Moonlighting, but I think I'll be happier with the later stuff, like season 3, which comes out next month. I'm still waiting for more Murphy Brown--now that I want badly! And good old Golden Girls...hard to pass them by, because that stuff is funny even after seeing an episode twenty times--I still laugh out loud! So, no easy winner here.

Big props to: Brokeback Mountain. Match Point. Me You and Everyone We Know. Happy Endings. Adaptation. The Last Picture Show. Swimming Pool. The Swimmer. The Aristocrats. The Family Stone. The Squid and the Whale. Shopgirl.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Either too quirky or not quirky enough. I haven't decided. I also couldn't watch the whole thing. I love the set, I love the hyper-reality of the underwater world. I love Bill Murray. I love the man singing Bowie covers in foreign languages with an acoustic guitar. I love absurdity. I did not, however, love this film.

Dirty Pretty Things

I hate it when an entire movie is foreplay, and then you're left with a sort of metaphoric set of blue-balls because some character takes the high road and decides to go back to his kid in like Africa or something instead of following that cute girl from Amelie to New York like he should have, so that he could score some action. You know he wanted it. Actually, I liked this movie a lot more than I'm copping to; it was very clever and engaging and disturbing, and also sad. Audrey Tautou is stunning, and the other actors were phenomenal, particularly the hotel hooker and the sleazy boss man. I liked the use of color in this film, too. But, come on, at least make out a little. Be a man.

The Year of Living Dangerously

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...... oh, sorry. That's just me, snoring. Because I fell asleep. It was the only exciting thing I could do. That is, it was the only thing in the world more interesting than watching The Year of Living Dangerously. There's a reason why Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver have never topped my list of favorites. There's also no need for an Asian/Australian midget man who takes creepy black and white pictures and talks like a girl. I lived dangerously and pressed play. I was saved by shutting it off.

Match Point

Ah, the first movie I saw in 2006. Saw it on a very rainy, very chaotic day at the ArcLight in Hollywood. I found the cinematography utterly stunning. This is just simply a beautiful, lush, vibrant, breathtaking to look at film. This is also not what one might think of as a "typical Woody Allen film" for which I'm thankful. That is because lately his films have stunk on ice and also because it's fantastic to see him break away from his stock character, either himself as himself, or someone else pretending to be him (see Will Ferrell, "Melinda and Melinda." Actually, don't see it, it hurts to watch. Trust me.) and also for him to move past neurotic romance and into this far more dangerous territory. Set in the swank uppercrust of London society, Match Point is a riveting glimpse into a costly and sizzling, to say the least, extra-marital affair. It doesn't glorify the extra-marital affair, although it does imply that for the very privileged, one way out is to do something far worse than cheat on your wife. It also implies that everyone has their cost, meaning there is a point for everyone that you have to hold on to or where you decide to cash it in. People, and situations, have weighted values beyond the dollar or British pound, in this case. This was a very well-made film, and has given me much to think about, granted the situation is extreme. A friend of mine that I saw the film with remarked to me afterwards, "I wonder how many people in that theatre thought to themselves 'I can relate, I've been a party in an affair'?" Indeed. Well done, Mr. Allen. May this be just the start of a new phase in your now-salvaged and illustirous career.