Ross on Reels


Tuesday, July 23, 2002
I thought making this blog would get me to write more about movies. It didn't. So, consider it discontinued.


Monday, June 24, 2002
Monday at the Movies - Bandits

One of the two movies I watched last night was Bandits. It stars Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thorton as America's most successful bankrobbers and Cate Blanchett as the foil. They rob banks, they find the girl, the girl gets in the way. Suprising plot, eh? There is however a twist in the plot that makes the movie a little above average. It's funny, there's some action, and with three actors with as much experience of those 3, the performances help carry the movie, too. I'd recommend it for a relaxing, don't-have-to-think-to-much, time-filler. It ears a :-)



Thursday, June 20, 2002
A Beautiful Tuesday

A Beautiful Mind comes out on DVD Tuesday. Time for me to buy my first DVD in a few months.



Tuesday, June 18, 2002
Another beginning

I decided to put all of my Movie Posts into their own blog. I like movies, and I like talking about movies. So here's where I'll do it.

I'll still post movie stuff on my usual blog, but if I have long reviews, I'll link you over here.

I went ahead and put all of my previous movie posts here, almost all in order. I missed one. Get over it.

So here it is, the debut of my Movie Blog.

Fade in to guy sitting in front of computer typing...



**Missed this one when I was putting stuff in, so it's out of order**

Monday at the Movies: Proof of Life and The Rookie

Proof of Life

This is a thriller starting Russel Crowe and Meg Ryan. Well, as you can guess by those two names, it's not bad. The action is good, the plot is good, the only thing I didn't really like was the ending. It was... awkward. I don't know how to explain it other than that. I'm not going too much in detail on this one. It's getting a :-|

The Rookie

Wow. This movie was awesome. It's the first movie in a long, long time I would go back to the theater and pay another seven bucks to see. The acting was incredible, the story was amazing (it's hard to believe it's true), and everything just fit together perfectly. I had read that some people thought the first hour was slow, but I disagree with that. I thought the whole thing was great. The only minor problem I had was they had this little (absolutly adorable) boy and I think they used for too many "awwww" camera shots. They milked it a little more than they needed to in my opinion. But yeah, this movie is now third in my list of favorite movies. (1 Moulin Rouge, 2 Beautiful Mind) kudos to Disney for not ruining this story. The Rookie gets Monday at the Movies' first :-D



Movie List Update

I realized a two movies I forgot and saw an outstanding movie last night. So these changes are being made.

Spaceballs, a classic I forgot will go in #36

Goonies, THE classic which I also somehow forgot, goes into #23

K-PAX (which I saw last night) was incredible and Kevin Spacy was amazing. I'm putting it in slot #13.

All others are moved accordingly.



The List

Although I haven't put enough thought in it, I got to 50 movies and decided to be done with it. There are some movies (i.e. The Godfather trilogy) that I felt deserved to be on here, but I haven't seen them for long enough to know where to rank them. So here are 50 movies, all which I've seen in the last year or so, that I am declaring my favorite fifty. (If I think of others I forgot, I'll let you know.)

50) The Usual Suspects
49) Stepmom
48) Fight Club
47) Simon Birch
46) Serendipity
45) Miss Congeniality
44) The Mexican
43) The Fugitive
42) Life is Beautiful
41) Cider House Rules
40) Mission Impossible
39) Airplane!
38) Waiting for Guffman
37) Waking Ned Devine
36) Independence Day
35) Men in Black
34) My Best Friends Wedding
33) Notting Hill
32) Jean de Florette/Manon of the Spring
31) Gone in 60 Seconds
30) The Negotiator
29) All the Presidents Men
28) Save the Last Dance
27) Dead Poets Society
26) Batman Series
25) Enemy of the State
24) Chocolat
23) The Rock
22) The Emperor’s New Grove
21) Ace Ventura 1 & 2
20) Gladiator
19) Austin Powers 2
18) Legally Blonde
17) Pulp Fiction
16) Spiderman
15) The Matrix
14) Rush Hour 1 & 2
13) The Fast and the Furious
12) The Princess Bride
11) Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
10) Mallrats
9) Office Space
8) There’s Something About Mary
7) Ocean’s Eleven
6) Almost Famous
5) Meet the Parents
4) Monty Python and the Holy Grail
3) A Beautiful Mind
2) The Rookie
1) Moulin Rouge

Also receiving thought: American Beauty, Forrest Gump, Snow Day (just kidding), A Walk to Remember, The Perfect Storm, and many more.



Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

I'm going to start working on a list of my favorite movies. Hopefully someone will care.

**Update - I have 37 at the moment. I'll sleep on it and think of what I'm missing. I'll shoot for 50.



Monday at Movies Part Deux

I thought since I was talking about Will Smith being awesome before, I'd post some of my movie favorites and least favorites.

Fav. Actor - Tie Kevin Spacey and Will Smith

Fav. Actress - Julia Roberts

Fav. Drama - Beautiful Mind

Fav. Comedy - Meet the Parents

Fav. Movie - Moulin Rouge

Least Fav. Actor - Tom Cruise (I think he's a horrible actor, what's so great about him?)

Least Fav. Actress - Janine Garaffalo (she just... annoys the snot out of me.)

Least Fav Movie - The Talented Mr. Ripley (it had no ending, it just stopped! it was horrible!)



I saw quite a few movies this weekend. Here's some summaries of what I thought.

Ali - I found this movie very interesting. Will Smith is awesome. Fresh Prince or World Champ, he can do it all.

Bandits - Ok I watched this too late at night and fell asleep, but the first 30-45 minutes were good.

Riding in Cars With Boys - Another interesting movie. Definatly different. I liked it. Drew Barrymore did a great job with the role.

Men in Black - I've see this movie a dozen times but I still love it. I watched it with Alexis so we can go to the sequel this summer. I'm really looking forward to it. Once again, Will Smith rocks.

Spiderman - I told myself I wouldn't buy into the craze, but I ended up really wanting to see it. I'm glad I did. I ended up liking it. Not quite as much as the Batman flicks, but the Bat has always been my favorite. I'd never read/watched Spiderman before. I thought they did a good job setting up the whole how-he-became-a-spider thing quickly yet effectivly. Much better than the hour and a half Lord of the Rings took to introduce itself. I have to say though. Peter Parker is a dork. At the end of the movie (stop reading if you haven't seen it even though it's a classic cookie cutter ending) he picked being a guy who dresses like a spider over M.J. (Kirsten Dunst). What the heck is he thinking? His best friend just told him he was going to hunt out Spiderman so why not avoid that conflict and take the girl he has wanted since he was six??? ARGH! What a dweeb! Sorry. Anyways, I give Spiderman the Monday at the Movies highest honer :-D for doing a good set up job, having an enjoyable plot, and setting up the sequel well. Well done, Spidey.



Hey! A Sailboat!

After a fun trip to Polaris, Alexis and I watched Mallrats one of those so stupid it's hilarious movies (i.e. all of Kevin Smith's movies).



A Late Monday at the Movies

Yeah, it's Wednesday, so what.

Last Thursday I got The Sopranos: The Complete First Season DVD set from the library. Since then I've watched the first eight epidsodes. That's all I'm watching. I like the show a lot. The plot is great, the acting is superb, it's dramatic, it's funny, it's great. But I can't get past the graphicness of it. It was like watching an eight hour R rated movie. It was too much for me to take. Like the strip club for instance. Instead of just showing the sign out front to show that they're in the back of the strip club, they felt the need to show the dancers almost every single time. And some of the killings were a little graphic for my liking, too. I know it's a show on HBO not NBC, but still. I can only handle so much of that. I don't think I should have to fast forward and/or hide my eyes two or three times in some epidsodes, the nudity gets ridiculous and it's not even necessary to the story. Like I said, the acting was awesome. And I really got into the story line. But too much is too much. And I've had too much.



Monday at the Movies

Last night I enjoyed two movies, both for the second time.

Stepmom starring Julia Roberts and Susan Serrandsomethingorother is a chick flick about, you guessed it, a stepmom. I do really like this movie. Otherwise, I wouldn't own it. But yeah, if you like chick flicks, you'll like this. It gets an :-)

Gone in 60 Seconds is a fast-paced, grand-theft-auto film staring... the guy from Family Man... and The Rock....and Face/Off.... shoot... I can't think of it. I think it's John. Anywho. It's an ok movie with a lot of nice cars. I think I like The Fast and the Furious better, though. I'll give it an :-|



Monday at the Movies: Memento leaves too many questions

Memento is a Pulp Fiction wanna-be starring Guy Pearce (Madonna's hubby) and two Matrix alumnists (Carrie-Anne Moss and the bald, bad, pirate lookin' guy, I don't feel like looking up his name). I really wasn't that impressed. It takes Leonard (Pearce) and his story of losing his short term memory from one point and works from the end backward and from the beggining forward at the same time using b&w and color to distiguish. At the end it meets in the middle. Like I said, it tries to be like Pulp Fiction, mixing things up, but it doesn't work. At the end I was still confused about a lot of things. In movies like this, everything should make sense at the end. I had to go back through the film and try to figure some stuff out again. That shouldn't have to happen. Momento had been up for
Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing at last nights Oscars and won neither. Good, it shouldn't have. The screenplay wasn't well done and the editing, while some was good, wasn't Oscar quality. I was doing some homework every now and then, so maybe I missed a key element or two but I thought I was paying close enough attention. But there is that small chance, so I'm giving it: :-|



Monday at the Movies: Opening Act

Since usually watch at least one (if not four or five, lol) movies over the weekend, I thought I'd start doing some reviews on Monday. I'm starting Memento right now, so that will be my first review.

*** At the end of writing the Memento review I realized I need a rating system. I'm going with the internet friendly e-motions
Tremendous = :-D
Good = :-)
Eh.. it was ok = :-|
Lacking much = :-(
They call this a movie? = :-p

Also, feel free to leave your thoughts on the movies