An Idiot Abroad Trailer

There's a new trailer for "An Idiot Abroad". Formerly entitled "Karl Pilkington's Seven Wonders of the World" (a superior title in my opinion), the documentary will follow global village idiot Karl Pilkington as he visits the seven wonders of the world.

I'm excited. The show will not air in the U.S. but hopefully the internet picks up the slack.

Keyboard Cat: Redux

He almost got the part of Goofy (and I think he was perfect for it) but now he's got a new role to play instead.

This is so much better than "Apocalypse Now Redux", I can't even tell you.

IMDB 250 Challenge Revision 4 Complete

As you probably know, I have a (continuing) mission to watch every movie on the IMDB Top 250. As ratings fluctuate and more movies are released, movies slip out of the 250 and others take their place so I have to continuously revise my list and watch the new ones to keep up. I finished the fourth revision earlier today, finally watching the movie "My Neighbor Totoro". Here are the latest movies and a few thoughts.

Avatar (2009)

My Rating: 7/10.

Obviously, one of the new movies on the IMDB 250 has to be Avatar. A sci-fi action flick in 3D, it doesn't really need any explanation or any more hype from me. There are few movies out there as polarizing as this one. I've heard that it's the best movie of all-time and I've heard that it's garbage. Straight away, it's certainly not the best movie of all-time. At best it's a lesser retelling of "Dances With Wolves" which IS great and IS amazing and IS one of the greatest movies ever made and yet is sadly not on the current IMDB 250 list). But I also don't want to go too far in the "don't believe the hype" vein to say that it "sucks". I maintain, at least for now, that it is an entertaining movie, that is fairly well-done and kept my interest. So, I have to give it a 7/10 though bordering on a 6 and at the same time, I don't understand what all the "best movie ever" hype was about at all other than mass temporary insanity.

I wonder if it was the 3D experience that did it. Does the sensory experience of amazing 3D imagery elevate it into a "higher" experience? Should that be considered against the usual criteria of emotion, plot, acting, directing, score, etc.? For my purposes, I'm leaving it out and judging it by its 2D aspects. For that, its current position of #109 all-time is a sad joke.

Zombieland (2009)

My Rating: 6/10.

I don't remember much about this movie. I could sum up my review of it in three words: it was alright. Attempting to blend comedy with action/horror and taking advantage of the "zombie craze", it occasionally succeeds. But it's not a terrific success and you'd be better off rewatching "Ghostbusters" or "The 'burbs" (a severely underrated movie). The special surprise cameo (which I won't spoil) was completely wasted, I thought. This movie since being on the list of 250, has slipped out of it which I think is absolutely correct.

Unadjusted for inflation, this is the highest-grossing movie in the US to begin with the letter "Z".

My Neighbor Totoro (1988)

My Rating: 5/10.

Another anime movie and it seems all anime movies on the list have the same elements in common: they all are beautifully animated and feature hyper-surreal, hyper-imaginative visuals. As best as I can recall, they're all "family" movies as well. This movie is no exception. With their mother in sick in the hospital, two sisters and their dad move into a new house that's said to be haunted by forest spirits. With their father's encouragement, the two sisters soon find the tales to be true,

There's nothing wrong with this movie, it's fine as far as movies for kids go but there's also nothing that stood out for me either. The visuals are very nice and maybe if I was watching it as a kid I would feel differently but as it is, I didn't really like or dislike it. Therefore a 5/10.

Blood Diamond (2006)

My Rating: 7/10.

Probably the best movie on this short, arbitrary list, "Blood Diamond" tells the story of a group of people caught in the blood diamond trade (diamonds from Africa whose profits are used to fund civil war). Leonardo DiCaprio is suprisingly good and Jennifer Connelly doesn't hurt the movie either. The strongest performance is Djimon Hounsou who probably should have been Oscar-nominated. This movie is well-written, well-directed, and well-acted. It's very good but a bit too long and ventures too far out into the "action movie" territory to rise to the level of being great. My 7/10 rating borders on an 8.

Movies This Revision: 4.

Average Score: 5.75.

Best Movie This Revision: "Blood Diamond".

Total "Top 250" Movies Seen: 333.

Remix The Clips

Time once again for another episode of "Remix the Clips". This is one of my favorite editions of this segment. If this song were released... I might buy it.

Radical Audience Suggestions

Late Night has a new segment where they take audience suggestions from the suggestion box. Such suggestions included "thumb mud wrestling" and "can I go to the bathroom". But I particularly found this one interesting:

Now, I don't want to be the one to evacuate the death star in our moment of triumph but something must be said. The original music is missing. It's probably a digital rights thing that they couldn't legally clear the epic track "Break the Ice" by John Farnham but come on! A huge percentage of the radness of that opening depends on the music. The movie and the song begins with soft, unsure synth only to explode later in a crotch-thrusting atomic guitar explosion. (This is the earliest foreshadowing that our hero, though insecure and unproven at first, will come to know that he's the best in the world in one shining moment.)

To put things in perspective, the clip without the correct music, on the awesomeness scale is an infinity. However, when the clip from the movie has the proper music, the awesomeness goes all the way to infinity squared. These numbers are unofficial but I hope they provide you with some perspective. You wouldn't go up to the Mona Lisa and paint a mustache on her. Why? Because perfect art should be respected.

Here it is in all it's true glory.

Shout Outs

It's time once again to give people and things that are good max respect and big props.

Most of all, big ups to molecular models. BANNGG.