The President on Late Night

Pretty big event for Late Night as they welcomed President Obama as their first guest. Let's go to the clips.







Oh, we don't have any clips?






OK. It turns out when you make every episode of your show a Barrack Obama campaign ad (Late Night, Late Show, Conan) it makes actually having him on redundant.... and boring.

And this is coming from a fan!

IMDB 250 7.2 - High and Low (1963)

High and Low (1963)

When a wealthy businessman receives a call that his son has been kidnapped and is being held for ransom, he and his wife panic and agree to pay the money. A few minutes later, their child walks into the house after a day of playing. The kidnapper has taken the wrong boy but insists on the ransom anyway. The family must decide whether to pay the ransom or risk the life of someone else's child.

As a big Akira Kurosawa fan, it's interesting to seem him make a film set in fairly modern times (modern in the 1960's when it was made). There are suits, thin ties, cocktails and cardigan sweaters. It's almost Kurosawa meets "Mad Men". But the theme is still just as classic: will an ordinary man sacrifice all his wealth and possessions to save someone's life? Feeling pressure from his wife, the police and his business partners, it's still the decision of a single man and his conscience.

Where the film weakens is when it strays from this intriguing sociological experiment. The question of the ransom is only a third of the movie - the other two thirds is dedicated to finding and capturing the criminals. The film transforms into a 1960's police procedural drama. Although well crafted and with significant twists and turns in the case, it's still quite a let down, particularly as there are currently a hundred "CSI" and "Law and Order" shows running around the clock doing essentially the same thing. This movie gets a pass for doing it first, but still, it's not the same.

6/10.

Total "Top 250" Movies Seen: 351.

Richter Remodels

For no known reason, Andy Richter decides to help a staffer redo his bathroom.

See the video here.

[Edit: Now, embedding video causes it to automatically play when loaded which screws up my blog. So I'm just posting links.]

Levon Helm

The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

The Band - The Weight

The Band - All La Glory

Conan Stars in Halo 4

Conan and Andy will star in the upcoming (?) game Halo 4. Fortunately, they brought a camera crew to film them virtually single-handedly crafting the game:

IMDB 250 7.1 - Stalker (1979)

Stalker (1979)

Somewhere beyond the barbed wire fences and guns of a dystopian future city, lies a mysterious area called "The Zone". Is it the site of a nuclear meltdown? Is it the work of aliens? No one knows. There is rumored to be a place within "The Zone" called "The Room" where a man's wishes become reality. Two men, the Professor and the Writer hire a man (known as a "Stalker") to lead them to it.

Filmed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War on a non-existent budget, "Stalker" features minimal dialogue, minimal music, minimal editing, no special effects and the first 40 minutes are black and white. To say that it's slow is an understatement - it moves at a glacial pace. The actors - when they do speak - debate the nature of God, existence, life, science and art. It's as if Ingmar Bergman made a science fiction movie.

All that said, and even though I generally don't like Ingmar Bergman, I like "Stalker". The main strength is the cinematography. The cinematography of this movie is among the best I've ever seen in any movie. You can pick a frame of this movie at random, frame it and hang it in a gallery and it will probably belong. The sepia-tinged black and white of the first part in particular is simply perfect.

Besides the cinematography, the other main strength is the writing. Tension builds slowly as the men navigate the Zone and questions start to stack up. I found the mystery of "The Zone" and the exploration of a strange world and its other-worldly possibilities undeniably interesting. It's somewhat reminiscent of "Lost". In that aspect, the sparse dialogue only adds to the mystery. Less is more.

Obviously, "Stalker" is decidedly an "art house" film. The pacing is extremely slow, shots are extremely static, the existential conversations, the fact that it's subtitled combined with the almost 3 hour run-time all means that it's not for everybody.... or even a lot of people. But if "art house" movies don't scare you and you don't mind a movie that challenges your attention span, "Stalker" is a must-see.

8/10.

Total "Top 250" Movies Seen: 349.
Also, IMDB has split the double feature "Our Hospitality/Sherlock Jr." into two separate movies so....
Total "Top 250" Movies Seen: 350.