So you just got out of Captain America: Civil War, you’re riding a Cap high, and you’re thinking about picking up some comics. Well certainly feel free to jump into what Marvel is doing right now, but if you do, you’ll find that there are currently two Captain Americas (Falcon took the mantle when Steve was recently incapacitated, but he’s back just in time for the movie! What random luck!), and maybe you don’t want to get into something with a lot of baggage. Here are five graphic novels you can pick up that will keep your Cap fix going (and will probably send you scurrying back to the movie theater). One of the entries has possible spoilers for Cap: Civil War, so read this after you’ve seen the film. Continue reading Top 5: Captain America Graphic Novels (To Keep Your Civil War Buzz Going!)→
It’s really pathetic that I feel it’s necessary to say this, but after having to sit through Watchmen with kids scattered throughout the audience, I feel it warranted. DEADPOOL IS NOT FOR CHILDREN! OK? Parents? No mouth-breathing, troglodyte should let their little kid within a kilometer of Deadpool. It. IS. FOR. ADULLLLLLTS. Some idiots still live with the misconception that all comic books are for kids. After 20 years of the modern super hero movie era, you would think that would be seriously apparent, but I guarantee you that when I go see Deadpool later today, someone is going to have their 5-year-old with them. Continue reading Top 5: Super Hero Movies Not for the Kiddies→
Every month or so, we continue down the of the Top 250 films on IMDB, and examine the top 5 scenes within one of the greatest films of all-time. To review, so far we’ve looked at:
Which brings us to #6: Schindler’s List. In 1993, Steven Spielberg had one of the greatest years of any director in the history of film. That summer he released one of the greatest summer blockbusters ever in Jurassic Park and that winter he swept the Oscars and turned in probably his best film with the Holocaust drama Schindler’s List.
Some movies get labeled as “Important” without deserving it, but if any film must be seen simply because it IS important, it’s Schindler’s List. To some degree, you have to do Spielberg a disservice and put aside the quality of the film itself, which is impeccable. The subject matter, the Holocaust, is a horror which no imagination can ever equal. That Spielberg manages to capture a fraction of the reality behind it, justifies the film’s place in history. No one is ever in the mood to watch Schindler’s List; you don’t pop it in at the end of a long day. Most people, will only see the film once, and it is a defining enough experience that once is all people need to remember.
Humanity has an almost uncanny ability to forget. Movies exist fundamentally as escapism; as a tool to forget. TS Eliot said that humankind can only bear so much reality, and that’s true. Most of us spend our days in a calculated effort to forget the most important things in our personal and collective history. It is that built-in lethargy that we have to fight, because events like The Holocaust can and will happen again if we allow ourselves to forget what we’re capable of doing to each other. Schindler’s List is probably the greatest tool we have to ensure the transference of cultural memory of The Holocaust from the generations touched by World War II to the present and future. It is heartbreaking, brutal and beautiful. These are the five scenes that have stayed with me.
1. The Girl in the Red Coat
Simply the most effective use of color in any film ever made, and in a film of heartbreaking moments; the one that’s seared into my mind forever.
2. I Could Have Done More
When I make fun of Liam Neeson or rag on him for his career post-Taken, I’m comparing what he IS doing to what he CAN do, which perhaps best captured here.
3. The List is an Absolute Good
Ben Kingsley makes any film in which he partakes better. He has an Oscar for being a leading man, but to me he is the one of the five best supporting actors in the history of cinema.
4. The Balcony Shootings
Ralph Fiennes is as revolting a presence as Schindler is ultimately a redeeming one. The casual evil is the most vile.
5. The End
Spielberg has a problem ending films these days, but he didn’t always. It’s hard to imagine any other ending for this film of black and white fiction than to transfer to full-color reality; the surviving (as of 1993) Schindler Jews.
We’ve all been there. You know how it is. Bored to death and staring at a non-stop from LA to DC and so you sit down and open in the in-flight magazine, praying as you furtively turn the pages to the movies section. I have perhaps once….maybe twice, been pleasantly surprised by what I find out will be staring me in the face (should I choose the audio or no) for the next two plus hours. My worst experience *pause to take a slug of whiskey*, was a cross-country flight with Halle Berry’s Catwoman.
Which brings us to #5: Pulp Fiction. Now, the first four films in the IMDB 250, I revere. I, quite frankly, don’t think Pulp Fiction is even the fifth best film from 1994, let alone of all-time. I think it’s incredibly overrated. To me, it’s a good film that showed the promise Tarantino would fulfill later with Inglorious Bastards, but not the apex of his career. I think the film has a great beginning and a great end, but the 90 minutes inbetween are largely forgettable (or memorable only for being REALLY disturbing). I think the writing is lazy. Scripts that drop the F-bomb every other word bore me. I don’t hate the film. Whenever we’re with Jules and Vincent, I fricking love it, but again that’s pretty much the first half-hour and last half-hour. I know this is a Holy Grail movie to some people, so I’m going to stop my criticism and single out my favorite scenes . It goes without saying (yet I’m still going to warn) that there is an extreme violence and potty mouth warning on this column.
1. Ezekiel 25:17
Easily the movie’s best scene is Samuel L. Jackson’s hamburger tasting/Bible quoting show of force. This six minutes is worth watching the whole movie. Whatever issues I have with the film as a whole, I could watch this piece a million times and never get bored.
2. Poor Marvin
How big are the squibs Tarantino uses? I have to think they’re like nine times the size of a normal squib. The shoot-out in Django Unchained is like people are sacks of raspberry jam bulging at the seams. This is a shocker the first time you see it and darkly hilarious in subsequent watchings. Poor Marvin, really.
3. Divine Intervention
Jump to the end of the film when Jules and Vincent get stuck in volleyball clothes following Marvin’s…explosion. Jules ponders the meaning behind their survival and concludes it was a case of Divine Intervention.
4. The Gold Watch
This is how good Christopher Walken is. He has, literally, one scene in the entire film and it’s a monologue about how he’s kept a watch up his butt for years and it is MESMERIZING. Definitely a case of tell being better than show. If only that could’ve held true in the pawn shop basement….yeesh.
5. Royale With Cheese
Probably the two most iconic scenes from the film are this one and the dance contest, likely because they’re the easiest scenes in the film to edit for broadcast television. Your introduction to Jules and Vincent, the scene is memorable for a reason even if it’s been repeated and mocked to death.
