Once Upon A Time

Yesterday, I spent much of the day doing filing for my mother. I didn’t accomplish much, all I really did was put the papers I was filing into different piles, by the time I finished doing this I suddenly felt sick and didn’t do anymore. It dawned on me during the course of the day that I still hadn’t finished watching season three of Battlestar Galactica, I blame Virgin Media (never shall I forgive them). So, as I filed and sat on my living room floor thinking about how ill I felt, I started watching Battlestar again. For the life of me I couldn’t remember where I left off so I began from the first episode. I haven’t watched much Sci-Fi recently so it was good to get back to what I had been neglecting.

I lent my laptop to my mother in the evening and suddenly I was without anything to watch. I looked at my DVD shelf and not one thing appealed to me, I need more DVDs. I decided to go through all my recordable DVDs to see what I had recorded over the last few months and hadn’t gotten around to watching. It was then that I stumbled upon Once Upon a Time in America on a disc with My Beautiful Launderette. I’d taken my time to watch it largely due to the length, it’s 4 hours long. Anyway, for some reason I started watching it at 11pm. This is something I don’t usually do because of something I call, “The Godfather Effect”. This basically refers to something that happens to me when I watch films late at night, and it has happened to me most often when watching The Godfather. The Godfather never comes on before 10pm, so whenever I watch a 10pm showing I start to fall asleep by 11ish. I just can’t seem to help it.

Back to Once Upon a Time in America. I started watching it at 11 expecting to fall asleep by 12, this didn’t happen. After 3am I finished watching it and couldn’t believe 4 hours had passed. The story didn’t seem slow or boring, I was engaged throughout the whole film. I’m glad I saw the 4 hour version as apposed to the shorted version as I don’t see how it could be edited down. I’m sure the storyline must suffer quite a lot. All in all, I’d say it was great film, it has easily become one of my favourites. As soon as it finished, I wouldn’t have minded watching it again but that would have meant going to bed after 7 and I usually wake up around 8. I’m thinking of watching it again right now.

A few days ago I was talking to someone about Crash (the Paul Haggis one) and why I have problems with it. As I was explaining this, I decided that I should probably watch Crash again as it had been a while since I saw it. There was strong possibility that I made it worse in my head so my motivation was the unreliable nature of human memory. So, I watched Crash again. My opinion of it is no higher. It’s just so obvious in it’s exploration of problems in society, and human nature, I found it hard to watch. Apparently, loads of people are racist and there are many ways in which racism can be represented. Who knew? What I can commend Crash on is the performances, on the whole they’re very strong, but apart from that, blah.

I can’t believe I written so much but failed the write about the fact that I saw The Dark Knight last Friday. It was a good watch. “ONLY and good watch” said the internet. Damn right, I said only. The thing is, the theatre was packed, I had a really bad seat and when I see certain films with my sister I can’t help but see what her reaction is. So, it wasn’t the best viewing experience. I’m going to see it again this week with my brother, his seat was worse than mine, I’ll comment on it again then.

Goodbye Godfather, Hello Dark Knight?

I never thought I'd see the day. Ever since I started using imdb so many moons ago, the top of the list had always housed The Godfather part 1. It was then followed by The Shawshank Redemption and The Godfather part 2. Today, I was randomly pondering whether The Dark Knight had gotten into the top 250 yet, not because I’d seen it and thought it was great (which I haven’t), but because there have been quite a few previews for it and with most films nowadays, as soon as they come out, they receive a surge of votes and end up in the top 250. This year this has been the case for Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indy 4, Wall-E and many more. So, I went on imdb to check The Dark Knight’s position and my gosh, I saw something I’ve never seen before. The Godfather was not in the number one spot. The Dark Knight had topped imdb’s top 250.

The question is: Is this further evidence that imdb’s top 250 is not reliable and valid or Is The Dark Knight the greatest film of all time? At this time I cannot comment, I’m yet to see The Dark Knight, as mentioned previously, it isn’t in the running to be my favourite film due to my clown problem but it may still turn out be a great film. I’m yet to get over the shock of seeing The Godfather at number 2. Strange. What one needs to remember is that this is the initial reaction to the film, this may be the responses of all The Dark Knight fan boys who where going to give it 10 stars regardless of how good it was. Then again, Empire gave it five stars (out of five). Oooo, I feel so conflicted. There’s a strong chance that it will go down, like I said before, more than four other films from 2008 got into the top 250 when they came out, only two remain.

I Give The Godfather 1 out of 10

Being the movie nerd that I am, I spend a huge amount of time on imdb.com. Naturally I turn my attention to the message boards. Unfortunately, this is often a rather unpleasant experience. There is always someone who goes into a message board starts a thread with an ingenious name such as "This film is so rubbish" and then never returns. They give no justification for their comments, why? Because they probably have none. They're too simple minded to realise that they are watching a cinematic masterpiece (yes you imperfectpete from the Pan's Labyrinth Boards) .

A great thing you can do with imdb is look at the distribution of the ratings given by the users. 15533 people have rated The Godfather 1 out of 10. 1 out of 10? The Godfather? I am most certainly not the hugest fan of The Godfather but I can appreciate that it is a masterpiece. Few films are a 1 out of 10 except maybe Trees 2: The Root of All Evil (I'll get back to that).

I have the great honour of being a female under the age of of 18. This demographic seems to give out the most ridiculous ratings conceivable. The average rating of Rashômon for females under 18 is 2.7. Rashômon is a masterpiece and it is shocking that they cannot realise this. Many see subtitles and think "Oh no, it's foreign". Fools I tells ya!

Now, for your reading pleasure the plot synopsis for Trees 2: The Root of All Evil:
As Christmas approaches, Ranger Cody prepares to do battle with an army of carnivorous trees that may be from a special branch of the ominous National Forest Service.

Good Times