Year: 2005

Bird on a Wire

“Bird on a Wire” was on TV and I just couldn’t miss it. I had to watch it because it was one of my favourite movies back in 90s, and also because I very often confuse and cross-reference episodes of this movie with “Overboard“. That is probably because both of them are good movies of approximately the same years, both of them feature Goldie Hawn as a one of the main characters. Mel Gibson and Kurt Russell are also two of my favourite action actors, and they even were together in a movie called “Tequila Sunrise“.

Anyway, the movie is a good old action. Some corrupted governent agents, who used to use Vietnam war veterans to transport drugs, are trying to get rid off one of these veterans who could send them all to jail. Car chases, gun fights, fist fights, some romance, some cool talk, few jokes, and good amount of explosives all make for a good action movie. Even now, 15 years later it still impresses and keeps one glued to the screen.

7 out of 10. Favourite quote: “She: … I need rest, I need a bath, I need a bed, I need a pedicure … He: And I need a beer.”. ;)

The Ladies’ Man

Watched the second Jerry Lewis movie “The Ladies’ Man“. It was slightly better than “The Patsy” that I watched earlier, but still way too far from anything close to my favourite movie.

Firstly, IMDB does not provide enough categories for this film. Apart from trying to be a comedy, it is surely a musical and a drama. In fact, somehow I think it is more of a drama than a comedy.

Secondly, this film is still slow, predictable, and boring. It has some interesting production concepts like using several similarly clothed men running around to picture a single confused and paniced individual. The cut of the house and camera movement was interesting too. Acting wise there weren’t anything refreshing. The only scene that I particularly liked was one woman’s rehersal with opening of the door. That was good. And that was funny. Episodes with the “Baby” would have been better if they weren’t that predictable. Other than that I didn’t see anything new or impressive.

4 out of 10.

mplayerplug-in

By the way, if you are still using an old way of watching movies from the web, which involves downloading a film and than playing it or associating the file extensions with some programs, than you should try the mplayerplug-in. After you install it, your Mozilla browser (yes, that includes Firefox) will play all sorts of movies in a small part of your browser. You will also be able to control it with usual slow motion, pause, rewind, fast forward, and stop buttons, as well as toggle fullscreen mode. Download either a compressed TAR archive, or an RPM for your version of the Fedora Linux. Screenshots are also available from the site.

Blog television

Some time ago I’ve read somewhere that blogs are a television of the Internet. Well, I do kind of agree to that, but the statement is still arguable. Not any more. With BlogTelevision.net you get exactly that. A syndication of movie clips from a huge number of blogs. Their motto is: “Stop reading and start watching”. Overall a cool site that will eat all your bandwidth limitations in no time. Be warned!

The Patsy

This time around I am trying to close some gaps in my movie watching that go back to 1960s. Particularly, comedy of those times. I rented a couple of movies with and by Jerry Lewis. Since it is already late at night, I just watched “The Patsy“.

In the whole film I found about 3 funny episodes. Neither one of them involved Jerry Lewis though. Don’t take me wrong – he is a comedian and he is good at what he does. It’s just that I don’t like that kind of comedy. Somehow I feel his relation to Charles Chaplin. Olga on the other hand said that he must be an inspiration for young Jim Carrey and Steve Martin. I like something along the Buster Keaton lines.

I’ll rate the film as 3 out of 10, but don’t take my word too seriously on this one. Not my type of comedy. Period.

P.S.: Just to give a fair chance to Jerry Lewis I am going to watch the second movie that I rented anyway. I’ll let you know what I think.