Marcia E. Letaw's Blog, page 7

Christmas Movie Countdown: Christmas Vacation

Probably the funniest Christmas movie ever at least in my universe! Just one hilarious scene after another, and that’s the way I like it because Christmas is a time for feeling good, so all movies on my list will be feel-good movies as well as being better than Shawshank. Christmas Vacation was written by John Hughes which fact I mention because I’ve looked into the future, and there’s more of his on the way.

Book Reviews: The Museum of Innocence

“He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him! I’ll chase him ’round the moons of Nibia and ’round the Antares Maelstrom and ’round perdition’s flames before I give him up!” This quote taken from the Star Trek movie: The Wrath of Kahn, pretty well sums up my feelings towards the novel: The Museum of Innocence. It tasks me! Written by Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk in 2008, it is set in a 1970s Istanbul, but time period doesn’t really matter because, as with all the Pamuk novels I’ve read so far...

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Star Trek (2009)

She’s back, different but the same, and even though J.J. Abrams changed up Star Trek history with some time travel action, he didn’t forget the essential element in every Star Trek movie: backing her out of the garage in all her splendor.

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Star Trek IV, The Voyage Home

In Star Trek IV, the crew of the Enterprise must travel back to 1980s Earth to save the world by importing a pair of humpback whales into the future. Of course, they’ve lost the Enterprise and are forced to travel in a Klingon Bird-of-Prey; doesn’t that just suck! Here they are with the Golden Gate in the background trying to fit in with the 2oth century. Star Trek IV bolsters a strong story line with plenty of humor and as always, the characters, or are they real people, seem like family. Go...

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Star Trek II, The Wrath of Kahn

Wait a minute; whose wrath are we talking about! Yep there’s Capt. Kirk with Genesis in the background. He seems to be having a bad day which is always what happens when he meets up with Kahn.

For me, The Wrath of Kahn was the first of the Star Trek movies and certainly one of the best. I like to forget that first one ever happened; Gene Roddenberry probably does as well. In any case, The Wrath of Kahn is filled with great Trekian chemistry and new concepts like the Genesis project and a ful...

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Metropolis (1927)

Today, while I was writing a review of Emile Zola’s immortal novel: Germinal, I thought of Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang, this silent film from 1927 has had a number of face lifts over the years. My personal favorite is the 1984 version in which Giorgio Moroder added a soundtrack with music by various rock artists including Adam Ant and Freddie Mercury. The screenshot to the left gives the impression that Metropolis is a robot movie and places it in the sci-fi genre, but to my mind it’s...

Book Reviews: Germinal

Germinal, written by Emile Zola: For years it sat on my bookshelf looking handsome in its Everyman’s suit; calling out to me, heaping guilt on my head, and yet I heeded not. “Who wants to read a book about coal miners!” I replied, envisioning some muckraker style epistle. Everyone knows already what a horrible life is the life of a coal miner!” Came a day when I couldn’t find anything I wanted to read; desperation set in; I removed the book from its longtime home and started read. From the fi...

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Sunshine (2007)

Sunshine, directed by Danny Boyle, holds its own among such giants in the sci fi art film genre as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 a Space Odyssey, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, and Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. As with all of these films, plot and characters take a back seat to imagery and music in conveying meaning. The experience therefore becomes as intimate and personal as listening to music or staring at a piece of art. The soundtrack is amazing; the imagery is awesome, but it is the both of...

250 Movies Better than Shawshank: Interstellar

Thanks to Cassie and Harley for reminding me about Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Thescreenshot to the left was the best I could come up with to suggest a film that goes well beyond the usual depictions of the space beyond human direct experience; in fact, looking at screenshots is just like looking at art in a book: just not the same as up close and personal. It’s a must see movie but best enjoyed as an art film rather than action adventure.

The 250 Movies Better than Shawshank: The Red Tent

And they’re off to the north pole, General Nobile and crew in a blimp no less! Based on a real life adventure that ended rather badly, The Red Tent is not your every day kind of adventure/ disaster movie. Directed by Mikhail Kalatozov and starring Peter Finch as General Nobile and Sean Connery as the ghost of Roald Amundsen (It’s Nobile’s fault that he’s a ghost).

Yes there’s Sean Connery in blond overseeing the trial of General Nobile, a trial that proceeds each night in Nobile’s mind. He’...