In the category of Sports team Yippie-Kay-Yay is super-de-duper happy to select the amazing awesome incredible bowling movie:
Kingpin
Bill Murray, Woody Harrelson & Randy Quaid are awesome!
In the '70s, Roy Munsen (Woody Harrelson) was a bowling phenomenon. He was none too sharp about picking friends, though, and the champion he had to beat, "Big Ern," takes him under his supposedly friendly wing. Big Ern (Bill Murray) shows him the high-living lifestyle, and induces him to go on the road with him, hustling small-town bowlers. A couple of the men he bilks take exception to the scam, and show their displeasure with Roy by mangling his hand. Twenty years later, Roy (who now has a hook in place of his hand), earns his living as a salesman. On a visit to a bowling alley, he cannot help but notice the incredible talents of an Amish boy, Ishmael (Randy Quaid). Bowling is not part of the Amish lifestyle, but Ishmael occasionally sneaks into the bowling alley and plays a frame or two. Roy takes Ishmael under his wing, and together they begin a quest for bowling success. This comedy is directed by Peter and Robert Farrelly, who also directed Dumb and Dumber.
Siskel & Ebert Review
Here is a gif of Roy Munson's landlady just to keep you awake tonight....
Nice pick, Drunk. I was considering that for my Sports pick.
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Roy: Hey, I hope you don't mind, I got up a little early, so I took the liberty of milking your cow for you. Yeah, it took a little while to get her warmed up, she sure is a stubborn one, whew.
[Takes a drink from the bucket]
Mr. Boorg: We don't have a cow. We have a bull.
Roy: I'm gonna brush my teeth.
__________________
Turn up the good, turn down the suck!
Wildcard #3 for Team NC-17, The Blair Witch Project. The film that made many get motion sickness in theaters. While most of the film was laughable, the last 10 minutes of the movie, mainly taking place in the abandoned house, was absolutely blood curdling.
- The actors were given no more than a 35-page outline of the mythology behind the plot before shooting began. All lines were improvised and nearly all the events in the film were unknown to the three actors beforehand, and were often on-camera surprises to them all.
- Some theatergoers experienced nausea from the handheld camera movements and actually had to leave to vomit. In some Toronto theatres, ushers asked patrons who where prone to motion sickness to sit in the aisle seat and to try not to "throw up on other people."
- When promoting the film, the producers claimed it was real footage. Some people still believe it.
- Before the film was released, the three main actors were listed as "missing, presumed dead" on the IMDb.
- One of the video cameras used by the actors was bought at Circuit City. After filming was completed, the producers returned the camera for a refund, making their budget money go even further.
- This film was in the Guinness Book Of World Records for "Top Budget:Box Office Ratio" (for a mainstream feature film). The film cost $22,000 to make and made back $240.5 million, a ratio of $1 spent for every $10,931 made.
- This film uses the f-word 154 times.
- In a scene where the main actors are sleeping in a tent at night, the tent suddenly shakes violently and they all get scared. This was unscripted and the director shook the tent; they were really scared.
- When the movie was released the town of Burkittsville, in the hopes of making at least some profit from the film, did its own marketing. During the annual summer carnival the local Ruritan Club featured the "Bur-Witch" sandwich - country fried ham and a fried egg on top of a cheeseburger, nestled in a sesame seed bun, and doused with horseradish. The sandwich was the most popular selling item on the menu two years in a row.
It was an absolute cult classic. If you've never heard of the Blair Witch, where the hell have you been?
I think to be one of the first to see it, with the cat still in the bag, would've been a neat experience. Now, I'm not sure I would've fallen for it but it's possible.
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
I guess I call it laughable, cause I didn't see the movie until it came out on VHS. For those of you who don't know what VHS is, it's those big bulky black tape plastic things that go into a machine called a VCR. And at the end of the movie, you have to rewind it.
I followed the BWP on the web before it came out, awesome setup as the website was nothing but a tease, it just left you wondering. There were testimonials, no trailer.
^^ Maybe that's the difference. I had heard about it before it came out, and was told it was real footage, true story, but right when it came out, I found out it wasn't. I didn't see it until a few weeks after it had been released. My friends all swore it was terrifying, even though it wasn't "real" footage. They really built up my expectations, but I was pretty bored with it, until the ending.
The Blair Witch Project. A movie that was built on the myth about it being real. The movie itself wasn't scary until the final sequence and the visuals went way and beyond trying to be amateurish. I have to admit though that the first time I saw this movie I was on the edge of my seat. This was the last movie I saw at the Drive In close to Forest Lawn there. The fact that it was raining and lightning made the experience of this movie seem that much more real.
On Blair Witch: I didn't see it until it came out on video, and my then-girlfriend and I spent most of the movie mocking it. But then she didn't sleep for about three nights afterwards, and I've gotta admit, the image that Prototype posted - of the dude standing in the corner - stayed with me for quite a while too.
I saw the BWP at the Corral 4 Drive-In as well - yeah, that would have been right before the Hub disaster ruined it, so I guess that was my last drive-in movie. Back half of the double feature, I am pretty sure I slept through parts of it. For some reason the only part of the movie I ever really remember is at the beginning, when they are shopping for supplies and the girl filming pushes the lens of the camera into a bag of marshmellows.
Team Pineapple Express is proud to select in the category of Documentary/Non Fiction the film, Sharkwater (2006).
Like many others, I have always had a fascination with sharks, I've always wanted to go shark diving, I watch as much of Shark Week as I can, as well as any other materials I can find. I caught this one by accident on the movie channel, and got quite wrapped up in it.
A somewhat lengthy synopsis from IMDB:
Quote:
For filmmaker Rob Stewart, exploring sharks began as an underwater adventure. What it turned into was a beautiful and dangerous life journey into the balance of life on earth. Driven by passion fed from a life-long fascination with sharks, Stewart debunks historical stereotypes and media depictions of sharks as bloodthirsty, man-eating monsters and reveals the reality of sharks as pillars in the evolution of the seas. Sharkwater takes you into the most shark rich waters of the world, exposing the exploitation and corruption surrounding the world's shark populations in the marine reserves of Cocos Island, Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. In an effort to protect sharks, Stewart teams up with renegade conservationist Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. Their unbelievable adventure together starts with a battle between the Sea Shepherd and shark poachers in Guatemala, resulting in pirate boat rammings, gunboat chases, mafia espionage, corrupt court systems and attempted murder charges, forcing them to flee for their lives. Through it all, Stewart discovers these magnificent creatures have gone from predator to prey, and how despite surviving the earth's history of mass extinctions, they could easily be wiped out within a few years due to human greed. Stewart's remarkable journey of courage and determination changes from a mission to save the world's sharks, into a fight for his life, and that of humankind
I'll admit to not really enjoying Rob Stewart all that much, but the film itself is actually quite stirring, and visually impressive.
To any that might go watch it, there are a number of animal cruelty images in it, so if that makes you squirm, don't watch.
Here's the trailer:
There is some footage that may be a bit disturbing for some, so there's your word of caution.
A short little bit on the making of the film:
The maker of the film, Rob Stewart, on The Hour, talks about making the film, how it originally started out, etc:
Pre-production work revolved around Brian Froud's designs without a finished script. When Froud originally presented Jim Henson with concept drawings for the crystal, Henson seemed totally perplexed. When Froud asked why, Henson said he had no idea what the designs were for. As it turned out, Froud had misunderstood Henson during early production conversations -- Henson intended the film to be called "The Dark Chrysalis," referring to the Skesis dominance over the world. Henson, however, loved the concept art and integrated the idea of the crystal into the storyline.
Early drafts of the script featured Jen and Kira traveling through the underworld where they encountered a race of underground mining creatures. This concept was later integrated by Jim Henson into "Fraggle Rock" (1983) and served as the partial basis for the story of The Power of the Dark Crystal (2009).
Jim Henson personally trimmed twenty minutes from the film after a disastrous preview in San Francisco. Henson also ordered many of the character voices re-dubbed to eliminate some of the invented character languages to make the film more accessible and the plot easier to follow.
going wayyyyyyy off the board for my documentary piece. I saw this a very long time ago and only once. It was nominated for an Oscar in 1980 but most people have never heard of it. My selection is Luther Metke at 94. It is a documentary on my great great uncle who built log cabins into his 90s (he lived to be 100). I never met him, but knew his brother, my great grandfather (who lived to the age of 90).
I really have to try to track down a copy of this.
Metke was brought up on a homestead in Minnesota. He started building log cabins as a young boy, helping other homesteaders, and imigrant families build homes. He enrolled in the US Navy in 1898, at the age of 15, saw battle in the Spanish American War, served in the Philippines, Japan, and China. During an expedition up the Yangtze river, Metke saw the impact that deforestation and uncontrolled logging could have on the environment; this experience would strongly influence his poetry.
Metke returned from service on the battleship Oregon in 1907, at the age of 24. He purchased a homestead in Central Oregon, on the current site of the Sun River Resort. He was a lumberjack, used the two-man saw to fall giant pines, some measuring six feet across, and floated them down the river for sale to mills in Bend, Oregon. Metke also built log cabins and bridges, a craft he remembered from his youth in Minnesota: he wrote that "a man never forgets how to use the old broad axe", the log-cabin building tool of choice for Metke. It is estimated that he built over 40 log homes in Central Oregon (including the grand lodge at Sun River Resort) and built practically every bridge across the Deschutes River. In the 1920s, Metke became a labor organizer, an advocate of labor unions and better working conditions for workers in the logging industry. Metke's years spent homesteading, as a lumberjack and woodsman shaped another of his personal facets and would strongly influence his poetry.
In 1967, Metke settled in Camp Sherman, Oregon on the Metolius River. By then he was known in Central Oregon as a rugged individualist, an environmentalist and a master builder of fine log cabins. No-one suspected however, that Metke was also a poet, and for a good reason: he seldom shared his poetry, never attempted to publish it and shied away from his public image. In fact, he had little regard for poets: "Poems I write have a meaning; they're not about babbling brooks and such" or newspaper and television reporters: "they want to make a hero out of somebody that has no business being one". Though it is unknown when Metke really did start writing poetry, he claimed he started in the 1970s as a means to communicate with his grandchildren. His poems touched on issues ranging from man's relationship with God, nature and aging. His poems aren't regarded as exceptional by literary standards, but express with crushing clarity a way of life that was his and that has vanished: living in harmony with God and nature. Only 12 of his poems have ever been published - these were presented in a documentary - his other poems were destroyed late in his life.
Luther Metke at 94 was produced by Jorge Preloran and was nominated for an Academy Award. It won six film festival awards including first place at the Atlanta Film Festival and the Silver Certificate at the Birmingham International Educational Film Festival. It was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. Luther Metke at 94 documents Metke building his last log cabin, in Camp Sherman (on Metke Lane) at the age of 94 and includes several of his poems
In the Wildcard category, 6DTM is proud to select In Bruges.
I loved this film. My wife did too, and has been telling me for a few rounds that I should pick it. Never thought I'd be picking a Colin Farrell film, but he holds his own in a small cast that includes Ralph Fiennes and Brendan Gleeson (one of my favorite character actors from Britain and Ireland along with Pete Postlethwaite and Timothy Spall). Ebert wonderfully describes him here as 'that noble shambles of a face and the heft of a boxer gone to seed.'
Martin McDonagh's script is overwhelmingly dark and funny, but for a semi-comedy about hit-men, the violence is surprisingly sparse and non-gratuitous. Each death is morally weighted. Nobody, not even these hitmen or their bosses take killing lightly, and the weight of their actions is heavy on each, especially Farrell. McDonagh's footage of Bruges is spectacularly beautiful and fairy-tale-like, but Farrell's unceasing contempt for the city offsets this: I think most people who have backpacked in Europe can relate to the experience of ending up in a city that is as pretty as a postcard, but which just rubs you the wrong way.
It's a film that got a lot of mixed reviews when it came out: hated by some, but likely due to make lofty appearances on best-of-2008 lists in other circles. I'm firmly in the 'love it' camp though; the second best film I've seen this year.
First, I would consider The Dark Crystal a steal at this point. Great use of the fantasy category SJ!
Secondly, if you get a copy of it I may have to borrow it Habby! Would love to see that. Sounds like a fascinating guy.
And finally, In Bruges. This may be my favorite film of 2008. I can't stand Colin Ferrell, but this film changed my mind. Hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time. Great movie!
Well done!
__________________ I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love." - John Steinbeck
