Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Monday 26 January 2015

Popcorn movies: a top 6

We like a good popcorn movie too here at the Projector. Some we can tune into whenever they crop up and we sit there enraptured all over again. Here are just some we like:

Nothing can beat Indiana Jones - and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is the classic one can happily watch anytime, all those priceless moments ...
Harrison is also terrific as the President in Wolfgang Petersen's 1997 AIR FORCE ONE, a terrific thriller, with Gary Oldman as the pitiless villain, and Glenn Close as the V.P. We love it when Harrison says "Get off my plane" to Oldman. 

Renny Harlin is another expert at high octane thrillers, we loved THE DEEP BLUE SEA at the cinema and enjoyed it yet again over the weekend on tv. Everything works here, the cast being picked off one by one, led by Saffron Burrows and Thomas Jane (in that wet suit) and that stunning storm at sea which wrecks the research facility containing the super sharks - then there is LL Cool J and his squawking parrot ..... 
Then there is the visual delights served up by Paul Verhoeven, What can one say about STARSHIP TROOPERS that has not been said before. We love every crazy minute of it - those beautiful people showering and those invading giant ants.    

I am not really one for CGI effects as such - I hated the shallow empty TROY and Scott's KINGDOM OF HEAVEN - but it all worked perfect for the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, particularly the first instalment with its perfect creation of  the hobbits' homes and Rivendell and all the characters we loved from Tolkien's books. 

The James Bond franchise got a stunning re-boot with the 2006 CASINO ROYALE. We can (and have) watched that a lot too ... the airport sequence being particularly edge of seat with a great pay-off. Great locations, great villain in Mads Mikkelsen, and a great Vesper with Eva Green ... SKYFALL was more of the same, and we await the next ...

We also go dizzy over Jan de Bont's SPEED with Keanu just perfect buffed up a treat, and of course Quentin's KILL BILL - particularly PART 1, where The Bride takes on everyone in the restaurant scene (where the violence is too stylised and comic to be taken seriously, its like a comic strip) and that delirious duel in the snow with the blue sky, between her and O-Ren Ishii - Lucy Liu in dynamic form!  Cinema doesn't get much better, and what a soundtrack to go with those images...and PART 2 is even better with the Bride buried alive, Daryl Hannah with an eyepatch and that black mambo!. INGLORIOUS BASTERDS is another we like a lot, and I will finally get around to DJANGO UNCHAINED this week ... 
Spielberg needless to say, scores too here with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, JAWS, E.T., those Indiana Jones movies etc. 

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