“WALL•E” (DVD)

WALL·E.

DIRECTIVE?

“Iron Man” (DVD)

Iron Man. Yah.

Some superhero based-on-comic movies are just so over-the-top they’re cartoony. “Fantastic Four” is a good example of this.

Some are played straight, if campy. The recent franchises of “X-men” and “Superman” are good examples.

Some are set so firmly in reality you question if they should be considered sci-fi/fantasy. The latest “Batman” movies fit into this example.

“Iron Man” crosses these lines several times. It starts out so realistic (if alternate-timeliney, of course) that you question if it isn’t simply set in our world, 20 minutes into the future. However, it then pops in some bits of magical unobtanium that you accept for the sake of storyline, getting a bit campy. Then it’ll randomly have his first suit (which he built in 3 months in a cave) show flight capability, and a ground impact well beyond terminal velocity with a walk-away scenario for the occupant. Yah, believable. It later turns into a giant mecha fight. And then the head of a Homeland Security splinter department turns out to be Nick Fury. Heh.

It isn’t bad, I just don’t think it deserves to be in the top 250. Well, most of these movies don’t deserve to be in the top 250. In fact there aren’t 250 movies that deserve to be in the top 250. Perhaps I should have aimed for the “Top 50″.

“Into the Wild” (DVD)

Into the Wild is the 200th movie of my original list to get watchified. Woo for milestones. Not so much woo for this movie. I spent 3 weeks watching this in installments. I believe 9 days is the largest gap so far, in entries here.

Perhaps I am getting burned out? Coming up next I think I have “The Godfather”, “High Noon”, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”, “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Iron Man”. Lets see how long it takes to get through those.

“Nuovo cinema Paradiso” (OVATION/Satellite)

Cinema Paradiso. Was what Alfredo did right for Toto? Probably depends on which version of the film you see.

There isn’t a lot to write about very visual movies.

“The Philadelphia Story” (TCM/Satellite)

The Philadelphia Story is another screwball comedy of the “not very silent” era. It is basically the unrelated sequel to “Bringing up Baby”, and marked the start of Hepburn’s dominance of Hollywood for decades to come. It also co-starred Grant and Stewart. There seemed, as well, to be quite a few unresolved throwaway sub-plots. Bah.

This was my 198th. Starting to get numb to these flicks.

“American Gangster” (HBO/Satellite)

I realized after starting American Gangster that I’d seen it before. That isn’t to say that I’d seen this movie before, but this movie is the latest in a line of carbon copies of trueish life stories of various criminals. Several of which, I’ve seen in the process of watching the top 250 IMDB movies. “Scarface” comes to mind.

So rather than review it again, I’ll instead quote an actual entry into Roger Ebert’s answer column (a slightly more prolific and verbose movie reviewer than myself).

Q. Yo dude, u missed out on “Disaster Movie,” a hardcore laugh-ur-@zz-off movie! Y U not review this movie!? It was funny as #ell! Prolly the funniest movie of the summer! U never review these, wat up wit dat?
S.J. Stanczak, Chicago

A. Hey, bro, I wuz buzier than $#i+, @d they never shoed it b4 hand. I peeped in the IMDb and saw it zoomed to #1 as the low$ie$t flic of all time, wit @ lame-@zz UZer Rating of 1.3. U liked it? Wat up wit dat?

It is alway interesting to see the Benjamin Franklins of this world are still lurking. Those that can both subvert the institution and be a base pillar of it.

“Witness for the Prosecution” (TCM/Satellite)

Witness for the Prosecution

“The management of this theater suggests that for the greater entertainment of your friends who have not yet seen the picture you will not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending of Witness for the Prosecution.”

Not bad. Bit british.

“Anatomy of a Murder” (TCM/Satellite)

Anatomy of a Murder.

Haha, murder is funny. I’m just a country lawyer, not used to all your fancy murder.

From what I could tell, the bad guys won in this one. Meh.

“The Lady Vanishes” (TCM/Satellite)

The Lady Vanishes is an implausible little conspiracy tale about a lady vanishing on a train ride, and everyone on the train who saw her being bribed to pretend some other lady is her.

Amusing.

“There Will Be Blood” (DVD)

There Will Be Blood sounds like a promise. They should have said There Will Be Mud. It is a very dirty movie. There was some blood. There was much more mud. And dirt. And dust. And crude oil.

This is a modern period piece. And by this I mean, it tries very hard to immerse itself into the period, but is a product of its time (now), and will probably also age very oddly in the years to come.