Texas Ranch House

Although it was broadcast about 3 years ago, I just got around to watching PBS's Texas Ranch House on DVD. It's 8 episodes and gets off to a slow start but quickly becomes engrossing. After the last episode I got so obsessed with it that I watched the whole thing all over from the beginning.

Then I went to the internet and found a number of old discussions of the show.

Watch the whole show, all 8 episodes, before you read the discussions.

Here's the original casting cal from 2005

PBS’ Texas Ranch House now casting.
If you’d like to spend the summer and early fall living in 1867 Texas, apply now for PBS’ forthcoming Texas Ranch House. PBS and Thirteen/WNET are searching for “Wranglers, Cowhands, Cooks, Vaqueros, Ranchers, and anyone interested in taking part.” They want people “who have what it takes to build a ranch, ride the range and ultimately deliver a herd of cattle to a market over 100 miles away.” The site also reveals that “volunteers will be fully immersed in the inner workings of a ranch house: building corrals, rounding up and branding cattle, taming stallions, and preparing for a two week cattle drive—all the while tending to the daily needs of themselves and their livestock.” The show’s FAQ covers all of the bases, including what kind of guns and ammo will be distributed (none), and how much cash you’ll get (a stipend only). Applications are due March 18, and production is scheduled to start in June.

Southern Rockies Nature Blog was also sucked into the show. I particularly liked his tongue-in-check characterization of the last episode.

all the cowboys left angry and joined the Industrial Workers of the World

The Detective

Great movie.

From 1951. With Kirk Douglas. It's like a long version of a dramatic episode of "Barney Miller". And it doesn't get better than that.

The movie was adapted from a Broadway play and is entirely set in the detective bullpen area of a Manhattan police precinct. (a couple of scenes are set in the Lieutenant's office, the rear of a paddy wagon, the roof of the precinct station, and on the sidewalk in front of the precinct station.)

Lynda watched it with me and she wondered whether a Manhattan police station would have had a black uniformed officer in 1951. I think it would have -- the white detectives would have needed a black officer to do the booking fingerprints of any blacks that might have been arrested. In 1951 white cops didn't like touching blacks -- that darkiness might have rubbed off on them.

Almost everything about the movie rang true to me.

Movie reviews

I sometimes review movies on this site but not as often as I see movies, and when I do a review it's usually not as much quality in a review as I'd like. I'm usually not happy with my own reviews.

One site that does a much better job than me keeping up with the movies is screenrant.com

Top 100 Movies - Cool Hand Luke

Cool Hand Luke belongs on anybodies top 100 list of movies.

Gangster Movies

I'm a little late with this.

AFI lists their top ten gangster movies as

The Godfather
Goodfellas
The Godfather, Part II
White Heat
Bonnie and Clyde
Scarface: The Shame of a Nation
Pulp Fiction
The Public Enemy
Little Caesar
Scarface

I'd have to take The Godfather, Part II off the list and put My Blue Heaven. It's a gangster comedy, but I liked it a lot.

Also, how can the leave a Coen Brother's gangster movie off a top ten list? Miller's Crossing has to be on the list. I don't think I've ever seen White Heat, a Cagney movie from 1949. So take it off the list to make room for Miller's Crossing.

Also, there's a couple of Martin Scorsese films that belong on a top ten list -- The Departed and Casino.

Again, since I havn't seen them, take off Scarface: The Shame of a Nation, a 1932 film directed by Howard Hawks, and The Public Enemy, a Cagney movie from 1931, to make room.

Although more of a caper movie than a gangster movie, Reservior Dogs belongs on the list also. So take off the last one on the original list that I havn't seen, Little Ceasar.

Scarface I've seen. And I didn't like it. So take it off the list. Add Analyze This to round out the revised top ten.

That makes my top ten list


The Godfather
Goodfellas
Bonnie and Clyde
Pulp Fiction
My Blue Heaven
Miller's Crossing
The Departed
Casino
Reservior Dogs
Analyze This

Indiana Jones

I saw Indiana Jones. It has an absurd story line, but the movie is a lot of fun.

It's Rocky, Bullwinkle. Boris, and Natasha meets Edd Byrnes and ET.

I highly recommend it.

Indiana Jones

I started making plans to see the new Indiana Jones movie as soon as I heard it was coming out. Then I noticed that Vanity and Poker really disliked the movie.

What's that all about?

Rotten Tomatoes likes it.

movies.yahoo fans give it a B-.

That doesn't sound so bad.

But some of the yahoo viewers didn't like it at all. They seem to all be insane.

For example, a viewer who gives the movie a D- says

What would you say if I told you I survived a nuclear blast by cramming myself into a frig.

I'd say, "that would make a cool movie".
Another view, who gives it a C, says

As realistic as a cartoon.

Duh

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It must be good if the French like it.

Hairspray

I recently saw the 2007 version of Hairspray. It has a great cast, lot's of fun singing and dancing, and a good story. But for some reason I just couldn't get interested.

I had the DVD in the player and I'd watch a few minutes and shut if off and do something else. Then a day or two later I'd do the same thing. It actually took me a couple of weeks to watch the whole thing.

I don't know why. It was enjoyable. It just didn't engage me. I really just can't recommend this movie, even though I can't point to any particular flaw in it.

Borat

This movie really disappointed me.

Basically it's just a guy being a jerk. Some people try to be tolerant of his behavior, some people not so tolerant. Then however they react he tries to make fun of them.

It just doesn't work. It may have made a funny 10 minute skit on some late night TV show. 90 minutes of it is just way too much. Maybe if I was 12 it would work better.

Donnie Darko

I don't know why I ordered this movie from NetFlix. I guess because of the name I somehow thought it was a parody of Donnie Brasco. It's not.

It's about some upper middle class kid who feels all alienated and has some problems with getting along with people and has schizophrenia. When I was 16 I was a Rolling Stones fan and thought Beatles fans were pussies so I probably would have identified with his angst. But I'm not 16 anymore and I got over it.

You'll like it if you're 16 and feel like an outcast. You'll identify with him. It's pretty dark though.

Reno 911 movie

I like Reno 911. I was disappointed by the movie.

The TV show is slapstick. Three stooges with badges. The characters are more than just exaggerated, they're cartoonish. The episodes have some kind of plot line but the plot is just a string to hang a series of jokes on. The point of the show is the jokes, not the story. The characters don't have any substance, they just drive the jokes. The show is funny. I like it.

The movie tried to use a plot line to drive the action and tried to make the Reno Sheriff's Department into kind of real people. That doesn't work for me.

Simpsons - The movie

I saw this on DVD the other day. As I expected, I really enjoyed it. Good movie.

There's really not a lot to say about it. It's a Simpsons movie. A 90 minute episode of The Simpsons. How can it not be good?

It was actually better than an episode of the TV show I think. One of the things I've noticed about the TV episodes is that often there's a disconnect between the first 1/3 of the show or so and the last 2/3. It's like the writer's started off in one direction then just abruptly change their mind about where the story is going to go. Sometimes that kind of bothers me in the TV show. In this movie the story actually seemed to me to flow better than it typically does in the show. I liked that.

Cloverfield

I saw Cloverfield yesterday. Good movie. I recommend it.

It's a thriller, it's scary, it's engaging. It's a monster movie, but the monster doesn't drive the story, the monster drives the scary but the story is driven by feelings of love, friendship, and a sense of duty on the part of the characters. That's a refreshing change from the typical monster movie type thriller.

It has some absurd little plot details but the story is done so well that you barely notice the woman running down the streets of Manhattan in heels for half the movie or the woman impaled through the shoulder by a 3 foot long piece of rebar sticking out of the concrete who just minutes after being lifted (yanked?) off the rebar is running down the streets (at least she's not the one in heels).

I'm not normally a fan of thriller movies, but I liked this one. Go see it.

Crash

The movie Crash is running right now on FX. I've seen the movie before, I saw it when it was originally released. It won 3 oscars, including Best Picture of 2005. I liked it and am going to watch it again. I'm doing some other stuff while I'm watching but I'll go ahead and kind of live blog a review of it. It's racial themes are probably one reason it won Best Picture.

It starts out with a car crash during opening credits. The characters introduced during that crash are an Asian woman, a Hispanic police detective, and a black police detective. The Asian woman and the female cop exchange a few racially charged words.

The next scene is an Arab (actually Iranian it turns out) guy trying to buy some bullets in a gun shop, but he doesn't speak English very well, so his daughter buys them for him.

Scene three is two young black guys walking out of a restaurant complaining about the poor service they got because of their race. Then they car jack an upscale couple on the street.

It's a movie of racial conflict if those initial introductory scenes haven't clued you in. It is a little heavy handed.

The story doesn't really start until the fourth scene when the two cops (the woman and the black guy) are investigating a shooting between an undercover cop and a couple of black guys in a Mercedes (the hijacked car).

Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars. Here's what Roger Ebert says about the movie

"Crash" tells interlocking stories of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals, the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless, all defined in one way or another by racism. All are victims of it, and all are guilty it. Sometimes, yes, they rise above it, although it is never that simple. Their negative impulses may be instinctive, their positive impulses may be dangerous, and who knows what the other person is thinking?

The result is a movie of intense fascination; we understand quickly enough who the characters are and what their lives are like, but we have no idea how they will behave, because so much depends on accident.

The movie isnt' really very linear and I'm only partially watching it. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't seen the movie before I'd have no idea what I'm watching. So I'm going to stop blogging.

It is a good movie. But you need to pay attention and I'm not doing that right now.

Texas History

I caught the first 5 minutes of The Alamo, the 2004 version. It's awful. It doesn't seem they get one damn thing right.

It starts out with Crockett still a congressman from Tennessee and Houston trying to sell land. Crockett is talking to Houston about the new Republic.

Two problems with that, right at the git go. Houston wasn't a land promoter, Austin was the land promoter. And the talk of a Republic didn't really come until later.

Also, they have Houston saying that "Tennessee can go to Hell". It was Crockett who said that, after losing an election.

Then they flash forward to the revolution, and portray Houston as a drunk. Bowie was the drunk, Houston drank a lot later in his life, but not at the time of the revolution.

Then they show Travis and his wife in Texas talking about a divorce. Travis had left his wife back in Alabama, having left to escape a manslaughter charge after he killed his wife's boyfriend.

I changed channels at that point. I'm not sure they got one detail right.

Gunner Palace

The DVD opens with a GI in combat gear playing a Jimi Hendrix riff of The Star Spangled Bannar. Where did I hear that before?

Filmed in Bagdad in 2003, four months after Bush announced that major combat operations had ended.

An interesting documentary, but nothing you didn't already know. It was probably worthwhile 4 years ago. Today it didn't really hold my interest.

Trailer Park Boys

I ran across the DVD's for this on Netflix. The reason I'd never heard of it before is that it's a Canadian TV show.

It's not as good as My name is Earl but it's pretty good.

I was expecting a show about rednecks, and it's close, but Canadian rednecks are a little different from Southern rednecks, so it's not exactly right. But I still love the characters, every one of them is a misfit with pretty much no place in society outside the trailer park. Or in jail.

"Ricky can handsle one thought at a time. You throw two or three at him and he's gonna fucking train wreck."

Steal This Movie

Jimi Hendricks playing the Star Spangled Banner as the introductory credits roll sets the tone and the time setting of this movie.

It's the story of Abbie Hoffman. I was in the Navy during the Chicago Police Riots of 1968, and was a college student during Hoffman's trial, so I remember most of the stuff and thought I'd enjoy the movie. It was interesting, I'm not sure I really enjoyed it though.

It basically played like a badly put together documentary, not really much of a story. Before this movie my impression was that Abbie Hoffman was much more pro Abbie Hoffman than he was anti war. After watching this movie that's no longer just an impression, now I'm sure of it. I don't think that's the message that the movie maker intended to convey however.

btw, I was fairly strongly anti war then and am now. I was just never impressed by Abbie Hoffman and I'm still not.

The Desperate Hours

I'll never understand why they don't make movies like this one any more.

There's nothing special about the movie, it's just an old Bogart movie. He's one of a group of 3 escaped convicts holed up in a house with the standard nuclear family of 1955, mom, dad, big sister, and little brother.

The movie was based on an event that actually occured in 1952. In 1953 it was a mystery writer's award winning novel. In 1954 it was a Tony winning play. Then this movie in 1955. They didn't waste any time back then.

It had to have been cheap to make, no special sets needed, no special effects, just riveting drama.

It's worth the time. It was remade in 1990 and the reviews aren't good for the remake, but I havn't seen that one. The 1955 version is well worth it.