fun stuff from FlickFilosopher stats week of Jul 20-26 2013
Actual unretouched phrases that people plugged into search engines this week that led them to this site (with some commentary from me)…
Clark Gable
question of the day: Who should play Higgs Boson in the movie?
I see Jeremy Renner as Higgs in an action drama about an elusive man on the run from pursuers who simply will not rest: perhaps they cannot rest, because they’re cyborgs…
question of the day: If ‘Huck Finn’ is better without the word “nigger,” what movies could be similarly improved?
We should start by removing all the violence from The Godfather — that gives children terrible ideas! — and all the dead corpses from Schindler’s List: so unpleasant!
question of the day: Is Ashton Kutcher the new Clark Gable? And if not, who is?
Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir appears to be absolute in earnest when he suggests that Ashton Kutcher has “massive star potential,” in spite of the fact that Killers has just bombed at the box office. Well, perhaps “bombed” is too strong: estimates right now peg the misbegotten spy comedy with a debut of a little over $16 … more…
Up in the Air movie review: you are not your frequent-flyer miles
There is a thrill of recognition to *Up in the Air* — and a horror of recognition, too…
‘Gone With the Wind’ 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition: wow
There’s box sets, and then there’s this 70th anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition Gone With the Wind set, which is just insane. In a good way, of course. If you’re looking for an impressive Christmas gift for a lover of this movie, this could be pretty sweet. And if he or she is one of those … more…
Public Enemies (review)
I’m wildly intrigued by *Public Enemies* even though I readily concede that character development is all but nonexistent, and that it leaves me more wanting to know who notorious bank robber John Dillinger was than I did before I went into the film.
Australia (review)
If director Baz Luhrmann had decided to shoot in black-and-white, you’d hardly be able to tell this wasn’t made around 1939 or so. Sure, all those gorgeous helicopter shots of the wild and dangerous and beautiful Outback would be a dead giveaway, so they’d have to go. But otherwise…
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (review)
So what the Coens did with O Brother, Where Art Thou? is this: They transported Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey to this filmic otherworld of theirs, turning what is perhaps the original on-the-road story into a Depression-era fantasia that wants more for you to recognize the clever fun they’re having with filmmaking conventions of the 1930s than whether you know the least thing about ancient literature.
Gone with the Wind (review)
If you love Gone with the Wind, you must see the restored version that’s new to video. The remastered soundtrack is crisp and clear, and Max Steiner’s lavish score sounds wonderful, but it’s the cleaned-up film stock that astounds: Victor Fleming’s 60-year-old movie looks like it was shot this year.
