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Dirty Harry (1971) - 3 out of 5 .44 Magnum rounds

Watching this, it is very apparent that the movie is over fifty years old. It feels like it from the start and throughout it. Things are said and done which would never fly today. And yet, it was still a good movie.

I Am Not Your Negro (2016) - 5 out of 5 stars

James Baldwin: The story of the Negro in America is the story of America, and it is not a pretty story.

Here is a description of the movie, written by Jwelch5742 on IMDB:

In 1979, James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project, "Remember This House." The book was to be a revolutionary, personal account of the lives and assassinations of three of his close friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin's death in 1987, he left behind only 30 completed pages of this manuscript. Filmmaker Raoul Peck envisions the book James Baldwin never finished.

I admit struggling to find words for this film, as it is so important to tell stories which I have zero direct experience with. But it is a reminder that a movie which came out seven years ago about an intellectual who died almost forty years ago, and discusses the lives of three great men who died longer ago than that - is still timely and important today.

James Baldwin: Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it has been faced. History is not the past. It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history. If we pretend otherwise, we literally are criminals.

Contact (1997) - 5/5 Stars

The universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space.

I love this movie. It's truly fantastic and nails the hopeful dream of science, and the headwinds it faces at every step of the way. I apparently hadn't spoken of my love of this movie to Katie before, but I would consider this movie among my top 10 science fiction films of all time, possibly higher.

Of course the movie is based on the book written by Carl Sagan. Sagan didn't live long enough to see the movie, but he worked on the film and reportedly did his best to keep it heavily based in science.

Legendary

Barbie (2023) - 4/5 Barbies

A truly fantastic movie. An amazing commentary on society from top to bottom, delving into what it is to be human.

Kalki 2898 AD looks awesome as hell!

This is being hailed as the most expensive movie ever to come out of Bollywood. And from this trailer, it looks awesome and I am definitely going to try and see it.

IMAX requires a 21-year old Palm Pilot to run in theaters

Several fascinating tidbits in this article, primarily around the use of the 21-year old Palm Pilot, but also just around the fact that only 30 theaters in the world can actually project the film as Christopher Nolan intended.

The Palm-powered QTRU system is actually a relatively high-tech part of an otherwise extremely manual process. Yves Leibowitz, a longtime projectionist, has made a number of popular YouTube videos documenting the process of loading a film, which requires setting up the enormous reels in exactly the right place, manually threading film through a number of rollers and platters, and constantly checking and rechecking to make sure everything's lined up and ready to go.

In most of his videos, you actually get a brief glimpse of a Palm device set up next to the QTRU, but Leibowitz never seems to need to touch it. In every case we've seen, though, it's an actual physical device. The emulator appears to be a new phenomenon, and in fact, IMAX told Vice it was created specifically for Oppenheimer. "IMAX Engineering designed and manufactured an emulator that mimics the look and feel of a PalmPilot to keep it simple and familiar for IMAX film projectionists," the company said. The emulator, if you're curious, appears to be running on a Winmate W10IB3S-PCH2AC-POE Panel PC, a 10.1-inch Windows tablet that appears to have been designed to live outside of conference rooms and help people control schedules and video conferencing.

The obvious question here is, why in the world would IMAX still run its systems on a 21-year-old device? And why, when faced with the need to update it, would it choose to simply emulate said 21-year-old device on a crappy Windows tablet? Other QTRU systems have a controller built into the machine itself, which seems better in every imaginable way.

For IMAX, like so many other companies that rely on generations-old technology, the answer is simple: it works. And it's not like it's a booming industry in need of reinvention. There are only 30 theaters worldwide that can even show a full 70mm print like Oppenheimer, 19 of them in the US. Most IMAX experiences are digital now, like most moviegoing experiences in general.

Fast X (2023) - 2 out of 5 car explosions

The movie is a montage of cameos, nonsensical plots and over the top stunts all in the name of family. As a die hard fan of the franchise, I loved it. As a moviegoer - wow it was thin.

Movie idea

Remake Nine to Five but do it for the dictator of a small country.

A solid proposal

Rebel Without a Cause (1955) - 4/5 red jackets

Tonight we watched this classic for the first time. The story is a bit hard to follow and reading more about it reveals how much subtext there was which we missed, but it was still an excellent movie and makes me so sad that we didn't get to see more of James Dean.

The Booksellers (2019) - 2.5/5 Rare Books

Watched from LA to Seattle today. I came across it on Amazon Prime and downloaded to my plane for the flight.

Overall it was interesting, but there was no central tentpole aside from looking at rare book buyers, etc. It starts to suggest books are dying, then it points out they aren't. It says the book buyers are the final generation, and then has some who are optimistic.

It was an interesting insight into these people, but yeah - it meandered and left me at the end wondering what I could have watched instead.

The Lost Leonardo (2021) - 4/5 Mona Lisas

I ended up watching this documentary on the way down from Seattle to LA and found it quite interesting and entertaining. It's an interesting story with a lot of twists and turns along the way.

It follows a story about a possibly discovered lost painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, the "Salvator Mundi" aka "The Savior of the World" which depicts Jesus Christ. I was recounting the documentary to friends last night and it is a wild story. It also puts, front and center, the very real truth that high end collector art is used for washing funds (central to this story is a Russian oligarch) and also for general tax evasion, etc.

It also definitely reminded me how much I enjoy documentaries. Need to watch more.

To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995) - 3.5/5 high heels

What a delightful film from a bygone era.

"I don't think of you as a man. And I don't think of you as a woman. I think of you as an angel."

Babylon (2022) - 2 out of 5

Continuing our Brad Pitt theme today, Katie and I found ourselves watching Babylon this evening. And, I think the two featured quoted on Rotten Tomatoes really nail it.

Babylon's overwhelming muchness is exhausting, but much like the industry it honors, its well-acted, well-crafted glitz and glamour can often be an effective distraction.

Babylon has some entertaining moments and its ambition is impressive, but the movie's chaotic and disjointed execution makes it difficult to really enjoy.

I found it slow and uninteresting once it left the frenetic initial pace of early film making. And ultimately I asked myself why I cared about this movie and I struggled to find an answer.

Bullet Train 2 in the works

I just watched this with Katie, having watched it myself a few months ago. It's like a cross of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie good time. And I'm glad to hear they're working on a sequel.

Heat (1995) - 4 out of 5 Guns

Finally watched this movie with Katie tonight. Neither of us had seen it before. The cast in the movie is incredible.

Seattle International Film Festival buys Cinerama

Cinerama was the movie theater that Paul Allen funded as a fan of movies. It closed in 2020 and has been since then. Well, that changes soon. SIFF announced it has purchased Cinerama.

I remain thrilled at Jack Black as Bowser and dubious of the rest.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022) - 3 out of 5

Definitely overdue in watching this, but I just couldn't make it to the theaters and haven't had a major drive to dive into the movies again (still haven't seen the new Ant Man either.)

We put it on tonight and overall I enjoyed it. I loved the silent opening montage to honor Chadwick Boseman, and overall I liked the story. I enjoyed the Mayan origin they gave Namor and think it's an interesting way to manage the dynamic of the character.

It's also interesting to know more characters after having played Marvel Snap. I didn't know who Ironheart was, for example, and now I do.

Sharper (2023) - 2 of 5

I mentioned in passing yesterday that Katie and I watched this on AppleTV+ yesterday. The cast looked solid and is what pulled me in.

Sadly, this movie was very lackluster. The plot was formulaic and predictable at almost every step of the way. Additionally, one of the cast members was just a glorified cameo. I won't say who, but they were one of the main reasons I was interested in watching and were only in a fraction of the film.

1989 Movies

As a joke tonight I had my wife randomly name a year, to which she responded 1989. I then said we should watch a movie from that year. As it happens, we ended up watching Sharper on AppleTV+. However, now that we are looking at the movies from 1989 I can only be in awe of the movies from that year.

1. Batman
2. When Harry Met Sally...
3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
4. Little Mermaid
5. Dead Poet's Society
6. Road House
7. Do the Right Thing
8. Back to the Future, Part II
9. The Abyss
10. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
11. Ghostbusters II
12. Steel Magnolias
13. Uncle Buck
14. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
15. Say Anything
16. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures
17. Major League
18. Glory

The list goes on. Literally.

Given the modern era of movies, this seems simply incredible.