Anyway, on to movies. (I'm so far behind that some of the movies I saw in the theater are now available on DVD.)
- Mystery Science Theatre 3000: The Beginning of the End (Borrowed from Teena.)
- Roman Holiday (Borrowed from the library.)
- Collateral Saw with Teena.
- Ju-On: The Grudge Very scary. Also good at showing you things the characters don't notice or only catch out of the corner of their eyes. I think this was much better than the American remake with Sarah Michelle Gellar, but that may be because I saw this first & knew what was coming. I should rent this & watch it again to see if I think it's still as creepy.
- Babylon 5, The First Season: Signs & Portents This isn't as good as I remember it being when it was first on. However, it does an excellent job of setting up things for later seasons (which I think will hold up better).
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Saw with Teena. Although I had a few problems with the premise (there's now way a process like that would get FDA [or whatever] approval), this was really good. It was a reminder of how good an actor Jim Carrey can be. The plot reminded me of something from a Philip K. Dick story, so that's good.
- Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends, The Complete First Season Terrible animation, but wonderful cartoons. Excellent writing, with stuff for both kids & adults.
- Garden State Saw with Teena. Excellent. Who knew Natalie Portman could actually act? (It's not like Lucas has given her much to work with.)
- Samurai Jack, season 1 Gift from Teena. One of the best of Cartoon Network's original programs. Kick-ass action.
- MST4K: Rocket-Ship X-M (Teena.)
- Jaws Believe it or not, I had never seen this movie before. From cultural osmosis (not to mention the Mad magazine parody), I had picked up the plot & new about most of the startling scenes beforehand, but still a very good movie. What happened to Spielberg?
- South Park, season 1 Watched with the audio commentary on CD (& which is only available if the DVDs are purchased directly from Comedy Central).
- The Ring: The Final Chapter This is a Japanese TV series (13 episodes) that says it's a sequel to the Ringu movies, but it feels more like a variation on a theme than a sequel. All in all, not terribly scary.
- MST3K: Fire Maidens of Outer Space (Borrowed from Teena.)
- Classic Commercials Old commercials are amazing cultural artifacts. The 70's public service announcement "VD is for everybody" has to be seen to be believed.
- MST3K: The Human Duplicators (Borrowed from Teena.)
- Farscape, season 2 Damn the Sci-Fi channel for cancelling this show. Probably the best SF on TV in a long time. (Library.)
- The Anniversary Party
- Lou Reed: Transformer
- Waking Life
- MST3K: Zombie Nightmare (Borrowed from Teena.)
- The Last Wave Seen as part of the 2004 H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
- The Resurrected Another selection of the HPLFF
- The Crimson Cult 60's adaptation of an HPL story.
- At the HPLFF I also saw a selection of shorts, including an adaptation of "Dreams in the Witch House" which has to be the most incompetently made movie I've ever seen. Nobody seems to have told the editor that you can cut out long seconds of dead air at the beginning & end of scenes. The performers seem to have had acting described to them but never actually seen it done before they tried it. The ferret playing Brown Jenkin was entirely too cute to be believable as a horrible witch's familiar. For some reason, the witch was made up to look just like the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. And they did an excellent job on her make-up. The entire movie is terrible (in an entertaining way), but they did an amazing job making that woman green.
Well, I'm still not caught up on movies, but the library is about to close. If I can, I'll update again before the end of the year.
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