“Looks sort of like a burnt pork-chop, if you ask me.”

So, if you walk into HMV one of these days (because you’re looking to buy me a present) you’re likely to see Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima on the New Release wall. Both of them are 2-disc Special Editions and both of them are currently listed at $29.99. If you look a little closer you’ll see something called the ‘Battle for Iwo Jima’ box set. This set includes both of the titles I just mentioned, as well as a two-hour documentary on the battle itself called ‘Heroes of Iwo Jima’. It is currently listed at $49.99.

That’s right, you can buy both Special Editions for $60 or you can buy both Special Editions and a cool documentary for $50. I think I know who is going to spend the $60. It will be the same lady who was ahead of me in line one day. Her conversation with the teller went something like this:

Teller: Ma’am, oddly enough the DVD you are purchasing costs $22.99 on its own, but if you buy another DVD from the same section your total cost will be only $19.99.

Lady: Hmmm. No thanks, I want to save my money and I only want this DVD.

Teller: Um, I don’t think you understand. You will be saving money if you go grab another DVD. It will be three dollars less.

Lady: It sounds like a good deal but I’m not interested.

Teller: …

Me: Uh, ma’am, if you go grab another DVD, that DVD will be free and the DVD you are purchasing will be three dollars cheaper.

Lady: No thank you.

That woman does not deserve to own DVDs. Or money, for that matter.

Anyway, now that my little rant is done, allow me to tell you a bit about Flags of our Fathers which I had a chance to watch last night.

"Everybody saw that damn picture and made up their own story about it."

It’s pretty good. It’s almost what I expected it to be. For many parts it’s ‘Saving Private Ryan’ on a different piece of land. It has really big explosions.

I won’t go into plot details, partly because I hate writing about plot details, but mostly because I loathe writing about plot details. ‘Flags’ is about that famous picture, but it’s still not what I was expecting. In fact, I didn’t really know the truth about that picture until watching the film and I have to admit that I was surprised. The details surrounding the photo itself and the War Bond Drive afterwards are sobering. It was one thing to see it in a movie, another thing altogether to realize that it actually happened.

Apparently that photo is the most reproduced photo in history. Having the facts behind it makes that statement all the more intriguing. You’ll just have to see it for yourself and although it sounds cliché I have to admit that heroes are definitely something we create ourselves.

"This isn't just any island to them. This isn't Tarawa, Guam, Tinian, or Saipan. This is Japanese soil, sacred ground. Twelve thousand Japanese defenders in eight square miles, they will not leave politely, gentlemen! It's up to us to convince them."

Anyway, the film is pretty good. It’s not great but it definitely has a very interesting story to tell. Or rather a very interesting truth. It wasn’t at all what I expected or thought I knew.

The battle scenes are top notch. They use the same style as those in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ which is startling in its authenticity. If you like a good war scene you certainly can’t go wrong with ‘Flags’.

I’m really looking forward to seeing ‘Letters from Iwo Jima’ now. The Japanese are a faceless enemy in ‘Flags’ and, from what I’ve heard, it’s the complete opposite in ‘Letters’. The two films certainly go hand-in-hand and watching one can only enhance the other.

Unless you know something I didn’t know, you’ll never look at that photo the same way again.

“Yeah, it’s a dumb movie thing, but what do you want me to do, lie about it?”

I like films that break the 4th wall and do it well. For the uninformed, “breaking the 4th wall” refers to those moments when a character in the film directly addresses the audience in some way. This is not to be confused with narrating, which is simply a means of progressing or explaining the story (for the most part. I’ll get to that later). Breaking the 4th wall is deliberate and direct communication with the audience. Ferris Bueller does this a lot. He looks directly into the camera and tells us how to fake out parents and that you can never go too far.

I think I enjoy these moments so much because it’s the film’s way of saying “Hey, I know I’m a movie and I’m not going to take myself too seriously, so just sit back and enjoy.” One of the most annoying comments I hear about films is “It was too unrealistic”. Really? You want the film to be more realistic?! Isn’t the point of going to a film to escape reality for a short time (or a ridiculously long time)? People say “There’s no way that character could have survived that!” Are you serious?! You’d prefer a film where the main character dies in the first 15 minutes? You’d stand up and say “Well, that was certainly short and pointless, but at least it was real.”?!?

"For example..."

Ok, I’m kind of going off on a tangent here, but the point is that I like it when a movie recognizes those situations and takes a brief moment to simply remind us that we’re watching a movie, not real life. If you want real life, leave the theatre (or basement, in my case). Having said all that I can appreciate that we may not necessarily want reality, but we don’t want to be treated like idiots either. It’s perfectly acceptable for James Bond to be able to survive a jump out of a 3 story building as it explodes while simultaneously shooting four bad guys and landing in the driver’s seat of an Aston Martin convertible, uninjured. It’s not acceptable for Bond to simply fly out of harm’s way or turn invisible (without the aid of Q, of course). Both situations are totally unrealistic, but the former fits within the world we’ve been presented.

Yeah, so I think I went off on another tangent there. What was my point?

Oh yeah, the fourth wall.

‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ breaks the fourth wall. A lot. And it’s perfect. I found the movie all the more entertaining because it keeps reminding us that it’s just a movie. Relax. Chill out. This is not reality. This is movie. Suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the ride.

I was supposed to come back to the narrating bit. The main character in ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ narrates a lot and actually does break the fourth wall through his narrating, despite the fact that I said narrating is not to be confused with breaking the fourth wall. Did you get all that? If you’re at all confused, just watch ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ and then watch ‘Stranger Than Fiction’. One breaks the fourth wall. One narrates. Well, they both narrate but ‘Stranger Than Fiction’ is the example of narrating I’m referring to here. Er, there. Somewhere.

Anyway, the point is, I really liked ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ and ‘Stranger Than Fiction’. You should come over and watch them with me.

Also, James Bond films are fun.

How’s that for a review?

"Failure is not an option!"

I love my friends and family.

Thank you all so much for the very supportive comments. You've definitely inspired me to get back on the blog-wagon. I think I'm going to take all your advice and find new ways to post my reviews, perhaps keep them a little shorter and continue to find my own voice. So stay tuned! You'll be able to live vicariously through my movie-obsession in no time.

I also have to pat myself on the back for managing to title this entry, and the last one (sort of), with Apollo 13 quotes. It just seems to fit the phase my blog is going though.

"Gentlemen, I believe this is going to be our finest hour."

"Blog...we have a problem."

Here I am again, trying to determine what killed my blog. I still love movies as much as ever but I somehow lost the desire to blog about them. It would be great if I could somehow find that inspiration again.

I doubt anyone is even checking this blog anymore, but on the off-chance someone stops by, please leave a comment and give some advice on what I could do to re-kindle the fire. As I go back through old blog posts I am really proud of how my writing evolved and I think the movie reviews are quite good. I want to start doing that again. But how?

Sigh. One day, blog. One day.

I'm mostly no longer blogging....mostly

It would appear that I've been lacking in motivation to keep my blog up to date and I'm still not sure why that is. Hopefully I'll get back into high gear again one day, but for now it sure looks like I'm more excited about watching movies than I am about writing about them.

Which is too bad, because I've been watching a lot of really great movies lately. I'm particularly excited about the James Bond films. I picked up the James Bond Ultimate Edition Volumes 1 through 4 and have been watching the films in chronological order. I realized that I actually haven't seen most of the early films. I can certainly see why so many people agree that Sean Connery is the only "real" Bond. However, I grew up watching Roger Moore so it will be interesting to go back and re-watch those again. A good friend of mine and I are actually planning the James Bond Obscene-a-thon for sometime in the summer. That's right, all 20 James Bond films in a single weekend. I can't wait!

I recently hosted a Star Trek Ridiculathan which was enjoyed by myself, Vince and Chris. I was a little disappointed in the video quality of Generations but that's probably only because I'm a movie-snob. I would seek professional help but it would really cut into my movie-watching time.

The Oscars are on Sunday and I've actually managed to watch a few of the Best Picture nominees. The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine were both excellent. I really hope Martin Scorcese finally wins a well-deserved Oscar for his work. It's hard to believe that such an iconic filmmaker has never won a single Oscar. Babel also came out on DVD this week and I look forward to finally seeing it.

Well, that's all for now. I would still love to hear from anyone who has some thoughts on why blogging can become such a drudgery, or better yet, some suggestions on how to make it more enjoyable and regular. I'd love to have an up-to-date blog with many readers; how do I do that?

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. Give me a call if you want to watch a flick together. It's truly one of my favourite things.

What happened?

Well it's been over a month since my last blog entry and I can't help but notice that my entries prior to that were somewhat sporadic. What happened? When did blogging about movies start feeling like a chore? I've been thinking about that a lot lately and quite frankly I don't have a good answer.

Is this the end of 'Down in Front'? I certainly hope not, but it does look like I need to figure out why blogging started to feel like a "must do" instead of a "get to". Perhaps a change in my review-style is needed? Maybe fewer, full-length reviews and shorter, more frequent blog entries on movie-related topics would be better? It's something I need to figure out and I would love your input on the subject.

Despite my lack of blogging material I have been watching plenty of movies and enjoying them more than ever. The DVD collection is growing to obscene proportions and I'm ok with that. More importantly, and critically, my wife is ok with that. Thanks Shauna, I love you more than movies!

Some of you may have noticed that the link to my collection and wishlist has not been working. I have now switched to a new site (www.dvdspot.com) and I must say that it is very impressive. The link to the right should be working now and I encourage you to take a look. The statistics page is very interesting. You can use the tabs along the top of the page to see which movies I own, which ones I want to own (hint, hint), which ones I've been watching and occasionally which one I'm going to be watching next! It's a DVD collector's dream come true!

In the mean time I'll be thinking hard about this blogging thing. I don't want my blog to die as so many tend to do. Hopefully you'll be hearing from me again soon and hopefully I'll hear from you with some thoughts or suggestions.

Cheers!

"If somebody built it, somebody can unbuild it."

Happy New Year!

I think I’ve finally recovered from the holidays and although there were a few sleepless nights (sick dog), overall it was a pretty good Christmas break. I hope all my readers had a very Merry Christmas and are enjoying a wonderful New Year!

The Christmas holiday was particularly good to me as far as DVDs go. The collection continues to grow, nearly keeping pace with my obsession for good movies. One of the first that I watched in 2007 was The Score, starring Robert De Niro and Edward Norton. This is a great little caper film with some terrific acting and several entertaining twists.

Nick Wells (De Niro) is an aging jazz club owner and a professional thief. Priding himself on never taking a long-shot Wells is thorough and precise in his “business” and is strongly considering retirement. All that changes when he meets Brian (Norton), a mentally challenged janitor at the Montreal Customs house. Only Brian isn’t who he seems either and it isn’t long before the two team up to steal a priceless sceptre from the nearly impregnable customs house. Working with Wells' fence, played by Marlon Brando, the trio must get in, get out and get rich. It’s the classic caper formula and it works well in the case of The Score.

"It takes discipline because this whole game is one big long shot and if you don't have the discipline to stay away from the fliers or from the gambles or whatever else you wanna call a stupid move then, my friend, I'm afraid to say, one day you will go down. It's inevitable."

It may come as a surprise to some readers to learn this list of high profile actors (you can add Angela Bassett to the list, as Nick’s girlfriend) was directed by Frank Oz. You know, Miss. Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Grover, Yoda. That Frank Oz. Although this certainly isn’t the first time that he’s sat in the director’s chair. The Stepford Wives, What About Bob?, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Little Shop of Horrors are just a few of his other accomplishments. It should come as no surprise then to learn that Oz does a great job in bringing The Score together into a terrific heist film with some worthwhile acting and dialogue.

The single-disc DVD presents the film in an Anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen format, which is always a good thing. The transfer itself was quite good though I did notice a few scenes that appeared grainy. It’s hard to tell if that’s because of the transfer or because of the filters used during the scenes. The Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is equally impressive. It won’t blow you out of your seat or anything but it does a nice job of setting the mood and presenting clear dialogue and effects. No complaints here.

"I like your place. You got good taste."

As for bonus features (and yes, I’ve actually watched most of them), there’s not much to tell. A “making-of” featurette is included but it’s really just 10 minutes of promotional material for the film. You know the stuff; actors talking about how great their characters are, the director talking about how great the film is, writers talking about how great the dialogue is, etc. There’s virtually nothing in there about how the film was actually made. A few deleted and extended scenes are also provided, including a rare look at De Niro and Brando improvising a scene several times. Most viewers would probably find this tedious but I was interested to get a glimpse two incredibly accomplished actors doing their thing. A theatrical trailer and director commentary round out the rest of the bonus material.

"When was it you started thinking you were better than me?"

If you enjoy a good heist film then you certainly can’t go wrong with The Score. Norton’s performance is worth it alone and there are enough gimmicks and twists to keep any caper fan happy. It should also be noted that The Score was Marlon Brando’s last, complete film. It’s definitely worth a look.

The Score gets 8 surveillance cameras (out of 10).
Stick to the plan and click here for ‘The Score’ trivia.