Here is the top fifty of my newly-redone movies list (which currently has a total of 402 movies). This is by far the longest of the lists that I will be redoing for my website. Numbers 10, 16, 17, and 19 are all brand new to my top 20. Originally, when I had first gone to see #17 and had reported it in this blog, I had thought I would place it below the series that started with #20 on this list. But then I saw it again, and it moved up. Good job Mr. Stark.
1 Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The
2 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The
3 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
4 Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The
5 Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
6 Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
7 Star Wars: A New Hope
8 Matrix, The
9 Gladiator
10 Dark Knight, The
11 Serenity
12 Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
13 Chronicles of Narnia: Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The
14 Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
15 Braveheart
16 Batman Begins
17 Iron Man
18 Terminator II: Judgment Day
19 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
20 X-Men
21 Shrek
22 Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
23 Minority Report
24 Juno
25 300 (2007)
26 King Kong (2005)
27 Princess Bride, The
28 Signs
29 Se7en
30 Matrix: Reloaded, The
31 Fight Club
32 V For Vendetta
33 Cars
34 Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
35 Toy Story II
36 X-Men: The Last Stand
37 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
38 I, Robot
39 I Am Legend
40 Office Space
41 Bourne Ultimatum, The
42 Saving Private Ryan
43 Shawshank Redemption, The
44 Bourne Supremacy, The
45 Toy Story
46 Terminator III: Rise of the Machines
47 X2: X-Men United
48 Terminator
49 Transformers
50 Troy
LotD: Tilted Twister. It's a Lego robot that solves a Rubik's Cube.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
I'm Illiterate
Well, not really. However, the amount of books I've read is relatively low. How many, you ask? Since I know you really want to know, I shall tell you. As far as I can recall, the number of novels I have thus far read in my life is 25. This includes 12 Left Behind books and 7 Harry Potter books. The other six are: The Hobbit; The Fellowship of the Ring (I'm currently halfway through The Two Towers); The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe; To Kill a Mockingbird; Jaws; and Sounder. This list does not include my reading of my own novel-in-progress. :)
My mother urged me to read more as a child, but I rebelliously declined. This was the time she managed to make me get through Jaws. Well, better late than never to start reading a lot.
But, alas. This shall be increasing more in the future. If anyone has any recommendations for me, let me know. Here's a quick recap of my current to-be-read list: Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Eragon, Chronicles of Narnia, and Artemis Fowl.
LotD: Terminator Salvation Teaser Trailer. Now, you would have seen this already had you gone to see The Dark Knight. Tisk-tisk. Christian Bale's involvement in the new Terminator movies has me more interested in them.
My mother urged me to read more as a child, but I rebelliously declined. This was the time she managed to make me get through Jaws. Well, better late than never to start reading a lot.
But, alas. This shall be increasing more in the future. If anyone has any recommendations for me, let me know. Here's a quick recap of my current to-be-read list: Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Eragon, Chronicles of Narnia, and Artemis Fowl.
LotD: Terminator Salvation Teaser Trailer. Now, you would have seen this already had you gone to see The Dark Knight. Tisk-tisk. Christian Bale's involvement in the new Terminator movies has me more interested in them.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Kill The Bat Man
Batman Begins was an excellently entertaining, dark, very well done reboot to the Batman franchise. I have memory of only seeing Batman Forever - with Val Kilmer - which I thought was pretty good, but that - and any pieces of the other movies I've seen - can't hold a candle to what director Christopher Nolan did with Batman Begins. Christian Bale was the perfect choice to play Batman, and all the other pieces of the film fit together nearly perfectly. This was the movie that the franchise deserved.
And then came the sequel, The Dark Knight.
Which, by nearly every aspect, is one of the very best sequels that has ever been produced. It is not only better than its predecessor, and the best film of the year, but to me, it is the best film to hit theaters since Return of the King in December 2003. I am currently in the process of redoing my top movies list, and it debuted at #10. Not too bad. There were only 2 movies that were not from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings that ranked higher. Twenty points goes to anyone who can guess what those are.
[Just to clarify; while I think it is the best movie of the last 5 years, that does not mean it is my favorite - that title goes to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. What I find the most entertaining and what I find to be the best movie are not necessarily the same thing.]
The story was dark - darker than the first - and the action was great, but The Dark Knight's greatest asset is the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. This Joker is unlike any movie villain to I can remember, and one of the best. He is not a happy Joker, but a dark and menacing figure that steals each scene. There is talk of Ledger's performance earning him a posthumous Oscar nomination, which I most definitely think this performance is worthy of.
So, in short: go see this movie. If you haven't seen Batman Begins, borrow it or rent it, and then go see this movie. There is a definite chance that my wife and I will be making a return viewing.
LotD: Star Trek Images. Just some little teaser poster images from the next Star Trek movie.
And then came the sequel, The Dark Knight.
Which, by nearly every aspect, is one of the very best sequels that has ever been produced. It is not only better than its predecessor, and the best film of the year, but to me, it is the best film to hit theaters since Return of the King in December 2003. I am currently in the process of redoing my top movies list, and it debuted at #10. Not too bad. There were only 2 movies that were not from Star Wars or Lord of the Rings that ranked higher. Twenty points goes to anyone who can guess what those are.
[Just to clarify; while I think it is the best movie of the last 5 years, that does not mean it is my favorite - that title goes to Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. What I find the most entertaining and what I find to be the best movie are not necessarily the same thing.]
The story was dark - darker than the first - and the action was great, but The Dark Knight's greatest asset is the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. This Joker is unlike any movie villain to I can remember, and one of the best. He is not a happy Joker, but a dark and menacing figure that steals each scene. There is talk of Ledger's performance earning him a posthumous Oscar nomination, which I most definitely think this performance is worthy of.
So, in short: go see this movie. If you haven't seen Batman Begins, borrow it or rent it, and then go see this movie. There is a definite chance that my wife and I will be making a return viewing.
LotD: Star Trek Images. Just some little teaser poster images from the next Star Trek movie.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
The Thickening Dark
Sounds like a good chapter title for The Lords of Sargoff. Anyway, I've gotten some good work done on the story over the last week or so. It's now sitting at about 54,000 words (216+ pages) and growing. I'm adding in some new adventures and stories. Hopefully for the better. :)
Through my own thinking and reading The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, I'm going to be making a couple changes to how the story is written. First off, I'm trying to use language that is more fantasy-like; this goes both with my narration and the dialog. I'm also working on making the language darker, especially as the story moves forward.
Next involves the narrator. The way I'd be writing so far is that the narrator basically only tells what he sees, but doesn't necessarily know a lot himself. Another way to do it is to have an all-knowing, who can explain anything in the universe (I see Tolkien's work as being mostly like this). I'm going to shoot for something in the middle; a narration that knows more than I've written it as so far, but doesn't know everything. Hopefully that didn't completely not make sense. :)
LotD: History of Bad Keyboards. Yikes.
Through my own thinking and reading The Complete Guide to Writing Fantasy, I'm going to be making a couple changes to how the story is written. First off, I'm trying to use language that is more fantasy-like; this goes both with my narration and the dialog. I'm also working on making the language darker, especially as the story moves forward.
Next involves the narrator. The way I'd be writing so far is that the narrator basically only tells what he sees, but doesn't necessarily know a lot himself. Another way to do it is to have an all-knowing, who can explain anything in the universe (I see Tolkien's work as being mostly like this). I'm going to shoot for something in the middle; a narration that knows more than I've written it as so far, but doesn't know everything. Hopefully that didn't completely not make sense. :)
LotD: History of Bad Keyboards. Yikes.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Sixteen Days
Crazy. It has been sixteen days since I last blogged. That's just crazy. What have I been up to? Uhh.. not too much. Just work and the usual.
I have been to two movies in the last five days. First off, on Saturday, the wife and I went to go see Wall-E, which I would definitely recommend to anyone else who pretty much loves everything put out by Disney and Pixar. I would put it squarely in the middle in my rankings of Pixar films, not as high as Cars and Toy Story II, but higher than Monsters, Inc. It was pretty fun and very enjoyable.
Then, last night, Megan and I went to see Hancock, which I also liked. It was a funny and interesting story, and I am a fan of Will Smith's acting. It's certainly not a perfect movie, but it was still entertaining.
At both movies, we saw previews for the movie Bolt, which I think could be really rather funny - an animated movie about a dog that comes out around Thanksgiving. However, the next movie on the radar for us is The Dark Knight - a guaranteed see-it-as-soon-as-it-comes-out type movie, with the added bonus of possibly starting off with a trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. But we'll see.
I've been working more on Lords of Sargoff, adding some more plotlines and possibly changing some other things about how I'm writing the story. But more on that on a future blog entry, which will be much sooner than sixteen days.
LotD: Fantasy Fine Art Gallery. Good place to look for pictures of dragons and other such fantasy images. Also is a decent place for me to find Reclamation images.
I have been to two movies in the last five days. First off, on Saturday, the wife and I went to go see Wall-E, which I would definitely recommend to anyone else who pretty much loves everything put out by Disney and Pixar. I would put it squarely in the middle in my rankings of Pixar films, not as high as Cars and Toy Story II, but higher than Monsters, Inc. It was pretty fun and very enjoyable.
Then, last night, Megan and I went to see Hancock, which I also liked. It was a funny and interesting story, and I am a fan of Will Smith's acting. It's certainly not a perfect movie, but it was still entertaining.
At both movies, we saw previews for the movie Bolt, which I think could be really rather funny - an animated movie about a dog that comes out around Thanksgiving. However, the next movie on the radar for us is The Dark Knight - a guaranteed see-it-as-soon-as-it-comes-out type movie, with the added bonus of possibly starting off with a trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince. But we'll see.
I've been working more on Lords of Sargoff, adding some more plotlines and possibly changing some other things about how I'm writing the story. But more on that on a future blog entry, which will be much sooner than sixteen days.
LotD: Fantasy Fine Art Gallery. Good place to look for pictures of dragons and other such fantasy images. Also is a decent place for me to find Reclamation images.
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