FilmRoar

When I posted a list of 1,447 DVDs in the Multnomah County Library Collection, Dianne, one of the Film Roar regulars, asked how many of the titles I had actually seen. It took a while, but I went through the list and deleted all the titles I did not recognize, leaving me with 540 titles that I know I have seen. That means that out of the whole collection of DVDs at Multnomah County Library I have seen about 37%.
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In the mindless tradition of pointless stoner flicks like Dazed and Confused (1993), Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000) promises to waste two hours of your life. The bad news is that you have to be totally wasted to laugh at this movie. The good news is that the movie makers realized what they were doing early on and made the movie without any pretext.

Acclaimed film maker Leni Riefenstahl, best known for the Nazi propaganda film Triumph des Willens (1934) died in Berliin last night.

Proving once again that Hollywood studios would rather steal competitor ideas than be original, Biker Boyz (2003) is a straight up rip-off of The Fast and the Furious (2001) with some Boyz N the Hood (1991) style blaxploitation thrown in. Some beautiful hand held camera work as the black motorcycle gangs show off their skill and their machines proved the only redeeming feature of this pointless flick.

In the puddingbowl article Pudding Time!: Hey! You Put Your Garou in My Ventru! Michael Hall brings up a lawsuit from Werewolf came company White Wolf against Sony pictures for copyright infringement on the Vampire world. Until today I rather liked White Wolf.

For more info check out the court papers and cartoon over at penny-arcade.

Probably one of the best episodes from season 2, The Measure of a Man effectively deals with hard moral topics of free will, the right of a living entity and slavery. It is episodes like these that shine and show the intelligence and moral foundation that Star Trek was founded on. A poor work of science fiction will simply guess about the future; a fair work will entertain as well; a great work will challenge the reader/viewer by wrapping a through provoking topic in a digestible example. In this case Melinda Snodgrass strives for greatness with her intelligent and provoking writing. Credit must also go to Patrick Stewart (I) and Brent Spiner, two great actors with the background in classic theater to be able to pull the performance off. It took two well trained and seasoned actors to be able to generate the energy present in the episode’s confrontation; the producers should count themselves lucky to have had capable cast members.

I thought I was about to see the sequel to the Jackie Chan action flick ‘Operation Condor’ when I rented Operation Condor 2: The Armour of Gods (1986), instead I was surprised to see a noticeably younger Chan in an earlier film that, while fun and exiting, is not as good as the Operation Condor I had seen in theaters ten years ago. A bit of internet research and I found out that the movie I had originally seen, Armour of God II: Operation Condor (1990), is actually the sequel to Operation Condor 2 but was retiled for an English releases since it was only released in the United States following the success of the second movie. Got it? Good.
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