Desert Island DVDs

Apparently there is a radio show on BBC...something about what 8 cds you'd want to be stranded on a desert island with. Now, I usually think of High Fidelity and top five lists, so to my more American sensibilities, 8 seems a bit odd. I guess if I want to make the rules, I can create my own multi-blog, all internet all the time kind of event. Why do that though when the Fandango Groovers Movie Blog has already gone and done it?

So, let's let them sum the whole thing up:

The idea is a variation on the radio program Desert Island Discs: For those who don’t know the show has been running on the BBC for nearly 70 years. Guests are invited to imagine themselves cast away on a desert island with only eight pieces of music to listen to. Being a movie blog obviously we are having a twist on the idea. Simple pick the eight DVD’s that if you were stranded on a desert island (don’t ask how you would play them) you could happily watch over and over again. For some people this will be their favourite movies for others it will be subtly different.

Sounds easy enough, right? Especially for someone like me who watches the same movies over and over (and over) again. What 8 movies would I be able to be stuck on an island with and watch on my solar powered, built from coconuts, portable dvd player?

I've said it many many times, and I'll say it once more. I loved The Brothers Bloom and I like it more every time I watch it. I'm happy to watch it and relax, and I'm happy to watch it and study it in depth to look for new details and clues. Without a doubt, this in one movie I'd be happy to have with me.

Ah, Jurassic Park. You know how you can tell a movie is good? After almost 20 years, it's still enjoyable. I saw it, like millions of others, back in the summer of '93 and to this day watch it a couple of times every year. Even with the advances in CGI over the last 17 years, the effects in Jurassic Park look as good as ever. To me, this is Steven Spielberg's master work.

I came late to the Firefly/Serenity party. I'm not alone on that. If I were, it wouldn't have been canceled so early. It's a testament to the creators and fans that this canceled series got made into a movie, and a damn good one at that. Serenity is just a fantastically re-watchable movie.

How can you go wrong with High Fidelity? I've seen it many many times now and still love watching it. I will admit though to finding Rob to be a bigger and bigger jerk as time goes on.

I'm generally among the first to admit that Johnny Mnemonic is a terrible movie. Terribly AWESOME! (See what I did there?) Like a moth to a flame, I'm inexplicably drawn to this movie. I can't imagine ever NOT wanting to watch it.

King Kong. No explanation needed (I hope).

How many ways can you say you just don't get sick of a movie? Think of another and apply it to The Thin Man, the charming story of two drunks solving a murder.

And last, but not least, the charming story of zombifying slugs run amok in rural America, Slither. Quotable and hilarious, it's hard to leave this one out.






This is just my list, and I told you way up at the top that this was a multiple blog event hosted by Fandango Groovers Movie Blog. To see more Desert Island DVD lists, you can go here

dreamrot's favorite movies week: day 2: Johnny Mnemonic

Here's where I let it all hang out. Here's where I admit to loving a movie that is absolutely awful. But, dammit, I can't help it, I love Johnny Mnemonic.

Just look at the cast, Starship Trooper's Dina Meyer, The Chase's Henry Rollins, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo's Ice-T, and Much Ado About Nothing's Keanu Reeves. An all star cast if ever there was one!

Need more proof of how great this movie is? Try this...Dolph Lundgren as a preacher/assassin. Yeah.

Not enough? Ok, look at this:

Do you know what that is? It's a drug addicted, navy trained dolphin. Named Jones. It's THAT kind of a movie.

Remember when we all thought that this was what the internet would look like? Me either.

Johnny is a courier. He transports data, in a brain implant. His capacity is 80 gigs (160 with a doubler). I think there are iPods with that kind of storage space now! You have to forgive that though, I mean, in 95, 80 gigs would have seemed as massive as 80 terrabytes would now.

That's some high tech shit right there.

It was still a pretty bad movie in 95, though. What can you do? Bad is timeless. There is no rational reason for my love of this movie. I'm not even sure that there is an irrational explanation! Something about it though, 20 years from now I won't be able to put my finger on it.

The story itself is pretty laughable, but the acting is even worse! When Johnny gets pissed off, and goes into a tirade,

"Listen. You listen to me. You see that city over there? THAT'S where I'm supposed to be. Not down here with the dogs, and the garbage, and the fucking last month's newspapers blowing *back* and *forth*. I've had it with them, I've had it with you, I've had it with ALL THIS - I want ROOM SERVICE! I want the club sandwich, I want the cold Mexican beer, I want a $10,000-a-night hooker! I want my shirts laundered... like they do... at the Imperial Hotel... in Tokyo."

You don't sympathize with him. You sit and laugh and say "what the shit cock was that?" Ice-T was possibly the best actor in the movie! Rollins was ridiculous as a doctor. Not because he couldn't play a doctor, just because the character was a joke.

Like I said though, I love it. And not just because of the soundtrack (which is pretty good).
It's crazy to look at in a way, I mean, in the mid 90's there were a lot of movies like this. We just had no idea what life with computers really was going to be like. The internet was so new. Now, I still don't think we know what life with computers will be like in the future, but I think we've realized that it won't be too different.

I'm going to give it 7 doubles of myself so that I can hack my own brain out of 10, even though honestly I know it only deserves 4 muscles relaxers injected into my spine to relieve the symptoms of my Nerve Attenuation Syndrome out of 10. Though, had I been doing this back in 97, I would have given it 8 and a half street preachers run over with my van on the way to the hospital out of 10.