"I hear banjos"

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy belated birthday to keerawa, and happy birthday (and congrats on the birth of baby Megan!) to lyria_theringer. May this next year be your best year yet for you both!

A few links for your day:

* The Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas Podcast just ran a show (#37) about one of my favorite films of all time, Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, its 1978 remake, and the Jack Finney story that started it all.

* Today the fourth and final season of The 4400, which I discussed previously here, is available on DVD.

* I finally saw The Orphanage on DVD. What an exceptional and beautifully crafted film! It lived up to all of my expectations.

* And, last but not least: Lost meets The Lord of the Rings.


Quote of the day:
"Paddle faster -- I hear banjos."
- bumper sticker seen on a car in Newton, NC this past weekend

Comments

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

I'm looking forward to listening to the Invasion of the Body Snatchers thing! And I'm not going to d*** around any more about 4400 - I'm buying the damn thing and watching it.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

The series is really uneven - I warn you. And my two favorite characters (Combs' and Glau's) don't appear until the second season and become "regulars" until the third. But on the whole, it's very much worth seeing. The final season in particular is quite chilling and well done. I can send you a coupon for free Netflix, if you'd rather rent than buy it. I'd love to know what you think of it (and especially those two).

[dodger-winslow.livejournal.com]

LOL. Sometimes I think you and I are joined at the brain. We just watched The Orphanage, too. "Elegant" is the word that springs to mind for me. Hard to live up to Pan's in the elegance department, but if this one didn't hit the benchmark, it sure came awfully darn close.

It's like pulling teeth to get my hubs to watch anything subtitled (I had to trade him a fantastic 4 movie to get him to watch Pan's!) and this was no exception; but I knew he was hooked when he said, "Wait, wait, wait! Go back. I was watching the scary kid and forgot to read what was happening!"

*snerk*

I remember such a sense of longing in watching The Devil's Backbone just because it had such mood and sense of mythic tragedy and I wanted to love it so, so much; and yet, even being good, it still fell well short of satisfy. But THIS ... this was everything I wanted from tDB. It's like they split that movie into two foundational aspects(war and the orphanage) and then set about making the perfect movie for each aspect: Pan's and The Orphanage.

Best movie I've seen in a long, long time; and one of the most elegant movies ever. I'm so squee you saw and loved it, too.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Oh man, you did such a great job of describing this! I couldn't agree more about Pan's and The Orphanage. Beautifully put. My husband isn't a huge fan of foreign films, either, but he was hooked with this just like with Pan's. Like you said, it's so elegant.

I can close my eyes and still see the image of that mask on Tomas's face...

Joined at the brain, indeed. :) As always, you rock.

[serpentcoils.livejournal.com]

Oh I can't wait to see The Orphanage! :D

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

It is so elegantly done and so haunting. I think you'll love it.

[re-animating.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to read your thoughts on The Orphanage. It is one I've been curious to see.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I can't recommend it highly enough. It's beautiful as well as haunting.

[fungus-files.livejournal.com]

Re banjos - *giggles, even while shuddering* I love playing with the references and cultish status of Deliverance but the film itself...have seen it and won't ever see it again! Most 'disturbing' films, though, are ones I'll watch once only. My brother is much more of an afficionado and has a very full collection of all these things on dvd. My dvd collection, meanwhile, is full of stuff like Tremors, Lake Placid and Shaun of the Dead. :P

[vyrdolak.livejournal.com]

Then you probably would not like Pulp Fiction, Caligula, the Lifetime made-for-TV movie The Rape of Richard Beck, about a hard-boiled rape detective played by the late Richard Crenna who learns that what's good for the goose is good up da butt, or the episode of St. Elsewhere (can that still be seen anywhere?) where Richard Morse gets raped during a riot while he's doing a rotation in the jail medical wing. Or almost any episode of Oz.

[fungus-files.livejournal.com]

Er, you'd be wrong in those assumptions.

[vyrdolak.livejournal.com]

Oh I getcha, it's Ned Beatty in his tighty whities that's a turnoff. No argument here.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Ned Beatty in his tighty whities

Now that is the stuff of nightmares!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

LOL! Well, there's never a bad time for Shaun of the Dead, after all. I heart that film so hard. :)

Thinking of Deliverance makes me think of the X-Files episode "Home," which has to be one of the darkest satires I've ever seen. It all works because the sheriff's name is Andy Griffith.

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that the MST3K movie was re-released on DVD yesterday.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

How did I miss that? Thanks for the heads up. I mentioned it in my post today. Gotta love the MSTK3000.