Relentlessly Mammalian
(Blame my husband for the title.)
TWO THINGS TODAY:
One: we’re in a little mini heatwave up here and it was supposed to get up to like 86 or something today. So I decided to do my first night run of the year last night. I think the last time I did a night run was around Halloween last year, so it’s been a while. I like not having to put on sunscreen and being able to run down the middle of the road without much threat of cars, but I’m also more limited route-wise (I am NOT doing the creepy Bowness Park nonsense this year, sorryz) and I do just like being out during the day. Also, the nights are relatively warm if it’s hot enough for me to be night running.
Two: My mom, Nate, and I watched Captain America: Brave New World last night. It’s pretty sad that everyone seems conditioned to hate everything Marvel has put out since Endgame; I thought this one was pretty solid. It definitely had one of the best post-Endgame action sequences with the battle over Celestial Island:
Really good choreography in my opinion. Love the shots at 1:26, 2:11, 2:46, and 3:31.
DONE!
Final
I’ve only seen the first three Final Destination movies, but apparently there’s a new one coming out in May. Maybe I’ll watch the remaining ones I haven’t seen yet in order to get sufficiently terrified of everything in the world and then watch the new one at some point.
Pooldead
So my mom, Nate, and I got pizza tonight and watched Deadpool and Wolverine.
It was pretty great.
Without spoiling anything, my favorite part was probably Chris Evans, haha.
Or the inclusion of this song, which I can’t get out of my head now:
Is the toast brave, too? Or is bravery not transferable that way?
YO so I found The Brave Little Toaster the other day on YouTube and have already watched it like seven times.
(I’m not going to link it here because it seems like every vid I link to gets taken down and WE’RE NOT HAVING THAT FOR THE BRAVE LITTLE TOASTER)
Mom, I know I traumatized you by watching this so many times when I was a kid, but it really is a good movie, haha. I get that “City of Light” song stuck in my head more often than I care to admit.
I had such a crush on that lamp when I was a kid, haha.
ANYWAY. Here’s said “City of Light” song so YOU can get it stuck in YOUR head, too!
Solved!
As many of you probably know from reading my blog, I’m not a movie person. But of the few movies I do like, most of them are space movies. More specifically, space disaster movies.*
I like space. I like disasters (both real-life and fictional). But I think the main draw for this particular genre is the fact that many of them have astounding soundtracks where there is at least one song that results in an unavoidable and severe emotional reaction (usually crying).
Examples (I’ve posted a lot of these before but I DON’T CARE):
Interstellar – No Time for Caution (Hans Zimmer)
The buildup to 2:36 is wonderful and the payoff is so good. I’m pretty sure I damaged my hearing by cranking this up too loud the first few times I listened to it.
Gravity – Shenzou (Steven Price)
I’m posting the clip of the movie where this song is heard because it syncs so beautifully with the amazing imagery in that scene. That breakup of the craft at 1:30. That shot of all the pieces entering the atmosphere at 2:46. The smoke and alarms at 3:00. I re-watched this scene for this blog post for the first time in like three years and I’m freaking sobbing over it, haha.
Armageddon – Launch (Trevor Rabin)
Did Michael Bay fit as many explosions into this movie as was physically possible for its run time? Yes. But the soundtrack is still great.
Mission to Mars – Toward the Unknown (Ennio Morricone)
This movie was…strange. But this even stranger song really fit the scene it was part of and is this weird combination of futuristic and retro (in my opinion).
And the big hitters:
Sunshine – Adagio in D Minor AND Capa’s Last Transmission Home (John Murphy)
Didn’t know this movie existed until I heard Adagio in some YouTube vid, looked up the song, and found this movie. The whole soundtrack is wonderful.
Apollo 13 – The Launch (James Horner)
I know, I know, I know. Every single year I post about this song. But this is honestly one of my favorite pieces of music to ever exist. That heartbeat of silence at the crescendo of music just after 6:17 gives me literal goosebumps every single time.
*Actually, I can’t think of a single movie set in space that does not involve a disaster…but then again, my knowledge about movies is almost nonexistent. Can anyone think of any?
Flashback:
So one of my favorite movies as a preteen was Mystery Men, as I’m sure some of you know. My mom, GE, his parents, and I went to see it in the theatre when it came out in 1999 and I watched it on like continuous repeat after I had my appendectomy during the summer of 2000 (my mom can vouch for this, haha).
We of course had a VHS copy of it back then, which has since been replaced by a DVD. However, the DVD does not have the little “extras” clips/interviews that were at the end of the VHS tape.
But fear not! The DVD may not have them, but the internet certainly does:
Anyone else freaking love this movie?
“Disco is NOT dead! Disco is LIFE!”
Chicken Ran
I hate how much nostalgia bait is being used for my generation. I hate how everyone from musicians to filmmakers to…well, every corporation, basically…has decided to use nostalgia to get money from Millennials.
I know we’re not uniquely targeted by this tactic, but the tail end of Gen X and us Millennials seem to be the ones who are most highly targeted by the “hey, remember [insert thing here] from your childhood? Well, it’s back! NOW GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY!” ploy.
And I hate even more how so many people seem oblivious to it and blindly play into the manipulative game.
I mean, it’s like all those damn Disney remakes. “Hey, you! Yes, you in that generation that’s either got young kids or is in the process of crapping out spawn! Remember The Lion King? Remember how much you loved that as a child? Well, here it is again, except with all the CGI and none of the emotion or heart! You’d better buy $60 movie tickets for the family so that your spawn can have the same warm fuzzies that you associate with the original!”
And so many people shell out for it without giving it a critical thought!
Sequels are just as bad, too. We did not need Toy Story 4. WE CERTAINLY DO NOT NEED TOY STORY 5.
UGH. Stop feeding the nostalgia-baiters money, you fools!
Anyway.
This whole rant was inspired by this:
Chicken Run is a fantastic movie. Does it need a sequel TWENTY YEARS LATER? I don’t think so. Though I have more faith in Aardman than I do in, say, Disney when it comes to quality control.
But still.
Nostalgia!
We’re getting into temperatures where I need to bring my radio on my runs because my on-ear headphones keep my ears from freezing.
The radio station I listen to, C97.7, does a “90s at Nine” every day at 9 AM. This involves the playing of three songs that have something in common. Often it’s a word in the song title or a genre or an artist.
This morning, the theme was “Disney songs” and the first song up was “A Whole New World” from Aladdin.
I cannot express the MASSIVE nostalgia hit I took when that song started. I hadn’t heard it in so long and it instantly took me back to when my mom and I would watch Aladdin back when I was in elementary school and we lived in our old house in Troy.
It just…it felt good.
Hey!
Do you want to watch Ocean’s Eleven, but don’t have 127 minutes and/or don’t want to watch a bunch of attractive actors?
Have an 11-minute, Lego stop-motion version instead! Brought to you by me, when I was a senior in high school with way too much time on my hands.
I hate myself.
Live Reading
This is FANTASTIC. This is what I ALWAYS wanted to do with movies (well, and also act them out) but I never had anyone who’d do it with me.
Love it.
Final
Dude, this is a super interesting little retrospective of the first three Final Destination movies.
That highway scene at the start of the second movie is amazing and terrifying. I saw it on TV once without knowing what Final Destination was and I was like NOPE NEVER GETTING INTO A CAR AGAIN.
Tell me something:
Have you heard of the movie “The Full Monty?”
I’m asking because, at least in my experience, this seems like a fairly obscure movie that most people haven’t heard of. I’ve never heard anyone reference it or even refer to it in passing. I always thought it was just some one-off British comedy that was made and then just fell out of sight.
Apparently, though, it was in the running to win Best Picture (and several other Academy Awards) in 1997. It was beaten out by Titanic.
And, according to Wiki, it was the highest-grossing film in the UK until…Titanic.
That’s…that’s wild. Do any of you remember this movie at the 1997 Academy Awards? Because I certainly don’t.
Wild.
Time Before Land
HEYOOOOOOOOOOO so did you watch (and love) The Land Before Time as a kid?
I did.
But I never watched any of the 10+ sequels.
Lucky for us, though, Alteori did, and she’s got hilarious reviews of all of them in a big YouTube playlist.
Her review of the first one is pretty chill, but they get more hysterical as the movies get worse. Her laugh is infectious.
Popular Opinion:
Toy Story is a trilogy. The story was wrapped up perfectly in three movies. I refuse to watch the fourth one out of principle and I’m so GODDAMN PISSED that Disney is destroying Toy Story further by making a fifth one.
Leave it be. It was perfection.
UGHHHHHHHH.
Flight
Y’all, this was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. It’s kind of got E.T. vibes, but is vastly superior because E.T. was horrifying and terrible. This is engaging and fun.
Anyone else remember this one?
What in the HELL is this song?
Why is this so incredibly familiar?
I’ve never seen Practical Magic, so it’s not familiar to me from the movie itself, but I heard a snippet of this in a TikToK video the other day and I can’t place where I’ve heard it before, because I’m sure I’ve heard it before.
It’s SO familiar and it’s right at the tip of my brain as to where it’s from.
Edit: Maybe it’s so familiar because it sounds like the intro music to Steel Magnolias?
Kinda? Kinda?
It’s obviously not the exact same, but there are a lot of similarities, aren’t there?
Anyway.
I am not a movie person
But these are two movies I’d love to see.
Ah, 80’s Movies
Does anyone else remember this movie?
I watched this with my dad a lot, haha. Billy Crystal + Danny DeVito is a great pair.
Also, Danny DeVito has been around FOREVER, hahaha.
Movie!
So Nate and I watched The Prince of Egypt tonight. I’d seen it many times before, but this was the first time he’d seen it. I hope he liked it, because I think it’s one of the most well-done animated movies out there. I like how it doesn’t shy away from showing the darker parts of the story; that’s what makes it so impactful.
The plagues scene terrified me as a kid, haha.
I love the way his dream is animated (about halfway through this clip). Again, not shying away from the darker parts.
And, of course, the stunning parting of the Red Sea:
Watch it if you haven’t before. It’s phenomenal.
So Nate and I watched “An American Tail: Fievel Goes West” on Valentine’s Day…
And I haven’t been able to get the soundtrack out of my head ever since. It’s probably because the soundtrack was done by James Horner, who was one of the best orchestrator of film scores ever (he did Apollo 13 and Titanic which are both good movies made INFINITELY BETTER by their soundtracks).
So I had to buy the whole freaking soundtrack on iTunes ‘cause I needed it. I was listening to it while walking the other day and heard the “Cat Rumble” track.
Listen to it. Does it sound really familiar?
Why?
Perhaps you’ve seen the title sequence to “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”
Was this James Horner, too? Yup (1:43).
I already mentioned this one on here a while back (like a year and a half ago? I dunno, man, time makes no sense anymore), but I love how Horner used Aaron Copland’s “Hoedown” as a base for the “In Training” song.
Finally, I’d forgotten how much I liked the “Way Out West” scene:
I distinctly remember this as being one of the first movies I saw where I really connected with the music. I mean, I think I’ve always been attuned to the music in all movies/TV, but this was one where I was like holy crap the music is so freaking good and adds so much!
Triplet
Does anyone else remember this super artsy movie?
This odd little movie was something I first watched back in high school. In 10th grade, I had to get a few* EEGs done due to a weird blackout thing I had during English class one day. They were testing me for some sort of epilepsy or something and I had to be sleep deprived for it, which meant staying awake for 24 hours before the test.
Somebody (a neighbor? One of my mom’s friends? I don’t remember) knew that I had to do this, so they bought me a few movies to watch to help pass the time. One of them was Triplets.
I love the exaggerated style of the characters and how there’s very little dialogue. The music is fantastic, too. Give it a watch if you can find it!
*It should have just been one EEG, but Gritman is incompetent and they kept screwing it up. I had to get three of them total.
Favorite Movies
Heyo, buttbandits.
So remember back in February sometime when I did my “Top 5 Books” blog post? Let’s do movies today.
‘Cause I’m trying to avoid all the work I’m going to need to do to move my three classes online for the rest of the semester.
From fifth to first:
#5: Toy Story
This movie came out around the time I was in first grade and I loved it so very much. As in, “let’s-force-the-whole-first-grade-class-to-pick-characters-and-then-make-our-own-version-of-it,-‘cause-I-was-mini-Stephen-Spielberg-and-no-one-was-going-to-stop-me” level of love. It still holds a very special place in my heart. Also, Tom Hanks.
#4: Armageddon
Armageddon kind of terrified me when I first saw it as a kid (specifically when the Independence shuttle bit it in the debris, that was horrifying to me as a little). But I love it now. It’s just such an American film, yeah? Awesome music. Bruce Willis. Manly drilling…in space. I love it.
#3: Mystery Men
I had my appendix removed in 2000 (literally as I was supposed to be attending my 6th grade graduation). I couldn’t do much for a few weeks after that, so there were two movies I watched incessantly while I had to stay home: The Music Man and Mystery Men. Mystery Men is kind of a nostalgia trip for me because it just brings me back to that time of my life. It’s funny and weird and has a lot of very quotable lines in it (“you threw a spoon at the guy, Jeff!” “Yeah, what was up with that?”).
#2: Apollo 13
I’ve loved this movie ever since the first time I saw it. It’s a very beautifully-put together movie with AWESOME music. Seriously. The music is probably what pushes this over the top for me. My favorite is “The Launch.” Also, Tom Hanks.
#1: Sunshine
(I have a thing for space disaster movies, can you tell?) Not a lot of people know about Sunshine, which is a shame because it’s freaking fantastic. You look at the DVD cover or you read a brief synopsis of it and you’re like, “oh, so it’s Armageddon but with the sun instead of an asteroid?” Nope, not even close. It’s so different from Armageddon, and I think that’s why I like it. Oh, right, and THE MUSIC OMFG. Here’s one of my favorite scenes with one of my favorite parts of the soundtrack.
It’s so beautiful. And yeah, the whole movie is about that level of intensity.
More Sunshine
If I haven’t yet convinced you that Sunshine is a beautiful, heart-wrenching, mind-wrenching movie, give this a watch and see if it does it for you.
It really is a wonderful movie (with the most beautiful score).
Eigenblogger 