While I was at the beach last week, I didn't see any movies. We made our way through Disc 1 of Looney Tunes Volume 2 and got our Shark Week on via OnDemand...but no movies. Since I didn't bother to update WWoB while I was
down the ocean, here's My Week In Movies for the previous week, beginning August 3.
Aliens in the Attic (2009) I was really surprised that my kids chose this over the fighting gerbils of
G-Force.
Aliens is exactly the kind of late summer no-brainer film that I love. The plot: some kids find some little aliens in the attic of their summer home and fight them. Done! It's as simple as the title implies. This film wastes alot of talented people like Kevin Nealon, Andy Richter, Tim Meadows...it even kind of wastes Ashley Tisdale. The only one who gets anything to do worthwhile in this movie is Doris Robberts (Ray's mom from
Everybody Loves Raymond) who is involved in a
Matrix-style kung-fu battle royale thanks to the mind-control devices of the aliens. In the end, this is mindless fun - harmless for the kids. Not very funny or exciting yet not all that bad either.
When Comedy Was King (1960) Starting in the late 1950's and going on through the 70's, movie audiences were reintroduced to Hollywood's stars of the silent era through a series of well produced documentaries/clip films. This is the second of these pictures and I found it to be incredibly entertaining and very informative. Several silent movies have been taken and re-edited with music, sound effects and a narrator who helps move the stories along while giving a history lesson about the films and their stars. While I'm sure some silent film purists find this presentation blasphemous, I thought it was well done. The music and sound effects added to the films, and the narrator knows when to shut up and just let the films speak for themselves. I was introduced to quite a few Hollywood legends that I had never heard of before and laughed myself silly at the film's final sequence: the 1929 Laurel & Hardy silent classic "Big Business". Honest to goodness, they just don't make `em like that anymore!
Spy Hard (1996) When I originally saw this in the theatre I didn't think much of it, but after the recent slew of "less than stellar" parody films that have come out - it's a real gem. When you're doing a parody film you can't go wrong with Mr. Leslie Nielsen. He's made a career out of staring in these kinds of films and he's always a welcome face on my movie screen. Here, he plays Agent WD-40 who must save the world from an evil bad guy played by Andy Griffith. Again folks, you just can't go wrong with Andy Griffith...in anything. Visual gags, word play and slapstick are all on display here as well as some movie parodies and shots at Hollywood celebrities. The silliness comes first in this movie and the lame jokes about Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire and other outdated references are kept to a minimum. The best part about this movie is the opening title sequence which parodies the opening musical sequence from the early James Bond films. Whereas the Bond films always featured a song by a popular singer of the time, Spy Hard's theme is song by none other than "Weird Al" Yankovic - who also appears on screen in the segment. Good Stuff!
Aliens in the Attic (2009) I was really surprised that my kids chose this over the fighting gerbils of G-Force. Aliens is exactly the kind of late summer no-brainer film that I love. The plot: some kids find some little aliens in the attic of their summer home and fight them. Done! It's as simple as the title implies. This film wastes alot of talented people like Kevin Nealon, Andy Richter, Tim Meadows...it even kind of wastes Ashley Tisdale. The only one who gets anything to do worthwhile in this movie is Doris Robberts (Ray's mom from Everybody Loves Raymond) who is involved in a Matrix-style kung-fu battle royale thanks to the mind-control devices of the aliens. In the end, this is mindless fun - harmless for the kids. Not very funny or exciting yet not all that bad either.
When Comedy Was King (1960) Starting in the late 1950's and going on through the 70's, movie audiences were reintroduced to Hollywood's stars of the silent era through a series of well produced documentaries/clip films. This is the second of these pictures and I found it to be incredibly entertaining and very informative. Several silent movies have been taken and re-edited with music, sound effects and a narrator who helps move the stories along while giving a history lesson about the films and their stars. While I'm sure some silent film purists find this presentation blasphemous, I thought it was well done. The music and sound effects added to the films, and the narrator knows when to shut up and just let the films speak for themselves. I was introduced to quite a few Hollywood legends that I had never heard of before and laughed myself silly at the film's final sequence: the 1929 Laurel & Hardy silent classic "Big Business". Honest to goodness, they just don't make `em like that anymore!
Spy Hard (1996) When I originally saw this in the theatre I didn't think much of it, but after the recent slew of "less than stellar" parody films that have come out - it's a real gem. When you're doing a parody film you can't go wrong with Mr. Leslie Nielsen. He's made a career out of staring in these kinds of films and he's always a welcome face on my movie screen. Here, he plays Agent WD-40 who must save the world from an evil bad guy played by Andy Griffith. Again folks, you just can't go wrong with Andy Griffith...in anything. Visual gags, word play and slapstick are all on display here as well as some movie parodies and shots at Hollywood celebrities. The silliness comes first in this movie and the lame jokes about Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire and other outdated references are kept to a minimum. The best part about this movie is the opening title sequence which parodies the opening musical sequence from the early James Bond films. Whereas the Bond films always featured a song by a popular singer of the time, Spy Hard's theme is song by none other than "Weird Al" Yankovic - who also appears on screen in the segment. Good Stuff!
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