Friday, January 29, 2010

February Movie Nominations

We have posted the movie nominations for February 2010. You can see the common theme.

The Way We Were

Katie and Hubbell are students in the same college but with very different lives. She is a communist compromised against the civil war in Spain and the rise of Hitler in Europe, and has to work to pay her studies. He is more interested in sports a and sceptic about politics. However, Katie is impressed by his charm and she still is when they meet some years after. (IMDB.com)

Love Story

Harvard Law student Oliver Barrett IV and music student Jennifer Cavilleri share a chemistry they cannot deny - and a love they cannot ignore. Despite their opposite backgrounds, the young couple put their hearts on the line for each other. When they marry, Oliver's wealthy father threatens to disown him. Jenny tries to reconcile the Barrett men, but to no avail. Oliver and Jenny continue to build their life together. Relying only on each other, they believe love can fix anything. But fate has other plans. Soon, what began as a brutally honest friendship becomes the love story of their lives. (IMDB.com)

Venus

Maurice and Ian are successful but aging actors, close friends whose conversation revolves around theatrical shop talk and the infirmities of septuagenarianism. Ian in particular is fearful that death is right around the corner, so he agrees to let his niece's daughter Jessie move in to his flat to care for him. Jessie, a provincial girl in her early twenties, turns out to be a nightmare for Ian, a hard-drinking, rude, and dismissive twerp. But Maurice sees something else in the girl, a potential for humanity which blossoms under his kindness and gentle guidance. Something else blossoms, for Maurice, as well: romantic love for a girl fifty years younger. Surprises follow, all around. (IMDB.com)

Adam's Rib

Married lawyers Adam and Amanda Bonner find themselves on opposite sides of the courtroom in this comedy. Adam is prosecuting a high-profile case in which a woman is accused of trying to murder her philandering husband. Amanda acts as her defense attorney, and the sparring begins. (IMDB.com)

Splendor in the Grass

Deanie would risk everything to be with Bud. Bud is afraid of his father, the most powerful man in a small Kansas town in 1928. Deanie will have to wait until Bud spends four years at Yale. In the meantime he can't spend a lot of time with her, because Deanie isn't that kind of girl. His sister Ginny, back from Chicago, is a constant reminder just how bad a bad girl can be. (IMDB.com)

Saturday, January 23, 2010

January Film is The Italian Job -1969

Finally! Our first film since October will be The Italian Job (1969). We hope to see you there. We will let you know the choices for the February film soon.

Date:
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Time:
7:00pm - 10:00pm
Location:
Capital City Bar and Grill

3149. S. Dirksen Parkway


Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Movie Geeks Cancelled for November

Due to emergency repairs at Capital City Bar and Grill next week, we will be unable to hold our monthly Movie Geeks Club screening. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

November Films

Here is the list of the November film nominees. We we went with a theme that I am having a difficult time giving a title. It is "less-famous originals that were made into famous remakes". There were many films to choose from but we settled on these.

Scarface (1932)
Remade as Scarface (1983)

Big Louis Costillo, last of the old-style gang leaders is slain, and his former bodyguard Tony Camonte is taken into custody. Since Costillo's body has never been found, the police have to release him, though they strongly suspect Johnny Lovo paid Tony to remove Big Louis. Tony begins taking over the rackets in town with violent enforcement, and he becomes a threat to Johnny and the other bosses unless they work for Tony. Meanwhile, Tony's sister wants to be more independent, but finds it difficult to escape from her brother's overprotective grasp. The dissatisfaction of the other bosses and the relentless pursuit of the police push Tony towards a major confrontation. (IMDB.com)

Internal Affairs "Mou gaan dou" (Hong Kong, 2002)
Remade as The Departed (2006)

The setting is the never-ending war between the police and the Triads of Hong Kong. Chan is a cop who's been assigned to undercover work inside the Triads for so long that he's been able to rise through the ranks to a position of some authority. Lau, meanwhile, is a secret member of the Triads who has infiltrated the police force with an equal level of success. As they feed their bosses information on the plans and counter-plans of the organizations they pretend to serve, they both begin to feel the stresses of their double lives as they become torn between the oppressive obligations they owe to their superiors and the growing camaraderie they share with the foot soldiers around them. As the two organizations become increasingly aware of the moles in their midsts, the race is on for Chan and Lau to try and get out of the game alive. (IMDB.com)

The Italian Job (1969)
Remade as The Italian Job (2003)

Charlies' got a 'Job' to do. Having just left prison he finds one of friends has attempted a high risk job in Italy, right under the nose of the Mafia. Charlies friend doesn't get very far, so Charlie takes over the 'Job'. Using three Mini Coopers, a couple of jaguars and a bus, he hopes to bring Torino to a standstill, steal the Gold and escape. (IMDB.com)

Alfie (1966)
Remade as Alfie (2004)

For Alfie, the only real life is sex life; only then can he kid himself he is living. Sex is not used as the working-class boy's way to 'the top'. Executive status has no appeal for Alfie. Nor has class mobility. He is quite content to stay where he is, as long as the 'birds' are in 'beautiful condition', as he assures us they are in one of the candid, over-the-shoulder asides to the camera which the film carries over from "Tom Jones". The film shows how much of the 'swinging 60's' quality of London life was a male creation, and through the dominance of the fashion photographers, a male prerogative. (IMDB.com)

The Omega Man (1971)
Remade as I Am Legend (2007)

In 1977, two years after Russia and China had engaged in germ warfare and destroying most of mankind, U. S. Army scientist Robert Neville, who had immunized himself, is practically alone in the city of Los Angeles, except for a group of albino-like survivors, led by a former newscaster, now calling himself Matthias, who had predicted the destruction, His group , sensitive to light and heat, are bent upon smashing all remnants of the prior civilization, especially Neville. (IMDB.com)


The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Remade as I Am Legend (2007)

Dr. Robert Morgan (Vincent Price) is the only survivor of a devastating world-wide plague due to a mysterious immunity he acquired to the bacterium while working in Central America years ago. He is all alone now...or so it seems. As night falls, plague victims begin to leave their graves, part of a hellish undead army that''s thirsting for blood...his! (IMDB.com)

Monday, September 28, 2009

Movie Geeks Nominations for October Movie

For October we're offering a selection of horror movies. Read below and then vote on the right hand side of the page.

1. Night of the Creeps (USA - 1986) - In 1959, an alien experiment crashes to earth and infects a fraternity member. They freeze the body, but in the modern day, two geeks pledging a fraternity accidentally thaw the corpse, which proceeds to infect the campus with parasites that transform their hosts into killer zombies.

2. Near Dark (USA 1987) - In the dusty heart of the American southwest, innocent country boy Caleb (Adrian Pasdar) is seduced by a beautiful girl (Jenny Wright) into joining a pack of vicious drifters. But this is no ordinary band of outlaws, and Caleb is soon trapped in a nightmarish world of soulless evil and hellish mayhem that thrives on blood and absolute horror. This extraordinary shocker is one of the most ferociously original vampire movies of our generation.

3. The Host (Korea 2006) - In Seoul's River Han, a giant mutant creature has developed as a result of toxic chemical dumping. When the squidlike monster scoops up the teenage granddaughter of humble snack-bar owner Hie-bong (Hie-bong Byeon), he races to track down the murderous beast. With no help from the authorities, who are convinced the girl is already dead, Hie-bong and his family will have to band together to save her -- and possibly the entire city.

4. Inside - (France 2007) - Four months after her husband's tragic death, Sarah (Alysson Paradis) prepares to head to the hospital to deliver her miracle baby. But what should be a blessed Christmas Eve event turns terrifying when a crazed woman (Béatrice Dalle) arrives at her home intent on taking Sarah's baby.

5. Ginger Snaps - (Canada 2000) - The teenage years prove especially difficult for sisters Brigitte (Emily Perkins) and Ginger (Katharine Isabelle), who have an unexplained fascination with Goth and death. On the night of Ginger's first period, she's bitten by a werewolf and quickly develops several new traits -- including an aggressive sexual appetite. But as Brigitte tries to reverse the transformation, she must also hide her sister's mounting victims

Monday, August 24, 2009

Movie Geeks Nominations for September Movie

I know it's kind of last minute, but another month has sped past. For September, we've chosen to go with "Weird" movies. So, here are the nominees. Vote as soon as you can. All votes before tomorrow night will be counted. In the event of no votes or a tie, we'll just pick one. Yeah, that's how a democracy works in Moviegeeksistan.

So here are the nominees.

Brazil: In a highly structured and bureaucratic state, the government has installed extreme and highly counterproductive measures for which to track down terrorists. A "bug" in the system mixes up the last name of a terrorist (Tuttle) and an innocent man (ironically enough Buttle). Thus, the wrong man (Buttle) is arrested and killed while Tuttle continues to roam free. Sam Lowry, an average man with a mother who "knows people", is assigned to investigate the error. At the same time, Jill layton, Buttle's neighbor, is trying to report the mistake to authorities. Due to the extremely inefficient bureaucracy, she finds the process to be very tedious. Meanwhile, Sam Lowry, who has been dreaming about Jill, gets sidetracked by his fantasies and ends up also being a victim of the counter productivity of the government. (from IMDB)

The Idiots: A group of perfectly intelligent young people decide to react to society's cult of an aimless, non-creative and non-responsible form of intelligence by living together in a community of "idiots". Their main activity becomes going out into the world of "normal" people and pretending to be mentally retarded. They take advantage of this situation to create anarchy everywhere they go and try by every possible means to make people annoyed, disturbed, miserable, ridiculous, angered, and shocked. The films start as they recruit a new lost soul and introduced her to their megalomaniac leader. (from IMDB)

Delicatessen: The story is centered on a microcosm of a post-apocalyptic society where food is so rare it's invaluable and is used as currency. The story centers on an apartment building with a delicatessen on the ground floor. The owner of the eatery also owns the apartment building and he is in need of a new maintenance man since the original "mysteriously" disappeared. A former clown applies for the job and the butcher's intent is to have him work for a little while and then serve him to quirky tenants who pay the butcher in, of course, grain. The clown and butcher's daughter fall in love and she tries to foil her father's plans by contacting the "troglodytes", a grain eating sub-group of society who live entirely underground. The "trogs" are possibly the most sensible of the lot, as they see food as food and not money. (from IMDB)

Pi: In Manhattan, behind six locks, lives Max Cohen, a mathematician and computer whiz. Since staring at the sun at age six, he's had terrible headaches; plus, he can't abide human contact except with an aging professor, and he's obsessed with finding numeric patterns. His current obsession is the stock market; his theories bring him to the attention of Wall Street traders. He also keeps running into Lenny, a fast-talking Hasidic who fronts for a cabal that wants to rediscover long-lost mathematical mysteries in the Torah. Neither group is benign, and they pursue Max as his hallucinations and headaches worsen. Does nature offer any solutions? Can Max find them? (from IMDB)

Drowning by Numbers: Three generations of women, a mother, her daughter and her niece - all called Cissie Colpitts - experience dissatisfaction with their husbands and cause them to drown. The local coroner, an inveterate game player called Madgett, is drawn into a plot to disguise the murders. The story is paced by the numbers one to one-hundred, which appear sequentially through the film. (from IMDB)

Friday, July 24, 2009

August Film - Romance

To my knowledge, we have never had a category of selections for "romance". Romance can be a wide open category it can really be contained in any time of genre. Action, comedy, horror, porn...

Here are the nominees for August, 2009.


It Happened One Night
1934

Rebellious socialite Ellie Andrews marries King Wesley but her wealthy father has it annulled. Tired of her father's control, she runs away by diving off the family yacht in Miami and heading for New York. On the bus she meets street-smart reporter Peter Warne. They end up traveling together as Warne hopes to get a great story, and Ellie needs his worldly help. Nearing New York, with their many adventures coming to an end, they find that they are reluctantly in love and afraid to admit it to each other. After she mistakenly thinks that Warne has run out on her Ellie returns to King Wesley, but for how long? (IMDB.com)

Love Story
1970

Harvard Law student/hockey jock (Oliver Barrett IV) meets Radcliffe music wonk (Jennifer Cavalleri), and the couple soon enter into a relationship. When the couple decide to get married, Oliver's father (Oliver Barrett III) threatens to disinherit him from the family will, leaving Oliver and Jennifer to start their marriage at rock-bottom. Jennifer and her dad (Phil Cavalleri) do what they can to bring father and son back together, but the two prefer to remain at war with one another. Years go by, and the young couple attempt to have children, only to discover that she is malfunctioning. (IMDB.com)

An Affair to Remember
1957

Handsome playboy Nicky Ferrante and beautiful night club singer Terry McKay have a romance while on a cruise from Europe to New York. Despite being engaged to other people, both agree to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months. However, an unfortunate accident keeps Terry from the reunion, and Nicky fears that she has married or does not love him anymore. Will he discover the truth behind her absence and reunite with his one true love, or has fate and destiny passed them by? (IMDB.com)

Say Anything...
1989

An improbable couple meets after high school graduation and must deal with their friends, family, and other pressures just to stay together. Lloyd Dobler is an average kickboxer with a good heart but limited ambition. Diane Court is an aloof genius who is very closely protected by her father. When Diane gets a scholarship to study in England, she has a weighty decision to make. (IMDB.com)

Edward Scissorhands
1990

In a castle high on top of a hill lives an inventor's greatest creation - Edward, a near-complete person. The creator died before he could finish Edward's hands; instead, Edward is left with metal scissors for hands. Edward has always lived alone, until a kind lady called Peg discovers Edward and welcomes him into her home. At first, everyone welcomes Edward into the community, but soon things begin to take a change for the worse. (IMDB.com)

Dark Victory
1939

Judith Traherne is at the height of young society when Dr. Frederick Steele diagnoses a brain tumor. After surgery she falls in love with Steele. The doctor tells her secretary that the tumor will come back and eventually kill her. Learning this, Judith becomes manic and depressive. Her horse trainer Michael, who loves her, tells her to get as much out of life as she can. She marries Steele who intends to find a cure for her illness. As he goes off to a conference in New York failing eyesight indicates to Judith that she is dying. (IMDB.com)

To Catch a Thief
1955

American expatriate John Robie living in high style on the Riviera is a retired cat burglar. He must find out who a copy cat is to keep a new wave of jewel thefts from being pinned on him. High on list of prime victims is Jessie Stevens, in Europe to help daughter Frances find a suitable husband. Lloyds of London insurance agent is using a thief to catch a thief. Take an especially close look at scene where Robie gets Jessie's attention, dropping an expensive casino chip down decolletage of French roulette player. (IMDB.com)