Tuesday, June 29, 2010

July Movie Nominations - 90's


Random 90's Films

A small time thief from Belfast, Gerry Conlon, is falsely implicated in the IRA bombing of a pub that kills several people while he is in London. Bullied by the British police, he and four of his friends are coerced into confessing their guilt. Gerry's father and other relatives in London are also implicated in the crime. He spends 15 years in prison with his father trying to prove his innocence with the help of a British attorney, Gareth Peirce. Based on a true story. (IMDB.com)

Bulworth

Senator Jay Bulworth is facing speculation-induced financial ruin, so he puts out a contract on his own life in order to collect a large, new insurance policy for his family. Living each moment on borrowed time, he suddenly begins spouting raw, unfiltered--and sometimes offensive in word but satirical in spirit -- thoughts to shocked audiences and handlers in the speech of hip-hop music and culture. His newfound uninhibitedness and new relationship with Nina carry him on a journey of political and spiritual renewal. (IMDB.com)

When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Mussberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money: appoint a moron to run the company. When the stock falls low enough, Sidney and friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take over the company, and restore its fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes, who just started in the mail room. Norville is whacky enough to drive any company to ruin, but soon, tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries. (IMDB.com)

A biopic of the life and work of the legendary 'worst director of all time', Edward D. Wood Jr., concentrating on the best-known period of his life in the 1950s, when he made Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster (1955) and Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), and focusing on both his transvestism and his touching friendship with the once great but now ageing and unemployed horror star Bela Lugosi. (IMDB.com)

Glengarry Glen Ross

Times are tough in a New York real-estate office; the salesmen (Shelley Levene, Ricky Roma, Dave Moss, and George Aaronow) are given a strong incentive by Blake to succeed in a sales contest. The prizes? First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is the sack! There is no room for losers in this dramatically masculine world; only "closers" will get the good sales leads. There is a lot of pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed which has unforeseen consequences for all the characters. (IMDB.com)

Monday, June 28, 2010

So Long and Good Luck, John Anderson

Left, Micah Roderick; Right, John Anderson


Movie Geeks Club:


John Anderson, the idea man behind the Movie Geeks Club and co-founder has left Springfield today, with his wife Aubrey, to start a new life in Richmond, VA. The idea of a movie club was conceived about 4 years ago when John and I began looking for more creative endeavors after getting our television show up and running. John pressed on with the idea and finally made contact with the guys at Capital Bar and Grill who had just recently renovated the old theater next door.


We held our inagural Movie Geeks Club with Run Lola Run on January 30, 2007. Since then, we have shown films that range all time periods and genres. Some good, most great. John and I never knew where this "Club" was going when we started but we knew we weren't going to quit until we were asked.


I will continue to try to provide the same caliber of films that were shown in the John Anderson era but I have also brought in some help from a long time Movie Geek, Bart Rogers. He will assist in nominating films and other duties as not assigned.


John will be greatly missed in Springfield but I'm sure Richmond will gain something interesting and fun. We just don't know what that will be yet. I can say this, I'm glad John left us the Movie Geeks Club for all of Springfield to enjoy.


Good Luck John and Aubrey!


On behalf of all the Movie Geeks in Springfield, you will be missed.


Micah

100 Classic Sci-Fi Movies You Can Watch Online For Free

Click here to see the list. Thanks to Movie Geeks friend Amanda Harris for this.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Five Gems From British Directors

The Third Man

An out of work pulp fiction novelist, Holly Martins, arrives in a post war Vienna divided into sectors by the victorious allies, and where a shortage of supplies has lead to a flourishing black market. He arrives at the invitation of an ex-school friend, Harry Lime, who has offered him a job, only to discover that Lime has recently died in a peculiar traffic accident. From talking to Lime's friends and associates Martins soon notices that some of the stories are inconsistent, and determines to discover what really happened to Harry Lime.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0041959/





The 39 Steps

Richard Hannay is a Canadian visitor to London. At the end of "Mr Memory"'s show in a music hall, he meets Annabella Smith who is running away from secret agents. He accepts to hide her in his flat, but in the night she is murdered. Fearing he could be accused on the girl's murder, Hannay goes on the run to break the spy ring.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026029/





Withnail and I

London 1969 - two 'resting' (unemployed and unemployable) actors, Withnail and Marwood, fed up with damp, cold, piles of washing-up, mad drug dealers and psychotic Irishmen, decide to leave their squalid Camden flat for an idyllic holiday in the countryside, courtesy of Withnail's uncle Monty's country cottage. But when they get there, it rains non-stop, there's no food, and their basic survival skills turn out to be somewhat limited. Matters are not helped by the arrival of Uncle Monty, who shows an uncomfortably keen interest in Marwood...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094336/





The Lavender Hill Mob

Holland, a shy retiring man, dreams of being rich and living the good life. Faithfully, for 20 years, he has worked as a bank transfer agent for the delivery of gold bullion. One day he befriends Pendlebury, a maker of souvenirs. Holland remarks that, with Pendlebury's smelting equipment, one could forge the gold into harmless-looking toy Eiffel Towers and smuggle the gold from England into France. Soon after, the two plant a story to gain the services of professional criminals Lackery and Shorty. Together, the four plot their crime, leading to unexpected twists and turns.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044829/





The Commitments

Jimmy Rabbitte, just a tick out of school, gets a brilliant idea: to put a soul band together in Barrytown, his slum home in north Dublin. First he needs musicians and singers: things slowly start to click when he finds three fine-voiced females virtually in his back yard, a lead singer (Deco) at a wedding, and, responding to his ad, an aging trumpet player, Joey "The Lips" Fagan. Song by song, gig by gig, the Commitments start their climb to the top: Dublin gets soul. But internal strife also builds: Deco is insufferable, Joey's a Casanova, and Jimmy may lack the seasoning to hold things together. Will the Commitments slip away?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101605/

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

May Film Nominations - John Huston

John Huston Films

Prizzi's Honor

Charley Partanna is a hit-man who works for the Prizzis, one of the richest crime syndicate families in the country. Unbeknownst to Charley,the Prizzis just hired Irene Walker, a free-lance killer, to eliminate someone who double-crossed them. When Irene and Charley fall in love their jobs become complicated. Their jobs become impossible when each is given a contract that neither can go through with. (IMDB.com)

The List of Adrian Messenger

Messenger asks a friend to check into a list of names before leaving on a trip. When his plane is blown out of the sky, the matter becomes more serious. As his friend checks into the list, each seems to have died in mysterious circumstances. As he goes down the list, the deaths become more recent and a race to find the remaining survivors and what put each of them on this list ensues. (IMDB.com)

The Night of the Iguana

When American minister Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon is expelled from his Virginia church, he travels to Mexico in search of his destiny and sanity. There he becomes a tour guide for a bus load of spinsters and a teenage nymphet named Charlotte Goodall, who is being chaperoned by the group's leader, the inflexible Judith Fellowes. Miss Fellowes, who is quite jealous of Charlotte's attentions to Shannon, discovers the young woman in his room and vows to have him fired. To thwart her plot, Shannon takes control of the bus from Hank, the bus driver, and speeds the tour group on a wild ride through the Mexican jungle to the crumbling, secluded hotel of an old friend, the recently widowed Maxine Falk. Eventually Shannon becomes enamored with another guest at the hotel, the rather genteel Hanna Jelkes, an itinerant quick sketch artist and her poet grandfather Nonno. As the wise Hanna partially restores Shannon's fractured world, Shannon struggles to get back the rest of his sanity and his self-respect. (IMDB.com)

The Misfits

Roslyn is a very beautiful woman who just got divorced. She meets two friends, Guido and Gay, who take her to Guido's house in the country to relax and forget the difficulties of the past few weeks. Everything is fine at first, but soon the two men fall in love with Roslyn and start showing some bad aspects of their characters. Soon they meet another friend of Gay's, and the four of them go to hunt some wild horses. This is when things just... explode! (IMDB.com)

The Maltese Falcon

Sam Spade is a partner in a private-eye firm who finds himself hounded by police when his partner is killed whilst tailing a man. The girl who asked him to follow the man turns out not to be who she says she is, and is really involved in something to do with the 'Maltese Falcon', a gold-encrusted life-sized statue of a falcon, the only one of its kind. (IMDB.com)

Saturday, March 27, 2010

April Movie Nominations - Roger Corman

I can't believe it took us so long to do this.

Little Shop of Horrors

Seymour is a young man who works in a flower store. He manages to create a carnivorous plant that feeds on human flesh. Nobody knows about it, so Seymour and the plant become good "friends". The plant needs food to grow up, so it convinces him to start killing people. (IMDB.com)

Bloody Mama

A psychological gangster film based on fact. Machine gun totin' Ma Barker lead her family gang (her sons) on a crime spree in the Depression era. Her loyal brood have every perversion imaginable. The sadistic Herman sleeps with his Ma. When Fred Barker is released from prison, he brings home his cell mate/lover Kevin Dirkman, who also sleeps with Ma, much to Fred's chagrin. Lloyd Barker is a spaced-out drug addict who sniffs glue if nothing better is around. Ma kidnaps happy-go-lucky millionaire Sam Adams Pendlebury and holds him for ransom. Arthur Barker - Ma's wallflower son - and Herman's hooker lady friend Mona Gibson also figure in the story. The bloody finale is virtually choreographed and a visual stunner. Filmed in the Ozarks. (IMDB.com)

The Last Woman on Earth

Ev; her husband, Harold; and their lawyer friend, Martin, are skindiving while on vacation in Puerto Rico. When they resurface, they gradually conclude that an unexplained, temporary interruption of oxygen has killed everyone on the island - maybe in the world! (IMDB.com)

The Wild Angels

Peter Fonda plays 'Heavenly Blues', the leader of Hell's Angels chapter from Venice, California while Bruce Dern plays 'Loser', his best pal. When they both botch their attempt to retrieve Loser's stolen bike, Loser ends up in the hospital. When the Angels bust him out, he dies, and they bury him. Nancy Sinatra plays Mike, Blues' "old lady" and Diane Ladd plays Loser's wife (Dern's real-life wife at the time). The plot is basically a buildup to the last half-hour of the film in which Loser's funeral becomes another wild party. (IMDB.com)

The Trip

Paul Groves (Peter Fonda), a television commercial director, is in the midst of a personality crisis. His wife Sally (Susan Strasberg) has left him and he seeks the help of his friend John (Bruce Dern), a self-styled guru who's an advocate of LSD. Paul asks John to be the guide on his first "trip". John takes Paul to a "freak-out" at his friend Max's (Dennis Hopper) pad. Splitting the scene, they score some acid from Max and return to John's split-level pad with an indoor pool. Paul experiences visions of sex, death, strobe lights, flowers, dancing girls, witches, hooded riders, a torture chamber, and a dwarf. He panics but John tells him to "go with it, man." Would you trust John? Written by Jack Nicholson. (IMDB.com)