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My Week With Marilyn

Here’s a review of My Week With Marilyn from SHH’s newest contributor, Brad.

I recently performed my yearly movie lobotomy to save room for what we all know as “The Oscar season.” This season started a little late for me but I managed to squeeze almost all of them into my dome. Sad as it is, both Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy (recently reviewed by the Self-Hating Hipster) and My Week With Marilyn did not make the cut for best picture. Thankfully I still have a playful imagination and decided to host the Oscars myself, luckily finding one theater in upstate NY that isn’t buns; The Spectrum.

Having never been there before I was happy with my 6:20 movie experience. The theater is quaint which was perfect for this particular biographical movie. Knowing nothing about Ms. Monroe besides the fact that she was a prim lookin’ star gazer, one would foresee Continue reading →

Tags: Arthur Miller, biopic, Colin Clark, Eddie Redmayne, hipster, Kenneth Branagh, Marilyn Monroe, Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn, review, Sir Laurence Olivier, The Oscar Season, The Prince and the Showgirl, The Spectrum

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Movie Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Exit Through the Gift Shop

12 Feb

I hesitate to call this a movie review, rather I hope that it sparks some interesting discussion about Banksy and how much of a cheeky fuck he is. In addition, I hope that everybody reading this has already seen the movie, making this here article beautifully irrelevant. All that being said, let us begin.

Firstly, let us look at the name of the film: Exit Through the Gift Shop. On the surface it stands as an obvious Continue reading →

Tags: Academy Award, Banksy, cheeky fuck, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Jeannette Catsoulis, London, Mr. Brainwash, New York Times, Obey, prankumentary, Rotten Tomatoes, Shepherd Fairey, Thierry Guetta

Comments 3 Comments
Categories Culture, Movie Reviews, Movies, Visual Art
Author corymerchant

Air – Le Voyage Dans la Lune

6 Feb

Air took us to the moon with their first LP, Moon Safari, and 14 years later they bring us back with Le Voyage Dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).

I knew the title sounded familiar and it wasn’t until I saw the cover that I remembered my History of Film course in college. Le Voyage Dans la Lune (which can be seen here in its entirety, and it’s all of 13 minutes long so I highly encourage you to watch it) is an early, groundbreaking film directed by the ingenious Georges Méliès in 1902. Méliès was a French illusionist that arguably invented special effects with his “camera tricks,” mat shots, stop action, etc…

Air’s music has often been referred to as “cinematic,” Continue reading →

Tags: A Trip to the Moon, Air, Cannes Film Festival, Fritz Lang, George Melies, Giorgio Moroder, hipster, History of Film, Jean-Benoit Dunckel, Kelly Watch the Stars, Lava, Le Voyage Dans la Lune, Metropolis, Moon Safari, Nicolas Godin, outer space, Parade, sci-fi, Seven Stars, Sofia Coppola, Sonic Armada, soundtrack, Surfing on a Rocket, Talkie Walkie, Virgin Suicides

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

31 Jan

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the movie that my friends and I intended to see the night we ended up seeing The Descendants. I really like Gary Oldman and when I hear that he was going to be in a film based on a John le Carre novel, I was ready to go opening day. Unfortunately, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was only playing in select theaters at that point (i.e. nowhere near the cultural node that is Albany, NY). It was released locally a few weeks later during my busiest work season and so I figured that I would have to wait until it came out on Netflix or DVD before I’d get a chance to see it. Luckily, a local theater, The Spectrum, plays movies worth seeing after the major box offices have kicked them to the curb. Continue reading →

Tags: Alec Guiness, BBC mini-series, British Intelligence, Control, David Cornwell, drama, espionage, Gary Oldman, George Smiley, Giallo, Jim Prideaux, John Hurt, John le Carre, local theaters, London, Mark Strong, mystery, review, Scooby Doo, spy, the Circus, The Spectrum, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson

Comments 2 Comments
Categories Movie Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

27 Dec

In short, this movie was much better than I expected. My family decided to do the Christmas Day movie thing this year since we celebrated heavier on Christmas Eve (at least I did). There wasn’t really anything in theaters that I was excited about. My mother suggested the new Mission Impossible. I thought the first one was decent. The second one sucked. So bad, in fact, that I completely skipped the third one. I decided to suck it up because family time is important. Oh, and it was free.

The new one is directed by Brad Bird…who confuses me. His repertoire consists of a handful of episodes of The Simpsons, Disney and Pixar’s Ratatoullie and The Incredibles and now Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I’m thinking an animated film about the Holocaust is his next best bet. IMDb tells me that Continue reading →

Tags: Burj Khalifa, IMAX, Lea Seydoux, Mission Impossible, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Paula Patton, Simon Pegg, Tom Cruise

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Movie Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

The Descendants

20 Dec

At first, all I heard about this movie was that it was directed by Alexander Payne. I had seen Election, Sideways, and About Schmidt and thought they were all above average. I didn’t realize that time had flown since Sideways and Payne hadn’t directed a movie in seven years. I became intrigued.

Then I heard about Clooney and a possible “Oscar” performance. My first thought was “shit?” To be clear, I’m not a Clooney hater; I’m a Clooney skeptic.

I showed up to the theater with some expectations and two heterosexual male friends of mine: fellow contributor, Andy, and my buddy, Brad. We realized immediately that Continue reading →

Tags: George Clooney, Hawaii, The Descendants

Comments 1 Comment
Categories Movie Reviews
Author the self-hating hipster

Escape from the Zooey

2 Nov

A while back, one of my favorite blogger/columnists Drew Magary wrote something about the seemingly unstoppable force that is Taylor Swift. While it was a humor piece, the message was clear. Finally someone voiced their frustrations about a young woman who despite her own good intentions, was being forced down the throats of the American public at large, in four minute sugary doses of pre-teen country songs. It was a refreshing take on a celebrity who more or less got a free pass in public relations because her big moment Continue reading →

Tags: 500 Days of Summer, Death Cab for Cutie, Drew Magary, FOX, Jello Biafra, Kanye West, Our Idiot Brother, She & Him, Taylor Swift, The New Girl, Zooey Deschanel

Comments 5 Comments
Categories Actors, Funny, Music, Slices of Life, Television
Author Andy Marshall

Glengarry Glen Ross

30 Oct

I was first introduced to this movie in the spring of 2004 by my cousin. I had never heard of the movie prior to his recommendation. He simply said, “I’m going to show you a clip, and if you don’t want to see the movie afterwards, I’ll be confused…” This is the clip that he showed me: Alec Baldwin’s “Motivational” Sales Speech. If you don’t intend to watch the entire scene, please skip to 6:13 to at least get an idea of what I’m talking about. Continue reading →

Tags: Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, David Mamet, Ed Harris, Glengarry Glen Ross, Jack Lemon, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin Spacey, macho, salesmen

Shia Labeouf Gets Pummeled

18 Oct

I’ve been waiting for this since he was cast as the lead in Transformers (my favorite childhood cartoon and a movie franchise that I have avoided like the plague). Finally, Shia Labeouf gets his ass kicked Continue reading →

Tags: fighting, Shia Labeouf, Transformers, Zangief

Spreadsheeting

3 Oct

It’s not a hobby. I have an unhealthy obsession with spreadsheeting.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a disorganized, dumpy piece of shit. That is true for the most part; however, I spend a lot of time organizing the things that I actually care about (i.e. music, movies, books, video games etc…)

My DVD’s are organized alpha by title and sequestered into movies, box sets, television, documentaries and music. In similar fashion, my books are Continue reading →

Tags: anal retentive, cat shit, hipster, Microsoft Excel, obsession, organization, spreadsheeting, spreadsheets