We’re at a stop sign on 6th St. in San Pedro, waiting to cross Pacific Ave., a busy street with multiple lanes of traffic in both directions. We’ve been waiting for an opening for quite a while when my son says, “You gotta go Tokyo Drift on these pansies.” Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Movies
You Remind Me of Superman
A guy at work — let’s call him “Steve” — has been wearing what looks like the same shirt, shorts and sandals for weeks. Another coworker says to “Steve”: “These new Superman ads remind me of you. He wears the same friggin’ outfit every day too.” Read more →
Conversations With My Wife
My wife calls me at work. “How do you spell ‘Casablanca’? she asks. “Like the movie.” “C-a-s-a-b-l-a-n-c-a.” “I am so good!” she says. “I just need more self-confidence.” Read more →
15 People Who Make America Great
Ruby Jones, 67, worked in the hospice unit at Lindy Boggs Medical Center in New Orleans. Last August, as Hurricane Katrina was zeroing in on the city, she elected not to evacuate, but to stay with the eight dying patients under her care. She has been recognized by Newsweek as one of “15 People Who Make America Great”: Read more →
Red Shoes
I’m reminded of this line from the movie The Red Shoes: “Life rushes by, time rushes by, but the Red Shoes go on dancing forever.” All of that applies to me, except for the red shoes part. — Jonathan Ames Read more →
Little Racketeers
Few Americans either behind or in front of our cameras give evidence of any recognition or respect for themselves or one another as human beings, or have any desire to be themselves or to let others be themselves. On both ends of the camera you find very few people who are not essentially, instead, just promoters, little racketeers, interested in ‘the angle.’ — James Agee, October 12, 1946 Read more →
HW’s True Hollywood Stories
Florence Lawrence: The First Movie Star Interesting fact: Prior to 1910, movies did not list the names of the cast members! Actors were just nameless faces on the screen . . . Read more →
Parental Guidance
I talked my 11-year-old son and his friend into seeing House of Flying Daggers instead of Meet the Fockers. The title alone — Meet the Fockers — is a tipoff to the level of wit that you’re going to be dealing with. Fockers! Get it? It sounds like a naughty word! HA HA HA HA! Geez, make an effort, will ya? How about House of the Flying Fockers? You meet the Fockers and throw daggers at them. That sounds like a good movie! Read more →
The Greatest Legend of All Was Real
And his hair was perfect! Read more →
Mixed Reviews
Christopher Hitchens takes a chainsaw to Fahrenheit 9/11. Here’s an excerpt, on the film’s closing quote from Orwell’s 1984: A short word of advice: In general, it’s highly unwise to quote Orwell if you are already way out of your depth on the question of moral equivalence. It’s also incautious to remind people of Orwell if you are engaged in a sophomoric celluloid rewriting of recent history. Read more →
Predictable, Unfunny and Eminently Forgettable
A Slate article confirms my 20-year suspicion that Garfield the witless comic strip is just an adjunct to Garfield the marketing empire, rather than the other way around: Read more →
Below and Above the Stars
Here’s one of the weirdest ideas I’ve heard today . . . Cinespia is screening the film Detour at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery: Bring blankets, picnic dinner and cocktails for this special screening below and above the stars. Read more →
Kids in America
The woman cutting my hair today tells me her son’s favorite things to watch are horror movies — he really likes The Evil Dead — and The Simpsons. Did I mention that her son is 4-1/2 years old? Read more →
My Favorite Valentine Movies
Most Favorite Annie Hall Casablanca The Graduate Lost in Translation The Music Man Least Favorite An Affair to Remember Ghost An Officer and a Gentleman Titanic When Harry Met Sally . . . Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Read more →
Celebrity Interviews Send Me Into a Homicidal Rage
Every once in a while, my wife is flipping channels and on comes one of these celebrity interviews . . . Read more →
Ugly in Tinseltown
It’s tough being ugly in Tinseltown . . . Even when a movie — like Monster — requires an unattractive woman in the lead role, they cast a gorgeous woman and make her up to look ugly! What is the point of that?! Why not just cast an unattractive woman in the first place — like that Meredith girl from The Bachelorette, for example? Read more →
In Memoriam: Charles Bronson
The best Charles Bronson movie I ever saw was Once Upon a Time in the West, worth the price of a rental for the opening scene alone . . . “Looks like we’re shy one horse.” “You brought two too many.” Read more →
Management 101
I saw the new Jackie Chan movie today . . . it was pretty bad, but the thing that resonated with me was that the movie, like all movies of this type, had an evil villain, and the villain would gather his evil henchmen and say things like “Which one of you would like to explain this latest failure?” He sounded just like one of the managers I work with . . . Read more →
EppsNet Goes to the Movies
I was buying movie tickets with my 10-year-old boy when a woman with her 20-something daughter smiled at us and said, “When you get older, your kids will take you to the movies.” Later, in the snack bar line, I asked him, “So are you going to take me to a movie when I get older?” Read more →
Misinformed
RICK BLAINE: I came to Casablanca for the waters. CAPT. RENAULT: The waters?! What waters? We’re in the desert. RICK BLAINE: I was misinformed. My wife and son are in Amarillo for a few weeks visiting relatives. I’m not sure I want to be in Texas in July, but they told me the temperature was in the 70s, so I decided to fly in for a few days. When I got there, it was 104, although it did drop into the 70s at night . . . Read more →