Rob is back this week with his usual mixed bag of treats. Let’s start with something from MentalFloss.com — 5 Mindnumbingly Long Movies:
1. The Cure for Insomnia
5220 min (87 hours)
United States, 1987
The next time you’ve got four days straight of nothing to do, go ahead and pick up The Cure for Insomnia. Unfortunately, Amazon.com doesn’t seem to carry it…I guess they’re still recording the director’s commentary.
The movie was shot on video by director John Henry Timmis IV and doesn’t have any plot. Rather, the movie stars artist Lee Groban reading his epic poem, “The Cure for Insomnia,” which is a 5,000 page work of art that Groban says he wrote almost entirely by hand. You can read an excerpt here. If the movie is anything like the excerpt, I’m sure it’s riveting. Apparently, footage of the poetry reading is spliced with clips of heavy metal and pornographic material.
The purpose of the movie—yes there’s a reason for this nonsense to exist—is to be so boring that it would put its viewers to sleep. It was first played in its entirety at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago and holds the Guinness World Record for “World’s Longest Movie.”
2. The Longest Most Meaningless Movie in the World
2880 min (48 hours)
United Kingdom, 1970Here’s a movie that gets right to the point… that it doesn’t have one. Produced by Anthony Scott and directed by Vincent Patouillard, TLMMMitW was screened only once in its entirety in 1970 at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris. After its initial release, the film was cut to a more palatable 90 minutes. While it was no longer quite so long, it remained just as meaningless seeing as the film is nothing more than an endless presentation of newsreel and stock footage. I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life, but the ambition to create the longest, most meaningless movie in the world makes you question this fella’s priorities.
An 87-hour movie? Gawd! I remember sitting in a theater for 6 hours watching Little Dorrit (1988), then stumbling outside completely disoriented. But 87 hours?
Next this piece from Wired: Mind-Game Movies Mark ’00s Cinema of Paranoia:
The decade defined first and foremost by 9/11 yielded a bitter, brilliant Cinema of Paranoia. A new breed of brooding, believable superheroes inhabited worlds ripped from the pages of comic books — worlds that seemed more believable on the strength of exponential advances in increasingly photorealistic CGI.
Even animated features and comedies tapped a mind-game mentality steeped in amnesia, revenge and the redemptive power of storytelling. Hollywood’s ability to manufacture bigger, louder blockbusters sometimes produced a hollow brand of shock and awe at the expense of smartly developed characters or memorable dialogue. But when it all came together, the results wowed fanboys and critics alike.
This article actually makes a socially redeeming point. Hm. Rob must be off his game this week. Some interesting choices on their list including Memento, The Dark Knight, and Pan’s Labyrinth. But what the hell is Borat doing there?
Rob continued his lurking at Gunaxin.com with this: 16 Badass Movie Soldiers:
It’s hard not to like a good war movie. Action, intrigue, high body counts, lots of gunplay, a moral of some sort. They got it all. One of the most vital ingredients to making successful combat cinema is reserving at least one character to be a soldier that crushes. The guy who displays little to no fear, is mean as a snake and single-handedly wipes out a significant number of the enemy. These military mavens can take a beating and just as easily dish one out. Using the year 1979 as a starting point, here are sixteen badass movie soldiers from the last thirty years.
I’d have to go with Sgt. Barnes (Tom Beringer) from Platoon:
Barnes is without argument one of the most evil incarnations ever to wear a uniform. He lives and breathes war, but multiple tours in the jungle has warped his sense of reality. In his eyes, everyone is the enemy. Crossing him is not advisable. Sick and twisted, Barnes is still one tough hombre.
But Rob killed me with this one:
As you may have guessed, we here at MovieRetriever.com have a certain affinity for dogs (in case you’re just joining us – our mascot is an anthropomorphic movie-reviewing Labrador retriever). So, you can imagine how thrilled we are with the recent slew of films concerning man’s best friend that have come our way via the multiplex. There’s Marley & Me, which strikes just the right balance of humor and emotion and Bolt which proves that not all non-Pixar made animated films have to necessarily suck. There’s even another live-action canine caper in Hotel for Dogs. It’s truly a good time to be a filmgoer and a dog person. To proclaim our appreciation of our furry companions, we thought we might take a look at the ten best film dogs of all time….The question remains where the hell is “Jerry Lee” on this list.
10. VERDEL from
It was a damn shame that Verdel the dog wasn’t nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as was costar Greg Kinnear. As anyone can clearly see, Verdel is the glue that holds the entire movie together. The plot completely revolves around him. Let’s face it, without this little guy Nicholson would have never gotten up the courage to change a single thing in his obsessively compulsive life (hence no movie after the opening credits).
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9. BABE
While not technically a dog, Babe is a Sheep-Pig! Or, at least he thinks he is, and that’s good enough for us. Babe is proof that you shouldn’t be confined by the conventional definition of your station in life and that a pig is just as good of a best friend to man as the traditional alternative ever was. Babe also routinely teaches us that if you have a kind heart you’ll be rewarded three-fold.
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8. ASTA from the THIN MAN series
Without Asta, would Nick or Nora Charles have solved a single mystery? We here at MovieRetriever.com are inclined to think probably not. Scooby-Doo owes a deep debt of thanks and a big box of Scooby Snacks to this particular pooch who is the forefather of the modern sleuth hound. Asta was an ever present and dependable companion who appeared in every Thin Man film.
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7. SAM from I AM LEGEND
Sam (short for Samantha) is the only companion that world-wide plague survivor Robert Neville (Will Smith) has as he wanders the desolate streets of Manhattan. By day, Sam assists Neville with the chores of hunting and gathering food and by night she protects him from the victims of the aforementioned plague who are now zombie-like flesh-eating creatures. Since Neville also happens to be a scientist trying to develop a cure to the disease, Sam tries to help out in any way she can there too. What else are friends for? These two are so close you can almost tell what each of them is thinking based on the other’s reaction to their counterpart. Sam is unquestionably the embodiment of the term “man’s best friend.”
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6. SKIP from MY DOG SKIP
This film may be one of the finest portrayals of a dog’s relationship with his human. Skip has his work cut out for him when he has to guide nine-year-old Willie (Frankie Muniz) through adolescence and then his teen years. But Willie proves to be a fairly smart kid and quickly catches on to everything that Skip is trying to teach him. Plus, he drives a car a helluva lot better than any other dog has before or since (just check out the photo above if you don’t believe us).
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5. MARLEY from MARLEY & ME
Marley is a rambunctious, uncontrollable Yellow Labrador retriever owned by John Grogan and his family. Simultaneously adorable and maddeningly untrainable, Marley rarely does as he’s told and more often that not wreaks havoc wherever he goes. But, since Marley is bestowed with a heart of gold and his actions seem to be performed without malice, his transgressions are overlooked and he is forgiven all of his sins. He’s the best example of the cute dog that doesn’t go too far.
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4. HOOCH from TURNER & HOOCH
While other police dogs may be clean-cut and subscribe to a by-the-book approach to their crime-fighting duties as if they just graduated top-of-the-class from the Academy, Hooch puts on no such airs. He is the stereotypical grizzled veteran movie cop. While he may not have chosen the job (the job did, in fact, choose him when his master was murdered). He eventually works well with his partner (Tom Hanks doing what he does better than anyone else – making people laugh) after a few harrowing episodes and even grows to love him. If you’re planning on busting some low-life criminal you couldn’t do any better than having a partner like Hooch at your side (just have plenty of towels on hand to wipe up the drool).
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3. OLD YELLER
Old Yeller’s story is easily the biggest tear-jerker that you’ll find on this list. Reluctantly taken in by the Coates family as a stray, Yeller eventually wins them over by performing one heroic deed after another. However, while saving 15-year-old Travis’s life, Yeller is bitten by a rabid wolf and must be put down, ultimately giving his life to protect his adopted family. Of Yeller, we can say only this, of all of the souls written about here, his was the most human.
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2. LASSIE
Widely considered one of the greatest dogs in entertainment history, Lassie made her first film, Lassie, Come Home in 1943 and there’s been no stopping her since. Through countless incarnations the ferociously loyal collie is frequently found helping her owners get out of trouble or traveling cross country to reunite with them after they’ve somehow gotten lost. With yet another version made as recently as 2005, there is no reason to believe that she won’t continue her adventures well into the future.
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1. RIN TIN TIN
Rin Tin Tin is undeniably the bravest and most courageous of all cinematic canines. Well, at least he was afforded the chance to show off his bravery far more often than any other dog was ever given. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the accolades though. Blessed with an intelligence well above that of the average dog (and most of the above average animals on this list for that matter), Rin Tin Tin routinely rescued scared or lost humans who happened to find themselves in trouble all without demanding any recognition. If that’s not the definition of a hero then there’s something wrong with the dictionary. Along with Lassie, Rin Tin Tin is the only other member of this list to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
No Jerry Lee from K-9! Sniff, sniff. Ah, well. Fortunately Rob knows how to lift my spirits because here is the trailer for David Simon’s newest HBO series “Treme”:
If it’s half as good as Simon’s most recent TV series “The Wire,” this show will be worth watching. That’s it for another week of Rob’s Finds.
