Happy Birthday (tomorrow) to Jeff Bridges, who will turn 72. But I don’t post on weekends usually, so here we are a day early!
I really like Jeff Bridges. I think most people do? This is an interesting list as several of his biggest films aren’t included. That’s because I’ve either never seen them at all or I just really need to rewatch them, such as Starman. So I’ve listed those at the end. People will also probably roll their eyes at my number one choice but, hey, I like what I like!
I rank these lists based on how much I like the movie itself, not on the performance. He’s always good, though. Thought he was especially good in Crazy Heart.
I’ve seen quite a few so I’ll rank them all. Here are My Top Ten Jeff Bridges Movies, counting down to my favorite & including all I’ve seen & remember well:
Need To Rewatch: Starman, Jagged Edge, The Last Picture Show, Blown Away
Not Seen: Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Heaven’s Gate, Against All Odds, Tucker: The Man And His Dream, The Fisher King, Fearless, White Squall, The Mirror Has Two Faces, The Contender, The Men Who Stare At Goats, True Grit, R.I.P.D., Only The Brave
I’ll be posting a list of My Top Ten 2015 Movies (by UK release date) tomorrow but, as always, I also like to do a list of my favorite older films that I watched at home for the first time in the past year. I watch more movies at home in a year than I do in the cinema so it seems silly to ignore them as there are often some great ones that I’ve just seen for the first time.
I keep a full (sadly ranked!) list of what I watch throughout the year HERE and see that I watched 73 films at home in 2015. Yikes! That seems excessive. Well, I’ll admit that I don’t pay attention to half of them as they’re playing in the background while I do other stuff (especially those really shitty movies I’ve ranked at the very bottom of the list of 73). But I loved some of them so I’d like to highlight not just ten but the top fifteen. You should all know by now that I can’t ever make a top ten list only containing ten things! π But I did manage no ties…
So here are My Top Ten Movies Watched At Home In 2015 counting down to my very favorite (including the next five as honorable mentions). I’m proud that I’ve managed to review the full Top Ten other than my number one. Hmm… I really should say something about that one!
I wanted to keep this list simple so I’ve said nothing about any of these movies. But feel free to discuss them with me in the comments! π I’ll say it was pretty easy deciding the order for these but I did have a hard time deciding which movie to put at number one for tomorrow’s list. Number one & two were so close! But I still managed no ties for tomorrow.
Well, it’s the first Sunday of the month so I thought I’d review my blog’s stats for August. It was my biggest month for views in the almost three years since starting my blog, which is cool as it’s felt like everyone kind of disappeared over this summer. Where is everybody?! Hope you all had lovely summer vacations. π
Here are the stats I enjoy looking at the most – My Top Viewed Posts For August:
What I’m always happiest about is when I review something slightly more obscure & end up getting a huge response from people who either wish to add how much they love that movie or from people who had never heard of it & are now very interested in seeing it after my (stunningly well-written) review. π
There were two posts like that in August. One was my review for The Last Unicorn, a strange little animated Rankin/Bass film from 1982 that was animated by those who later went on to form my beloved Studio Ghibli. It’s very of its time & has a totally 70’s-easy-listening soundtrack with songs by America plus big-name voice talents such as the always cool Christopher Lee as the “baddie”. It’s strange & beautiful and lots of bloggers, male & female, stopped by to say how much they love that movie.
The other post that got a lot of attention was My Top Ten Drew Struzan Movie Art Pieces. I love movie poster art & thought Struzan was more of a household name but after I reviewed the excellent documentary about him (review HERE), it was obvious many bloggers weren’t aware of him. When I did my Top Ten list of his movie art, people became far more interested when they saw just how many iconic posters he created (Back To The Future, various Star Wars special editions, The Thing, etc etc).
Finally, my biggest post of the month (after that old shower/bath post) was My Top Ten Movies With Song Title Titles. I had a lot of fun putting that list together so was very happy to get so many comments on it. I’m glad I finally got up off my bum & started posting these top ten lists every Thursday. I have a lot of them – I just need to get the time to put the posts together each week! I’ll try to keep it up. π
Now onto the always entertaining (and pervy) Top Search Terms For August:
“Alice Eve hot” AGAIN?! Every damn month that pops up! And I don’t think a day goes by where I don’t get at least one view of my old Odd Thomas review & I know it’s just because the actress in it, Addison Timlin, wears extremely revealing panties. Pervs. But… Kyle Reese naked?! I wish! Unfortunately, I have no nude photos of Michael Biehn. π
Let’s see… Haviland Morris? The popular bitch from Sixteen Candles? Wonder who was searching for her… Not Jake Ryan! Ha! Interesting that people were looking for current photos of the cast from The Lost Boys & The NeverEnding Story (don’t click on that – you may ruin your childhood looking at Barret Oliver now). Looking at those posts, I’d forgotten I did this Lost Boys haiku. I like it!:
Two Coreys defeat Santa Carla vampires Death by stereo
Finally, here are My Top Commenters (hugs!) & New Followers (hello there!):
I can’t believe it’s already September. But I must admit that I can’t wait for this month to finish so that I can start posting nothing but horror movie reviews & other horror-movie-related items through all of October. And I love reading all the horror reviews on other blogs, which is weird as it’s hardly my favorite genre! I’ve been watching horror films since July to prepare. And, man – have they sucked! I’m hoping to watch a few good ones by October. So far, this is the only one I’ve enjoyed in the slightest:
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB) A brave unicorn and a magician fight an evil king who is obsessed with attempting to capture the world’s unicorns.
My Opinion:
As the parent of a young child but also a movie lover, I’m often on the lookout for kids’ films that I may actually enjoy as well. I’ve sat through enough crappy movies for kids that I think it’s okay to sometimes get to watch one that interests me as well. Right?! π Enter the 1982 film The Last Unicorn which, apparently, is something of a cult classic, has a very high IMDB rating (for its age & the fact it’s animated) of 7.5/10, AND it’s from RANKIN/BASS plus the animators who went on to form STUDIO GHIBLIyet I’d somehow never even heard of it before?!? Holy shit – I was all over this thing when I read about it! It sounded like something that couldn’t be more ME!!! So we got the DVD & for about two months I said to the hubby & kid “Let’s watch The Last Unicorn!!!!” until they finally agreed (probably to shut me up).
Wow. The Last Unicorn is a strange one. I kind of sort of loved it. I can see that, if I’d watched it as a kid, it may now be as special to me as the Rankin/Bass classic Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer. No, it’s not as good as Rudolph and it certainly doesn’t beat any of the Miyazaki Studio Ghibli films but there’s something kind of special & “magical” about it in the same way I feel there is about the Ghiblis. Hmm… How should I put this? This movie is so “1982” which, to me, is a great thing while to others it’ll be a bad thing. I’d only recommend this one to certain people who like things such as Studio Ghibli, Ralph Bakshi’s work, Heavy Metal (1981), The NeverEnding Story, and… maybe Labyrinth? I’m struggling to describe this but if you hate all the things I’ve listed, you should probably steer clear of The Last Unicorn. Oh – I’d also recommend it to any bronies! Bronies would love it.
I can’t really get into the plot too much and there are pictures I have to avoid posting that would contain massive spoilers. In the movie, a unicorn (voiced by Mia Farrow) discovers she’s the last unicorn in the world & goes on a journey to find out what happened to the others. She’s joined along the way by a magician called Schmendrick (voiced by Alan Arkin). Talk about an impressive voice cast, we also have Jeff Bridges as a prince, Angela Lansbury (always a favorite of mine) as a witch, and the amazing Christopher Lee who is of course perfect as the evil king who tries to capture all the unicorns in the world.
This movie has so many things that fantasy lovers will like: magic, wizards, witches, kings & princes, mythical creatures including a harpy and a rather scary, demonic Red Bull, talking butterfiles, etc etc. Oh yeah – and a unicorn! I have to say that, although unicorns have come to be seen as a “girl” thing, this movie is every bit as much for male viewers as for female – it’s not aimed just at one sex. In fact, when I mentioned this on Twitter, the response I got was from adult males saying how great this film is. I can see why it’s a cult classic – it’s very unusual and the animation is stunning. The story takes a very unexpected turn (the spoiler I’m avoiding) which I now love but took getting used to at first. It’s nice to not be able to predict what will happen like you can with most kids’ films!
As I mentioned, I found the animation stunning. I was happy just looking up images of this film to be included in this post. I think I may have to change my work computer’s wallpaper from My Neighbor Totoro to this!
Yeah, I’m a mature adult. Give me a break – I literally had a big poster of a unicorn jumping over a rainbow over my bed for years as a young girl. God I was girly for a while! Anyway, as I mentioned, the studio responsible for animating this film (Topcraft) were later hired by Hayao Miyazaki to do my other favorite Studio Ghibli movie (along with Totoro), NausicaΓ€ Of The Valley Of The Wind. The studio’s main members then formed Studio Ghibli. (Thanks for that info, Wikipedia!). Anyone who has been around here for a while will know what a big fan I am of Ghibli & how much I love NausicaΓ€ so you can see why I had to see The Last Unicorn after I read about it.
My six-year-old’s opinion:
I’ve started including my daughter’s opinion on kids’ movies so that I don’t appear as some crazy old person rambling on about “cartoons”. So, I’ll include it again this time but I think it’s pretty obvious by now that this one was more for mommy. π
We watched this a few months ago & the movie held her attention well but she’s not really mentioned it or asked to see it again. I asked last night what she thought of that Last Unicorn movie we watched & the reply was “It was better than I thought it would be!”. lol – What does that mean?! I think she was humoring me when she agreed to watch it, then. How sweet! I do think she’s a little too young for it as some of the themes at the end are too grown-up to fully be understood. There’s nothing I’d consider “inappropriate” but it’s a bit “out there” if your kid doesn’t like weirdness plus the Red Bull may be too scary for the very young who scare easily. I can see it being one she’d rediscover & possibly love in two or three years so I’d maybe recommend it to kids of 8 or so. She does love the young Studio Ghiblis, though, (Ponyo, Kiki’s Delivery Service & of course My Neighbor Totoro) so she was probably better able to handle any strangeness.
Summary:
Hopefully I’ve given a bit of an idea as to what this movie is like – I’m going to include a clip of the opening at the end of this post to give you a better idea. This is one of those movies I’m hoping to “introduce” to people here but it’s definitely not going to be loved by anyone who isn’t into this sort of thing or the other films I mentioned in the review. I also think being over 35 & under 10 would help. This is exactly the type of animated movie that obsessive film lovers my age who have young kids look for. I forgot to mention that this movie includes songs by America that are the very definition of late 70s/early 80s “easy listening”. If you like K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies, you may be able to handle this film. Or if you’re the type to get that reference.
My Rating: 8/10
**I’m including a clip of the opening of this film to give you an idea what it’s like. If you can’t make it past the song by America at 2 1/2 minutes in without gagging, this movie may not be for you… π
Cinema Parrot Disco 