Banana Oil is on Facebook!

I’ve been on Facebook for a while, actually, but I realized that I had not publicized that here at any point. So hey! Follow me on Facebook!

And in case you missed it, I’m also on Twitter. Click on those links to keep up with my sporadic posting. And as always, thanks for reading!

Update

Hi guys. I know I’ve been awfully silent lately … life has been busy w/work and a new kid and all … and frankly, I haven’t seen any movie news to excite me in a while. However, I did manage to watch a couple of movies (one in the theater, even!!) over our vacation, and I promise I’ll be back in action soon. If you’re still reading, stay tuned!

Monday morning rallying cry

Apparently, there’s a Twitter campaign afoot to ask 20th Century Fox for a Master & Commander sequel. I am for it. I will direct your attention over to Cinemablend for the story, and ask that if you have Twitter, you a. Follow me, and b. Join the campaign!

Obviously, if you haven’t seen the movie yet, you should get on that, too. I’ve been thinking lately about how Paul Bettany needs to get back to doing better roles, and a well-made sequel to M&C would be just the thing, both for him and for Mr. Crowe, who’s sadly on a bit of a downturn at the moment.

…I look at the picture Cinemablend has posted, and I swoon a bit. Think I might know what I’ll be doing today …

Pros and cons

So, I love Shakespeare. However, The Tempest is a disappointing play. Miranda is such a poor excuse for a Shakespearean heroine! But, I love Helen Mirren. However, I am always really disappointed when people feel the need to change various characters into female ones, just because they can. It never fails to be weird and inaccurate, and just silly, because as I have argued for various other reasons, it’s not like you can’t throw a stick and hit an awesome British actor of any age bracket, really. However, supposedly Julie Taymor does a mean Shakespeare. I haven’t even watched Titus yet, despite it actually being one of my favorite plays. Perhaps I should get on that. Anyway.

The point of all this is to say that the Miramax/Taymor adaptation of The Tempest, starring Helen Mirren, Alfred Molina, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou, and David Straithairn (among others, and yes, I am ignoring the involvement of Russell Brand), which had been, at one point, indefinitely shelved, now has a release date. And that is December 10. Which means I probably won’t get to see it until much later, as I have a life-altering event planned for December 5th. Sigh.

NYT 1,000 Best Movies

I just found this list, of the New York Times’ “1,000 Best Movies Ever Made”, and I thought it was pretty interesting, so you should check it out! By my count, I’ve seen 143, with a whole slew of others in the old Netflix queue, so maybe I’ll have to revisit in another couple of years or something. Perhaps a new movie-viewing project? We shall see…

(I also feel the need to point out that there are two Russell Crowe movies on that list, although probably not the two you might think. Hee!)

How do you match up?

Changes…

Fiddling with themes a little. I kind of like this one. Any thoughts on the matter?

Beginnings…

Just what the world needs, right? Another person on the Internet who thinks they can write, thinks they can speak authoritatively about a given subject, thinks their opinion might be something other people will want to read. Well, since I’ll be claiming “no nonsense,” I guess I have to say that those assumptions are fairly correct. This blog will be all of those things. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll also be fun.

For my grand opening act, what I’m going to try to do here is give you a broad outline of why I’ve started this blog and what I’ll likely be discussing. Ready? Here we go.

First things first … the title. While I have just learned that there is, in fact, a substance called banana oil, my reference is a term, apparently coined by Milt Gross, a comic book artist, designed to “deflate pomposity and posing”. It is used, more in the sense of “Nonsense!” in two of my very most favorite movies (more on these later), and so I thought of it as a title for this blog. Add to the fact that I hope to write about movies and related subjects with little “pomposity and posing,” (read: nonsense) and it seems appropriate. You could also apply a deeper meaning, employing sarcasm, and see it as a comment that really, movies (and talking about them) are all just so much nonsense. Hopefully, this blog will not take itself, or its subject matter, seriously. Moving on…

Why this blog? I’ve come to the realization that I love movies. I watch a lot of them, I engage in movie-viewing projects, I read books about movies, I talk about movies, I read other movie blogs, I read critiques of movies … get the point? Additionally, I have long been a citizen of the interwebs, and I’ve never managed to come up with something to truly blog “about”. And finally, I am sort of hoping to hone my writing skills and find my “voice,” and hopefully writing here will facilitate that.

So … what will I be writing about? Well, besides movies? I shall attempt to elaborate.

• Movie-viewing projects: I have a few of these. They range from ambitious to just silly. I’ll tell you about them!
• My favorite actors/actresses/movies/etc.: Here’s a list. You can expect more on the following: Old-style musicals, rom-com, sci-fi/fantasy (including some comic-book movies), literary adaptations (sometimes), Gene Kelly, Julie Andrews, Russell Crowe, Robert Downey, Jr., and many more.
• Books about movies: I’ve read a few in the past couple of years, and I plan on reading more. Biographies of movie stars, books about the social impact of certain types of films, and so on.
• Reviews: Wouldn’t be a movie blog without them, would it? Reviewing movies is going to be a writing exercise for me.
• Movie news: I try to keep up, and I almost always have an opinion, so this might be a place to rant or celebrate from time to time.
• Lists: Sometimes I’m good at lists, sometimes I’m not. This’ll be an exercise in getting better, perhaps. Favorite movies, whatever! I’m open to suggestions.

I hope I will come up with more general categories of things to post about in the future … you’ll just have to stay tuned to see what happens!

And finally…what I won’t be writing about. I am reasonably picky about my movie viewing. I do often go out of my comfort zone, but I also know what I like and don’t like, and just because I’m starting a blog does not mean that I am going to go out there and watch things/people I don’t enjoy. So, a short list. You will probably not read about Will Ferrell, what I call the “new brand” of comedy a la Apatow, et al., anything having to do with Quentin Tarantino, overly serious/dramatic films (again, I watch these sometimes, but they’re not the norm), or horror flicks. I just don’t enjoy them, so I don’t watch them. But trust me – there are still plenty of things I do watch and enjoy, in whatever degree, and you shall hear about them if you are so inclined.

So that’s it! This is my movie blog. I’m hoping for one solid post a week, plus any sort of news or random thoughts that pop up from time to time. I hope you’ll read, and comment, and enjoy!

**Cosmetic changes will be taking priority over posting, for the time being, but I hope you’ll stay tuned anyway.

Stay tuned…

For movie nonsense!