Tag: smugfilm

How (And Why) To Collect Blu-Rays and DVDs

collection
A small portion of my collection.

If you’re reading this site, you probably love movies, and if so, you should probably collect them. Now, before you say “No way, collecting is for turkeys!” and turn me down like I’m a bad influence out of a Ninja Turtles PSA, let me explain—this is for your benefit. Collecting gets a bad rap these days, what with shows like Hoarders and whatnot, but a real collector ain’t like those people. A real collector is fucking G. Not to toot my own horn, but I own over a thousand Blu-Rays and DVDs, and if I sold them all off right now, not only would I break even, I’d turn a profit. My collection pays for itself. I repeat—the movies I love pay for themselves. Wanna be like me? Here’s how.
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Ender’s Game: Hollywood, Please Let Me Re-Edit It

ender


Ender’s Game (2013)
Written and Directed by Gavin Hood
114 min.

Very minor spoilers ahead.

I read Ender’s Game a week before seeing the movie, and now I almost wish I hadn’t, because the book is fucking great. I don’t know whether I would have liked the movie more, or less, if I hadn’t read the book first, but I do know that I won’t be able to talk about the movie without talking about the book.

Don’t worry, though—I’m not going to make a checklist of everything the book did right that the movie did wrong. In fact, I’ll say up front that I don’t think that movie adaptations of books have any business being ‘faithful’. Or rather, I think they should be faithful in specific ways, and not in others. For instance, it’s important that an adaptation captures the themes, character arcs, and, whenever possible, the tone of its source. It’s not important that it hits every plot beat, or revisits every location, or namedrops every side character. That sort of keeping faith does little beyond providing little jolts of recognition to fans of the source material. A movie can get bogged down in superfluous details, or tripped up in its pacing, if it just methodically ticks off a checklist of things that happened to have happened in the book. And this, unfortunately, is what happened with Ender’s Game.
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Smug Film At The Movies #1: Escape From Tomorrow

escape


Escape From Tomorrow (2013)
Written and Directed by Randy Moore
90 min.

Last Friday, Smug Film critics Cody Clarke and Jenna Ipcar went to see Escape from Tomorrow at the IFC Center. Here are their respective spoiler-free takes on it.
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Remakes: Everyone’s Favorite Complaint

carrie


With the remake of Carrie out, it’s that time again for everyone to make their favorite complaint: “Oh god, another remake!  It’s like they’re raping my childhood!”

If you’re going to put forth that Hollywood is in need some new ideas, I’ll listen.  But it’s not as though this is a new thing.  Movies have always mostly been sequels, remakes, or adaptations.  Pick any random year since the dawn of cinema and I guarantee you’ll find as many as you do today.
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A Journey Through The Nightmare on Elm Streets

patricia
A great behind-the-scenes shot of Patricia Arquette from A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

This month, Amazon had the blu-ray set of all seven Nightmare on Elm Street movies on sale for like $23. I’d never seen any of them before, and at that price, I figured now would be a pretty good time to do so. Even though the series is quite uneven, it’s an interesting one. Here are my thoughts on each, with very mild spoilers, if any:
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