CELLULOID BURNING

It’s been a little while since I have attended to my dear little film blog, so now I’m feeling a bit like a deadbeat dad. Celluloid Burning started off as a labor of love so I figured, for this week, it would be best to get back to basics and write about things that hit close to home.

This week’s list is all about the books I love. Some are dog-eared with well-worn pages and creased spines. Others are lovingly preserved in mint condition. All of them are fun, entertaining, and insightful and all for wildly different reasons.
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Everyone knows the economy kinda sucks right now. Jobs are hard to come by and money may be tight for a lot of people. For many out there, going out to a movie theater may provide some desperately needed escapism/entertainment/glimmers-of-hope-in-a-sea-of-crushing-disappointments. There’s only one problem:

Watching movies at the theater is f*cking expensive!
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This may be the most personal list I’ve written on this site. With film having been around for well over 100 years and the huge number of great directors from all over the world that have come and gone, the choices where daunting. I don’t claim to be an all knowing expert on film. There are many amazing filmmakers to whom I have seen little or none of their work. The director’s I do love, however, I’ve seen everything they have made and often tracked down rare and hard to find film’s from their oeuvre. I used no objective criteria in my selection, just my gut instinct and personal preferences. I know there are going to be a lot of people out there who scream “bloody murder” because I left out their favorite director to which I say… start your own damn website!
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Don’t you hate it when people spoil the endings to films you haven’t seen yet? What kind of jerk does that intentionally? Well…um…we are.

For this Top 10 Tuesday, we’ll provide the spoilers for the endings of 10 unnamed films. If you can be the first one to guess the titles of all 10 films correctly, we’ll send you some cool random swag for free. That’s right. This is the first Celluloid Burning contest! What kind of swag, you ask? You’ll just have to find out. Does it even matter? It’ll be free. Free shit is always awesome!!
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Movie Musicals are dead… ok maybe not dead, but at the very least they’re on life-support. The era of the big, opulent musical has passed. It passed away a long time ago. Yes there have been echoes of greatness, most notably Moulin Rouge, but really what else? Chicago, Rob Marshall movies… I think not (you have to bring something new to revive a dead genre). Now for the movie musical lovers, like myself, that doesn’t mean it’s time to slit your wrists and say “Hi” to baby Jesus just yet. There is cause for some celebration as there are plenty of films out there, that aren’t technically musicals (in the classical sense), but are best remembered for their unique and surprising musical moments. So lets collectively take the club out of Rob Marshall’s hands and give the dead horse a break.
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Warning: For this week’s Top 10, just assume that most of these film trailers and video clips are moderately not safe for work.

February the 14th is a day of celebration for a significant portion of the population. Things such as cards, flowers, chocolates, and forcefully ejected, often viscous, bodily fluids are eagerly exchanged between loved ones. For another equally significant portion of the population, it is another lonely and unsatisfying day, and moreover a painful and unfortunate reminder of more lonely and unsatisfying days to come.

Whether though bad luck, unfortunate circumstances, your own strongly antisocial tendencies, or being fundamentally broken as a human being, you may find yourself dateless this Valentine’s Day. This also includes those of you who are on the opposite end of the spectrum. If you are in a relationship whose passionate fires have been reduced to naught but cooling embers (and you are a mere handful of fights away from eagerly holding down a pillow over your significant other’s sleeping face), this is a list for you.
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Happy Groundhog Day dear people of the interwebs! For those not in the know, Groundhogs Day is the annual celebration held largely in Pennsylvania where, according to folklore, if the groundhog emerges from his burrow and fails to see his shadow winter will end soon. If he does see his shadow, there will be 6 more weeks of winter. How the heck this all this started, only wikipedia knows. The holiday gained its greatest fame from the deja vu inducing 1993 film of the same name, Groundhog Day starring Bill Murray. What better way to celebrate this “special” holiday than than with an all Bill Murray Top 10 Tuesday.
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This week’s Top 10 is about as testosterone-packed as a gamete-filled twinkie. It will put rolling waves of Chuck Norris-like hair on your chest, regardless of whether you desire any or not. (continue reading…)

This is a very special Top 10 Tuesday because….well…it’s Friday. Today marks the release of Jackie Chan’s latest paycheck American movie, The Spy Next Door. This list is meant to both celebrate the career of the greatest worldwide action icon and as a passionate plea to the movie going public to not waste your hard earned/borrowed/stolen money. The sad truth is that that Jackie is in the autumn of his career. The man is 55 years old and while he can still do more than anyone half his age, he’s 20-30 years past his prime. While Chan may have physically aged, his body of work hasn’t. He has starred in, choreographed and directed some of the greatest martial arts movies ever committed to celluloid. In honor of that, here are my Top 10 Jackie Chan Movies.

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The vast majority of movies I viewed in 2009 I enjoyed despite a few quirks and faults.

Honestly, it was hard for me to try to come up with a bottom ten for 2009, because I consciously tried to watch things I thought I would have a good chance of enjoying. This is the exact reason I did not watch GI Joe, Old Dogs, Paul Blart: Mall Cop, and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li last year.

Watching movies in theaters tends to be an expensive pursuit nowadays, so I try not to set myself up for failure. Best intentions or not, I came across a few I hated for a wide variety of reasons.

So MoFo’s you get a Top SIX list of the BOTTOM FILMS OF 2009! (continue reading…)