Mock Squid Soup: November Entries

I have fallen off the blogging wagon and am not following through on the theme for this month's hop.  I am not a good blogging co-host.

Instead, I will share ALL of the movies I watched last weekend.  I spent last week in Doha, Qatar visiting some schools and attending an education summit.  The flight home allowed me to watch ALL of the following movies.

My current flickchart rating is under each image. I currently have 1,209 movies on my flickchart list.

Only The Prestige and The Social Network were repeat viewings.  All the others I was seeing for the first time.

#754

#105

#47

#75

#104

 If you have seen this, you know it opens with a stunt on an airplane.  This was what I was watching as our plane took off!

#466

 If you have seen the marketing for this one, you know it is an earthquake movie.  Watching it while experiencing turbulence added to the effect.  I can't say it made the movie better.

#39

That's it!

This is a Blog Hop!

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1. The Armchair Squid	2. Birgit
3. Musings of a Creative Writer	4. A Space Blogyssey
5. Cherdo on the Flipside	6. The ToiBox of Words
7. MOCK!

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Mock Squid Soup - August 14, 2015 - Sleepless in Seattle

I am sitting in the last day of class and received a text from Nan that we forgot to do our posts!

I think everyone figured out I watched Sleepless in Seattle.  It was a big favorite, due to the soundtrack, to watch in the video store back in the day.  Last week, I put it on while I was starting to set up my classroom.

It does seem to be both a relic of its time but still holds up well enough to be enjoyable.

And now I must get back to class!

This is a Blog Hop!

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1. The Armchair Squid	2. Cherdo on the Flipside
3. Birgit	4. Two Square Dogs
5. The ToiBox of Words	6. Hungry Enough To Eat Six
7. MOCK!	8. Musings of a Creative Writer

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Mock Squid Soup: August Trivia Teaser

>cough cough<  This blog is a little dusty...let me turn on a light.  

Ahh...that's better.  Let's see...the last post was...June 12?!?!?  Holy cow!  Well, I'll pretend nothing has happened!

It is time for this month’s gathering of the Mock Squid Soup, hosted by the Armchair Squid and by myself! Today, we provide 3 clues to keep you on the edge of your seat! Next Friday we will share our movie choices and reviews. 

1.  Despite being a romantic comedy, the two leads share less than 2 minutes of screen time together.
2.  The lead actor won the Academy Award for Best actor for another movie he starred in the very same year!
3.  At one point in the movie, the male lead does an impression of a different actor, who starred in a  1957 film, clips of which feature prominently throughout the movie.

There you go!

This is a Blog Hop!

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1. The Armchair Squid	2. Cherdo on the Flipside
3. Birgit	4. Two Square Dogs
5. The ToiBox of Words	6. Hungry Enough To Eat Six

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Mock Squid Soup - June 12, 2015 - Mad Max: Fury Road

MOCK! and The Armchair Squid are proud to welcome you to Mock Squid Soup: A Film Society, meetings on the second Friday of each month.  Last week, society members posted three clues as to their chosen film for the month.  Today is the big reveal.

Last month, I thought I knew what this month's movie was going to be.  I had intended to re-visit an old favorite but instead...

I had not intended to see this film.  I don't recall if I've seen the original trilogy.  But shortly after this was released, a friend texted that he was interested in seeing this.  We were supposed to go see "American Sniper" together this past winter, but those plans fell apart.  So, since I hadn't seen him in a bit AND he had convinced another friend I had only seen briefly the week before, I jumped in.

And I am quite glad I did.  This was a bombastic, in-your-face, senses assaulting thrill ride.  I have read somewhere that there were about 15 pages of dialog when the script was written and 3500 stills for the storyboarding of the action scenes.  It just picks up after a low key opening monologue and doesn't stop for its entire two hour running time.

It has strong female characters, lots of humor and action, and a nice set up for a new trilogy.  While not overly gory, it is definitely not for everyone.  

But it was fun.
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Mock Squid Soup: June Trivia Teaser

Today, as an added treat for this month's edition of Mock Squid Soup, all society members are invited to post three hints about their film choice for the month.  All are welcome to guess, of course.  Here are the three clues for my movie:

-Twenty years ago, the writer/director of this movie worked on a film that earned seven Academy Award nominations (including his adapted screenplay) but that film only won one award...for Best Visual Effects.

-Since the inception of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, one of the animated movies this movie's writer/director helmed became one of only two animated features to ever beat a Pixar film for the award. (That's a clunky sentence!)

-Playing anti-heroes in this movie, both lead actors were nominated for Teen Choice Awards for their roles, in two separate movies, as "Best Choice Villain" (She in 2012 and he in 2013).

That was harder than I thought it would be.

Mock Squid Soup - May 8, 2015: Avengers: Age of Ultron

Could it be anything else?

Nan and I had grand plans to watch movies and tease trivia, but, alas, it was not meant to be!

Currently, it stands as my favorite Marvel movie and it cracks the top ten of all my movies on Flickchart.

I saw it during previews with Nan and our son, then saw most of it at the drive-in the next night with a large group of friends (including my son, my daughter and her boyfriend) and then again on Saturday with my two cousins in Rutland.

There are stories behind each viewing, but the clock on the wall says I have to head to school.  I might find my placement for next year today.  And then I have a big presentation tonight for my Masters project so it will all have to wait.

I hope you are all well.

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: April 2015: "George Harrison: Behind The Locked Door" and "All You Need Is Kill"

Reading has become a luxury I don't seem to be able to afford recently.  However, in the last few weeks I have finished TWO distinctly different books.

First, I read the book All You Need Is Kill by Hiroshi Sakurazaka.  This was the novel that inspired last summer's Tom Cruise sci-fi action flick "Edge of Tomorrow".  I really enjoyed the movie and was please I had seen it previous to reading this book.  While the book was enjoyable, I felt some of the concepts were actually fleshed out a bit better on the big screen.

Secondly, I grabbed George Harrison: Behind the Locked Door by Graeme Thomson on a whim at the library last month.  I once joked I had four constant friends growing up and they were named John, Paul, George and Ringo.  In my teens, I read a lot of Beatle biographies plus the big ones about John and Paul.  Ringo was Ringo and I never bothered to learn much about him beyond the highlights.  There was, however, a dearth of information on George.

This book does a wonderful job of uncovering who George really was.  There is lots of first hand accounts and interviews with those closest to Harrison.  It is a fascinating read.

I place this with the best Beatle related books I have read.

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The idea is simple: on the last Friday of each month, post about the best book you've finished over the past month while visiting other bloggers doing the same.  In this way, we'll all have the opportunity to share our thoughts with other enthusiastic readers.  Please join us HERE!

Mock Squid Soup - April 10, 2015: Strangers On A Train

I love me some Hitchcock.  When fellow Souper Birgit put this forth as her March offering, I knew I had found my April film!  After showing Nan and Logan the original trailer on Amazon, we were all convinced.

After our Easter meal and Star Trek viewing, we settled in for this.  It was my son's third Hitchcock offering (we've watched North by Northwest a few times and he has seen all of To Catch A Thief but in three separate viewings) and he and my wife are currently planning a trip that will take them on their first long distance train trip, so everyone was cracking wise as things got under way.

This was great fun!  Logan spotted Hitchcock's cameo at around the ten or eleven minute mark.  He thought the performances were incredible.  It was so much fun listening to him unraveling the story and motives.  It was all so scandalous but still tame enough for his soon-to-be-teen sensibilities.

It has been a while since I'd seen this.  So many of Hitchcock's other films with Grant and Stewart and the like always seemed to overshadow this for me.  Rebecca and Rope are two of my all time favorite movies of any type.  But this was like finding an old pair of pants that still fit....nice and comfortable and a pleasant surprise.

When this was discussed last month on Birgit's site, there was a lot of talk about Throw Momma From The Train, the 1987 black comedy inspired by this film.  Recollections of that film were decidedly mixed, but I remember it fondly.  Perhaps I'll seek it out.  Or just pull out all my Hitchcock VHS tapes!

Favorite Line

Senator Morton: One doesn't always have to say what one thinks.

Star Trek: The Survivor

We celebrated Easter this past Sunday in the MOCK household with bowls of Nan's homemade Pozole Rojo and a viewing of Star Trek: The Animated Series episode The Survivor.

This was a solid episode that embraced some of Star Trek's overall themes and exploited the animated series ability to "bust the budget."  

In this episode, the crew rescues a long missing philanthropist named Carter Winston.  In an example of cosmic coincidences, Winston's fiancee, Lieutenant Anne Nored, is a member of the Enterprise's security team.

Winston Carter in his super groovy spacewear

Anne Nored: Suffers from some early 70's stereotypes about women

Before long, we learn that Winston is really a shape-shifting alien called a Vendorian . 

Kirk and the Vendorian

Once aboard the Enterprise, he transforms himself into Captain Kirk and tries to take the ship into a Romulan trap. But after falling in love with Lieutenant Nored, the Vendorian saves the Enterprise and Kirk agrees to take his actions into account.

Favorite Exchange

Doctor McCoy: I'm glad to see him under guard, Jim. If he'd turned into a second Spock, it would have been too much to take.

Mr. Spock: Perhaps. But then two Dr. McCoys just might bring the level of medical efficiency on this ship up to acceptable levels.

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Bloggers extraordinaire, Maurice Mitchell, Spacerguy and The Armchair Squid are embarking on a new journey to watch all 22 episodes of Star Trek's animated series.  Anyone who watches an episode will be posting on Wednesdays.  All are welcome to join them for all or parts of the adventure. More information can be found HERE.

Star Trek: One Of Our Planets Is Missing

Bloggers extraordinaire, Maurice Mitchell, Spacerguy and The Armchair Squid are embarking on a new journey to watch all 22 episodes of Star Trek's animated series.  Anyone who watches an episode will be posting on Wednesdays.  All are welcome to join them for all or parts of the adventure. More information can be found HERE.

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My son and I had Star Trek: Generations on in the background while he was using his DS and I was catching up on last Friday's movie bloghop, when I finally got to comment on Squid's entry.  I had forgotten about his Animated Trek project.  My son and I had a little bit of time still before his Odyssey of the Mind meeting, so I decided to throw this week's episode on the screen.

Star Trek played a HUGE role in my life right up until about the turn of the century.  The animated series was a part when I was young but I had only seen the two episodes considered "cannon" as an adult and that was about 20 years ago.

In this episode, which was the third of the animated series, the Enterprise must contend with a massive space cloud that eats planets, now targeting a Federation colony of over 82 million.

I had dismissed the animated series a little while back.  If the episodes are all as strong as this one, perhaps it will join Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise in my son's and my Trek television rotation.  I thought the story was strong, the animation was acceptable, and the voice work top notch.

Mock Squid Soup - March 13th: Three Days of the Condor

This blog has been long neglected.  It has been 71 days since I last posted.  Life changes rapidly and I have been making some choices to keep up.  One of the casualties of my choices has been my free time....specifically my on-line free time.  I don't seem to find myself with enough time on my hands to visit blogs and comment, let alone posting here with any regularity.

It also means finding 90 minutes or more to sit and watch a movie is difficult.  My Netflix queue is full of movies ranging from "Oooh...I always wanted to see that" to "Hmmm....that looks worth watching."  I had no idea of what I might watch for this month's Blog Hop.  My prospect for finding time was bleak...but then it happened.

While cleaning up Netflix profile, Nan said she and our son had an Odyssey of the Mind meeting on Sunday and at the same time I saw "Three Days of the Condor" was now available on the service.

Currently #114 on my flickchart list

Robert Redford plays a low level analyst for the CIA.  He is part of a group that reads every book published and feeds the details to a computer to find out if pending CIA operations have been compromised.

One rainy day, it is Redford's job to get lunch for his co-workers.  When he returns, he discovers that they have all been murdered.  The rest of the movie is spent following Redford trying to unravel the mystery and figure out who he can trust.

For me, this has always been the epitome of 1970's conspiracy spy flicks, despite not having seen it for well over 15 years.  It held up well for me on this viewing with stellar performances and a veritable "who's who" of 1970's cinema.

Happy 2015!

Happy New Year!

To celebrate 2015, here are the covers of two comics from my collection cover dated 50 years ago this month!

These two covers give you a sense of the length each company had been publishing their books.  Superman was already at issue 174 in 1965, whereas The Avengers were celebrating their first year in print!