Tron. Now this is a movie remake that I am looking forward to seeing. For its time, the original was a pretty ground breaking flick with a decent cult/geek following. The modern technology of today will bring it to a new level.

Those are a few of the characters that John Hughes created through the numerous films that he wrote and/or directed during the 1980’s and 1990’s.  Sadly, John Hughes died today at age 59. So I thought I would take a second to acknowledge him.  The movies that he was responsible for, and the influence his movies had on those who grew up in the 1980’s and 1990’s, is beyond compare. Dare I say that Hughes was the most prolific and influential director of this era? Its not that far fetched. Lets take a look.

They may not have been Oscar winners, but their influence and cult like status is unmatched. Between 1984 and 1986 here are just a few of the movies he directed, produced, or wrote: Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink, Mr. Mom, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, Some Kind of Wonderful, and National Lampoon’s Vacation/European Vacation.  To this day, these movies sill make me laugh. The characters he created were funny, quirky, unique, and more than anything, real. We lost a little bit of our youth today.

On this day, June 29, 1905, Moonlight Graham played in the only game of his major league career.   Archibald “Moonlight” Graham’s short career is significant because its a central storyline in W.P. Kinsella’s book Shoeless Joe, which was the basis for ( in my opinion) the greatest baseball movie ever made, Field of Dreams. Here is his MLB career line:

The story of Moonlight Graham was depicted semi-accurately in the movie:

On June 29, the Giants were the visiting team against the Brooklyn Superbas. For the bottom of the eighth inning, Graham was sent in to play right field, replacing George Browne. In the top of the ninth inning, Graham was on deck (scheduled to be the next batter) when his teammate Claude Elliott flied out resulting in the third and final out. Graham played the bottom of the ninth in right field but never came to bat, and that game turned out to be his only appearance in the major leagues.

After his short visit to the majors, Moonlight completed his medical degree and moved to Chisholm, MN where he served that town as “Doc” Graham for close to 50 years. In the movie Field of Dreams, Burt Lancaster brilliantly plays “Doc” Graham in one of the great sequences in movie history. One of my favorite lines from “Doc” Graham:

Well, you know I… I never got to bat in the major leagues. I would have liked to have had that chance. Just once. To stare down a big league pitcher. To stare him down, and just as he goes into his windup, wink. Make him think you know something he doesn’t. That’s what I wish for. Chance to squint at a sky so blue that it hurts your eyes just to look at it. To feel the tingling in your arm as you connect with the ball. To run the bases – stretch a double into a triple, and flop face-first into third, wrap your arms around the bag. That’s my wish, Ray Kinsella. That’s my wish. And is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?

The way Lancaster delivers this line is amazing. You can see the twinkle in his eye and you get the feeling that he is just dying to jump into the batters box. So on this June 29th, pay an ode to “Moonlight” Graham, and to the idea that you can achieve what you want, even if it is for only half an inning in the field.

The new (and old) trailers for the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie are up at Apple’s site.  The new trailer looks great.  I was watching the HP and the Sorcerer’s Stone this evening on TV and its amazing how much the three main characters have changed and grown in the 8 years since that movie was produced.  I’m already looking ahead to see how they will do “Deathly Hallows” on the big screen.

Yahoo recently released a list of 100 movies to see before you die. They made a point of clarifying that its not the 100 best movies of all time but more a list of top influential or significant movies that you should see. I don’t fully agree with their choices but they have made a strong effort here.

I am slightly embarrassed to report that I have only seen 55 of their 100 that they have listed. I’m not planning on departing anytime soon, but it appears I may need to get over to Netflix soon. The vast majority of the movies I have not seen are from the 1950’s and 1960’s, which is way before my time, so cut me some slack there.

Now, if they did a “Top 100 Movies Since 1975 That You Have To See Before You Die”, then I think I’d have that locked up!

This movie takes you through all sorts of twists, turns and emotions in Jamal Malik’s life, while using the popular game show Who What’s To Be A Millionaire (We won’t get into the exchange rate between dollars and rupees) as a metaphor for his real pursuit, his love interest Latika whom he has known since childhood. The movie is an exceptional work however after seeing it, I don’t think I have a great desire to go to certain parts of Mumbai anytime soon.

I was a little underwhelmed with this movie. It was excruciatingly long. I think they could have easily cut an half hour off the movie. The story itself was interesting (based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story of the same name) and I did find the challenges of Button’s situation (getting younger as the years went on) one that you could have a ton of fun with. But through out the movie, I consistently felt that they were trying to make this an updated version of Forrest Gump, and it just never came close.

Update (1/19/09): Appears my observation about Forrest Gump was right on the money after all.

I’ll come clean here. Before this movie, I’d never heard of Harvey Milk. I had no idea of his impact and importance in American Civil Rights, Politics or GLBT rights. But I know who he is now. The movie and story is one of passion, triumph, and sadness. This movie is brilliantly acted and directed and it did a great job of enveloping you in the San Francisco Gay scene of the mid 1970’s. After watching this movie, I did some research on Harvey Milk, which included listening to an audio clip of him speaking. Doing that reinforced what an amazing job Sean Penn did in depicting Harvey Milk. His acting was spot on. Just an amazing performance! Kudos also to Josh Brolin for a nice performance as Milk’s main enemy. This is definitely one of the better movies of the year.

Watergate has always been a fascinating piece of American history. Watching Frost/Nixon was a great treat as these interviews were viewed by many as Nixon’s confession, even though he never fully grasped it or stated such. There were several interesting elements to the movie: the background that it provided about how Frost and his team scored the interview and their prep work before and during the interviews; the way Nixon was depicted, and how he turned “on” during the interviews and turned “off” when they were done revealed a great deal about Nixon himself; and most of all, the way Nixon was firmly convinced this was “his world” with “his rules” and we were just living in it. Langella’s overall performance as Nixon was fantastic and is definitely Oscar worthy. If you are a Watergate junkie, this is required viewing.

Earlier this year, I took my son to see the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie (not one of the finer products out of LucasFilms), and ever since, he’s been completely obsessed with the franchise.

After picking up the multi-disc set from the Library, doing a little prep work (“There are no animations. There are real people in these movies.”), we sat down this morning in our post-Thanksgiving sloth to enjoy the show. While tempted to have a 14 hour Star Wars marathon, we held back and just watched the first one.

And here is where the debate begins…which one is really the first one? There has been much animated discourse on which order do you show your kids these movies – theatrical release order (Episodes 4,5,6,1,2,3) or numerical order?

I decided that he should view the series in the theatrical release order since the original three movies are easily the best of the bunch (even though Jedi introduced us to Ewoks) and I felt that seeing them in the theatrical order is how Lucas intended us to experience the story – getting thrown right into the middle of the story via Star Wars: A New Hope (IV).

One day, I may take the time to watch them in numerical order to see if it changes my perspective on the series. That way, at least I’d be able to get Jar Jar Binks out of the way early.

Pixar will be releasing Cars 2 in 2011. Just what my house needs, more Cars toys strewn across the floor. The plot of the animated sequel:

[John] Lasseter mentioned that he came up with the idea for the sequel while traveling around the world doing publicity for the first film. He wondered how the characters would react in various locations all over the world. Cars 2 will follow Tow Mater getting his passport and traveling to Europe with Lightning McQueen.

Don LaFontaine, the King of Voiceovers best known for that ubiquitous movie opener “In a world…”, died yesterday. He was most recently featured in a Geico ad campaign that added to his pop culture shtick. Movie trailers will never be the same.

Sometimes, I don’t think Ben Stiller gets enough credit for the brilliance of his comedy. I am absolutely convinced that if Robert Downey, Jr. did not snort his life away while he was in his 20’s and 30’s, he’d be an even bigger star than he is already, and would have a couple of Oscars under his belt by now. His performance in this movie was top notch, hilarious even. This was one of the funnier movies I’ve seen in a while (a nod to my wife Lisa who suggested we go). Its not one of those outlandish comedies like Wedding Crashers, but is a very smart, well written, astutely cast films that just works. None of the actors take themselves too seriously, especially Cruise and McConaughey. Its one of those movies where you either get it, or you don’t.

I went to see “The Dark Knight” this evening. All the hype around Heath Ledger’s last performance is very well justified. He is beyond good as The Joker. I’d argue that if he’s nominated for an Oscar, he should get a Best Actor nod (vs Best Supporting Actor). I found the movie very well directed and designed, yet its about 20 minutes too long. Typical to Batman movies, its very dark.

I’d also like to know what’s up with Christian Bale changing his voice when he’s in the Batman jumpsuit. Reminds me of this classic Snicker’s commercial

Agency Spy and several other websites have noted how Phoenix Suns guard Steve Nash has created, and produced his own spot for Nike depicting a day in his life during the off season from his regular job as a guard for the Phoenix Suns and a former NBA MVP.

This past summer I was walking to work in TriBeCa and happened to see Nash cruising on his skateboard down Chambers Street, in a very similar fashion to what is depicted in his video, and just days after an article in the NY Times talked about how he spends summers in NYC playing soccer in various leagues in the city.