Top Ten Movie Countdown Blogfest

This is Alex J. Cavanaugh's Top Ten Movie Coundown Blogfest. I'll cheat a little bit, because I won't name my favourite movies... instead of I'll write about my most mentionable movie experiences in the time being. The order isn't important.

Batman

As I remember Batman was the first movie I ever see in a cinema. Tell the truth the place were I saw Batman was rather a cultural center of a small town (near to my hometown) than a movie theatre, but it was a great experience. The whole place was totally full, you couldn't find a free seat. As I remember we received some Batman poster from the director of the place, which was photocopied from an movie magazine.

This movie was a great hit that time, and I enjoyed very much. I loved the Batmobile, the cool gadgets, Batman, (Kim Basinger as well) but I'm afraid from the Joker. I think this was my first geek-movie experience.

Puss in the boots

Watchin the Puss in the boots was the occasion, when I was a movie theatre with my daughter. And there were nobody at this room but us, my daughter and me. Annamária was only 4 that time, but she enjoyed it very much. After the film, at the credits she started dancing before the movie screen. It was funny!

Nascar 3D: The IMAX experience

My first 3D experience in the movie theatres was the Nascar 3D: The IMAX experience. It was an 40 minutes documentary on the big screen. I always love cars, the racing, however my all-time favourite is the Formula 1, but enjoyed very much this film. I can realy feel the whole Nascar environment, the pulse and the feeling of it. I'd like to rewatch it sometime.

The Matrix

The Matrix was the bigest suprise I ever meet in cinemas! I know almost nothing about this movie before watching it. I hadn't got internet connection at home, and I saw just one trailer (I didn't understand a single word about it). The plot was awsome, as the tricks as well. Unfortunately the sequels ruined the whole Matrix-universe.

Watchmen

As a geek I'm a big fan of comics. The Watchmen was a blind spot to me. When I first saw the character posters I think to this film as a parody of Batman. But after I had do some research and bought the the comic books as well. The unique viewpont and the strange characters made this movie the best comics-based movie I ever see! I can't tell what I loved most about it, maybe everything.

I remember the day when I saw the Watchmen. It was a cloudy spring night when the light rain knocking on the top of my rabbit-fur hat. I almost felt all pain of Rorschach as it walking under the rainy, clouded sky.

Avatar

The movie you mustn't miss in a 3D cinema! Unfortunately if you remove the 3D and CGI environment you got almost the same as the Pocahontas, not more. The Avatar wasn't a bad movie, however there were much better movies at that time, without 3D. It was also a big hit, but unfortunately it hasn't followed by the same quality 3D movies. If you know at least one, then named it!

Star Wars IV: A new hope

Funny, but the Star Wars IV: A new hope was one of my worst movie experience. It's not because of the film, or 'Greedo first-shoot' scene. The cinema was full of people, I just got ticket to 2nd row from the screen. The seat was very unconfortable... Moreover the couple behind me said I should stay low, because they didn't see anything because of me. I couldn't find the best position to watch the movie, strech my legs, staying low, so it was very unconfortable and unpleasant movie experience.

Saving private Ryan

We had my World War 2 movies on VHS format at home. The Saving private Ryan was a school-movie experience, when the whole secondary school visited the cinema. It was interesting to me the teachers let us watch this brutal movie. We just 14-18 years old that time. Saving private Ryan isn't my favourite WW2 film, but it has to watch too!

The Rock

Can you name a good film with Nicolas Cage recently? I don't think so, but the middle of the 90's he were in many good movie (Face/Off, Con Air, The Rock). Why I like The Rock movie so much? Not just because of Nic Cage, but Sean Connery, The Alcatraz, the Hummers. I think this was one of the last real action movie.

Valami Amerika

As you see from the previous items of my list, I primary watch action-based movie in the cinemas. I think watching a romantic/comedy in cinemas is throw money out of window. Of course there were some exceptions. One of the Valami Amerika (A kind of America). Unfortunately the Hungarian movie industry is poor, and the quality of films also. But this one was like a secret gem and gave my faith back to the Hungarian movie industry.

Here you can find the other participants of this blogfest.

Status report after Christmas

Movie

My three years old son had never been in cinema, but last week we went to watch a movie, The Rise of the Guardians. He and my daughter enjoyed very much the show, however I had small problems with it.

1. The Rise of the Guardians is for Americans. Some of the 'heroes' are mostly unknown or uncommon (Jack Frost, Sandman, Tooth fairy) for the Hungarians. Santa Claus visit the children in 6th of December, not Chrismas Eve (then a baby Christ coming with the presents).

2. The story was in the usual frame/template. We got almost nothing new, we got the well-know storyline with supriseless twists.

In spite of these this movie was fun, not just the kids, but for me as well.

Film

During my long winter holiday (I have been home from 14th December... with the children.) I have time to watching films. I deceided to rewatch a great classic from my childhood, The Masters of the Universe. I had good memories when I first saw the adventures of He-Man. That was the day when I got my first Kinder Suprise! I remember how angry I was when the guests arrived and I had to cancel to watch that film...

The rewatch of The Masters of the Universe was shocking. The storyline, the costumes, the acting were ridiculus, but I still loved it. It was a little bit strange with complete dubbing, because first I watched one-man-dubbing on terrible monoton tune, with many missed or untranslated sentences.

I watched other films too (Mirror Mirror, The Dictator, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, etc) , but I don't want to blogging about them.

Series

I finished with the 4th season of Fringe, and I started to watch Farscape (with the children) and Lost (with my wife). Fortunatelly my wife and me both hate the Christmast movies on tv, so we quickly finished the first season of Lost.

Books

I won a short-story/novel collection with 10 writtings from a Hungarian publisher. It wasn't bad, but I wasn't fully satisfied with it. Somehow my favourite writtings from the 10 haven't won any awards, while the others yes.

I loved the story about the local superheroes in the Budapest's city steampunk version. The sour end of the novel - unfortunatelly - trully reflect the real Hungarian people.

Boardgames

Luckily the baby Christ was very generous this Christmas. We received a ton of games: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Arkham Horror.

And children got the followings:  Zooloretto, Piranhas, Buckaroo, Jack der Krähenschreck, Château Roquefort

Genre Favorites Blogfest

I deceided to participate my blogger-friend, the author of some great great books, Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh's actual blogfest, the Genre Favorites Blogfest. I'll try to use out the advantage of the local timezone and finish my post before the others. I've admit I was lazy to wrote it before, so I'm writting it now live, without any pre-schedule.

Favourite genre of MOVIE:

I knew as I looked to the first category it means very big problem to me, because I love more than 1 genre, but I have to choose 1 of them. At the first round I reduced my favourites to three: fantasy, sci-fi and based on comics. Maybe this third category doesn't exist so I deducted that one from the list. I'm still before the big decision because definatelly hard to vote one of my favourite. Maybe I'll break the rules when I say draw between fantasy and science fiction. Below you can see my reasons.

Fantasy: If you look into the past and try to find good - I mean really good - fantasy films you can find only one film (or filmseries) The Lord of the rings. But if you look in to the things deeper you can found other good films from the past. I have to mention only the classic, the one-and-only real Star Wars trilogy. It's a classic fantasy with knights, magic, valor and princess... but in space environment!

Sci-fi: I've admit I love the space and I love the science, but not every movie takes place in space means it's science-fiction (see Star Wars). I love the sci-fi movies when I have to thing about consequences of decisions, or think about the realisticness of the future. Sometimes I fell like we're already live in the future with great gadgets, but it's also cause a horrible feelings to. 

Favourite genre of MUSIC:

It was the easiest choice...

Rave: I still love rave music, and I can't explain why. Maybe about the rawness and the high BPM. These style really fast... Unfortuntely it's completely die to the 21st century, and the UK happy hardcore or much slower electronic musics are pure mockeries. I embeded one of my favourites:

Favourite genre of BOOKS:

I didn't allow myself the luxury to pick more than one favorite genre, so I choiced:
Fantasy: This genre give me the most pleasure and entertainment. I can completely switch-off my mind and I can imagine anything. While the sci-fi give some borders to a story, in the case of fantasy there are NO barriers. Luckily in genre of fantasy I can find the pulp-fiction and high-concept fantasy as well. I know I have to recite the name of great authors like Steven Erikson and George R. R. Martin, but as I sad I like the lighter books from authors like R. A. Salvatore or Elaine Cunningham. And I would be unfair if I have don't mention the writer of the mind-blowing Dark Tower series, Stephen King.

Guilty pleasure genre of movie:

It was also a hard decision... to choose a music genre (trance), or a book genre (sci-fi, detective stories or steampunk), but I choiced the previously mentioned
Comicbooks adaptions from movie category: At the past 3-5 years the comicbooks adaptations were the greatest hits to me. Due to the development of movie creating technologies these kind of films improved a lot, and we can believe these things can be real. We can see our childhood heroes on the big screens of movie theathers, and we don't think they're lames as we think the early Batman movies/series. Now we can believe Tony Start is a real person, Peter Parker able to walk on walls and the Avengers able to defend our planet at the end.
But I must admit the older comicbooks heroes have an ancient, nostalgic charm. We could love the old Batman and Superman with their underpants on their paints. And I still love the noir-feeling Sin City as the alternative history from the cold-war period of the Watchmen.

It was my post about my favorite genres. Maybe I should had found some other pictures and youtube videos to decorate the post, but I have to 5 hours left to early get up. So, maybe next time... ;)

Oh, I almost forgot. If you interested more about this blogfest and the other participants choices, then please visit will visit Alex J. Cavanaugh's blogpost!

Bedtime tales... in my own way

I usually tell bedtime tales to my children. I used to read something from a book, or projecting something from my childhood collection, I had many classic tales from famous writters as Grimm, Andersen or from the Hungarian folklore. We - my wife and me - projected them the slide show with my nearly 20-years-old Russian projektor. But found something new...

I have started to tell them the classi bedtime stories in my own way, which means I spiced the tales with rolling dice. When I'm telling them the story of Little Red Ridding Hood, there is the possibility the little girl found another animal in the woods. And after a successful diceroll she miss the encounter, or it turns out the another animal is just a rabbit (not from the movie Monthy Python and the Holy Grail.) :)

The kids enjoy very much these kind of tales. They like rolling the colorful dice. I have many tiny 6-sided dice in many colors, as I have d4, d10, d12, d20 and d100 as well. So I have many opportunity to change the way of the tales. I think - in that way - the line is very thin between the roll-playing game and role-playing game. After I have finished a tale I mix the dice, and suggest to my daughter and son to collect together the same colors as Cinderella did in the tale. 

Unfortunately my wife doesn't like these kind of games, and kids are too young for a complex game yet, but maybe about 2-3 years later they will play with me. Maybe not Dungeons & Dragons or M.A.G.U.S, but something similar rpg.

A little bit strange, but my wife loves my stories which I tell the children. I'm trying to not put freaky or too bad things to the tales. But I think many tales of Grimm and the Hungarian folklore are simple horror stories. They can frighten the children.

What do you think about the horror content of the classic bedtime tales? What do you think about my 'new-style-bedtime-storytelling'?

First Loves Blogfest

This is the first time when I participate a blogfest, so I'm very excited. I read about the First Loves Blogfest on Alex J. Cavanaugh blog, I decided to participate.

Movie: Star Wars - A New Hope

I was 9 or 10 years old, when I found the Empire Strikes Back cartoon at my father attic. The almost 15 years old comic completely amazed me, with it pictures and story. But this was the 5th(!) episode of a long saga, so I started to search after the other episodes. I found out this Hungarian comic is just the copy of a whole film-series called Star Wars, so I found a new mission: I wanted to watch the films.

In the end of the 1980 years there weren't internet yet, the only solution was the VHS or the satellite channels. I got the Star Wars A New Hope on VHS, with German language. I didn't understand a single word about it, but I loved it! I watched that tape many times within a week!

It takes years when I had oportunity to watch the A New Hope and sequels of it (Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi) in Hungarian. I love all part of the classic trilogy! The problems begin with the new ones...

Music: RMB - Experience

I always love the rave music, with it's high BMP number and the vibration. My favorite bands played very great songs when I was 15-18 years old, but great years of rave music is faded very fast. But still I really love listen this "old" songs.

My favorite formation called RMB and my most favourite song from them is the Experience.
Enjoy! ;)

Book: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

I read many books when I was young. I wrote about them at this blog, and mentioned some milestone book of me. My first, very big love was the Dragons of Autumn Twilligh by Weis & Hickman. It was suprising experience which I never known before. This book means the enter to the world of fantasy books.

Person: My wife
Yes, she was my really first love...

Superhero film alphabet

I'm a geek. Or I think of myself as a geek. Once I love the comics, as I love the superheroes, the stories about them, and of course the superhero movies. Today I run into a short video, where you can find many superhero or superhero comic/movie characters in alphabetical order. Do you recognize all of them? How many of the characters do you know? And which is you favourite ones?