PJH Studios

Category: Movies

Movies high, low, action, adventure, comedy, drama, sci-fi, horror, western, zombie, samurai, dvd, blockbuster

  • Kill Bill in 4k

    Uma Thurman in Kill Bill vol 1

    It’s been of the 20 years since I’ve watched Kill Bill vol 1 and 2, Quentin Tarantino’s homage to 70s era kung fu action movies and Japanese cinema. That’s a long enough time that upon rewatch, it was like experiencing them for the first time again – only this time in 4K with surround sound, not a bad DVD copy on a CRT computer screen with minute speakers.

    Both movies still hold up. Colorful costumes and cinematography, engaging dialogue, an excellent stunt work in choreography for the fight scenes, particularly the nod to Lady Snowblood.

    In Kill Bill Volume 1, The Bride (Uma Thurman) faces off against O-ren (Lucy Liu) in a snow covered garden.

  • This is the Tom Green Documentary

    This is the Tom Green Documentary is an insightful work of nostalgia, showing his rise, how he made it work, and how he understood media and technology. The documentary serves as a segue to his new reality series on Prime.

    He performed TikTok, street style pranks before Gen Z was born. He executed Jackass style physical stunts before the Jackass crew got together. He even produced a web stream talk show before podcasting became a word.

    Green’s parents and friends all appear, and towards the end, there’s a contemplative aura about him.

  • My 2024 best of list

    Originally posted to Instagram

    Now that we are in the final days of the year, here are 🎵a few of my favorite things 🎶

    (TV, movies, music are all from this year. The book list are my favorites that I read this year, but may have come out earlier)

    TV

    • Shrinking
    • Penguin
    • Arcane
    • Shogun
    • Slow Horses
    • Abbott Elementary
    • Geek Girl
    • Las Azules
    • Interior Chinatown
    • Fallout

    Books

    • Adam Higginbotham – Midnight in Chernobyl
    • Kathryn Schultz – Lost & Found
    • Scott Carson – Lost Man’s Lane
    • Matt Dinniman – Dungeon Crawler Carl series
    • Tananarive Due – The Reformatory
    • Travis Baldtree – Legends & Lattes
    • Adrian Tchaikovsky – Children of Time
    • Rick Remender – The Sacrificers vol 1
    • Matthew Desmond – Evicted
    • Patrick Horvath – Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees

    Movies

    • Mads
    • The Last Stop in Yuma County
    • Wild Robot
    • My Old Ass
    • Caddo Lake
    • Rebel Ridge
    • Inside Out 2
    • Hundreds of Beavers
    • Late Night with the Devil
    • Self Reliance

    Music

    • Etran De L’Air – 100% Saharan Guitar
    • Haley Heynderickx – Seed of a Seed
    • Glass Animals – I Love You So F Much
    • Cassandra Jenkins, My Light, My Destroyer
    • Runnners – Starsdust
    • Rosali – Bite Down
    • Zach Bryan – The Great American Bar Scene
    • Kelly Lee Owens – Dreamstate
    • Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Trip to the Moon
    • Dehd – Poetry
    • Pearl Jam – Dark Matter
    • Phosphorescent – ‘Revelator’
    • Itasca – Imitation of War

  • Ladies & Gentlemen…50 Years of SNL Music

    If this isn’t infectious, I don’t know what is. Questlove drops a trailer for a documentary about 50 years of SNL musical guests.

  • Flow

    A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land,

    Flow really was a magical movie. No talking, just a motley crew slightly anthropomorphized animals navigating through beautiful scenery. Throughout the movie, we see hints of a higher level species (humans? who knows!), and you can’t help but wonder how or why this is happening.

  • Movie Bar Codes

    Slice a frame from a movie, stitch ’em together, you’d get something that resembles a bar code. A bar code that illustrates the color palate of the film. Here’s Singin’ in The Rain.

    tumblr_lhp031ycnm1qhtovi.jpg

    Prints are for sale, too.

  • Catfish

    Catfisha movie about the Facebook age and tells a story about identity, truth, love, art and perhaps mental illness. It’s shot in a documentary style and works best if you know nothing of the plot. The suspense builds, peaking on a horse farm in Michigan, and then the twist arrives, bringing a cautionary and emotional denouement too soon. Too soon because, depending on your point of view, it’s either a pitiful story or cynical fable or plain stupid hoax.

  • True Grit (2010)

    True Grit, as remade by the Coen Brothers, is ok. It’s less hokey than the original with John Wayne, but plods along with a series of events strung together. Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn works well as he fully embraces the character, and Hailee Steinfeld plays the spunky Mattie Ross with conviction.

    I think the issue is that the movie is made to be a serious western but the incongruity of a 14 year old girl marching a one-eyed, drunken federal marshal is anything but serious. Further, the snake pit scene still feels tacked on for the sole purpose to completely redeem the Cogburn character.

    The visuals and cinematography are well done and evoke a western feel.

  • Black Swan

    The ballet Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky serve as both a back drop and an allegory for the film, Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers is turned against herself in the ultra competitive, cutthroat world of ballet. The supporting cast of Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey and Winona Ryder serve only to add to the psychological transformation Nina undergoes, from innocent, hardworking dancer, to a self destructive presence, intent on seeking the dark, black goal of perfection. Hershey plays the vicarious, over protective mother who pathologically dotes on her daughter who wails during a key scene later in the movie, “What has happened to my sweet Nina?”

    For the acting, Kunis is good as Lily, seducing Nina to embrace her darker side. Cassel manipulates scenes with Machiavellian intent as the dance director Thomas Leroy. The film is emotionally intense, and visually dark and surreal, and at times jarring with outlandish visuals designed to create a nightmarish fever dream for Nina.

  • Scott Pilgrim – The Movie

    Scott Pilgrim – The Movie is a fun, hilarious adventure, action, nerd fest. Colorful visuals and engaging action sequences support a well directed cast as Scott Pilgrim must defeat seven evil exes. Indeed, Michael Cera plays the same character he always plays, but Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona steals the movie with a great performance. Purists will decry that the plot differs from the books and lacks the emotional core Brian O’Malley conveyed in the original plot, but the core of the story–an apathetic, mooch of a loser, learning to love others and respecting himself–is still there.