Movie: Lost in LaMancha (3/5 stars) 2002

For those who don't know, "Lost in LaMancha" is about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt at making a Don Quixote movie. We get to see behind the scenes as Gilliam attempts to produce and film (6 days total) his movie.

There are two main ideas that popped into my head when I watched this movie: 1) I would really, really like to see the movie that Terry Gilliam is trying to make, and 2) I've never seen anything like this before.

While I'm sure that there are many movies that fail to get made, I've never, ever seen the making of one. Especially one that is so likely to succeed. Terry Gilliam is a well know film maker and director with a string of successes behind him, he's got funding (a little tighter than he'd like), a huge stars in Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort (a perfect Don Quixote) and so many other things that should make this an A list movie with hundreds of millions in earnings.

Still, little things go wrong at first, followed by big things. It's amazing to see as coincidence after coincidence, mishap after mishap hit the movie and ruin what looks so so good.

There are a few bits and pieces of finished material on the DVD. The production quality is fantastic and it feels good. I really hope that he finishes this movie some time - I'll line up for it.

I learned a lot about what goes on during the making of a movie, mainly that even on a well run movie, things are pretty chaotic and hard to rein in. The amount of management needed is tremendous, and there are a lot of ways any movie can fail. I learned a lot about Gilliam himself - since he was involved in Monty Python, I'd assumed that he was English, but no, he's an American living in England.

If you are interested in how movies are made and what all the obstacles are, then this is the movie for you. Enjoy.

Movie: Johnny Mnemonic (1/5 stars) 1995

I watched this years ago, and my wife was really asking me not to get it again at the video store. I remembered it as good, so got it anyway.

She was so, SO right!

I can't tell you all the things wrong with this. Firstly, Johnny, the courier who carries data in his head, in 2020 has 80 Gigs of storage capacity, and gets a memory double which brings him to 160 Gigs. Considering how easy it is to figure out the data storage in the future (it's following a simple curve), you'd think a courier who gave up his childhood memories would have something bigger than what we can get for $100 at the computer store in 2007 - it's silly. I heard that the short story was even sillier, and the movie "improved" it somewhat.

Still, I knew all of that before I saw the movie. It's such a large target that I had to mention it. If I were the film maker, I would have invented a new word for storage size and just made it sounds REALLY big and impressive, and not dated the film so badly.

This is the least of the film transgressions. The acting, directing, storyline etc... are all sub-standard. It's really, really hard to watch Keanu Reeves at this point in his career. He was truly flat and cardboard actor. AND the man can't look at the camera, he's looking everywhere else. I know he still has that problem, but it's even worse here and his eyes wander everywhere. As bad as people make him out to be now, this was much worse - hard to watch.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not just a Keanu basher, I like lots of his stuff, "Speed", "The Matrix" (even #2), "Constantine" and several more. If you are thinking of taking a trip down memory lane and getting a 90's movie, steer clear of this one - it tells you how bad some of the mainstream films were in that time.