This review contains spoilers… you’ve been warned…

It was a toss up between seeing this and “the Smiths”. This started fifteen minutes earlier so I choose this one. It is an average summer action flick. Lots of stuff get’s blown up and new ways to vaporize people with fictional weapons were shown. What pissed me off the most is…. here comes the spoilers… the way the aliens are defeated. How lame is it that they just up an die!!!! Second thing that really pissed me off… the big cities seem to pretty much get vaporized, but then the people they are traveling to are somehow untouched and unfazed in Boston. His son magically made it there first with no explanation about how. For popcorn flick prowess, this movie rates a matinee ticket. However, you might leave the theater pissed off about the ending. I know I did. i think they pretty much ran out of ways to blow stuff up and said “ok, it is time to end the picture, so lets do it NOW”.

I’ll start by saying I’m not a big fan of Russel, but he has done some decent flicks. Same thing for Ron (I didn’t see his brother who is in most of his movies). All in a all, a good movie. You manage to forget its Russel, Mrs. Chesney does a good job of playing his wife. It was nice to see a good boxing flick, especially some old school boxing. Well worth a matinee price.

Short Review… It was back to the more basics for Sandler. I think he had enough of the serious acting or comedies with too much plot. Enough story to keep me interested. Enough comedy to keep me laughing. And just enough Chris Rock. Even that Cowboy receiver did a good job, didn’t realize it was him ’till I saw the credits. Well worth a matinee, probably an evening admission if you enjoy a good Sandler flick.

Finally getting a chance to update my blog… first thing on the list, my SW review. In a nutshell, best of the new trilogy. It contained the story we’ve been waiting to see. Very well done. Would have been better if they could have avoided the scenes between Anikan and Padme (she’ll always be Padme to me) since the two of them can only act when they are with others. Or maybe it was their lack of dialog or entirely too much direction. Anyway, I enjoyed it a lot.

My question is this… Why couldn’t they have crammed the first two movies into the first hour of the EP1 and then started this story then. The new trilogy would have been soooo much better.

I managed to avoid all of the hoopla surrounding this. Didn’t really watch the previews (although I did see them, if you know what I mean), didn’t go digging for info or anything like that. It was originally going to be an adaptation of Year 1, and then it was changed to what it was, and I found that a little disappointing since I’m a big Year 1 fan.

Having seen the movie, I would say wow. Great job adapting Batman to the big screen. Excellent job on the back story and showing the turmoil he deals with walking the fine line between super-hero and vigilante/criminal. A was definitely adverse to the Batmobile shown in the previews, but seeing how he acquires it, it makes great sense. Same with just about all of his gadgets. I thought they did a good job keeping the character count down (a huge problem with later Batman flicks). Scarecrow was done differently, but was well done. It took me a little bit to figure out who he was. Ra’s was also well done. I didn’t know much about this character going in, but I like him. It was also great to see the Asylum introduced, loved that bit. All in all, very happy with this movie. Well worth an evening admission (or two if you like the real Batman)!

I watched Episode III tonight… My theory has been shot down. Oh well, it was fun to guess… and try to explain why this annoying character was ever invented.

In a nutshell, I enjoyed Ep III. More details later…

1) Total films on video and video:
Guess-ta-mating about 250. Not exactly sure and don’t have the time to count right now. With multiple disc sets, I’m probably near 325. Throw in about 25 more for video tapes.

2) Last film I bought:
A tie between Big Fish and Miracle… They were purchased at the same time. I guess Miracle would be the true last film since I found Big Fish first and the Best Buy guy had to dig in the back for Miracle.

3) Last film I watched:
Mindhunters… See my earlier post for a review.

4) 5 Films that Mean A Lot to Me:
Most of these movies aren’t necessarily the best movies ever, but they all entertaining, and some even can be considered some of the best movies ever, or least best of their genre.
Star Wars: The Original Trilogy – just like these movies. They aren’t the best films ever made, but they are entertaining to watch and I’ve watched them a lot and I consider them a single movie in my heart.
LOTR – once again, another trilogy. Loved the book and the movies didn’t disappoint, despite the changes that were made. Once again it is a single movie in my opinion and one of the best movies ever.
Top Gun – I find myself quoting this movie a lot, even in every day conversations. Watched it countless times in college and still find myself drawn to it when it is on TV. I watched most of it just yesterday. By far the best film in the classic Cruise genre. (Days of Thunder is another Cruise movie that I enjoy as well. Both these movies are vintage Cruise and much better than most of his more recent films.)
Pulp Fiction – Great movie. Great soundtrack. Tarantino at his finest. Not that the other Tarintino films aren’t excellent as well, but this is the movie that really turned me on to him. I then went back to watch Reservoir Dogs which is also a great picture. Kill Bill rocked and both Dogs and Bill also have phenomenal soundtracks.
Swingers – It isn’t often that a movie will define it’s own genre… There are chick flicks (notice the plural) and there is the guy flick (notice it isn’t plural). This is truly the only guy flick in existence, so by default it is the best of it’s genre. Other movies have tried to be guy flicks but don’t even make it into the genre. And if another movie finally does make successfully into the guy flick genre, it will have a very tough time dethroning the reigning guy flick champ.

I’ve had this theory for several years regarding the annoying character forced upon on in Episode I. With the imminent release of Episode III, my theory will finally be put to the test. And for those of you who don’t know it, here it is.

If you remember from the first episode, Obi Wan just doesn’t seem to have that appreciation for all life forms that he exhibits in the original trilogy. My theory, in a nutshell, is at some point Obi Wan will be getting his ass kicked and will probably be near dead and then the annoying one will save him and, hopefully, die in the process. This will give Obi Wan a better appreciation for all life forms.

Two more days and I find out if I’m right.

First 20 episodes rock. Found it interesting that the Jedi that fights under water light saber doesn’t hiss and evaporate the water while Anakin’s hiss as every rain drop falls on it. Just found it interesting… Now on to the last 5 episodes…

I watched yet another movie last Friday, as typical for this time of year. This week it was Mindhunters. The sad part is I had to check the movie schedule to “remind” myself what I watched because I couldn’t remember off the top of my head. It isn’t that bad of sign though… I watch a lot of movies and can’t always keep track of them.

I heard on the radio earlier that day that this movie had been sitting in the can for two years and was now finally being released and that is never a good sign for a movie. I was still upbeat though. I had seen the previews and the movie looked interesting. Plus, how can a movie with Ice Man (Val Kilmer in Top Gun) and Hard Harry (Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume) and the blond chick from Cold Case (?) really be that bad?

Truth be told, it was an OK movie. It wasn’t that original (place people into a confined space– house, island, prison, etc) and make one of them into a not so nice person who wants to make the movie interesting by killing the others. Everyone who watches movies has seen this plot before, but they did an alright job of doing this plot again. The movie kept you guessing and had enough plot twists to make it entertaining. Unfortunately, it isn’t that memorable of a movie, as I mentioned earlier.

Not much else to say about other than this is a movie that will make worthy rental when it comes out on DVD.

Next on my list… Episode III aka SW:ROTS.