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.

I didn’t expect much going in. Horror movie, no A-list stars, Paris Hilton… It just can’t be good. And I wasn’t proved wrong. At least I can say it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve seen…

The movie starts out painfully slow. This is one of the few times I’ve wished for less story in a movie. And that is a line that you won’t see me write very often.

Spoiler Alert……

The one redeeming quality of this movie is you get to see Paris Hilton killed.

…End of Spoiler

The movie dragged on too long. The editor definitely could have spent some more time editing. They could have chopped 20 minutes off the movie easy. There isn’t much more to say about this movie other than it is pretty bad. Final verdict… When you see it on network TV, find out what time it starts and tune in an hour later. You’ll catch the only decent part of the movie. And that is only if you are VERY big fan of horror movies, or just really dislike Ms. Hilton.

I watched the movie Crash tonight and it is a different type of movie. Lots of stars, lots of story lines, all subtly interweaved. I’ll start by saying this isn’t a movie for everyone. Not because of any content or anything, but it isn’t a mainstream movie. Having said that though, I really did like this one. For those of you out in the world that like a different movie now and then, this is for you. Final verdict… Definitely worth a ticket to a matinee show.

I watched the movie Kingdom of Heaven last night. It was a movie I had been looking forward to as one of the more interesting movies coming out. I didn’t know much about other than it was about the Crusades, which I personally don’t know a lot about.

I would have a hard time saying it is a great movie, but I did enjoy it. To the best of my knowledge (which is limited) it appeared to be somewhat accurate and I thought did a good portrayal of life in the 1100’s. The characters were pretty well thought out and by the end of the movie I cared about the characters. The action scenes were pretty well done as well.
The annoying teenagers sitting behind who whispered constantly throughout the show commented about one of the battle scenes… “this is the Lord of the Rings”.

One aspect of the movie I particularly liked, although I’m pretty sure it was intended, but done very subtly was the social commentary about the state of the world today, which unfortunately, isn’t that different from today’s world. People of different religions fighting over land and I would ask for what purpose. The land has religious significance to both religions, which I can understand, but is the is the religious significance worth the now countless lives on both sides? This movie does some quiet commentary on this that I wish more people would hear.

Final verdict… Matinee. Good story, good action and characters that I ended up caring about. It was a little long, but thinking back, I don’t know what could be cut or trimmed.

Edit… Upon further reflection. Matinee if you like time period/historic epic movies. Otherwise I would have to downgrade to a new release rental.

Here’s the recap from my Friday night movie expedition… I watched a movie I had been waiting anxiously for, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now let me preface my review by saying I am a fan of the book by Douglas Adams. I’m not fanatically about it or anything, but I did enjoy reading it and the other four books in the trilogy and I did a re-read of the book about a month ago to refresh my memory.

Going into the movie I wondered about how they were going to end the movie. Having read the book, I knew going in that if they stayed true to the book, it would have an ending that wouldn’t agree with a lot of people.

Having watched the movie now, I think they did a good job of adapting the book into a movie and did manage to stay pretty true to the book that I thought would be very hard to adapt into a movie. The character’s were pretty well cast. I was a little concerned about Mos Def as Ford, but he was alright. The rest were cast exceptionally well. Especially Marvin, the depressed robot.

Like I said, I thought this would be a very difficult book to adapt and I think they pulled it off. I’m hoping the rest of the books are also adapted. Was it worth my money? I would say it would be money well spent on a matinee movie. Not everyone will like this movie though. If you’ve read the book and enjoyed it, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. If you haven’t read the book, you may like or hate it. I saw a very mixed reaction of other’s coming out of the theatre, some very positive, other very negative, and that is what I thought going in and felt double so after watching it.

Watched another double feature last night and this time I picked two, yes two, entertaining movies.

Lets start with the first one I watched, Kung Fu Hustle. While thinking of a way to categorize this movie, I came up empty. It seems to fall into so many different categories that it almost defies categorization, except that at heart it truly is a “kung fu” movie. There is a little song and dance, there is comedy (lots of comedy), fighting, action, and shockingly, there is even a plot (something that way too many action movies forget to include). Now it isn’t’ a spectacular movie by any means, but for the 90 or so minutes, I was entertained completely. The plot isn’t overbearing and doesn’t get in the way, but there is a plot that develops the characters into people that you care about (something that Mission Impossible 2 didn’t do, more on that in another post). The action scenes are very well done and funny to boot. Definitely well worth the price of admission, but probably only a matinee ticket, unless you are a true kung fu movie fan. Also, the fact that it is subtitled, may scare off some people so it may not be a movie that everyone enjoys…

The second movie in the double feature was The Interpreter staring Nicole Kidman. Now Nicole Kidman isn’t typically an actress that will draw me to a movie, but I’ve been pretty hard up for a decent movie lately and this looked like one. And I wasn’t disappointed. Once again, this movie has a plot (I’ll get into my dislike of plot less movie when I gave my scathing review of MI2 sometime) and a plot is almost always a plus (I won’t say always a plus, because when I do, some movie will come out without a plot and it’ll work). 30 second overview… Kidman plays an interpreter from an African country, overhears a plan to assassinate a foreign leader, tells the “cops” and then it gets interesting. I won’t go into too many details because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. The movie was very entertaining and kept me guessing for most of it. Well worth an evening ticket and your date and you should both enjoy it. I just wish more were at least this good.

Coming in next week’s column, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’m very curious as to how they adapted this classic novel to the big screen.