King Arthur

In the post-Lord of the Rings trilogy world, movies like this have to really step-up thier game to not seem corny. King Arthur wasn't terrible by any means, but it was lacking something that could have pushed it over the edge and made it great. One of it's major downfalls was that in at least half of the scenes, it seemed to be borrowing from other films. Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, etc...

When you start realizing things like that as your watching, it really takes you out of the movie. Again, not bad...a decent Saturday afternoon movie, but I can't quite recommend it to ya.

NEUTRAL THUMBS

Get Shorty

The trailers for the soon-to-be-released Be Cool looked so good, Jaime and I figured we should see the first installment, before we get a chance to see the sequel. I was a little worried about seeing it because Travolta has more or less been in real stinkers since his amazing resurfacing in Pulp Fiction.

Get Shorty was actually pretty good. Travolta stars as a gangster with a penchant for movie producing. He get's hooked up with a b-movie director (Gene Hackman) who he was sent to collect a debt from. Rival collectors and mob bosses from back home move the wackyness along. The excellent cast also includes Rene Russo as a horror movie actress, Danny Devito as a Hollywood A-List actor, Dennis Farina as Travolta's new mob boss (whom he doesn't care for, and has shot in the head, Delroy Lindo as a Hollywood gangster who wants to write scripts and James Gandolfini as his hired muscle/ex stunt-man.

The previews for Be Cool are funnier than the entire Get Shorty. Get Shorty also ended kind of ended abruptly...with kind of a "thats it?" feeling. But, it was still a decent flick, and probably Travolta's best work since Pulp Fiction.

THUMBS UP

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

A great movie about love and regret. We see a couple that has had a typical relationship, and have come to the crossroads where they're both kind of sick of each other. The gal, Clementine (played by Kate Winslet) makes a rash desicion an goes to get her memory erased, at least the parts that contain her then boyfriend Joel (Jim Carrey).

Devistated, Joel decides to do the same, and not have to deal with the pain of a girlfriend who no longer recognizes him. Then things start to get really interesting.

The script is by Charlie Kaufman, who is also responsible for the mind-benders Being John Malcovitch and Adaptation. Spotless Mind is no different. Another deep examination into the human mind, love and loss.

A definate tear jerker. Winslet and Carrey were great, and the supporting cast (including Elija Wood, Kirstin Dunst and David Cross) filled the film out perfectly. I loved it.

THUMBS UP

Star Wars Bonus DVD

Got the fancy bonus DVD that comes with the new (and only) relase of the Star Wars trilogy on DVD. I'm a huge Star Wars fan, but have not purchased the trilogy on DVD yet, because I'm holding out for the original cut, not the new "tweaked" edition. But, my pal Netflix let me see the special 4th DVD that came in that set.

Aside from the Empire of Dreams documentary on the history of the trilogy, the DVD is kinda sparse. A few featurettes, a few trailers & commercials... but not what I would expect. There's so much out there, and so many deleted scenes & outtakes, I was kinda dissapointed that there wasn't more of that. The few sneak peeks at Episode III looked pretty awesome, but after Episodes I & II, I'm going to try and not get excited, so I won't be so let down.

There's also a hidden outtake reel, that's kinda funny...but again, very sparse.

Empire of Dreams is the meat and potatoes of the bonus disc, and it really delivers. That doc is easily 5 stars. The rest of the bonus features just didn't deliver what I wanted, but as far as Star Wars fans are concerned this is NOT the final version of the trilogy on DVD, but a hastily put together deal. So maybe in the next incarnation of the trilogy on DVD, fans will get all the hours and hours of extras they want.

THUMBS UP

Got Worries

Hmmmm.

I dropped the last two movies we watched into the mailbox at the end of the block on Sunday. Netflix still says they don't thave them. It's Wednesday morning.

I'm a little concerned.

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

What a strange movie.

Two roomates in their early twenties smoke a lot of pot. They decide to get some food. Kumar insists on White Castle. There's your premise.

What happens for 1 1/2 hours is a stoner-buddy road-trip movie, with several strange encounters including, but not limited to an SUV full of extreme sports fanatics, two gals with diarehea, a truck-driver with oozing boils, a cheetah and TV's Doogie Howser.

Some very strange shit, but a the same time some super funny shit. I kinda wanna watch it again before it goes back to Netflix heaven. A very good, super-dumb movie.

THUMBS UP

The City of Lost Children

This is one of those movies I've been eyeing on the video store shelves for quite some time. I first noticed it when I was in college at the Take 2 Video in Moorhead, right by the interstate. The cover led me to belive it would play out like an extended cut of NIN's "Closer" video... and that wasn't a bad thing. I loved that video.



Up until yesterday, I still hadn't seen this movie. Many friends found it hard to believe. Apparently, it's the kind of movie I'd love.

Well, the verdict is in. I liked it. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I thought I'd watch it dubbed in English at first, as to not be distracted, and miss any of the cool visuals, but about 5 minutes of that, and I went to French with English subtitles. The lipsynching was pretty dern bad.

I was very surprised to see Ron Perlman (Hellboy) in it. I'm not a huge fan of his by any means, but would have never guessed he'd be in some weird French retro-sci-fi thingy. I found things a little hard to follow (ie: Krank's motives, who the cyclops people were, what year it was...?) but did enjoy what I saw. I especially liked One and Miette's friendship, the Octopus (ladies), and Krank's clones.

It may be added to my DVD library someday soon.

THUMBS UP

Mean Girls...

I thought this movie was good and would definitely recommend it. Thumbs up!

Pros:
- Written by Tina Fey = funny
- Unlike Lon who thought the movie got a little preachy, I thought it had a good message and was actually quite touching.
- Tim Meadows...too bad this guy cannot get a role in a non-SNL movie.

Cons:
- Lindsey Lohan seemed to slip into the role of the Mean Girl a little too easily. Not so believable at times as the nice, naive girl.

AVP

I went to a friend's house last night and watched Alien vs Predator. I had high hopes for this, as I'm a fan of both sci-fi franchises. Bad reviews and general laziness kept me from seeing it in the theater, so given the opportunity, I couldn't pass it up.

The idea of pitting Aliens against the Predators has been around for a while. It may have all started with some short stories in Dark Horse Presents (comics). That later evolved into it's own limited comic book series. Though I didn't read all of those comics, I am pretty sure that they didn't revolve around a plot of the Predators being ancient gods on Earth.

The backstory for AVP is that the Predators, intergalactic big-game hunters, have decided to use the "backwater" planet of Earth as a place to build a labaryinth-like pyramid, fill it full of Aliens, and then hunt them for sport. Once every thousand years, the Predators would do this (in flashback they showed Predator's watching ancient humans build these giant structures for them), and if the hunt went awry (like in the end of the original Predator movie), the Predator would detonate the bomb on his guantlet and destroy the whole mess.

So, in present day, the last remaining Predator pyramid is 2,000 feet below the ice in Antarctica. The Predator's remotely turn the "power" back on, and this of course attracts global satelites and that of a billionaire inustrialist, who decides to assemble a team of guides, archiologists, diggers and scholars to investigate this ancient ruin. This all works to the Predator's advantage, because they need the humans as host bodies for the Alien "face-huggers" to incubate baby Aliens in.

Once all this is set up, the good fun of AVP begins. Chopping through some subplots that don't matter and some corny dialogue, once the humans are in the pyramid and the Aliens have hatched, you've got a pretty decent movie on your hands. This lasts for about 25 minutes. Then, the last remaining human and the last remaining Predator become friends.

This was just unacceptable. Even in Predator, when the Predator realizes the last remaining human is a worthy opponent, he doesn't just befriend him, but he drops all his weapons to fight him man to alien. So, back to AVP, we're given scenes of human and Predator fighting along side each other, running in slow-motion and having a good old time together.

I was laughing through the end of the movie, and I don't think that was the intended response. Something was going for this film, and it could have been good (not great, but good). As is, being a huge fan of the Aliens movies and the first Predator film, I will NOT be adding this to my DVD library.

THUMBS DOWN