This was actually the first time since Goldeneye that I’ve seen a Bond flick in the theater, so I was pretty psyched. Big Bond fan, and it was the whole weird Star Wars “first episode after the fact” type of deal. Had to go.

The opening black-and-white scene quickly got the old school vibe out of the way and then it jumped to Uganda, which is about the only place Bond hadn’t been yet. After an exhaustive chase that showed how green Bond was, he ends up in the Bahamas, and the first Bond girl is intoduced - some Persian/Spanish/Eskimo-looking chick who, as it turns out, was by far the hottest in the flick. He romps around and whatnot, and shoots off to Miami. After another massively exhausting fight/chase scene, homeboy saves the day, which costs our villain, Le Chiffre (who might actually be Alex Kapranos), about $150 million.

So a high stakes Texas Hold ‘Em (does everyone play this now??) game gets set up in Montenegro, and Bond gets a seat at the table. About here, we’re introduced to Vesper Lynd, a sub-par Bond accountant gal who’s basically just a beyotch. After losing a ton of money, barfing, and having a heart attack, Jimbo steps up and wins the single most ridiculous hand of poker ever. By this point, Le Chiffre is super pissed, ganks Vesper, and a weird ball-scratching torture scene ensues. During all this, the CIA guy, Felix, totally betrays Bond, which doesn’t make sense since he and Felix are old buds in the first first Bond flick, Dr. No. Whatever. Just sayin’.

Next thing you know, Bondzo wakes in some Tyrolian lake scene all recovering and stuff from whatever they did to him. This is where Bond’s buddy uses my old cell phone that I dropped in the toilet on the 4th of July. Dude freaking falls head over heels for this chick Vesper, and next thing you know, he’s out of the game. Until… she runs off with his money. Not cool. Bond chases her and her bosses around Venice, topples a building, and Bond turns into the cool, calculating bastard we all know and love. Case closed. I enjoyed it a lot - some of it was kinda dumb, some was hot, but overall, it was pretty interesting and unlike any of the other Bond films in many ways. A definite must-see.

Man, Borat’s got some goofy fans. A handful of them were actually dressed (very poorly) like Borat at the theater, and a ton of them laughed wildly at some of the smallest jokes. Yikes. Anyway, the movie was decent, but a lot of it felt contrived and edited. Seems like most of the laughs came from Borat’s mangled English, which is funny but not that funny. A few of the “real” characters were also just actors, and the of man-on-man action was not so good. The bear was awesome though.

How can you not dig My Morning Jacket live? After rocking my world for about the 7th time with the Pops and hanging with them at Bukowski, I’ve been jonesin’ to see ‘em ever since. Thankfully, I’ve already got my tickets to see them on December 2nd, so I won’t have to scratch my arms much longer.

In the meantime, I got to see their new Okonokos movie in the theater, which despite its lo-def tendencies, kicked butt, and seeing anything musical in a theater is eggcellent. While I was PO’d that they didn’t include “O…” in the DVD, they still put together a hell of a setlist, which was filmed over two nights at the crazy-awesome Fillmore in San Fran. The place looked like some weird garden.

I won’t say too much about the movie other than the use of animals are excellent, the sound is great, and it’s an obvious must-have for any Jacket fan.

But the most awesome part has to be the last, when the main character leaves the concert and gets to’ up by a bear. I won’t spoil it too much, but that critter easily makes it atop my list of musical bears.

This was one of the cheesiest movies I’ve ever seen.

There were seemingly hundreds of trite lines and situations - scattered like sand on a fragile sheet of glass - which is about how dense the plot is. The special effects were pretty solid, though. If you’re into that sort of thing.

The premise revolves around a cure for the X gene mutation. The bad dudes don’t dig, and the good guys say it should at least be available. A whole lot of mayhem ensues, with Jean Grey, the most powerful mutant ever, as the centerpiece. While Famke Janssen is super hot, she has only about three lines in the whole movie, all of which suck. And ya boy, Ian McKellen aka Magneto, spits out about every archvillian cliche’ in the book. I was hoping Kelsey Grammer would fall off the stage while giving a ridiculous speech as the Beast.

The ending is left slightly open and tainted by what appear to be more Hollywood tricks. Plus, the whole all-star cast isn’t particularly well-utilized, as scenes clumsily jump and don’t allow for much insight into anything other than checking out CGI graphics of each mutants’ abilities.
And, oh, the cheesy lines.

I’m not sure if the movie would’ve been better or worse having not read the book beforehand, but having done so, I felt unfulfilled by disappointing action and uninspiring chemistry.

With a relatively all-star case, The Da Vinci Code movie had the opportunity to live up to the unbelievable hype and anticipation that the book generated. Tom Hanks (aka Captain Goofball), and Audrey Tautou (Amélie) are the main characters, flanked by Ian McKellen, Paul Bettany, and Jean Reno, all of whom are relatively major stars.

Director Ron Howard struggled to translate yearning page-turning to the big screen, as this historically- and socially-contemplative pseudofiction poured out flatly as merely a hurried Euro murder mystery with a lack of meaningful exchange.

Most of the aura that made the novel such a collective event was lost in the disjointed, shallow portrayal of the Church’s role in the plot, and quirky special effects and even quirkier French cars muddied the flow. Hollywood just screwed another one up, unfortunately.

Inspiration: Pat Robertson says God told him storms will hit America’s coastline this year

Capitalizing on the popularity of the shows 24 and Desperate Housewives, producers cast Kiefer Sutherland and Eva Longoria together in a thriller next to Mr. Zeta-Jones and Kim Basinger, two of the ’80’s sexiest movie stars. Nice for style points, bad for depth.

The story revolves around a plot from inside the Secret Service to kill the president, and everybody points fingers at Mr. Zeta-Jones. Sutherland, his old buddy whose wife he might’ve slept with, is assigned to investigate using only his gun and his deep, gruff voice. There are some solid wild goose chases, excellent stereotyping, and post-modern dramatic techno to boost the movie along. Unfortunately, the storyline is kinda swiss cheesy, and it’s just one big awkward ending, if you ask me.

There are few major directions the story could have gone, and I think it ended up in the least interesting way. A lot of interpersonal drama gets overshadowed by inane crime details, which made for a relatively cold movie. But, yeah, even though Kim Basinger’s like 70, she’s still hot.

First of all, I was so right about that chick with the fat nose being in Kill Bill Vol. 1. Yay-uh.

It’s like Lord of the Flies meets The Island of Dr. Moreau meets The Beach meets The Transformers: The Movie. I have to admit, I was consistently wrong about what was going to happen next, and I don’t think I ever accurately predicted anyone’s death. So, props for that.

My favorite character, of course, was the crazy James Dean-looking guy, Boy #6 Kazuo Kiriyama, who, by far, had the most kills. Rawk. Some of the weapons that were used included boxing gloves, a megaphone, an M870 shotgun, and a coat hanger.

I have to say, I was thorougly entertained, and enjoyed it start to finish. I didn’t realize there was such a controversy involved with it, and there are some really good reviews and info about the film on the web.

Battleroyalefilm.net

Clive Owen should have been the new Bond. Denzel is fun to watch as a good cop after Training Day. Jodie Foster has turned into a real ball-breaker.

These three superstars combine to make an interesting, but not deeply-involved, heist drama. Owen came off a little too cool for his own good sometimes. The old cliche’ of telling the cop “no, we’re playing by my rules” has gotten old. Denzel’s a snappy, hard-workin’ detective who finally gets a big assignment, which makes him act a little more out-of-his-league than we’re used to. Jodie Foster’s main goal was to be a unisex symbol, and talk with as much breath in her voice as possible.

The heist hinges on the fact that the criminals aren’t touching any of the money in the bank. As it turns out, they never actually kill anyone, either. What the bloody hell are they doing, then? Exposing a secret of the bank’s founder that Jodie Foster has been hired to protect. Think of a bunch of taboos that a bank exec could have violated. Hmm - murder, sex crimes, and fraud are the main ones. But if you want to portray evil, you only gotta look one place these days.

Anyway, it’s hard to say when or where the secret may end up being revealed, but Clive Owen and his juggy cohorts make some slick moves to keep you wondering. All in all, not bad, but Jodie Foster disappears for most of the film, the hostages aren’t all that exciting, and Denzel doesn’t watch enough porn. Close but no cigar.

We didn’t leave the theatre because the movie was bad, we just weren’t there to see it. We were just killing time. We could have stayed, but there nothing compelling enough in the film to warrant it.

In the opening scene, Zissou’s newest film is presented to an opera house full of e’er-do-wells, receiving yawns and disappointment. How freaking fitting.

Every facet of the movie seemed narcissistic, bloated with gobs of unnecessary scenes and lines. The plot went nowhere fast, tongue-in-cheeking us to death with uninspiring pseudowit and forced self-farce.

I’m sure it’s been said a billion times before, but if you’re looking for another “Das Royal Tenenbaums”, you’ll either have to wait for Wes Anderson’s next try or make it yourself.

This thing felt like a confused entry in a modsnob’s diary.

Beautiful Americans and Brits cheating on each other with each other. There are a few good points made in the film, like… well, nevermind.

It’s basically just a fast-paced one-linerfest that plays with the idea of successful people being sexually vulgar, each in a different way.

One’s a stripper, one’s a pornaholic, one’s a liar, one’s a revolving divorc�e. You get the idea.

The ocean ain’t what it used to be. The thrill is gone. Gods and dragons used to rule the seas, but now….sharks? Sweet, angry Neptune, where have you gone? Where are our ridiculous sea monsters? Sharks, known as seaboars in Australia, have become the penultimate ocean villain, and for that, we make movies.

Sharks are the shiznit when it comes to drumming up oceanic fear. Nothing quite grips us like the threat of a great white shark chomping us in half every time we go to the beach. Who’s afraid of an octopus? Jellyfish? Please.

This is why sharks fill theaters. Seeing a sharky bloodbath on a 20-foot screen will stir the familiar, yet irrational fear that most people have about being attacked by sharks. This fear causes people to replace the actual threat with a fake one by paying $7 to experience it in a theater with friends and family. By this process, shark attacks become more of a fantasy, and people force themselves to believe that it won’t happen to them. Seeing a celebrity in a ridiculous situation with a shark will serve to rid most people of the instinctual fear of sharkbite.

In response, Hollywood has shark scripts aplenty. Hell, I’ve even written a few. A film about a shark attack is a guaranteed summer hit, even in land-locked Iowa.

The problem with such a device is that plot takes a backseat. Every shark movie is pretty much: see shark -> freak out -> watch someone get eaten -> kill shark in extremely bloody scene -> hug.

Rarely is there a twist. There’s usually no need. But ho, ho! Perhaps Open Water is a little more open than we thought. Perhaps the genre is saturated to the point that fiction must become non, as every camera becomes a camcorder. The age of instant information and has demanded a cheap and usually unquestioned authenticity that a fairytale just can’t provide.

Open Water feeds this demand well. Unfortunately, the film is more focused on achieving 15 minutes of fame than anything. It’s simple, it’s dumb, it’s the pilot. A bonafide summer movie.

David Lynch’s The Elephant Man is the ultimate juxtaposition. strongly introspective while curiously sociological, the film explores a man’s survival while a society reacts. built on the grotesque vs. the beautiful, it’s the thinking man’s Beauty & the Beast.

through the biography of Joseph Merrick, the “Elephant Man”, Lynch builds a balanced drama; joy and sorrow flow in waves. each character is carefully developed to outline a wholly complex, but interpersonally repetitive pattern of introspection. each character, save Merrick himself, embodies a specific social reaction to his deformations. this collection of human nature portrays society as a superficial, self-flattering cannibal that, despite its foaming mouth, at the very least possesses hope for brotherly sincerity.

there are two basic social reactions to Merrick; tied to the same theme of freakishness they fluctuate over the course of the film. as he finds himself oscillating between being a symbol of upper-crust generosity and being a goat for scum to harass, Merrick unpredictably experiences both tremendous hope and cruel torture. furthering the complexity of the story, Merrick’s highs are often intertwined with his lows, and vice versa. Merrick’s successes of the mind always end up bringing him gutwrenching shame for so violently disappointing his mother’s beauty, yet while even in his most horrific moments, he casually survives in the comfort of focused self-acceptance. no matter how promising or difficult life is for him, he knows he will always survive, for better or worse, because of his unique condition.

Joseph Merrick is a poignant duality; a brilliant, cultured man trapped inside the body of an “animal”. as he became a celebrity in 19th century England, his contrasting personality and physique provided unique perspective on the power of the mind essentially separate from the body. Because neither he nor society could separate his mind from his body, Merrick would be forever trapped in a cycle of fleeting awe and disgust. watching a man live such a life through Lynch’s camera results in one of the most perfectly dramatic movies i’ve ever seen.

Full Screenplay of The Elephant Man