At The Movies:
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Pirates 3): There has been an unsubstantiated rumor that I don't like the Pirate movies. This is not true. I guess I don't get what the fuss is about. Let me say now...that I LIKED Pirates 3...really I did! The last hour and a half is some the best special effects I have ever seen. You know the kind of effects that don't make you feel like you are watching effects. You aren't sitting there saying, "Nice effects," instead you are saying, "WILD!" One minute you are sitting there and the next minute you feel like you are the only one watching the movie in a swirl of action. Now that I love! For that...I take my hat off to this movie. AND during those effects are REAL pirate action. Finally, after 2 movies, pirates doing stuff pirates should do. Y'know swashbuckling and swinging from ship to ship with canons blasting away. All this during the stunning special effects.
That is where my kind comments end. And I would like to add that I am not the only one that doesn't see these movies as a big deal. I told my brother I saw this movie and he said, "Was it as lame as the other ones?" And someone at work said, "Did it suck?" In fact, after asking around...I haven't found the huge legions fans. The consensus being because these movies can't make up their minds (and real lack of pirate action). When Pirates 1 came out we expected...well...the ride. You don't take your name from one of the most loved rides at Disney and not make it as fun as the ride. Pirates 1 was a huge success partly because of Johnny Depp's over the top performance and I stand by my opinion that anyone could have played that part (I think Johnny Depp is a brilliant actor). Pirates 2 just started to get weird and ended way somber.
Viewing Pirates 3 I got confused. I felt like I really missed something in the last movie or two. I thought maybe it was explained how Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) came back to life at the end of Pirates 2 and I missed it. There he was traipsing through Pirates 3 and nothing is explained of this til half way through the movie. Also, I missed how the Davy Jones' locker thing was like some kind of limbo. We meet up with Jack Sparrow (Depp) on a ship manned by...himself, many of himself. It was pretty trippy, really. I am not going to give away the plot of Pirates 3 (not that I can...a co-worker and I confused the whole office because we couldn't get the story straight) but I will say that the supporting cast of Geoffrey Rush, Bill Nighy and Stellan Skarsgard (Hunt for Red October) were the real acting stars of this movie.
Back to how the movie can't make up it's mind...the beginning of Pirates 3 starts with mass hangings to prove what a bastard the bad guy is. Like we don't know this. A child is hanged before we even see the title. I was pretty shocked. If these were not going to be fun movies they should have changed the name.
MM 1/2M (out of 5 M's)
On Video:
Music & Lyrics: Love Hugh. Love Drew. Nuff said. Okay, I'll go on with the review! This movie got luke warm reviews and I just don't know why. Of course it would help...if they got it. People who will enjoy this movie the most are people that know 80's pop culture, especially music. The movie follows the present career of an 80's has-been. He was part of a pop music duo called, Pop! One member of the band went on to become very famous and the other...well, who cares? The movie is clever how it doesn't hide the fact that they are making fun of Wham! and those of us that were there for those times appreciate that humor. Hugh Grant plays the other guy from the duo that now plays Busch Gardens and Knoxberry Farm performing all those old hits to his graying fans. He makes no apologies for it...he knows what he is. He then is offered this opportunity to write a song for the current pop diva and she wants it yesterday. Enter Drew Barrymore, who comes in to water his plants and instead plants lyrics in his head. The pair work feverishly on a song for the diva and the rest is just fun to watch. I loved this film! Fun, nostalgic and with a great cast. Hugh Grant did all his own singing and the dancing was impressive. The filmmakers must have been inspired by his dance scene in Love Actually. Sit back and enjoy this one.
MMMM (out of 5 M's)
The following review is by the Super Mommy (guest reviewer):
The Fountain: Sometimes a great actor can rescue an otherwise unwatchable movie. Sometimes the sheer on-screen chemistry and passion of a leading couple can make a viewer overlook the short-comings of an unclear story line or befuddled director. Hugh Jackman's and Rachel Weisz's performances in The Fountain are almost one of those times. But not quite.
The always yummy Jackman pulls out all the stops in this movie to remind us that before he was Wolverine, bouncing around in a black leather jumpsuit and fake claws, he was a real actor. Jackman portrays Tom, a scientist desperately trying to defeat death before it steals away his beloved wife, Izzy. And Weisz, always watchable, is simply radiant as Izzy, who is slowly dying from an untreatable brain tumor. Unfortunately, you will have to watch a good 30 to 40 minutes of the movie before you are able to glean this essential, underlying plot. That's because mixed up in the modern-day scenes of Tom and Izzy are images of Jackman as a bald mystic traveling through space in a huge bubble containing nothing but him and a dead tree; and Jackman as a Spanish conquistador and Weisz as the Spanish queen who sends him off to the jungles of Central America in search of the Tree of Life.
This is a movie that could have been good if the director and/or writers were less concerned with achieving a Kubrick-like obscurity and mysticism, and more interested in giving the audience a plot they can follow. At the end - totally unforeseeable and impossible to spoil for you - the viewer is left with the feeling that the movie is still somehow incomplete. Or that you missed something. Which is a shame considering the obvious passion both the lead actors poured into their roles.
In the end, The Fountain leaves the viewer high and dry, thirsting for a satisfying - and understandable - resolution.
The movie mommy concurs with the Super Mommy on the review of The Fountain. Not only is it a waste of time but a waste of two of my favorite actors. I am afraid I couldn't really review The Fountain...I only got about 10 minutes into it.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
A Case For Criminal Minds
There are lots of shows on television that have a large fan following like, Grey's Anatomy, Lost, Heroes, 24, Desperate Housewives, all the CSI shows and all the Law & Order shows. Some also have a small but very loyal following like Numbers, Ghost Wisperer, Crossing Jordan, Boston Legal and House. Some of the aforementioned are very good shows and some I even watch on a regular basis. Then there is hands down the best television show on the air...possibly one of the best shows to ever be on the air: Criminal Minds. Never watched it? Your loss and I will tell you why.
Criminal Minds follows a team of FBI agents from the BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit, in Quantico. They go around the country to try and solve cases that have local authorities stumped. Most are seriel killers, kidnappers and other crazies that if you knew were out there...you wouldn't go out there. They don't collect evidence, clean up crime scenes, work in the crime lab or even go to the morgue. They review the evidence and reports from the crime scenes and put together a profile of who they should be looking for. It takes a certain kind of mind to be trained to do this kind of work. Something that a person already has a talent for. This is what makes the team members different and the characters' flawed and human.
The team is lead by the stoic Agent Hotchner, played brilliantly by Thomas Gibson and advised by Jason Gideon, played by the ever talented Mandy Patinkin. Patinkin was the reason I started watching the show. A fixture on Broadway and the creator of many coveted roles (ex. Che in Evita), it was a pleasure to see him turn to TV. He had a small role in a Law & Order episode a few years ago and was unforgettable. TV needed a show for him.
Gibson on the other hand is known to some TV viewers from the sitcom Dharma & Greg in which he played a very square lawyer married to a very free spirited daughter of hippies. I never watched that show until I saw him in Criminal Minds and wondered how he could pull of a sitcom. Well, he is a natural straight man.
The rest of the team is made up of virtual TV unknowns and they flesh out the parts with a real human element. Not human like on Law & Order SVU, with characters roughing up suspects and marriages falling apart. And not obligatory affairs like on the CSI shows. There is that kind of character drama and then there is the character drama of just working through the story and not knowing if they are going to solve it or not. Sometimes they seem impossible. Sometimes the characters think they are impossible.
There is the brilliant but young Dr. Spencer Reed, the press conference face, of the pretty - AJ Cook and the computer geek that gets all the info anyone can ever need from any data base on Earth - Garcia. These characters bring with them all their baggage but are forced to leave it at the door. Not always easy and they are quickly forgiven for bringing any with them. There is no shouting about "keeping personal feelings out of it," "being to close to a case," etc. The personal feelings are what makes them able to do their jobs.
The writing and directing are also a credit to the show that doesn't rely on many formula plots or sensationalism.
On the last episode of the season, Hotchner's boss was trying to tell him that there needed to be a change in leadership at the BAU - basically him leaving. He proceeded to look around her office and profile her. She was livid. He asked her if she knew, why he knew, that she favored her middle son over the others. She said she didn't. And before walking out the door he said, "Because I am good at what I do."
Yes, indeed. See you next season on CBS.
The second best show on Television will be starting on June 18th on TNT and that would be The Closer.
Criminal Minds follows a team of FBI agents from the BAU, Behavioral Analysis Unit, in Quantico. They go around the country to try and solve cases that have local authorities stumped. Most are seriel killers, kidnappers and other crazies that if you knew were out there...you wouldn't go out there. They don't collect evidence, clean up crime scenes, work in the crime lab or even go to the morgue. They review the evidence and reports from the crime scenes and put together a profile of who they should be looking for. It takes a certain kind of mind to be trained to do this kind of work. Something that a person already has a talent for. This is what makes the team members different and the characters' flawed and human.
The team is lead by the stoic Agent Hotchner, played brilliantly by Thomas Gibson and advised by Jason Gideon, played by the ever talented Mandy Patinkin. Patinkin was the reason I started watching the show. A fixture on Broadway and the creator of many coveted roles (ex. Che in Evita), it was a pleasure to see him turn to TV. He had a small role in a Law & Order episode a few years ago and was unforgettable. TV needed a show for him.
Gibson on the other hand is known to some TV viewers from the sitcom Dharma & Greg in which he played a very square lawyer married to a very free spirited daughter of hippies. I never watched that show until I saw him in Criminal Minds and wondered how he could pull of a sitcom. Well, he is a natural straight man.
The rest of the team is made up of virtual TV unknowns and they flesh out the parts with a real human element. Not human like on Law & Order SVU, with characters roughing up suspects and marriages falling apart. And not obligatory affairs like on the CSI shows. There is that kind of character drama and then there is the character drama of just working through the story and not knowing if they are going to solve it or not. Sometimes they seem impossible. Sometimes the characters think they are impossible.
There is the brilliant but young Dr. Spencer Reed, the press conference face, of the pretty - AJ Cook and the computer geek that gets all the info anyone can ever need from any data base on Earth - Garcia. These characters bring with them all their baggage but are forced to leave it at the door. Not always easy and they are quickly forgiven for bringing any with them. There is no shouting about "keeping personal feelings out of it," "being to close to a case," etc. The personal feelings are what makes them able to do their jobs.
The writing and directing are also a credit to the show that doesn't rely on many formula plots or sensationalism.
On the last episode of the season, Hotchner's boss was trying to tell him that there needed to be a change in leadership at the BAU - basically him leaving. He proceeded to look around her office and profile her. She was livid. He asked her if she knew, why he knew, that she favored her middle son over the others. She said she didn't. And before walking out the door he said, "Because I am good at what I do."
Yes, indeed. See you next season on CBS.
The second best show on Television will be starting on June 18th on TNT and that would be The Closer.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Rental Rewind
Since, the movie mommy is not viewing as many rentals as she used to (hazard of becoming the moving mommy)...here are some movies that you may not have seen in a while or may have never seen, in that case - add them to your list.
Funny, romantic, thoughtful and just fun:
The Wedding Singer, Love Actually, What A Girl Wants, The Legend of Baggar Vance, The Devil Wears Prada, 13 Going On 30, Connie & Carla, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, About A Boy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Elf, Ella Enchanted, The Replacements, Ever After and The Princess Bride.
Action, adventure and sci fi:
Soldier, 13th Warrior, Independence Day, Ronin, The Eraser, The Peacemaker, The One, The Mummy, Stargate, Behind Enemy Lines, Men In Black, XMen, Superman Returns, Star Trek: First Contact, Open Range, Outland, The Italian Job and Mercury Rising.
Funny, romantic, thoughtful and just fun:
The Wedding Singer, Love Actually, What A Girl Wants, The Legend of Baggar Vance, The Devil Wears Prada, 13 Going On 30, Connie & Carla, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, About A Boy, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Elf, Ella Enchanted, The Replacements, Ever After and The Princess Bride.
Action, adventure and sci fi:
Soldier, 13th Warrior, Independence Day, Ronin, The Eraser, The Peacemaker, The One, The Mummy, Stargate, Behind Enemy Lines, Men In Black, XMen, Superman Returns, Star Trek: First Contact, Open Range, Outland, The Italian Job and Mercury Rising.
Friday, May 11, 2007
A Gem in Tampa
For those of you in the greater Tampa Bay area, you may or may not know about the jewel of the City - The Tampa Theatre. Even if you don't live in Tampa, as a fellow movie fan, you need to check out their website http://www.tampatheatre.org.
Opening in 1926, the theatre provided many, many years of entertainment to Tampa. The ceiling of the theatre boasts stars that twinkle and the lobby has over 200,000 pieces of tile. In the 60s and 70s though it fell on harder times and eventually closed. With the possibility of the wrecking ball looming, the City of Tampa bought this classic for $1 and it is now maintained mostly by donations. When AMC did their "Movie Palace Memories" movie series they premiered it from the Tampa Theatre. There are not many like her left in the country and the experience is unique. The theatre features art films, festivals, foreign films, classic films and concerts. I don't know anyplace else that you can sit enjoy such performers as George Thorogood, Johnny Lang, Lindsey Buckingham and Annie Lennox (to name just a few) in such stunning locale. I also don't know anyplace else where an organist comes up through the stage while playing the organ. And when the lights go down and the ceiling twinkles...I get goosebumps!
For more info on the history and architect of this gem go to their website.
If you are in town...
Summer Classic Movie Series The Summer Classic Movie Series schedule is set with the addition of a second silent film screening with the legendary Rosa Rio! You won't want to miss seeing these films in the grand setting they were meant for. All films are on Sundays at 3pm.
May 27: Beach Blanket Bingo, June 3: Silent Film Special Event - Silent Clowns Comedy Shorts, June 10: Rope, June 17: Top Hat, June 24: The Thin Man, July 1: Pal Joey, July 8: Touch of Evil, July 15: Gone With the Wind, July 22: The Great Gatsby, July 29: A Hard Day's Night, August 5: Blazing Saddles, August 12: Casablanca, August 19: Bedknobs & Broomsticks, August 26: Silent Film Special Event: Thief of Baghdad.
Opening in 1926, the theatre provided many, many years of entertainment to Tampa. The ceiling of the theatre boasts stars that twinkle and the lobby has over 200,000 pieces of tile. In the 60s and 70s though it fell on harder times and eventually closed. With the possibility of the wrecking ball looming, the City of Tampa bought this classic for $1 and it is now maintained mostly by donations. When AMC did their "Movie Palace Memories" movie series they premiered it from the Tampa Theatre. There are not many like her left in the country and the experience is unique. The theatre features art films, festivals, foreign films, classic films and concerts. I don't know anyplace else that you can sit enjoy such performers as George Thorogood, Johnny Lang, Lindsey Buckingham and Annie Lennox (to name just a few) in such stunning locale. I also don't know anyplace else where an organist comes up through the stage while playing the organ. And when the lights go down and the ceiling twinkles...I get goosebumps!
For more info on the history and architect of this gem go to their website.
If you are in town...
Summer Classic Movie Series The Summer Classic Movie Series schedule is set with the addition of a second silent film screening with the legendary Rosa Rio! You won't want to miss seeing these films in the grand setting they were meant for. All films are on Sundays at 3pm.
May 27: Beach Blanket Bingo, June 3: Silent Film Special Event - Silent Clowns Comedy Shorts, June 10: Rope, June 17: Top Hat, June 24: The Thin Man, July 1: Pal Joey, July 8: Touch of Evil, July 15: Gone With the Wind, July 22: The Great Gatsby, July 29: A Hard Day's Night, August 5: Blazing Saddles, August 12: Casablanca, August 19: Bedknobs & Broomsticks, August 26: Silent Film Special Event: Thief of Baghdad.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Confirm or Deny
I just got this link and want to know what my readers think:
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036782_20037403_20037541_25,00.html
It is the link to Entertainment Weekly's top 25 Sci-Fi moments from the last 25 years.
They did a pretty decent job. I think there was a HUGE error for not including the Stargate franchise. Especially, Stargate SG-1. I mean it's been on for 10 seasons!
Never saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...but is it sci-fi? And Lost?
You be the judge!
IF you want to geek out in a major way...check out www.memory-alpha.org.
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20036782_20037403_20037541_25,00.html
It is the link to Entertainment Weekly's top 25 Sci-Fi moments from the last 25 years.
They did a pretty decent job. I think there was a HUGE error for not including the Stargate franchise. Especially, Stargate SG-1. I mean it's been on for 10 seasons!
Never saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...but is it sci-fi? And Lost?
You be the judge!
IF you want to geek out in a major way...check out www.memory-alpha.org.
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