Twin Peaks is Freaky FUN!!!!

One day in the sleepy northern town of Twin Peaks a girl is found dead. Her body has been stripped and wrapped in plastic, and all manner of unsightly insects crawl over her permanently open eyes as she washes up to shore. The small community is not very well equipped to handle such an atrocious crime, so an F.B.I. agent is sent in to aid the local bumbling law enforcement in apprehending the killer, and getting to the bottom of the mysteries. What follows for 29 episodes is easily the most strange, shocking and hilarious television shows I’ve ever seen in my life
Dale Cooper comes to the small town thinking it'll be a walk in the park. Two days in he has a dream, a dream that would be forever imprinted in the memory of anyone who watches the show. A sequence that would be parodied on Saturday night live, AND sesame street. It's also the most bizarre mind trip ever. However, most importantly, it lays the seeds of clues that point to all the answers. After having seen the entire show all the way to the end, the revelations are mostly all spelled out in this one early dream sequence. The thing is it's hard to tell what’s important and what’s a clue when there's a midget dancing to jazz music and Laura Palmer, the high school prom queen victim talking backwards and trying to (still in reverse) seduce agent Cooper (who is NOT in reverse) oh, and there's a strobe light also.

But that’s the tip of the ice burg in this wayward town. A one eyed house wife toils all day in hopes of creating a silent drape runner, the first of its kind. You think this sub plot is just comic relief until it points to a clue. Or a quiet old woman who spends her days drinking coffee and eating pie at the local diner, with a log. That’s right, a log. Once again, it's funny, funnier still when she approaches the authorities and tells them that her log was there the night Laura died, and that it saw everything. Unfortunately they don't ask the log nicely so it refuses to spill the beans. However, she gets the last laugh as it turns out the history and explanation behind the log, and the fact that it REALLY WAS there, are much more complicated and emotional than you'd think.
The show is filled to the brim with odd characters whose quirks all seem to lead to more clues. And more strangeness. In fact, one complaint I might have for the beginning of the show is that there are TOO many sub plots going on, most seemingly not connected to the core mysteries, who killed Laura palmer and why? But that’s the magic of this show, because patience is a virtue, and all the threads do indeed connect. Some not until the final episode. But when they do, your jaw will drop at the ingenuity of it all. Think of CLUE mixed with Law and Order and Reno 911 and you might start to get an idea. OH, and did I mention Laura’s mom starts having visions of a screaming Native American killing Laura? Just a dream right? Not so once Cooper starts seeing the very same man. But what of a dream when you discover the man in them has been dead for years?
There is a moodiness and sense of dread that permeates the whole show, and it's done with the muted colors, the constant bad weather, the creepy music (reminiscent of the shining) the sudden outbursts of violence, and in some choice sequences, gore. It’s this aspect that really sets Twin Peaks apart from other shows. Its structure has been often imitated since. J.J.Abrams has gone on the record and said that this show has directly inspired him on both ALIAS and especially LOST. But none of his shows, nor anything else since has captured the off kilter eeriness of this classic.
And then there's the ending. Can you imagine who the killer is? I narrowed it down to 4 people and was right with one of them, but was wrong with the motive. Go figure. It's a doozy, and even the revelation is done with a twisted bizarre glee not seen since that crazy dinner scene with "the family" at the end of the Texas chainsaw massacre. Yea, that’s right, ya hurd me. It's satisfying and creepy, and hilarious, and the perfect cap off to one of the most original things I’ve ever seen. It IS 29 episodes long, so it is an investment in time, but a can tell you here and now that once it starts, you can't look away. and once it's over, you'll find yourself unable to stop thinking about the mysteries of TWIN PEAKS

p.s. as an added bonus, it's fun to play "spot the celebrity" with Laura Flynn Boyle, Heather Graham and even David Duchovney turning up!!!

The Midnight Meat Train Review

Horror movies now days seem to take on the same thing over and over again. You have either the devil child, the sad killer who stalks and slashes teens, or a creepy Asian with long dark hair doing things with technology. All the above mentioned films also always take place in a gothic southern mansion and surrounding countryside, or some other secluded alienating location. Enter Clive Barkers Midnight Meat Train, a film based on one of Clive’s short stories, that is both original and effective, and a welcome refreshing thriller in the now stale “horror/thriller” genre.
Bradley Cooper (Alias, The Wedding Crashers) plays a struggling photographer in some unnamed, generic big city (Chicago, New York, they could all fit) and lives with his supportive girlfriend (Iron Mans Leslie Bibb). Their best friend, that creepy guy who had that unfortunate ending in Hostel 2 knows someone who knows someone who knows Brook Shields (Lipstick Jungle) who owns an art gallery. Through a series of events, Cooper’s character is led into the city underground to find its “heart” and take pictures of it for some fancy art gallery showing. This could be his big break. What he stumbles onto is a series of brutal murders, and disappearances, in one of the more telling and creepy scenes, revealing that such occurrences have been going on since the early 1900!!!! He soon has a one on one run in with Mahogany, the well dressed killer with a doctor’s bag of killing implements, his favorite being a heavy metal mallet. Vinnie Jones (bad ass in pretty much any movie he’s ever been in) plays the part without a single word uttered. Which is rare for him, but the silence goes a long way in amping up the creep factor. It’s all in his eyes.

This movie is just an awesome example of style over substance. It’s scary, it’s effective, it’s quick, and just under an hour and a half, the movie knows what it is and gets there fast. Is it deep and logical and thought provoking? No, but it does tap into a real fear that many people have, and that’s the subway. It’s a fact that thousands go missing every year, and it’s a fact that late at night this specific mode of transportation is not the cleanest, or most inviting. Here is a movie that takes that untapped idea and gives it a mythical, epic horror story behind all the mayhem. This IS where the movie falters just a bit. There is a rather supernatural denouncement, which although there are clues to throughout the film, is never really stressed. So it does come as somewhat of a surprise shift in tone that you will either buy and be freaked out by, or be confused and underwhelmed by. However this IS Clive Barker, and if you’re familiar with his work (Hell raiser) then you won’t be surprised at all.

What does work, and work in spades is the direction. The opening death scene has our victim sitting alone, listening to music and everything she does is in fast motion, and herky jerky style like time laps photography, and out of focus, in the background, the killer gets up, mallet in hand, in slow motion. No edits, no cuts, Mahogany just slowly walks up until his slow motion and her time laps come crashing together and BAM! Still no edits or flashy “SAW” style cuts when her face gets bashed in. Its small stylistic flourishes like this that makes every scene in the movie a wonder to watch. Take for example another death scene, shown as a point of view of our victim. After being attacked, and bloody, she slips and slides around the metal train car unable to get a grip on anything until she gets hit in the neck, her view spinning in circles until it rests on her own body, several feet away, still twitching, and headless. We then zoom out of her eyeball, her body still visible in the reflecting of her eye, as she involuntarily blinks. Or another where Leslie Bibb and Co. are snooping through someone’s house, that someone now on their way home. The camera swoops up, looking down on everyone as if from a birds eye view, sliding from room to room, through the walls, down the halls, so you have a PERFECT sense of where everyone is in relation to each other, something that most horror movies now a days don’t bother with.
The Midnight Meat Train is an awesome movie. It’s not an all time classic, but it is does have the makings of a cult classic. Like The Descent or The Skeleton Key or The Orphanage, it’s one of those movies no one hears about, but once you seek it out your pleasantly surprised at just how kick ass it turns out to be. High on style, Medium on substance, it’s always a visual treat; just to look at, even when sometimes the convoluted plot gets in its own way. HIGHLY recommended if you enjoy a good quick scare that will linger in your mind the next time you get in that subway, or walk down that deserted alleyway at night alone……

terror awaits you...INSIDE!

So what is "too far?" I'm talking with movies. Where do you draw the line? For me personally, it's when something goes from entertainment, to gratuitus shock value. the one and only time i got up and walked out of a film was The Hills Have Eyes. When a mother is being raped by a mutant, who then puts a gun to the forehead of her infant, thats where i draw my line. But that movie was a huge hit, so obviously everyone has a different line. For me it's when kids are put in needless danger in films. not only is it a tired cliche (how many times can the action hero's son or daughter REALLY get kidnapped) but in the case of hills have eyes, it went much to far over the edge.
With that in mind, prepair yourself for the most depraved, the most vile, gory, inhumane SICK motion picture i have ever seen in my life. It's also a masterpiece of timing, suspence, and craftsmanship. INSIDE. A french thriller that was a sensation in it's native europe, tried briefly to get released here in the states, but the M.P.A.A. now famously said that there is no amount of editing that can save this film from an N.C.-17 (the kiss of death rating if a distributer wants to make any kind of money off of it). So it's relegated to dvd, though thankfully unedited.
The film opens with a car crash. or rather, the immediate aftermath. a woman sits in the drivers seat, airbag deployed, she's bloody and bruised. The camera slowly pans over to her husband in the passenger seat who's obviously not as lucky as she was. she wakes up and looks down....at her unborn child. she's pregnant. we flash forward some time. It's christmas eve in Paris, and riots have taken over the metropolitan areas (a nice touch that both alianates our main character, but also sets the film in the very real here and now) and our very pregnant lead is biting her time till she's induced, scheduled for the next day. She's alone, her husband now dead. Things couldn't really get any worse for her, you'd think. An unnamed woman shows up, demanding that her baby rightfully belongs to HER, and that she'll do anything to get it. anything.

It's a simple enough premis, basically a home invasion horror film (panic room and vacancy are both stellar examples of the sub genre) but this film belongs in a class all it's own. Once the deaths start occuring (you'd be suprised at how high the body count gets) you'll watch (or not watch) in awe as the unflinching camera lingers on the morbid details. Details such as the geisure of blood spraying out of the neck of a victim stabbed with knitting needles, and splashing all over the family photo's hung on the wall. Or a pair of scissors stuck into a victims hand, pinning them to the door so they can't escape. Or a gunshot wound thats probably the most horrifying thing i've ever seen (it oozes, a LOT) As the deaths stack up so do the questions. Why does this woman want the baby so bad? why does she keep claiming it's "hers.?" Everything is revealed in a sinister final that recalls a Grimm Fairytale. complete with ironic twist that answers everything in a satisfying little conclusion.
The Villaness, never named, is an astounding presence of intimidation. take for example a sequence where our hero is sitting watching television. some crappy christmas special (they even have em even in france!) it's dark, theres only the light from the television. we sit and watch as she watches. for an uncomfortably long time. then, slowly, if your paying attention, you see something...a figure. it's the villan slowly creeping up on her. closer, closer still untill she's standing an imposing 6 feet tall right behind her, smelling her, lightly brushing her hair. then, slowly, just as our victim-to-be starts to sense soemthing, the figure slowly slids back into the darkness. The killer is in the house. we see her again shortly after looking through a window. it's all the more creepy that she has the power to slip in and out of the house at will.

Here is an example of a film that is graphic, easily the most graphic i've seen in my life, but it's not ABOUT the gore like it's american Hostel and Saw compatriots. This is about the characters first, and it shows just as much blood and guts as there would be if it was actually happening.It's horrifying in that its all too real a situation. You read about stuff like this in the news. But where the grizzly details are skimmed over, here they are shown matter of factly. Instead of a quick blurb by the newscaster about the victim, we have time to live with the people that are affected, time to actually care about them. This is a film i can't quite recomend. If you watch it, you'll think i was crazy to even suggest you do. All i can do is tell you that if you want to be truely frightend, and observe an unflinching portrait of pure evil, watch INSIDE...if you can.

The Dark Knight

so you all know by now that this film is in fact the second comming. so instead of writing a traditional review, i'll just give you a quick pro and con list.

PRO
-it demands your attention from frame one. there is not one scene that is fluff or padding, every line of dialogue serves a specific purpose. thus the film is long, butdoesn't overstay it's welcome. it's 2 and a half hours and needed every second of it, not a minute more.
- The Joker is the best villan seen on film since hannibal Lecture. He's the first villan who actually delivers in every way possible. He threatens to blow up a hospital? done. He say's he'll make a pencil dissapear...done. He says he'll get rid of Batman...
- the action was all clear and expertly choreographed. Unlike the first film, which was a jumbled mess of nonsense when it came to the hand to hand battles, here everything is fluid and hartd hitting, and easy to follow. You watch in awe as batman uses the most minimal amount of effort required to put down the villans, and it's a thing of imposing brutal beauty when he attacks.
-Harvy dent/two face was the most complete character in the film. He's given the biggest and smoothest story arc, and is actually given the most character developement out of anyone. My heart broke when he...well, ends up the way he does. And i accepted the rather extreem transition his character goes through.

CONS
-Rachel Daws. Her character is basically there to serve the plot and nothing else, and though they DO take care of her pointless part during the second act, Maggy Gylenhaul is ugly, and i mean that in every sense of the word, though i suppose she's better than Katie Holmes, who was thankfully off somewhere talking to aliens with suri and tom.
- Morgan freemans character seems to pick and choose where his "moral code" starts and stops and it seemed a bit wishy-washy, especially toward the end. but i suppose i can see why director/writer Nolan wanted to keep the amount of characters to a minimum, it's just a shame Lucious seemed to pick the short end of the stick.
-after a certain someone gets knocked off, i wanted to see more of the emotional aftermath, but everyone, especially bruce wayne, seem to get over it pretty quickly. as in, one 4 minute scene later and it's all but forgotten by everyone. that is the one aspect of the film that i felt should have slowed down and taken the time to analyze. All well.

Mama Mia!

this will be short and sweet. Like the movie itself. ok, so here it is folks, you like abba? you'll love this. if your just ok with ABBA, then you'll probably still love this, but if you hate abba, then this is not for you. This is one of those situations where it works for those that like what it is, and wont work for those that don't. Get it? it's like, if you like horror movies, then you'll love the exorcist, but if you don't like horror movies, no matter how good it's made, you won't like the exorcist. Same here. That being said i love abba and LOVED this. What i was most suprosed by was how messy the movie was. the dialogue all sounded imporvised. when the characters were drinking, which was often, they REALLY seemed drunk, flubbing lines left and right and missing their marks and generally having a good time. thats the key here, everyone seemed to be having so much fun getting plastered and sunburned on the greek isles that it's infectious. So it doesn't have the crisp choreography of Chicago, or the perfectly timed plot structure of Hairspray (which i loved but WAS clearly edited to death in postproduction to the point that you can tell) this film comes off more like they showed up, had a blast, filmed everything, and made of it what they could after the fact. that being said, Meryl Streep acts her butt off (singing the winner takes it all in ONE TAKE on a seaside cliff at sunset in 5 minutes of perfect cinematic joy) and can actually sing VERY well, she's not just servicable, unlike Pierce Brosnan who does scrape by, mostly due to the meager song selection he's (wisely) given. Amanda Seyfried, my jesus, is awsome!!!! she reminds me of a young lily tomln from 9 to 5, or a sexier luciel ball. and she can sing. You'll forget she was dumb mean girl #2 in MEAN GIRLS, or her turn as an ill fated boozing sexpot on the most amazing television show ever VERONICA MARS. She ownes this role, and cry's on demand several times, giving Streep a run for her oscar earning money! I loved it. You may or may not, but if you will or wond, you already know.

a picture says a thousand words.....

so leave a message telling me what YOU think is going on here. I guess I don't have to tell you that i was in TEARS from laughing after this happend.

"HULK SMASH!!!" and boy does he!

The Incredible Hulk was AWSOME!!!! I loved every second of it. It was better than Iron man. It knew what it was, an ACTION movie, and had the good sense to put lots of that in it. It didn’t hurt that Edward Norton, one of the best actors we have around these days, fits into he role like a GLOVE. Liv Tyler needs to work more, and I’m glad she’s already signed on for the sequels as Betsy Ross, the heroin of the film. Of note is their relationship. Unlike every freaking other superhero movie, these guys have a complex past, and she’s “moved on” and he can’t get to “exited” or he hulks out, and all these little details to their relationship that make it all the more interesting. Also, the villain. Thank GOD for a proper villain (I’m looking at you Mr. lets come up with a bad guy in the last 20 minutes just so we can call our self an action film Iron Man) who has reason and motive, and is also VERY interesting, with many different angles. Also worth praise is the action itself. I knew what was going on every second. Every fight, every chase, I knew who was where and chasing who. Unlike transformers. Also, these monsters have weight. When they jump, it looks like they are exerting themselves, and when they land, it looks like it hurts. The final battle in the streets of new York is the largest scale action scene I’ve seen in a LOGN time and when the immortal words “hulk SMASH!” are uttered, not only did he do good on his promise, it brought the audience to a near standing ovation. It was sheer bliss to see this much awesome comic book action in one film. Spiderman was goofy. Batman was always more interested in character and plot over actual action (and in that one instance I’m ok with that) and Hellboy isn’t mainstream enough to get a budget for the kind of action this film throws down. Complaints? Pacing. The movie is 2 hours on the nose and it is WIDLEY publicized that Edward Norton (screenwriter as well as actor) had a HUGE falling out with Marvel over the cut of this film. Sometimes a scene is trimmed here and there. But there was 70 minutes of completed footage excised. And it shows. Supporting characters pop up out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. Some of the military personal including William hurt come off as one note, when you can just FEEL there was more left in the wings. All well, no matter, that’s what DVD is for. As is, the summer has officially begun, and this is my favorite movie so far. Just a blast.

You'r better off killing yourself before seeing THE HAPPENING

So The Happening was probably the most gleefully horrible film I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s the first time since Mystery Science Theater 3000 went off the air that I wished it was back on. I think a revival of that show is in order for one special engagement. The latest from M. Night “I’m a hack” Shamalamadingdong. Mark Walberg and Zoe Deschanel are two of my favorite actors around. Walberg seems to be on the cusp of serious a list status and Zoe is just as cute as a button with oodles of charm and charisma (she was the best thing about elf. And yes, that’s a burn against will Ferrell) but not in this thing. But are they to blame? No. they have both proven to be amazing previously. The plot, a mass series of suicides in New York and other heavily populated areas for no apparent reason, leading most to assume terrorist attacks of the noxious kind. These are quickly dispelled of course by handy radio and news reports, that no matter how grave a situation, everyone seems to have time to stop and listen to. So what is IT?!?!?! Well, it’s plants. I’m not ruining anything, it’s in the first 30 minutes, and they talk about it for the rest of the running time. Get it? The plants are pissed at us for global warming so they’ve developed a natural toxin that kills us parasite humans off, in the form of self deletion. O.K. kind of lame, but there is some serious potential in that plot. Unfortunately, the actors, plot, or anything else with any semblance of talent or skill are no match for...M. Night Shamalamadingdong.The sixth sense was a great film with a killer ending. Signs was an awesome little twilight zone episode made for feature length. Unbreakable was boring and slow with hands down one of the laziest, obvious, tired “twist” endings I’ve ever seen. The Village and Lady in the Water were both so horrible I won’t even grace them with my negative remarks. So here we have is “first r rated Movie” with means nothing because 3 seconds of SLIGHTLY bloody bodies could be trimmed and a pg-13 would be secured. The much ballyhooed death scenes pale in comparison to “PULSE” which is an Asian film I’ll get to a little bit later on. A man feeds himself to a tiger. Are you SERIOUS!?!?!?! The entire audience I saw this with, myself included could NOT STOP LAUGHING!!!! People waiting in line to use a gun to shoot themselves? Might be creepy, even though shamalamadingdong points the camera at the people’s feet. That’s right, an entire sequence, for NO REASON is shot at floor level, as you HEAR people shoot themselves. It’s a bad directorial choice. It’s even dumber considering it’s “his first R rated movie.” If only it ended there. Marky Mark talks to a tree. That’s right, a tree. Here is the best part, when he realizes it’s a plastic tree, he STILL talks to it in fear! I kid you not I was crying I was laughing so hard. If this was his first film, mark Walberg would never work again. Zoe deschanel unfortunately is early in her career, and this heaping pile of crap will make it VERY hard for her to get any more work. And ramalamading dong? He’s already set to make Avatar: The last Air bender for nickelodeon. Yea, a live action cover of that kids cartoon show. Maybe that’d be more his speed. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fired for it. The village tanked, and so did lady in the water. Now this. Mind you they all had strong openings. But the sharpest fall offs due to horrible word of mouth. How many more movies can this guy “make” and coast off the 6’Th sense phenom? How many more chances is he going to get? He’s getting worse and worse and idiots keep giving him a second chance. He’s a joke, as is this movie. Luckily for him, this is one of the rare occasions where it’s so bad it’s good. Drinking games will be invented. MSTK3 will come back on the air, JUST for this. And Wal-Mart is already clearing some space in their $5 bins for this.

Those big apple whores with the hearts of gold

So Sex and the City was pretty darn great. Let me set up this review with some background on the show in reguards to myself. I never watched it on HBO. I've only seen probably 5 full episodes front to back, and none were in any sort of chronological order. I have no predisposition to which lady should or shouldn't be with any certain guy. I don't have all the knowledge of the ladies pasts, breakups and back stories and such and so forth. And still, i loved sex and the city.
The evening started with Alex, Aless and a couple other fine ladies meeting up at bubba gump shrimp, lol, for some food and conversation. We started with talking about the most akward "sex" moments and someone who shall remain nameless for protection (it's not me) was once dropped on her head!!! AAHHH! I couldn't stop laughing at all the stories.
That was the perfect precurser to the film itself, which is all about the drama, the laughes, the city, and yes the sex. Actually, this film was very tame in the reguards to the latter, more so than the show itself even. No matter, the film is too busy setting up several plotlines insuring each lady thier own time to shine. The acting was all top notch, and everyone is faced with questions that had even the audience we were with polarized. How far does forgiveness go? what DO you forgive? How much of a relationship is "you" and how much of it is the time and effort you spend on the other person? All these questions and more are dealt with in the 2 hour and 47 minute movie which breezes by like an hour and a half. It covers a years time, and probably a seasons worth of material.
It's the kind of movie you watch when your sick in bed all day, and need a cheer me up. It's in the same category as "Love Actually" or "Mean Girls" or "sleepless in seattle." But not "The Notebook" because that movie sucked so hard i can't fathom why anyone likes it. But i digress, Sex and the City is comfort food made to perfection for what it is. I liked it. It made me think, and it got Aless to cry. Well, not cry, but she most def. got a little faclempt at several points (the brooklyn Bridge meeting for example) of course she'll never admit any of that. But if it can get aless to do that, then it's a keeper.

Go Speed Racer GO!!!!!!!

Speed Racer is 99 flavors of crack cocaine and I loved every second of it. I can most definitely see why this movie bombed hard core. I can see why some people with HATE the nonsense out of it. But I LOVED it, and I can’t get enough of it. The music. The cheesy schmaltzy father son talks. The inspirational mom speeches. The Obligatory smooch at the end. The little brother and monkey sidekick. It’s all been done before, but before it was done out of laziness. Here, it’s done earnestly and lovingly, and it works. I bought it. Not everyone will. If you buy into it, you’ll feel like a kid again, like I did. I remember putting together that micro machines speedway all day long, and turning out the lights and watching the glow in the dark cars wiz and shoot past. My brain amplified that to a thousand, and even then, my brain couldn’t fathom the sights you will see in speed racer. The car chases are astounding. Are they realistic, hell no! Who cares!?!?! Who goes to speed racer for clinical car chases? The car chases in this movie are like the musical numbers in Disney cartoons, like the opening action scenes in the original bond films, they are a character all their own, and a wonder to behold. Remember that rush you got when Sloth screamed “Hey you guys!” or the lump in your throat you got when Simba’s dad died? These were schmaltzy scenes, and viewed as an adult, you wouldn’t by it, you wouldn’t like it, and you’d probably laugh it off like the cynical mess that you are. But as a kid, you ate it up. You couldn’t get enough of it. This film is for the young at hart. It’s for those of us that can still remember the sheer joy of exploring the uncharted pirate infested tunnels in your own back yard or cheering on your glow in the dark micro machine. If not, then this movie is not for you. This movie is for me.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls a.k.a. Fracking ALIENS!?!?!?!

Indiana Jones was awesome, until the ending. This review is going to be short and sweet because that’s all it deserves really. The movie is a very well made adventure romp that sits very comfortably next to the previous Indiana Jones pictures. Karen Allen is back as everyone’s favorite Indy love interest. Shia LaBeouf continues to take over the world one summer blockbuster at a time, and does an annoyingly good gob at it. (Also, check out the trailer for his new movie, Eagle Eye, it looks all kinds of AWSOME!!!)
In fact that was my favorite part of the movie; the relationships. The action is all well choreographed, and THANKFULLY it’s all very smoothly shot and edited and there is NONE of that annoying “shaky-cam” nonsense the Bourne films started (just to make it clear, I liked it in the Bourne films cause it fit the tone of what they were, much like I also love it in the series 24, however, not EVERYONE needs to shake the camera and think that immediately means “intense!”) but the action was a known, a given. The acting and relationships and dialogue was all much better than you’d expect and a true joy. Harrison Ford’s reaction to seeing Marion Crane after all these years is priceless, just sheer cinematic joy.
That brings me to the two things I didn’t like about the film. The first one is john Williams. That’s right I said it, the man is lazy. I know he’s old, but that’s no excuse. Remember all those countless memorably tunes he made in the 80’s and 90’s? REMEMBER them all? I don’t, I can’t, there are too many. Well, other than the Harry Potter theme, all he does now days is play tracks from his greatest hits album over everything he does. I LOVE the Indy theme, but I literally heard it 36 times During Crystal skulls. Indy gets a drink from the water fountain = dun dun dun Da dun dad um…Shame on you Williams, try being creative and not cribbing from your own past library!
Secondly, the ending. The last 20 minutes or so is so outlandish (even by Jones standards) I couldn’t take it. ALIENS!?!?! REALLY!?!?!?! It was lame and that’s all there is to it. Them talking about the aliens and their relationship to the ancient civilizations was fascinating, the idea of the crystal skull itself was great and cool, but the actual execution of it, well, the mummy was more believable, and the mummy is a rip off of Indiana Jones. Therefore, concordantly, ergo, visa VI, the ending sucked worse than a knock off…and that sucks. Got me? Good
The end

Iron Man

Iron Man was just ok. It was very by the numbers, plug in the romantic interest, insert morally guided best friend, top it off with a super villain, add it to a superhero with a cool gimmick and that equals a very good, if standard summer action movie.
Robert Downy J. is awesome. Always has been, and probably always will be. I LOVED him in this, however I LOVED him in everything he's ever done (and REALLY look forward to him playing an Australian who has an operation to make himself black in TROPIC THUNDER later this year) and the fact that someone has FINALLY given him an entire movie to himself is just cool. Unfortunately, whereas he usually creates interesting characters with very unique material, here he's given something so...generic, I can't help but this what this could have been like if Tim Burton directed it.
As it is, Jon Favreau does decent work. He's one of those actor turned directors that seem to be popping up left and right now-a-days. Favreau hasn't done anything near this scale before, but he handles it ok. I put him in the same category as Brett Ratner and Chris Columbus. Those two directed such films as rush hour and home alone and RENT and red dragon. What do all of those films have in common (and unfortunately this one as well)? BLAND! Everything is very competently done, but with no flavor or artistic value. Their camera set up's are basic, but get the job done, and none of the actors stand in front of each other. That seems to be about the only compliment I can give it.
Also, I may be the only one out there who feels like this, but I’m sick of all of these super hero movies that are all pretty much the same. That’s why I LOVE comic book films like Batman Begins and Hellboy and 300, they go about their story in such a unique and interesting way, and present such fascinating heroes and set up such hard obstacles to overcome, that when something as "competent" as Iron man comes along, I can't help but think that at this point in the game, we as an audience deserve better.
Still, the special effects are cool. Gwyneth Paltrow turns in a thankless yet charming performance, and Robert Downy Jr. is in it, so it's not all bad. Will I watch it again? No, probably not, but I’m not sad I spent the money on the ticket.

best ALIAS fight scene EVER!

So this scene was from the finally of ALIAS season 2. I'd like to point out that this was WAY before KILL BILL had even been made. I say this because of a VERY similar sequence in K.B. Vol.2 with uma and hannah in the trailer. Now, Quintin Tarantino is a HUGE alias fan, having been in several episodes, as well as directing a fiew also. Hmm, i wonder...