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Title
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Description
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Elf |
A cute Christmas-time fable about a human brought up as one of Santa's Elves. He gets kicked out of the North Pole and returns to New York City to find his father (James Caan). His elf-like abilities, good nature and cheerful disposition are a big hit with the people he meets in the Big Apple. Typical holiday movie nonsense.
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Runaway Jury |
Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman are on opposite sides of a trial where jury selection and jury tampering take center stage. Gene is the jury consultant defending a gun manufacturer; Dustin is the prosecuting attorney for the state; however one of the jurists is secretly negotiating with both sides to swing the jury and get some cash for his efforts ($15 million). Highly implausible, but entertaining.
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Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World |
A rousing tale of battle on the high seas in the early 1800's between a British ship and her more powerful adversary from the French Fleet off the coast of South America and the Galapagos. Lots of strong character development in addition to the shattering action scenes. Russell Crowe is the commander who is "prickly and hard to eradicate" and has to choose between the "lesser of two weevils", choosing to save his friend.
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The Matrix: Revolutions |
I thought this 3rd film in the series was pretty good overall. Yeah sure, there was no really new major character development (dullsville) and it all seemed very familiar, but the big battle scene and special effects with the machines in the middle of the movie was great. The vague glowing ending was a bit of a disappointment. A funny (to me) scene: Neo loses his sight in an attack and his response: "I'll be OK" (I've had worse; It's just a flesh wound; I got better). Next Up - The Matrix: Resurrection.
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Mystic River |
Jimmy, Sean and Dave are three South Boston kids whose lives are transformed by the abduction of one of them as they play on the street. Many years later their lives come together again after the senseless murder of Jimmy's daughter. What starts as a crime thriller becomes a story of the complex web of interplay of human relationships. This movie works best with older adults and would not be interesting to teens.
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Intolerable Cruelty |
George Clooney is a divorce lawyer who's famed for his prenuptial agreements. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the wife of his client, determined to take her husband for everything he's worth. The fun ensues when they start tangling with each other. I like George Clooney when he's in a role where he's making fun of himself like in this movie and in "O Brother, Where Art Thou".
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Good Boy! |
For the kids, a talking dog from outer space. A 12-year old boy adopts a stray dog and names him "Hubble". It turns out that Hubble is actually Canid 3942 sent by the Greater Dane from the Dog Star Sirius to find out what happened to all the dogs that came to Earth long ago. He is dismayed to find that they're all pets! But he learns to respect the loyalty between the dogs and their human owners. Lotsa dogs, lotsa kids, reasonably entertaining.
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School of Rock |
Jack Black gets kicked out of his rock band and needs money. So he pretends to be a substitute teacher and creates a rock band from a 5th grade class telling them that rock is all about passion and "sticking it to The Man" (parents, teachers). The kids are pretty clueless at first but they quickly get with the program and start rockin'. Built for both adults and kids, This movie straddles the fence pretty well and there's a bunch of dialogue that only adults are going to catch.
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The Rundown |
I think I just like "The Rock" because I've enjoyed all of his movies. This one is a little bit like "Midnight Run" except in the jungle. The Rock has agrees to a mission to bring a wayward son back home to his father in LA, but the son doesn't want to come and manages to cause The Rock all kinds of trouble and unexpected challenges along the way. It's fun, but watch out for the monkeys!
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Underworld |
OK, I wasn't too thrilled with this one. It's present-day vampires and "lycans" (werewolves) pitted against each other, with the vampires shooting silver bullets at the werewolves and the werewolves shooting ultraviolet light bullets at the vampires. Cast in an unremitting dreary blue light, I found little joy in this dark movie. There were a couple of decent action scenes and some interesting werewolf transformations but they couldn't redeem this picture from my cellar.
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Once Upon a Time in Mexico |
An up-to-date western very intentionally reminiscent of the old spaghetti westerns where everyone is somewhat evil, brutal killing is commonplace and its hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Keep the loud blaring soundtrack and substitute drug cartels for bank robberies and you've got it. The action was great but the violence was overdone (eyes gouged out and legs blown off) making it hard to enjoy the humorous spots.
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The Medallion |
Jackie Chan takes on a supernatural edge in Hong Kong and Ireland when he joins up with British Interpol agents to protect a mysterious boy and he becomes strangely affected by the boy's otherworldly medallion after saving his life. Combining computer graphics and martial arts this comedy takes a while to really get going, and while not uproarious, it has some good moments.
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Open Range |
Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall star as middle-aged "free-rangers", cowboys who are herding their cattle in the 1880's Old West (before barbed wire) and run into an Irish land baron and his hired guns and sheriff who want to kill them and take their cattle. Well the boys waste little time in directly confronting the entire group and having one hell of a gunfight (2 against 20). Annette Bening plays Costner's the love interest, the sister of the town's Doc whom they get to know pretty well.
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Bad Boys II |
I never saw the original Bad Boys, but the sequel with Martin Lawrence and Will Smith was pretty good. They boys are teamed up as South Florida detectives going after a vicious drug lord. There's a great car chase scene along a Miami highway with a huge number of demolished cars and trucks. The language is very crude, so beware.
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Pirates Of The Caribbean |
Johnny Depp has a wonderful time playing the devilish Captain Jack Sparrow who gets no respect from any of the other characters. Depp's flamboyant performance is very enjoyable, but the plot itself lost me a little when it strayed into the supernatural with a host of skeletonized pirates marching underwater. Nevertheless this is a pretty good film worth seeing again.
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Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas |
Everybody in this traditional animated film behaved exactly as you'd expect: Sinbad acted like a bad boy, but was really good inside; he falls for the girl, but doesn't let her know; and the girl shows lots grit and determination. The storyline was straightforward without any unnecesary confusion, the animation was reasonable and it moved along at a pretty good pace. Not as good as "Finding Nemo", but very watchable, especially for the kids.
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Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle |
I got a kick out of this movie (grin). The Angels are back at it again, with ridiculously impossible physical stunts, a lot more skin, that same 70's retro feel and 70's music, and a very little plot. Settle back for a silly ride, silly jokes, some unexpected cameos and a bunch of Matrix-like stunts. This is just a fun lightheaded summertime movie.
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The Hulk |
A scientist working for the Army in the 1950's gives his son mutant abilities through genetic manipulation. After exposure to gamma rays these mutations allow the grown son to become immensely big and strong, very resistant to physical harm and lime green, but only if you make him really, really angry. He can't control himself when this happens and he doesn't remember anything after he calms down and returns to normal. The movie starts out very slowly (yawn), but ends with a lot of action. Too violent and confusing for little kids, too slow for teens at the beginning. The hulkster is digital and it shows, but I thought the animators did a reasonable job.
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Hollywood Homicide |
Two LA cops (old-timer Harrison Ford and hunky Josh Hartnett) are searching for who's behind the murders at a nightclub. This movie snoozes along for about an hour with Ford's character trying to sell a house and Hartnett's character practicing acting and yoga. It finally picks up a bit at the end, but the characters have no chemistry and the middle part is dreadfully slow.
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Finding Nemo |
This is a very cute animated Disney/Pixar film about a brave little orange clownfish Dad (Marlin) going to extraordinary lengths to rescue his only Son (Nemo) who's been accidentally captured by a scuba diver and sent to a fish tank owned by an Australian dentist (P. Sherman at 42 Wallaby Way in Sydney). The colors are electric in intensity with unbelievably nice watery effects. The film alternates between Marlin having many adventures going from the Great Barrier Reef to Sydney, and Nemo attempting to get out of the fish tank. A great family film.
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The Matrix: Reloaded |
Definitely a middle movie, the sequel to "The Matrix" assumes that you've seen the original movie and leaves you hanging for the final movie in the trilogy. It keeps closely to its original creative artistic fighting format without adding very much new. We get a closer look at Zion (what's the deal with all the candles?) and more confusing views of the complex computer program that's running it all, and an interlude with the snotty, arrogant programming architect (another computer program) who's tweaking the program and trying to perfect it.
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Anger Management |
Dave Buznik (Adam Sandler) is ordered by a court to undergo anger management due to a minor incident on an airplane. However his world-renowned anger therapist Dr. Buddy Rydell (Jack Nicholson) really starts pissing him off which leads him into more and more trouble. Lots of strange characters in this one and LOTS of cameos. All the loose ends are tied up and everything makes sense in the end, unlike a lot of other movies I've seen recently.
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X2: X-Men United |
I had forgotten the details of the original X-Men from 3 years ago, but the sequel is very good and the first movie this year that I would consider seeing again. Theres lots of special effects and a pretty cool new character, Kurt Wagner aka "Nightcrawler", a blue tatooed vampire-ish guy with gold eyes who can teleport, but only if he can see where he's going (he's afraid of getting stuck in a wall). The scenes I liked the most were the opening scenes in the White House and Magneto's escape from prison. There's enough X-men now that I'm getting a bit lost in the inter-relationships.
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A Man Apart |
Vin Diesel stars as a Los Angeles DEA agent working against a Mexican drug cartel. When his wife is killed, it turns personal and he goes after "Diablo", the head of the cartel. Predictably grim, gritty and dark, I still found it interesting enough to keep it out of my bottom "bomb" category.
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The Core |
Well it's time to save the Earth (again). This time the core has stopped spinning and the electromagnetic field is breaking down causing all sorts of bad things to happen. So an intrepid multiracial international cast of characters is assembled to take a "ship" down to core to get it spinning again. From this point on, there's way, way to much fiction and not enough science. I thought the special effects were pretty good though.
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Basic |
A group of Army Rangers in training end up killing each other in the Panama jungle and an ex-Ranger is called in to try to find out what happened and why. Sounds OK so far, and with John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, whats not to like? But this movie needlessly tangles and turns itself with so many improbable plot twists that it's ridiculous.
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Tears Of The Sun |
The Navy Seals are called in to Nigeria to rescue an American citizen from the civil war, but they are pursued by one of the main Nigerian army factions and find themselves outgunned and overrun in a ferocious firefight. Bruce Willis stars as the commander of the Seal team. The plot is the usual "let's get the hell outta here". Some of them barely escape and some of them don't.
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Dark Blue |
In the Los Angeles Police department, even after the Rodney King riots, all the white cops are bad and all the black cops are good. Or at least that's the way this movie leads you. Kurt Russell give a good performance as the bad white cop who gets a change-of-heart and goes public against his superiors.
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Shanghai Knights |
Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson reprise their roles from Shanghai Noon, but this time they're in merry old England. They're trying to retrieve an Imperial Seal stolen from China by the evil Lord Rathbone. The usual silly antics ensue and it's reasonably entertaining.
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The Recruit |
A computer hacker is recruited by the CIA and undergoes a series of extreme tests of his physical/mental agility along with the rest of the recruits. What he doesn't know is that his instructor (Al Pacino) is cooking up a double-cross on his CIA buddies.
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