December 21, 2004

Rave Motion Pictures - Chattanooga

My wife and I went to the new Rave Motion Pictures in Chattanooga the other night to see Ocean’s 12. It’s a relatively new cinema company, I think they have 18 locations across the southeast now. The company says they aren’t trying to be an art-house type theater that plays foreign films or independent flicks, they just play blockbusters on really big screens with really loud sound. Which is fine with me.

The screens really are quite huge, bigger than any I’ve seen except for an IMAX and the feature theaters at the Cleveland movie theater. Unfortunately we got to the movie a little late, so the stadium seats up top were already filled, so we had to sit on the second row from the front, which put the screen right in our face and so close that you had to move your whole head around just to see the entire screen.

But at least we didn’t didn’t have to move our head around just to see past other people’s heads, because each row of seating is risen 18” above the one in front of it, giving just about anyone a clear view. The radio ads being played on the station’s around town mention a 7’ man with a 2’ tall stovepipe hat going to the movie and people still being able to see over him, which is a big of an exaggeration, but maybe if he didn’t have the hat on it still wouldn’t be a problem.

There is also ample space in between rows, so you don’t have to stand up for people or have your toes smashed when people come and go.

The best part however was the self-ticketing system in the lobby. Most of the theaters around this area don’t take credit cards, and if they do they charge you a crazy fee like $1 - $2 extra just to use your card. The Rave theater doesn’t take cards at the tellers in the window, but there are two kiosks in the lobby that allow you to choose your movie and showtime and pay with a credit card quickly and easily without having to stand in line or yell through one of those little holes at the ticket window. Then the machine spits out your tickets and you can proceed to your movie.

The prices are more than any other theater in town that I’ve been to, $7.75 for a feature showing, and I’m not sure what the matinee price is. Most other theaters are $7.50, and the one in Cleveland is $7.00. However I don’t mind paying the extra quarter for the convenience of the self ticketing system and the huge screens and great quality sound.

October 13, 2004

Saved! Movie Review

I grew up in a strict seventh-day adventist family all of my life. My family on both sides had been adventists for a few generations, and my great-great grandpa even founded a large adventist college. My point in telling you that is so you’ll know how well I relate to this movie and the characters in it.

The story is of a few teenagers in a strict private christian school (I went to only private adventist schools, or home school), and their trials and tribulations of growing up and making mistakes. Like getting pregnant, finding out you’re gay, finding out you’re a hypocritical, judgmental bitch, etc. A lot of the characters are stereotypical, but it’s probably not something you see every day unless you frequent a church or private christian school. Regardless, I could totally relate to nearly every character in the movie, stereotypical or not, and could almost say “Yup, that’s Pastor Bob, or that person is just like Sandy”, etc.

The movie is funny throughout, but also brings up some good questions about organized religion, God, forgiveness, etc. It really does a good job at pointing out how silly and fake organized religion can be and how hypocritical people can be. Not to say that all religious people are that way, or that all religions are that way, but it just poses some interesting questions. It does a good job of showing that some people get so caught up in appearing “holy” to others and “doing the right thing” that they end up being so judgmental towards the “sinners” that they lose track of what religion is supposed to be about in the first place. Then you have the “rebels” that aren’t preachy, and they end up being the true christians in the end. That in itself is a stereotype, but hey, it’s still true some of the time, and not bad for a hollywood movie.

It brought back a lot of memories from my high school days, the school assemblies, bible classes, classmates, etc. I thought it was a great movie and pretty well written. It posed some questions without being too preachy, and had a few laughs for good measure.

Another good movie to check out if you have seen this one and liked it, is Dogma. It’s a Kevin Smith movie (Mallrats, Clerks, Chasing Amy) about religion, but with a whole lot more swearing. And demons. :)

Rating: 4/5

August 29, 2004

Hero

I have always enjoyed movies like The Last Samurai, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and now Hero. Asian culture is very interesting to me, in that everything is based on honor and respect (at least that’s how it’s portrayed in movies). Asian films are always refreshing to me, because they aren’t all about big tits and tons of gore like most American action films. Not that that is always bad or wrong, but it’s definitely nice to have a break once in a while and see something that tries to actually have a point and let you leave the theater with something other than an empty wallet and slimy butter fingers.

Hero is basically one big flashback, or “illustrated conversation” between the Nameless Hero (Jet Li) and the king of Qin. I don’t pretend to understand all of the philosophy and “zen” in the movie, other than sometimes you have to sacrifice yourself for what you believe in. There is actually very little speaking in the movie anyway. Instead, much of the story and feelings of the characters is expressed in the brilliant cinemaphotography, and the excellently choreographed fight scenes. The swords themselves are almost treated as characters in the movie as well.

The cinemaphotography and choreography in this movie is really what makes it great. I’m no kung-fu aficionado, but this movie has some of the most beautiful and interesting fight choreography that I’ve ever seen. The sets are beautiful, and the use of color plays a very prominent roll in many of the scenes. Most of the backgrounds and landscapes are very desaturated or monotone, and the characters are dressed in very bright contrasting colors, which really makes them the focus of the film, even though all the landscapes are so breathtaking. There are quite a few special effects in the movie, but they are all very subtle, which was really nice. They are artfully and tastefully done so that they completely blend in with the rest of the scene.

As I said, I don’t pretend to understand all of the philosophy in the movie, but if you enjoy kung-fu, cinemaphotography, or just pretty pictures, you definitely need to see this movie.

Rating: 4/5

August 26, 2004

Taking Lives

Taking Lives is another movie that came and went in the theaters with little fanfare. I had actually completely forgotten about it until I happened to see that my sister-in-law who is staying with us had rented it. And after watching it, I can see why it came and went in the theaters so quickly.

The first half of the movie is very atmospheric and a little suspenseful. It reminded me of the look and feel of “Seven”. However, the second half of the movie feels completely different, like it was written by a different writer, and directed by a different director. Hell, even the acting changed.

Somewhere around the bizarre and out of place sex scene, the movie just fell apart in my opinion. There was no suspense at all. They just kept switching back and forth between whether the guy was the killer, or not the killer. The twists were way too abrupt and completely out of place, with no hints as to what might happen.

Save yourself the time and just download the Angelina Jolie sex scene and skip the rest of the movie. :)

Rating: 2/5

July 31, 2004

The Village

Before you spend your money on this movie, be aware that the actual movie is not at all like it is portrayed in the previews. It is not a horror movie, it’s not a monster movie. Most of the “jump out and scare you” parts of the movie are already shown in the previews. The movie has a slow pace, and is in no way an action movie.

The movie starts very slowly, and it’s quite a while into it before anything scary happens as you see in the previews. The suspense and horror of this movie are much more subtle than many “in your face” horror movies, which is why all of the teenagers walking out of the theater were saying how much it sucked. From the previews you expect a scary monster movie and it’s just not that kind of movie at all.

However I enjoy this type of movie much more than gross-out horror movies like Scream and others. They use cheap scares where the bad guy is constantly popping out of some bushes along with a scary moment in the soundtrack. Then he murders the victim and gallons of blood pour onto the ground. Please… Talk about predictable. Scream actually makes fun of how predictable and formulaic horror movies are.

But back to The Village… I personally think it is the mark of a good script and director when he can actually make you fear something as simple as a color. Music is also used to create suspense like many other movies, but in much less quantity than most. Instead he uses simple colors and other signs that something may be about to happen.

That said, I did figure out the movie about half of the way through it, which kind of spoiled the suspense. I felt like he dumbed down the movie too much, to appeal to a more mainstream audience. Namely, there are voice-overs used throughout the movie that basically point out every little detail and nuance of the story, mostly eliminating any mystery or suspense that the movie had. If he had omitted these voice-overs, I think it would have been more of a mystery in the end. There were a few other things that really gave the plot away, but I still enjoyed the movie since I could see what he was trying to do. And there are still scares in the movie, during one scene several girls in the sold-out audience actually screamed out loud, which I’ve never heard in a movie before. Maybe she appreciated the subtleness of the suspense as well. :)

Rating: 4/5

Now for the spoilers… Stop reading if you haven’t seen this movie. Seriously.

I had a feeling that the movie was set in the present day about the time Ivy was taken to the “forbidden shed” and it was made clear that “those that we do not speak of” were a farce. I had a few thoughts that that might be a possibility before, as that would be the only real twist that M. Night could throw in there, but it was all but confirmed around that time.

However, though I figured out the movie, I still enjoyed it. I’ve frequently imagined what it would be like if a child was raised in an environment like that from birth. And I think that was the main point of the movie, and what M. Night was trying to explore more than anything. And that aspect of the movie is what I really enjoyed. The children were completely cut off from the outside world, and for all they knew they were in the year 1890 something. They behaved, minded their parents, did their chores, etc. But the “elders” still couldn’t shield them from the pain of loss, and from crime and jealousy. It’s just built-in to human nature I suppose. So anyway, though the actual movie could have been better, I still enjoyed the thought behind the story.

And in case you didn’t completely figure out the story yourself, Mr. Walker, the leader/teacher of the village, is the one who had the idea to start The Village. His father was terribly wealthy, so he used the money he inherited from his death to pay off the government to keep them from flying over the animal preserve. And he actually setup the preserve and built the fence as well, which is why it’s called Walker Animal Reserve. The villagers never created weapons and stood up to the creatures because obviously, the creatures were the elders. Lucious wasn’t as afraid of the creatures as the other kids because he was the only one that was alive when the Village was formed, as noted in the picture of his mother holding him in front of the counseling center.

July 28, 2004

Something’s Gotta Give

Does it make me some kind of sissy if I laughed a lot at this movie, and actually enjoyed it? I mean after all, it’s a romantic comedy with… old people? At least when you watch romantic comedies with young people in them you can tell your buddies that the actress in the movie is hot so it wasn’t so bad. I mean Diane Keaton, while still very attractive for a woman over 40 or 50 or however old she is, just isn’t someone you’d rave about to your buddies.

But of course, Grumpy Old Men, and Grumpier Old Men are two of my favorite movies of all time as well. And they feature old, grumpy people. Perhaps I relate to these older characters because I’m already somewhat of a grumpy old man myself, even though I’m only 22. You could ask any of my friends or my wife… I have a pretty solid reputation for being a grumpy old man that wants to chase the kids off my lawn with a shotgun most of the time.

Anyway, back to the movie. Story is good, characters are great, dialogue is good, acting is excellent, etc. You’ll probably hate it if you’re young, or not married, so don’t bother. If you’re older and/or married, you’ll probably enjoy it. I’m pretty sure my mom would be in hysterics if she saw it. So recommend it to your parents to watch or something, if you happen to still be in college or younger.

Gees, I’m never going to live this one down… :)

Rating: 4/5 I didn’t give it 5/5 because that would just be too much of a sissy thing to do! :)

July 26, 2004

Gothika

Before Halle Berry was bouncing her boobs around in a leather cat suit, she was bouncing her boobs around in a white t-shirt as a brilliant/crazy psychologist in the movie Gothika. I just got around to watching the movie last night, and while it’s not as bad as I imagine Catwoman to be, it wasn’t her best film either. I mean, at least in Swordfish and Monster’s Ball you got to actually see her boobs (Link is Not Safe For Work).

The rest of this review contains potential spoilers…

But in case you don’t want to read them, my overall rating is 3/5. Some things in the movie just don’t add up, and I wasn’t really satisfied with the ending.

Some things just don’t add up in this movie. Presumably Halle’s character kills her husband Doug because she is possessed by Rachel Parsons, the girl that her husband raped and tortured. If this ghost-girl has the power to possess Halle and make her kill someone, why does she spend the rest of the movie simply scaring the shit our of her instead? Why does she throw her around the cell, and slash her arms instead of just possessing her again and having her walk out of the prison that way? Or by attacking all of the guards in the place and helping her escape. Or actually, why didn’t the ghost girl just kill Doug herself? She later cuts and attacks Halle in prison, so why doesn’t she just attack Doug and the Sheriff herself? Instead she scares Halle over and over until she finally gets the clue and breaks out of prison to figure out what this girl wants. The story is a bit like The 6th Sense now that I think about it. She sees dead people, and has the help them right the wrong that caused them to be killed.

Both Halle and Penelope Cruz do a pretty good job of playing crazy people, though Halle is a little irritating at times. She keeps saying she’s not crazy, but then she’s constantly acting like a crazy person! She freaks out, she’s violent, she goes into crying fits, etc. Admittedly she’s being haunted by a slashed up ghost girl, but still… If she wanted to appear sane, you would think she would be able to considering only a few days before she was the one diagnosing and treating these people.

It also would have been fun if there were more clues as to what actually happened, rather than them just springing it on you at the end. Most psychological thrillers give you clues at the beginning that make you go “oh yeah…” at the end of the movie, but for me, there wasn’t really any clues that I noticed. You just find out that this seemingly normal guy likes to lock up girls in his basement and torture them. But perhaps this was done so that we are as confused as Halle was about what could have happened, and why she would have killed her husband.

I also don’t get the ending… How is she all of the sudden released from prison? Demon Possession or no, she violently murdered her husband, attacked several guards, broke out of prison, then killed the sheriff! There were no witnesses to her killing the sheriff, and considering everyone thought she was crazy, why didn’t they assume that she murdered the sheriff, rather than killing him in self defense? And why was she alone with the sheriff anyway? Shouldn’t there be a guard or at least some other personnel in a police station besides the sheriff and a prisoner? Where was the FBI that was supposed to be taking over the investigation? Had they just not arrived yet? Why was Chloe released from prison as well? She slit her step-father’s throat, and was then released from prison all of the sudden? Maybe her sentence just happened to be up. And I guess Halle could have got off with temporary insanity since she was possessed or whatever. So it sort of makes sense, but they never really explain anything for sure. Then they set you up for the sequel at the end by making her see another ghost of a kid that has been reported missing. Whoopty doo. I hope they leave the I’m-a-ghost-and-I-need-help type movies to M. Night Shyamalan in the future.

Rating: 3/5

July 25, 2004

The Bourne Supremacy

One interesting thing about this movie is that there isn’t really catch-phrase, a fancy theme song, a super-duper-action-star type lead character, mind bending special effects, etc. Basically there is no gimmick. It’s not like Mission Impossible which depends on its huge star and well-known franchise name to do well. It’s not like the Matrix which relies on multi-million dollar special effects to get people to come in the theater. It’s not like I, Robot which relies on an established science fiction franchise to draw interest. It’s just a plain old, damn good spy/assassin movie.

The pace is fast and constant, really never letting you catch your breath as you watch Mr. Bourne outrun the bad dudes. I haven’t really felt such an intense movie in a while. Most action movies have a few tense scenes, but in The Bourne Supremacy I felt pretty tense the entire time. There are a few laughs, a few gasps, but mostly it’s just car chases, boat chases, foot chases, and Jason Bourne outwitting all the silly CIA operatives.

The one thing that was kind of iffy about the movie is the cinemaphotography… During the fight scenes and car chase scenes, the camera is always focused very closely on the subject, rather than giving you more of an overview. The camera is also very shaky and blurry, so it can be difficult to tell what is really going on. However this also may be one thing that contributes to the edge-of-your seat feel of the movie since you really don’t know what is going on sometimes. Or maybe they were trying to make you feel more like what Bourne was actually seeing and doing. It’s just something I noticed, which could be counted as a knock against the movie since I really shouldn’t be thinking about the cinemaphotography.

But overall I thought it was a really fun movie and I liked it a lot.

Rating: 5/5

Nice Chattanooga area Movie Theater

I live about 15 minutes from Tennessee’s largest mall, the Hamilton Place Shopping center. There are 3 movie theaters in the area, which I have been going to for several years. You have the one in the mall that is always packed, expensive, and you have to wind your way through all the teenage kids loitering outside. Then there is Wynnsong theaters across the street, which doesn’t have quite the same loitering problem since it’s not in the mall, but is still always crowded. Then there is the “cheap theater” that is only a couple of dollars, but there are lots of kids there too since it’s cheap. Plus the theaters are filthy, the floors are sticky, the chairs are broken, the sound sucks, the film is dirty and has hair and dust all over it, and the entire place smells like a locker room. Literally. But hey, it’s only a couple of bucks, right?

Anyway, thanks to my friend Kevin I recently went to another movie theater in Cleveland, about 18 minutes away. This theater is brand new, has very steep stadium seating so you’re sure to have a good view, the largest screens I’ve seen in a non-IMAX theater, nice seats with a headrest, no sticky floors, no odor, good sound, etc. Plus it’s $.50 cheaper than everywhere else in town ($5.00 for matinee, $7.00 for a later showing). So if you live around Hamilton Place, consider going to the one in Cleveland instead. I highly recommend it. I’ve seen 3 movies there in the past two weeks because I don’t have to deal with the hassles of going to the crowded Hamilton Place area, and it’s cheaper and nicer. Before I went to this place I only saw a movie every few months because I just hate dealing with the Hamilton Place area.

Their show times aren’t on movies.yahoo.com or anything, so you’ll have to go to www.uecmovies.com to check for show times.

July 18, 2004

I, Robot

I hadn’t heard much about this movie going into it, other than the teaser trailer from a few months ago advertising the NS5 as your new home companion. I generally try to avoid watching previews for movies, because I think they ruin the plot of the movie by summarizing the entire script into 2 minutes. What’s the point in watching the whole movie after you already know everything that happens?

Anyway, I didn’t go into the movie with any expectations of it being good or bad, though the chances of it being bad were high, because futuristic movies are easy to make cheesy and unbelievable. I haven’t read any of Isaac Asimov’s books, but I used to read a lot of other science fiction books, so I’m pretty familiar with the general plots they use.

Only a few minutes into the movie, you are treated with a shot of Will Smith’s ass. I don’t really see how this shot was entirely necessary, because he was standing in the shower, but there was no shower curtain. Who takes a shower with no shower curtain? But if you always wanted to see Will Smith’s Ass, go see this movie!

I thought the story was good, and though it predictably involved the end of the world and the en-slavery of mankind, there were enough twists to keep it interesting. It exposes you to some interesting ideas of what the future could be like, and possible moral dilemmas that will have to be faced as robotics and artificial intelligence progress to the state they are shown in the movie. And according to the film, this will all happen by 2035. At first I thought this would be impossible, but then I thought about what was going on in the 1970’s, and how far we’ve come since then, and it seems a lot more likely. However, all the cars fly in the movie, and the entire infrastructure of the cities have changed, which I think will be the biggest challenge. There are still people buying used cars from the 1970’s today, and those cars just wouldn’t be possible in the infrastructure and roads depicted in the movie. But perhaps since everything is made by robots and they don’t use gas, cars are much cheaper in the future.

The animation of the robots was extremely good I thought, especially the human-like facial animation of the main robot Sonny. The other special effects were top-notch as well, and in fact so good that I didn’t even think about them. Many times in movies I note the special effects and think how good or bad they were, but in this one they blended into the physical aspect of the world so well that I didn’t even pay any attention to them, which is what special effects try to achieve, so congratulations to the special effects team.

The very end of the movie is a little puzzling, as I don’t really know what is supposed to happen, but I won’t go into details because I don’t want to ruin the movie. I can’t really tell if they’re trying to set it up for a sequel, or simply leaving the ending of the movie up to your imagination.

Overall the movie was great. Good story, great effects, and surprisingly, quite a lot of laughs.

Rating: 5/5

July 09, 2004

The Butterfly Effect

I was interested in seeing this movie when I first saw the previews, as it looked like a pretty decent idea for a psychological thriller, and I thought it would be interesting to see Ashton Kutcher try a dramatic role, rather than his usual over-the-top physical comedy as seen on That 70’s Show and just about every other show he’s ever been on. I skipped it in the theater though, mainly because I have Netflix and wait for most stuff to come out on DVD.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie and thought it was one of the better ones I have seen recently. Ashton does a great job in the more dramatic and serious role in my opinion, only showing his “70’s” character a few times. The younger versions of Ashton were also done well and were convincing as a “younger Ashton”. They even had the same hairstyle, which is probably unrealistic, but I imagine they did it so you could more easily relate to the character in the past and present.

I found the story to be entertaining and it did a good job of keeping you guessing and making you feel as confused and hopeless as the character was.

There were a couple of inconsistencies in the story, but again, if you don’t try to overanalyze it, it’s easy to overlook them and just enjoy the movie.

If you like psychological thrillers I would definitely recommend renting this film, as long as you aren’t one of those movie-critic-types that overanalyze everything and suck all the fun out of movies.

5/5 Stars

July 05, 2004

Top-grossing movies

From Erik… How many of the top-grossing movies of all time have you seen? I haven’t seen the ones in bold. Hm, I watch a lot of movies… :)

1. Titanic (1997) – $600,779,824
2. Star Wars (1977) – $460,935,665
3. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) – $434,949,459
4. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) – $431,065,444
5. Spider-Man (2002) – $403,706,375
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The (2003) – $377,019,252
7. Passion of the Christ, The (2004) – $370,025,697
8. Jurassic Park (1993) – $356,784,000
9. Shrek 2 (2004) – $356,211,000
10. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The (2002) – $340,478,898
11. Finding Nemo (2003) – $339,714,367
12. Forrest Gump (1994) – $329,691,196
13. Lion King, The (1994) – $328,423,001
14. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) – $317,557,891
15. Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The (2001) – $313,837,577
16. Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) – $310,675,583
17. Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983) – $309,125,409
18. Independence Day (1996) – $306,124,059
19. Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) – $305,411,224
20. Sixth Sense, The (1999) – $293,501,675
21. Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – $290,158,751
22. Home Alone (1990) – $285,761,243
23. Matrix Reloaded, The (2003) – $281,492,479
24. Shrek (2001) – $267,652,016
25. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) – $261,970,615
26. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) – $260,031,035
27. Jaws (1975) – $260,000,000
28. Monsters, Inc. (2001) – $255,870,172
29. Batman (1989) – $251,188,924
30. Men in Black (1997) – $250,147,615
31. Toy Story 2 (1999) – $245,823,397
32. Bruce Almighty (2003) – $242,589,580
33. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – $242,374,454
34. Twister (1996) – $241,700,000
35. My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) – $241,437,427
36. Ghost Busters (1984) – $238,600,000
37. Beverly Hills Cop (1984) – $234,760,500
38. Cast Away (2000) – $233,630,478
39. Lost World: Jurassic Park, The (1997) – $229,074,524
40. Signs (2002) – $227,965,690
41. Rush Hour 2 (2001) – $226,138,454
42. Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) – $219,200,000
43. Ghost (1990) – $217,631,306
44. Aladdin (1992) – $217,350,219
45. Saving Private Ryan (1998) – $216,119,491
46. Mission: Impossible II (2000) – $215,397,30
47. X2 (2003) – $214,948,780
48. Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) – $213,079,163
49. Back to the Future (1985) – $210,609,762
50. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) – $205,399,422
51. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – $204,843,350
52. Exorcist, The (1973) – $204,565,000
53. Mummy Returns, The (2001) – $202,007,640
54. Armageddon (1998) – $201,573,391
55. Gone with the Wind (1939) – $198,655,278
56. Pearl Harbor (2001) – $198,539,855
57. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) – $197,171,806
58. Toy Story (1995) – $191,800,000
59. Men in Black II (2002) – $190,418,803
60. Gladiator (2000) – $187,670,866
61. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) – $184,925,485
62. Dances with Wolves (1990) – $184,208,848
63. Batman Forever (1995) – $184,031,112
64. Fugitive, The (1993) – $183,875,760
65. Ocean’s Eleven (2001) – $183,405,771
66. What Women Want (2000) – $182,805,123
67. Perfect Storm, The (2000) – $182,618,434
68. Liar Liar (1997) – $181,395,380
69. Grease (1978) – $181,360,000
70. Jurassic Park III (2001) – $181,166,115
71. Mission: Impossible (1996) – $180,965,237
72. Planet of the Apes (2001) – $180,011,740
73. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – $179,870,271
74. Pretty Woman (1990) – $178,406,268
75. Tootsie (1982) – $177,200,000
76. Top Gun (1986) – $176,781,728
77. There’s Something About Mary (1998) – $176,483,808
78. Ice Age (2002) – $176,387,405
79. Crocodile Dundee (1986) – $174,635,000
80. Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992) – $173,585,516
81. Elf (2003) – $173,381,405
82. Air Force One (1997) – $172,888,056
83. Rain Man (1988) – $172,825,435
84. Apollo 13 (1995) – $172,071,312
85. Matrix, The (1999) – $171,383,253
86. Beauty and the Beast (1991) – $171,301,428
87. Tarzan (1999) – $171,085,177
88. Beautiful Mind, A (2001) – $170,708,996
89. Chicago (2002) – $170,684,505
90. Three Men and a Baby (1987) – $167,780,960
91. Meet the Parents (2000) – $166,225,040
92. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) – $165,500,000
93. Hannibal (2001) – $165,091,464
94. Catch Me If You Can (2002) – $164,435,221
95. Big Daddy (1999) – $163,479,795
96. Sound of Music, The (1965) – $163,214,286
97. Batman Returns (1992) – $162,831,698
98. Bug’s Life, A (1998) – $162,792,677
99. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) – $161,963,000
100. Waterboy, The (1998) – $161,487,252

December 10, 2003

A Fandango Ate My Baby!

Thanks to the magic of Fandango.com the wife and I already have our tickets for the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, coming out a week from today. Do you have yours?

After writing the title for this post… I wondered where that “A dingo ate my baby” quote comes from. I did quite a bit of searching but couldn’t find anything. I’ve seen the quote used all over the place, but does anyone know the origin? The Internet Movie Database says the movie A Cry in the Dark contained the quote, but I don’t know if that’s where the mainstream quote comes from. Oh well.

November 20, 2003

Dreamcatcher

Watched this over the weekend with a couple of friends… I hadn’t heard the first thing about it, no previews, no reviews, no trailers, nothing. None of us had actually, so we went into it without the first clue what it was about. To sum it up, this is the absolute strangest movie I have ever seen.

The following contains spoilers, if you haven’t seen this yet but plan to, quit reading.

So it started out interesting enough… It was shaping up to be a cool psychological thriller or something, showing that the four main characters have mostly similar psychic abilities, a mysterious and strangely strong bond, and later, the ability to read each other’s and other people’s minds. Mysterious things start happening to them at the beginning, making you wonder just what is causing them to have this connection.

The four friends shortly go on their annual hunting trip deep in the woods, where strange things begin to happen. Including a lost hunter stumbling to their cabin with a really bad case of indigestion. He burps and farts for the rest of the evening, and begins to show red splotches all over his face and body. His stomach is huge and bubbling, as if you can actually see the gas bubbles moving around in there. The hunter’s explanation for his illness is that he ate some berries in the woods.

At some point during this every animal in the forest starts migrating away from something, most covered with red spots similar to those on the lost hunter. So far my friends and I were really digging the movie, as it was very mysterious and intriguing so far. Then after the animals are done migrating, two of the four guys that were assisting the lost hunter turn around to see a trail of blood from the room where he was sleeping, into the bathroom. After trying to communicate with him to no avail, they decided to break the door down, only to find the bathroom covered in blood, all apparently originating from the lost hunter’s rear end. They hear something moving in the toilet, so one of the guys jumps on the toilet to keep it from getting out. This particular guy also apparently uses toothpicks as a kind of security blanket, so he tries to take one out of his case, only to drop them all over the floor. He has to reach to get it, and gets knocked off the toilet seat by the mysterious creature within. So far it’s still pretty good, as we don’t know what the hell is in that toilet.

But here is where the whole movie completely changes and feels like you just switched the channel to another movie, but with the same actors…

Out crawls this 3 foot worm, with a large tooth filled mouth, and some crazy stabbing pokey things on the other end. What? Where the hell did this come from? There was absolutely no indication of anything like this up to this point in the movie, and came as quite a shock to us, but then we just started laughing at the silliness of it. After the worm thing kills the guy, the other guy comes back in from getting some tape from the shed, to find his friend dead on the toilet with the worm crawling around. Then a shadow goes over him, and he turns around to find a big alien staring at him. What? I thought this movie was about psychic abilities and mind reading or something? Not aliens…

Anyway, it’s all down hill from there. A super elite branch of the Army called “Blue Team” or something like that is apparently in charge of destroying the alien scum. Oh yeah, and the “boss” of that group, Morgan Freeman, has been chasing down the aliens and killing them for 25 years. But there is no back story or history of that at all. It just seems to be common knowledge that we’ve been under assault for 25 years.

Then there is the ending… 2 of the four friends from the beginning die, and one is possessed by one of the aliens somehow. But he blocks himself off in a secret corner of his brain or “Memory Warehouse”, to hide from the alien in his mind. This is actually a pretty cool idea, as it shows his mind as a large library with his memories organized in crates and files, and you can see him shuffling memories here and there with a dolly cart. It’s a cool idea, but it is just another part that doesn’t really fit into the movie as a whole.

The ending involves the aliens trying to get one worm into the Boston water supply, which will apparently infect all of earth with the virus. The aliens have a big ass space ship though, and big scary teeth, so I don’t know why they hinged the success of their entire world domination scheme on one worm making it into a little manhole inside the oddly deserted and unmonitored source of all of Boston’s water.

Then there is the little retarded guy Duddits that gave the four guys their powers in the first place. I didn’t mention him until now because the movie really doesn’t ever explain what he has to do with anything… He is apparently supposed to be really important though, since he saves the day. But you never really understand why or why you should care.

Overall this seems like about 5 different movies that got rolled into one somehow. They all could have been interesting on their own, either the psychic thing, or the alien thing could have been a good action movie if that’s all it tried to be, etc. But it ended up just being a jumbled mess in the end.

November 13, 2003

The Matrix: Revolutions

My wife has been asking when I’m going to post my thoughts on the last Matrix movie, so I guess I will even though I don’t really have anything enlightening to say about it.

We used Fandango to pre-order some tickets to the 5:00pm showing of the movie on its opening day, and I took off work early to go see it. I liked Reloaded, so I was looking forward to seeing the end of the trilogy, just as much as everyone else was I guess. I avoided reading any reviews on the web before I saw it, so that I could make up my own mind about it without influence from “critics” who I knew would be bashing it no matter what, just because it would be nearly impossible to live up to the hype.

So anyway, overall I thought it was a pretty decent movie. It was definitely not what I was expecting though, which made me a little disappointed, especially right after the movie, I didn’t like it at all. But as I’ve read other people’s opinions on the web, they’ve pointed out reasons that this or that happened, which made sense to me and helped me to appreciate the movie more. I was expecting a lot more philosophy stuff like in the second movie, but Revolutions kind of ignored all of that and focused on the battle for Zion instead. There wasn’t as much kung-fu ass kicking in this movie either, instead replaced by the battle at Zion with mechs and Sentinels. That battle was really impressive though, I think I stopped breathing for a while when it got really intense… :)

But this one did seem to have a lot more cheesy dialog than either of the first two, and I would have really liked to have seen things “wrapped up” a little more, rather than leaving most of it to your imagination. I mean sure I like imagining what happens, but what if what I’m imagining is wrong? I’ll never know for sure!

Anyway, it’s a great action film, just a little different than the first two Matrix movies. As long as you go into it with an open mind I think you can enjoy it quite a bit though. I’ve also heard some people saying they liked it a lot better the second time, so perhaps I’ll like it even more when it comes out on DVD and I can watch it a couple more times.

November 06, 2003

An iPod Moment

Normally I listen to my iPod the most in my car, thanks to the audio input on the front of my car CD player, then carry it in my pocket the rest of the day at work. I have a small collection of music on my computer at work, but it gets pretty old so I normally listen to iTunes radio which gets pretty repetitive as well. So today I realized that I could plug my iPod into the computer speakers, which I quickly did, and then enjoyed my own collection of music for the rest of the evening! It is so great to be able to keep your entire music collection in your pocket. Just whip it out and plug in headphones or a speaker system of some kind, and you have access to every song you own!

That was cool enough, but then when I left for the night I turned off my iPod and took it out to the car with me, plugged it in, and started listening to the same song I was listening to inside exactly where I left off! Now that is impressive… If you don’t have an iPod but are an avid music listener, you simply must have one! Don’t settle for any imitations either, nothing matches the simplicity, ease of use, or quality of the iPod. Hooray for Apple!

October 11, 2003

PUSA is coming back!

According to this article, one of my favorite bands of all time, the Presidents of the United States of America, is back together and will be releasing new material next year. Hooray! It said they will be re-releasing their self titled album on president’s day of 2004, and then releasing new material after that. I hope it is more like that first album. They released one after “II” that I wasn’t too crazy about. Anyway it would be awesome to have a chance to see them on tour, maybe they’d play some old stuff.

September 22, 2003

Dear Music Industry

Jason Zada has written a great rant directed at the music industry. He encourages everyone that reads it and everyone he knows to stop buying plastic CD’s. To instead rip their entire music collection to MP3’s, sell all of their existing CD’s and never buy another one. He’s not really promoting stealing music, just boycotting overpriced CD sales until the music industry adapts to new technology. Buy from the iTunes Music Store or even BuyMusic.com if you don’t have a Mac. It has become quite obvious that people are still willing to pay for music, as seen by the fact that the iTMS has sold over 10,000,000 songs in only a few months, with only a fraction (Mac OSX Users) of a fraction (Mac users in general) of the total computer market even able to purchase the songs. So it’s really the music industries own fault for dragging their heels and trying to bankrupt all of their potential customers because they don’t want to buy music the same way anymore.

But anyway, I just wanted to send out my own “fuck you” to the record industry, and send a link over to the nice rant that Jason wrote.

August 20, 2003

LAUNCHcast

Well after a tip from Adam I signed up for the LAUNCHcast service today. The free version was pretty cool, but kinda low quality and there were commercials. So I signed up for the paid service and now have 7 days to try it out. I think I’ll be keeping it though. It’s only $4 a month, which is less than a trip to taco bell. So I can just pack my lunch one day a month and the cost will be covered.

The sound quality is pretty good, through headphones anyway, which is how I normally listen to music while I’m at work.

I really like the way you can customize your own radio station. All of the rock stations in Chattanooga just play Dave Matthews Band and Matchbox 20 way too much for my taste. I can’t stand Dave Matthews Band. Bleh. So this way I can have the variety that radio provides, with only artists that I like on the playlist. Sounds like a good deal to me.

Plus with the for-pay service, you can set music listening moods, and limit it to genres. So since I like rock and trance, I can set a trance playlist and a rock playlist. That way when I wanna hear rock I can, without a random trance song being thrown in there. And when I want to listen to trance, it won’t be interrupted by some rock song, which would just totally ruin the mood. :)

It’s also nice to be able to find out tons of info about the artist with one or two clicks. If I hear a song I’ve never heard before, I can see a picture of the band that sings it, rate the song, the artist, the album, buy the album online, see videos from the artist, find out what their tour schedule is, other artists like them, and on and on. It’s like super-radio!

Try it at: LAUNCHcast

August 14, 2003

Di.FM

Thanks to moochan for pointing me to Di.FM through a thread on TeamPhotoshop. I love to listen to techno/trance music while I’m working on the computer, because I feel like I’m being more creative and getting more done. It’s good background music as well. Rock music usually requires more active listener participation, at least for me, and that is distracting when trying to concentrate on a web site or other project.

This is a great trance station with good quality streams and a really wide variety of songs. I have a few trance albums, but I get tired of hearing the same thing over and over after a while. So this is a nice change of pace. They also have a classical station which I haven’t listened to yet, but classical music is great for thinking, so maybe I’ll listen to that one when I’m reading or something.

Thanks moochan.

August 03, 2003

Daredevil

I skipped seeing Daredevil in the theatre, thinking it looked like something that should definitely be rented. I was right.

I had never heard of Daredevil before the movie came out, because I don’t really know much about superheroes other than the standard spiderman, batman, superman, etc. But even though I had never heard of him before, the story seemed strangely familiar.

Boy is exposed to toxic waste/radioactive materials, gains super powers, then a close family member is killed by a Bad Guy™ which fills the boy with anger and hatred toward the Bad Guy™. Then boy gets a costume, brings justice to rapists and muggers, and eventually has some showdowns with super villains.

I guess that’s just the way comic books are, however.

The movie was farely entertaining however, with some good fight scenes and a cool radar effect which shows how Daredevil can see like a bat by “seeing” the sound waves bounce off of objects. A lot was left unexplained however, such as why Daredevil sleeps in a tank of water, and why he has scars all over his back and is taking a ton of medication. I didn’t really understand what that was all about.

The love story part of the movie is also farely cheesy. Daredevil meets a lady and sleeps with her the second time they meet, immediately falling in love with her, only to have her die about 15 minutes later in the movie. I guess it was supposed to be love at first site or something, but it still felt really fake and rushed.

The supervillains, Bullseye and the Kingpin also felt much more “comic booky” than the main hero did. Their acting was over the top and exaggerated, whereas Ben Affleck seemed to take the part way too seriously. Bullseye stole the movie in my opinion… Colin Farrell seemed to have fun with the part and he also had some really great lines.

The ending of the movie was kind of depressing though. Daredevil loses the girl and doesn’t kill the bad guys so you don’t really get the feeling that he won at all. Maybe they were just hoping for a sequel so they decided to leave all the main characters alive or something.

July 29, 2003

Treasure Planet

Though this movie has been out quite a while, I saw it for the first time last night after borrowing it from my wife’s boss.

The story follows a young boy that was abandoned by his father at a young age, and became rebellious and arrogant as a teenager. He even has a ponytail, an earring, and a flying skateboard/hovercraft/wind surfboard! He is arrested by the robot police for skate/flying in a restricted area, and his mother is upset at him for ruining his future by getting into so much trouble.

A space ship crashes close to their house, and the owner of the ship gives the boy, Jim, a small sphere before he dies. The sphere turns out to be a map to Treasure Planet, a legendary planet that contains the plundered treasure of 1,000 worlds.

Jim saw this good fortune as a way to turn his life around and prove his worth to himself and everyone else, while also becoming terribly rich in the process. He set off with long-time family friend Doctor Doppler who used his life savings to commission a boat for the long trek across the galaxy to Treasure Planet.

The crew of the ship they end up on is rather questionable at best, and it is quickly apparent that they are not the friendliest bunch one could hope to be aboard a ship with. Regardless, Jim becomes friends with John Silver, the cook on the ship and eventually comes to see him as a surrogate father figure.

There are a few twists and turns in the plot, but you have to remember this is a Disney movie, so it’s pretty easy to see them coming from about the first ten minutes of the movie.

Cliche’d storyline aside, I thought the movie was pretty entertaining. The animation is great, with a combination of impressive 3D renders for the backgrounds and environment, and hand-drawn 2d animation for the main characters.

The “world” of the movie is interesting as well, combining elements of the traditional pirate universe with space ships and cyborgs. This allows the artists quite a bit of freedom to come up with whatever they can think of, and makes for a visually rich movie.

The best part of the entire movie however was the little side-kick character Morph, who, in my opinion is quite possibly the cutest cartoon character ever. He’s basically a pink blob that can float and morph into any object he wishes. He provides most of the comedic relief in the movie by morphing into objects and illustrating certain jokes. He generally brought a smile to my face every time he was on the screen.

Overall the movie was entertaining in a Disney Cartoon way, and as long as you don’t watch it with the expectation of an engrossing and original storyline, I think you can find some enjoyment in it. Heck, I’d watch it again just to see Morph.

July 27, 2003

Final Destination 2

We also watched Final Destination 2 last night, which turned out to be pretty disappointing. I generally don’t like scary movies, but I must say I liked Final Destination pretty well, for a scary movie. It was well done and had a good feeling of tension throughout the whole movie, in my opinion.

The sequel however, felt like little more than a series of gross-out CG effects strung together by pieces of the story from the first one.

The story is basically identical to the first movie… A teenager foresees a tragic accident in graphic detail and then somehow saves a group of people from dying in that event. This changes death’s plan however, which pisses him off so he goes after them one by one, killing them in the order in which they were originally destined to die. The difference is that in the first one, the teenager was a boy, now it’s a girl. And instead of an airplane explosion, it’s a massive pile-up on the interstate.

There is also one other difference from the first movie, in this one there is apparently a way to stop death completely from trying to carry out his master plan, which is made evident to the teenagers with the help of the creepy undertaker from the first movie. He gives them a cryptic answer of something like “new life is the only way to defeat death” which they first assume means that the baby of the pregnant lady that was supposed to die in the crash has to be born to end the cycle. However later in the movie they discover this isn’t the case, and another type of sacrifice must be made to stop death.

But like I said, all of that is just an excuse to string together the very over the top and graphic death sequences of each cast member. Out of the maybe 10 people that are featured in the movie, all of them have died terribly gruesome deaths by the end of the movie except for 2 of them. One gets a fire escape ladder smashed through his head, another is decapitated by an elevator, another it sliced into 3 sections by a flying barbwire fence, etc. No matter the method in which they die, they all seem to somehow explode into blood and guts. One guy just has a piece of glass dropped on him, but somehow that causes his entire body to disentegrate into a shower of blood spread out in a thirty foot radius.

Unless you really like computerized death sequences, you will do well to seek your scares elsewhere.

Donnie Darko

Just watched Donnie Darko last night and enjoyed it quite a bit. I’m going to watch it again though, because we had to pause the movie several times while watching it, and this is a movie where you really have to sit down and watch the whole thing and pay attention if you want to understand what the hell is going on.

I would try to explain the story and meaning behind the movie, but I found another site that explains it much better than I ever could.

It’s a very thoughtful movie though, so if you don’t like movies like Requiem for a Dream or Memento, you won’t like this one.

July 02, 2003

Current Music Distribution Methods Suck

After hearing a band called Brand New on the Flash Jukebox at Asterisk*, I decided I wanted to buy their latest album and hear more.

So I first went to eMusic to see if they had the album, hoping it would finally give me a reason to sign up for their service. But they didn’t have it, they only had an old Brand New (haha) album.

I didn’t want to drive all the way to the store just to buy the album and I didn’t want to wait for Amazon to ship it to me.

So I fired up Kazaa and started searching there. After downloading all the songs off the album, I pressed play, only to be greeted with 6 skipping tracks, 2 mis-named tracks that weren’t even the right band, and 3 low quality tracks that sounded muddy.

Why is it so hard to get music in a fast, easy, and cheap way? I think Apple has come the closest to the perfect solution so far with its iTunes Music Store, but unfortunately I don’t have a Mac, and it’s not available on the PC yet. So my only other option as far as I can tell is to pay a monthly fee for Listen.com, plus pay an extra $.79 every time I want to burn a song to a CD. That’s just ridiculous.

Hey RIAA, why don’t you stop wasting your time trying to sue your largest fans, and create a fast and easy way for me to get the music I like legally instead. The only reason I went to the illegal service is because you don’t provide a way for me to get music without driving all the way to the store and paying outrageous prices for a plastic case and some lyric sheets. But even the illegal service is not satisfactory because of bad quality, unpredictable download speeds, and misleading track names.

I gotta get a Mac…