Fanboys - DVD Review

FANBOYS (**) - Starring Jay Baruchel, Dan Fogler, Sam Huntington, Kristen Bell, Christopher Marquette, Seth Rogen, Ethan Suplee, Danny McBride, Chris McDonald, Craig Robinson, Will Forte, Billy Dee Williams and William Shatner.
Directed by Kyle Newman.

This movie should have come out about two years ago, and it would have been a mild success, but the very ubergeeks this was aimed at protested the movie when it was leaked that a cancer subplot had been edited out. So the Weinsteins did with it what they have done with dozens of movies over the years: sat on it, dumped it, and then made it an exclusive rental from Blockbuster.

It's about three guys in 1998 who decide to take their fourth friend, dying of cancer, to Skywalker Ranch, to break in and watch Star Wars Episode I before anyone else. (Fifth friend is token female Kristen Bell.) Now the original complaint was that the Weinsteins wanted to edit out the cancer subplot. I think that would have been tricky, and it would've greatly reduced Chris Marquette's screen time, but I don't really know how that edit would've worked. This edit, cancer plot in check, still isn't as funny as it should have been.

There are plenty of fanboy-friendly cameos, from Carrie Fisher to Billy Dee Williams to William Shatner to Ray Park to a few other surprises. (Mark Hamill too busy?) Seth Rogen is most amusing in two roles, as a horribly-toothed Trekkie, and as a Star Wars-loving pimp.

I did find it weird Harry Knowles didn't play himself, and maybe there's a story behind that, but it's inconsequential. I once did an April Fools press release a few years back where I said Ethan Suplee was going to star in a Harry Knowles biopic, and here he was.

Killshot - DVD Review

KILLSHOT (***) - Starring Diane Lane, Mickey Rourke, Thomas Jane, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Lois Smith and Hal Holbrook.
Directed by John Madden.

It's a freakin' crime this movie couldn't get play in more than a handful of Arizona theaters before being dumped on DVD. Not to overhype it (because it's not that good), but it is good, good enough that it should've been able to garner a wide release. Academy-Award directing nominee John Madden. Academy-Award acting nominee Mickey Rourke. Diane Lane. Thomas Jane. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Why no love?

Oh, it's a Weinstein release. The brothers have really lost their distribution touch since they left Miramax.

Based on one of my favorite Elmore Leonard novels, it's about a couple on the outs who have to go into federal protection after the woman gets the good look at the face of an assassin. The movie has a little more seriousness to it than the book, but the main four fully-realized characters have good actors to complement them, notably Mickey Rourke as the calm professional hitman. (Seriouly, they had The Wrestler hype and still couldn't figure out how to market this?)

Paul Blart: Mall Cop - DVD Review

PAUL BLART: MALL COP (**1/4) - Starring Kevin James, Keir O'Donnell, Jayma Mays, Raini Rodriguez, Shirley Knight, Peter Gerety and Bobby Cannavale.
Directed by Steve Carr.

I expected it to be stupid, and it was, but there were stretches where I kinda liked it. It felt like the type of movie John Candy would have done around 1986, or Chris Farley around 1996. They made thumbs-slightly-down movies too, you know.

Kevin James plays Paul Blart, a kind-hearted shlub who must endure constant fat jokes and pratfalls. He's a Segway-riding security guard, a mall cop, one of the lowest jobs on the uniform-wearing law-and-order chain. He has no authority and very little respect, but when a gang locks up the mall to steal $30 million, Blart is the one man on the inside who can stop them. It's Die Hard in the Mall!

What works? James has natural underdog charisma. There are a couple surprise laughs.

What doesn't work? The soundtrack way overrelies on 1980's nostalgia, like the B-side of The Wedding Singer (Adam Sandler co-produced). The plot is to-the-letter formula. Fat jokes get old. And you can't tell me a Segway going 5 mph can jump from the top of one building to another just because the fat guy leans forward.

It's PG and it's really more for teens and younger viewers, who might be more receptive to broader humor. (The less pratfalls you've seen, the funnier they are.) I don't mind to have seen it, and of the handful of 2009 titles I've seen, I've seen worse.

Nothing But the Truth - DVD Review

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH (***) - Starring Kate Beckinsale, Matt Dillon, Vera Farmiga, Alan Alda, Angela Bassett, David Schwimmer, Courtney B. Vance and Noah Wyle.
Directed by Rod Lurie.

Kate Beckinsale is one of my favorite actresses. Total babe; very good at what she does. She may do the big-budget bill-payers like Van Helsing and Click, but she also seeks out those low-budget dramas, like Snow Angels and this.

This is probably Rod Lurie's best movie; the film-critic-turned-moviemaker will always have a place in my heart for the hilariously illogical The Contender, which still featured great performances from Gary Oldman, Joan Allen and Jeff Bridges. This movie features equally fine acting jobs from Beckinsale, Vera Farmiga and Alan Alda, and for the most part it's a compelling melodrama.

It's one of those movies that champions true journalism. Alan Alda, as a defense attorney, gives a moving argument about the press being one of the last institutions in place to keep government honest. The story gets rolling when there is an assassination attempt on the President's life. Intelligence suggests that the plot stemmed from Venezuela, and the U.S. strikes. But there is an author who claims that there was no supporting intelligence that Venezuela was behind the attempt. Turns out, the author's wife is a CIA agent, and Beckinsale plays the reporter who outs her.

It's inspired by the Valerie Plame case, but it's not based on it. Vera Farmiga (The Departed) does great work as the outed agent, and Beckinsale is up to the task of the reporter who goes to jail rather than give up her source.

The reporter suffers more and more for her work. Months go by. Her marriage suffers.

And there's the twist at the end that almost ruins the movie. Not quite as rug-yanking as the end of The Life of David Gale, but it definitely hurts.

Blindness - DVD Review

BLINDNESS (**) - Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alice Braga, Yusuke Iseya, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Maury Chaykin, Don McKellar and Yoshino Kimura.
Directed by Fernando Meirelles.

This movie starts off very promising, very intriguing. A man goes blind, a blindness where he can only see white. The blindness slowly spreads, then rapidly spreads. The government isn't prepared for an outbreak of such unknown magnitude, and the blind are herded up and put in quarantine camps.

What starts out as a study in survival and adjustment devolves into a Lord of the Flies allegory, when one man gets a gun and decides to run the quarantine camp like a dictator. I happen to have a little more faith in humanity than this movie. People stop using toilets and feces spreads across the floors. Food-for-sex becomes the choice for desperate women.

The twist is that one woman, Julianne Moore, can see, but she's pretending to be blind so she can be with her husband. She becomes the selfless servant, and that was one frustrating aspect. As the quarantine building degenerates into a living hell, she never figures out how to use her sight to her advantage to overthrow the despot. At least until after a lot of bad things have happened.

There's nothing enlightening here. It's bleak, it's dark, it's dehumanizing. Very cool beginning, decent end. Ugly, ugly middle. Its ambitions are grander than its execution.

The Uninvited - DVD Review

THE UNINVITED (**) - Starring Emily Browning, Elizabeth Banks, Arielle Kebbel, and David Strathairn.
Directed by The Guard Brothers.

We have a movie where we are given characters and situations, and we are asked to accept them on face value, even though it's obvious things aren't what they seem and we're going to get a twist ending. So in a 90-minute movie, if only the last 5 minutes are good, is it worth seeing?

Elizabeth Banks is far too sweet an actress to play an evil stepmother. It's somewhere on par with asking Paul Rudd to play a wife-beater. I just don't buy it.

Now I go back to the grand one-two punch of 1999 with The Sixth Sense and Fight Club, two of my favorite movies of that year. Both had twist endings. Both were entertaining throughout so that the twist endings were icing on the cake. I think that's the whole key to a great twist ending. The ride needs to work on its own merit before we get there.

Here we get Emily Browning (Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events) as Anna, a girl just let out of a mental hospital. She's traumatized after her mother died in a fire, and she goes back home to live with her sister, father, and father's brand new wife. The sister, Alex, thinks their new stepmother may have actually been behind their mother's death.

With the occasional ghost showing up, I knew that everything I was watching was going to be turned on its head at the end. Banks was obviously playing two different motivations simultaneously. When the twist came I thought it was neat, if not entirely original. So was the 85 minutes of stalling worth the final 5?

Not really.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Movie Review

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (**3/4) - Starring Hugh Jackman, Liev Schreiber, Danny Huston, Ryan Reynolds, Will.i.am, Lynn Collins, Dominic Monaghan, Kevin Durand and Taylor Kitsch.
Directed by Gavin Hood.

I won't pretend I've read too many comics, but I've read more issues of X-Men than any other titles out there, and of the X-Men, Gambit was my favorite. I'm glad he's finally able to show up, but if Taylor Kitsch was trying for a Cajun accent, I only caught it on a syllable here and there. But they do give Gambit some style, and I still found myself wishing he'd be able to show up in another X-Men movie.

Oh, wait, this is Wolverine's movie. Well, it's better than X-Men 3. It's a prequel, so some characters are recast with younger actors, although they've changed some of the events that allegedly happened before. In the first X-Men movie, Sabretooth was a 7-foot guy who never talked, just roared. Here he's the chatty, intelligent Liev Schreiber.

Wolvy and Sabretooth, aka James and Victor, are brothers - kids - in the 1840's when they discover their powers. They grow up to be Jackman and Schreiber for the Civil War, so they age normally until they hit about 40 and then stop? We see them have fun fighting WWI, WWII and eventually the Vietnam War, when Victor goes nuts and starts killing US soldiers. The two are sentenced to death by firing, but since both heal really, really fast, this doesn't actually kill them.

Enter Major Stryker (played by Brian Cox in X2, but he's been youthified to Danny Huston here). Stryker has a program that will allow them to really use their powers for good. Here, they team up with guys who will eventually be known as Deadpool, Kestrel, Bolt, Blob, and Agent Zero, but here they're just called Wade, John, Bradley, Fred and David. (Three of them are eventually called by their mutant names, but I had to ask someone who the other two were.)

Stryker's team engages in nefarious activity, and so James, now called Logan, quits the team. A few years Stryker catches up to him in Canada, where he warns him someone is killing off the old team one by one. Prime suspect? Victor.

(Where does Gambit fit in? We're over an hour into the movie before he shows up.)

One major problem I had: how does Stryker know that adamantium bullets in Wolverine's brain will make him lose his memory? We know from the first three X-Men movies Wolverine has amnesia, so he has no memory of the events of this movie taking place.

Summer Box Office Predictions

Last summer seventeen movies made it past the $100 million mark, with six of those passing $200 million. I will say this is one of the hardest summer to guess on (not that I'm hitting bullseyes every summer) because with the economy, some movies are actually doing better. I mean, who could have seen coming the triumphs of Paul Blart, Taken, Knowing, Fast & Furious, and Obsessed?

1. HARRY POTTER & THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE - $335 million - It's been two years since the last one, a little longer lay-off than usual, and this one really gets into some background of some characters. It also has the Dark Knight spot.

2. TRANSFORMERS 2 - $270 million - I can't say I'm hyped for this one, but this is one where I'm assuming it's my age (I'll have turned 36 a few days before this opens). I think this will be big with the 12-25 range. I hope they spend a little more time on the robots and a little less on the humans.

3. STAR TREK - $255 million - It looks huge. It looks different. It looks accessible to non-fans. It looks like the shot-in-the-arm the franchise needed to stay viable.

4. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2 - $250 million - The publicity hasn't hooked me yet, but the first one was a giant success, and this one promises to be funnier. Ben Stiller's proven to have a pretty good track record.

5. X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE - $230 million - I see this thing opening in the $75-80 million range, getting dealt a body blow by Star Trek the next week, but both of them have decent legs to ride the rest of May while theaters keep trying to get rid of Fighting, The Soloist, and Crank 2. General consensus so far is that it's at least better than X-Men 3.

6. UP - $225 million - Pixar can do no wrong. Doesn't look like the masterpiece Wall-E was, but looks more accessible.

7. ICE AGE 3 - $215 million - Does the franchise still have legs? The Scrat previews are always entertaining.

8. ANGELS & DEMONS - $160 million - Not the event that The Da Vinci Code was, even if the movie wound up being not that great. Angels & Demons actually has a better plot book-wise, so hopefully it will make for a better movie.

9. JULIE & JULIA - $144 million - I know there's gotta be a $100+ million grossing chick flick somewhere in here, and this looks like the most potential even though it doesn't have the name recognition of Sex & the City or Mamma Mia! It does have Meryl Streep, and she's turning out lately to be one of the most reliable female box-office stars. Between this and Night at the Museum 2, Amy Adams will have a good summer.

10. LAND OF THE LOST - $138 million - The preview looks okay. It at least keeps some of the elements of the series. And Will Ferrell running from dinosaurs might be enough to get kids begging to see it.

11. TERMINATOR SALVATION - $130 million - Something's gotta slip somewhere, and I'm wondering if it's this one. I liked the final trailer they have, but it looks as bleak as a PG-13 movie can possibly be, with Christian Bale maybe doing some damage to himself after his infamous rant. (See also: the box-office for Mission Impossible 3 after Tom Cruise went couch-hopping.) Plus it's McG and I don't know how good a straight actioner he can actually make.

12. PUBLIC ENEMIES - $125 million - It's Michael Mann. It's Johnny Depp. But it is an R-rated gangster flick in summer, so $125 million is pretty darn good. And it will make for a good Christian Bale summer.

13. THE PROPOSAL - $110 million - Yes, it's a contrived plot, but it's gotten laughs from the audience every time I've seen it, and again, I can't see any other chick flick not yet listed doing better. Maybe it's Sandra Bullock's comeback.

14. G-FORCE - $107 million - Looks like The Wonder Pets to me with 10,000 times the budget. Those talking-animals movies tend to do better than I ever think they will. G-Force to me means Battle of the Planets, but I didn't see Mark, Jason, Tiny, Cheops and Princess in the trailer.

15. THE YEAR ONE - $105 million - Dry laughs with Jack Black and Michael Cera living in B.C. times. I think it looks funny but it might be crowded out by other titles opening around it.

16. FUNNY PEOPLE - $101 million - Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen try to mix the comedy and drama, as stand-up comedians. Their goal is probably something like 1988's Punchline but with two Tom Hankses and no Sally Fields. I will be impressed the first time Judd Apatow writes a movie where no one smokes pot.

17. THE UGLY TRUTH - $85 million - I don't get the Katherine Heigl thing, but hey, this has a shot. My goodness, What Happens in Vegas almost made this much.

18. BRUNO - $79 million - Looks like it will be about as outrageous in 2009 as Borat was in 2006.

19. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 123 - $77 million - Grown-up remake of the Walter Matthau semi-classic (I'm actually watching it now; DVR'd it a couple months ago). Denzel Washington can be counted on for a certain level of box-office. John Travolta, who plays villains half the time, looks more dangerous than usual. This could be a surprise hit, but I think this is the range the studio is expecting.

20. THE HANGOVER - $72 million - Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Gali-something-ikis seem like the B-team of Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Luke Wilson turning it down, but just writing that, I realized that I'm more interested in seeing it with these three lesser-known guys than I would be with the more famous three. Good preview.

Possible sleepers:

Drag Me to Hell - I just realized I don't have a horror flick on here, but then again, last year a horror flick did not make the top 20. But #21 was The Happening and #22 was The Strangers. Drag Me to Hell's being produced by Sam Raimi, so I think it'll be a little more creative than Final Destination 4 or H2.

They Came From Upstairs - Also a horror flick, so....

H2 - Rob Zombie's Halloween follow-up will probably gross around $50 million overall, but with Friday the 13th opening huge, maybe there's an increased desire to see the old serial-killers doing their thang.

Imagine That - After Meet Dave died an ignominious death, I wonder if Eddie Murphy can rebound, and Imagine That might do it. I haven't seen the preview yet but it sounds too similar to Bedtime Stories.

My Sister's Keeper - Based on the best-seller, if it's a good adaptation, it could bring out fans, plus it'll be interesting to see how Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin play off each other as mother and daughter.

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, I Love You Beth Cooper, or When in Rome - One should do well, but I doubt all three. I remember when Ghosts was a Ben Affleck project and they yanked the plug because they didn't feel like he was bankable anymore. But his wife stayed in it.


Predicted bombs:

G.I. Joe - They made Joe an international force instead of an American one, so it's like a secret U.N. fighting team. Riiiight. It has name recognition, but most fanboys I know/read/hear from think this is going to suck and be the bomb of the summer.

Inglorious Basterds - I think this will make a lot more money since it has Brad Pitt, but Quentin Tarantino has been living off borrowed cool for a while now. I'd love to be wrong on this one.

Shorts - Robert Rodriguez got the story idea from his kids. Last time he did that, we got The Adventures of Shark Boy & Lava Girl. Yeesh.

My Life in Ruins - Nia Vardalos attempts to recapture the Big Fat Greek Wedding magic.

The Brothers Bloom - Yanked off the winter release schedule days before it was supposed to open, I don't think Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo have become any more bankable in the past six months.

Summer 2008
1. The Dark Knight - $527.36 million
2. Iron Man - $318.31
3. Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - $317.02
4. Hancock - $227.95
5. Wall-E - $222.1
6. Kung Fu Panda - $215.43
7. Sex & the City - $152.53
8. Mamma Mia! - $143.33
9. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian - $141.62
10. The Incredible Hulk - $134.53
11. Wanted - $134.33
12. Get Smart - $130.25
13. Tropic Thunder - $109.88
14. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor - $102.28
15. Journey to the Center of the Earth - $100.83
16. Step Brothers - $100.47
17. You Don't Mess with the Zohan - $100.02
18. Pineapple Express - $87.34
19. What Happens in Vegas - $80.28
20. Hellboy II: The Golden Army - $75.79

Observe & Report - Movie Review

OBSERVE & REPORT (**1/2) - Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Ray Liotta, Michael Pena, Celia Weston and Aziz Ansari.
Directed by Jody Hill.

Haven't seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop, but I imagine this is the bizarro-world, evil version of that movie. Seth Rogen plays Ronnie Bernhardt, a bipolar, mean-spirited, delusional mall cop who sees himself as a lone warrior keeping mall patrons safe from flashers. It's a lot like The Foot-Fist Way, but it goes even further than Foot-Fist ever dared.

The biggest laugh for me came in the first five minutes. Toward the end though, one character expressed what I'd been feeling about the previous half-hour. When a detective is listening in to Ronnie being told he doesn't qualify to be a real policeman, he comes out of hiding and says, "I thought this was going to be funny, but it's really kinda sad." It's underlined by a scene at the end of the flasher running through the mall, and there are no Austin Powers/Beowulf tricks to hide his shortcomings.

I appreciate Seth Rogen going for something different, and going full out, but I keep thinking of Alan Alda's rule of comedy he expresses in Woody Allen's Crimes & Misdemeanors: if it bends, it's funny. If it breaks, it's not funny. This movie bends a lot and then it breaks.

The Spirit - DVD Review

THE SPIRIT (*1/2) - Starring Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansson, Sarah Paulson, Dan Lauria, Paz Vega, Eric Balfour and Louis Lombardi.
Directed by Frank Miller.

Please don't let Frank Miller near a Dick Tracy remake. Not that I've heard rumors or anything, but if anyone suggests it, slap them down. Apparently his co-directing gig on Sin City was lightning in a bottle, because tonally this movie never calms down and just struck me as silly. Sometimes it's has as much heft as a shot-by-shot remake of a 1978 Superfriends episode, complete with Wonder Woman showing us how to do a card trick. Most of the time though, it's like watching Dick Tracy remade by the cast and crew of America's Next Top Model.

Gabriel Macht will someday do something memorable in another film, but he gets no help from Miller, whose emphasis was on visuals, and the visuals are great, but that doesn't mean there are any appealing characters or engrossing plotlines. The word that keeps coming back to me is "silly." Silly, silly, silly.

Monsters vs. Aliens - Movie Review

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS (***) - Starring the voices of Reese Witherspoon, Seth Rogen, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Kiefer Sutherland, Rainn Wilson, and Paul Rudd.

Took the family to this. We had free matinee tickets. The only thing that would have been was if we'd had free 3-D tickets, but I ain't complaining.

I was actually a little worried this would be like most other DreamWorks animated flicks where they insert dirty humor here and there, which made the Shrek movies progressively worse and helped sink Shark Tale, but there wasn't anything more vulgar than what the previews show.

This movie takes the sci-fi paranoia of the post-Roswell era, mixes in the military absurdism of Dr. Strangelove, and mixes it in with a crop of lovable weird characters, and it results in a decent if not disposable little $150 million movie.

Most of the laughs come from B.O.B., the blue blob voiced by Seth Rogen. The lead though is Susan, an idealistic bride-to-be who has a radioactive meteor land on her on her wedding day. Her fiance freaks out at her fifty-footness, while war honcho General W.R. Monger (get it? get it?!) dubs her a monster that must be locked away to keep citizens safe. In the safe confines of Area 51, she befriends B.O.B., Dr. Cockroach (a mad scientist with the head of a cockroach), the Missing Link (a 20,000 year-old fishman), and Insectisaurus, a 350-foot tall insect-grub thing.

They are promised their freedom when aliens invade and threatens to eliminate the human race. So if you looked at the title and thought it was based on the lost seventh Jane Austen novel, your thought process maddens but intrigues me.

Hulk Hogan's foot in mouth

A co-worker sent this to me:

Hulk Hogan isn't taking his divorce too well. In fact, he says it makes him relate to O.J. Simpson. Here's Hulk in Rolling Stone: "You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can't go to anymore, you're driving through downtown Clearwater and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife . . . I totally understand OJ. I get it."

Seven Pounds - DVD Review

SEVEN POUNDS (*1/2) - Starring Will Smith, Rosario Dawson, Woody Harrelson, Michael Ealy, Barry Pepper, Elpidia Carrillo, Robinne Lee, Bill Smitrovich and Andy Milder.
Directed by Gabriele Muccino.

It's not the worst movie of 2008, but it is one of the most ill-conceived. The whole movie hinges on the secret of the ending, but since the first scene is Will Smith's character calling 911 to report his own suicide, we then go back in time to see what has led him to this. It becomes fairly obvious where this is going, as morbid as it is. And so we watch, uncomfortably, as this "feel-good" movie careens toward the worst positive-messaged ending since Haley Joel Osment got stabbed in Act III of Pay It Forward.

Smith and Muccino had financial success with The Pursuit of Happyness, although for me that movie dwelt so deeply on that character's suffering that the happy ending, all thirty seconds of it, didn't feel like enough payoff for what we went through as an audience watching this man's life fall apart.

So we now we have this. This... thing. I'm never going to look at jellyfish the same way again.

Synecdoche NY - DVD Review

SYNECDOCHE NY (**1/2) - Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Samantha Morton, Emily Watson, Michelle Williams, Catherine Keener, Tom Noonan, Dianne Wiest and Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Directed by Charlie Kaufman.

If this is a comedy, I don't get it. And if it's not, well then, I've never seen a movie that eats its own tail and its own head and back to its second tail. Until now.

Philip Seymour Hoffman, a guy who's always been unafraid to take risks, plays Kaufman's ego Caden Cotard, a struggling playwright whose life is falling apart just as he gets a big grant to create a new play. So he creates a life-size replica of New York in a giant warehouse and does an autobiographical play. But rehearsals go on for thirty years.

During this time, Caden casts an actor to play himself. Then he has to cast an actor to play the actor Caden cast to play himself. Then he has to cast an actor to play the actor to play the actor Caden cast to play himself...

The arc of this movie compares to a six-year-old doing a maze. It hits several dead ends so it just backpeddles and takes a different path.

Kaufman's a great writer, but his directing... meh. I like it better when Spike Jonze or Michel Gondry breathes life into his words. This is probably Kaufman's most indulgent script to date, and that's saying something after Adaptation (which I really liked.) This made several top-ten lists. It is definitely different, but for me, this movie is one where Emperor Charlie is wearing the least amount of clothes.

Role Models - DVD Review

ROLE MODELS (***) - Starring Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'E J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Ken Jeong and Ken Marino.
Directed by David Wain.

Parts of this movie were really funny. I loved everything that happened with Paul Rudd mentoring a live-action role-playing geek. I wasn't that thrilled with Seann William Scott mentoring a potty-mouthed ten-year-old. I don't like it when movies have their kids constantly swear. But Scott and Rudd have good chemistry together, and the writing is solid.

Mintz-Plasse is the roleplaying geek, he who's best known as McLovin. He will be McLovin the rest of his life, and I hope he's cool with that. Kinda like how even though Jon Cryer's been on the #1 sitcom for years, he's always going to be Ducky.

Also really good is Christopher Guest vet Jane Lynch as the boss of the Big Brother program. She's a former drug addict who's turned her life around by mentoring young boys, but she's still just wired enough to where you don't feel safe around her.

Survivor: Tocatins predictions

They didn't have much of a choice, but I like that Taj and Stephen brought in JT as their fifth wheel. I think Brendan and Sierra need to secure their own fifth wheel (I nominate Erinn, because she'd be on board with any alliance that'd dump Coach sooner than later).

Jeff Probst said this season has some epic blindsides, but if I was a predicting sort, I'd guess at the merge, they vote out Joe. Then Brendan and company decide to get rid of Coach. Tyson freaks out and tries to rally the troops against the Secret Alliance, but fails and is voted out. But now some wheels are turning and JT says he needs the idol. Taj doesn't give it to him, he's angry, but Taj is the one voted out, with JT deciding she has too much power.

The Alliance is split, and JT goes next. Stephen is latching on to anyone and he manages to get a blindside against Brendan, who is seen as too powerful by now by Erinn and Debbie. Sierra feels on the outs and tries to get a girl thing going, and Stephen, the last man standing, points out Debbie hasn't done much all game, but hey, that makes her easy to beat, so Stephen goes. Down to Erinn, Sierra and Debbie, if it's the final three, and if there's one more, they probably vote out Sierra because she was in that original powerful alliance. She's not in a power spot right now, but I can see Erinn winning this whole thing.

The Women - DVD Review

THE WOMEN (*1/2) - Starring Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes, Debra Messing, Jada Pinkett Smith, Candice Bergen, Bette Midler, Carrie Fisher, Cloris Leachman, Ana Gasteyer and Joanna Gleason.
Directed by Diane English.

Never saw the 1939 original. Was amused by never showing a single male onscreen. I've seen more than one movie where we never see a woman onscreen, but at least those movies had reason to not show women. They didn't pertain to the story being told. If the ship never landed on that island in Master & Commander, we'd have never seen women in one of Russell Crowe's best movies.

My main problem with this movie is that if you're not going to show any men, tell stories that make sense to not have the men be there. If the central character's story is about how her husband is cheating on her, how can you not show him? We see her side of phone calls, and people repeating conversations they had with him, and, and... just hire an actor already. Show, don't tell.

Can you imagine a movie with all men where the lead is going through a divorce because he learned his wife's cheating on him, and he confronts the other man, and his son repeats conversations he had with his mother, and there are only men walking the streets of New York, and, and... that movie would likely suck too.

Watchmen - Movie Review

WATCHMEN (***1/2) - Starring Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Carla Gugino and Matt Frewer.
Directed by Zack Snyder.

I loved it.

I read the graphic novel for the first time about seven months ago, and I haven't read it since. I tend to want to read books before the movie comes out, but I also wanted the memory to fade so when I watched the movie, I could let some elements surprise (beyond what the filmmakers are changing). Seven months isn't enough time to forget a lot; there were only a few points where I wondered "Did they change that from the book?"

I thought the opening credit sequence was great, to the tune of "Times They Are A-Changing" as we watch the revisionist history of the United States if superheroes had been around. It gets in a lot of backstory in three minutes. In fact, the whole soundtrack rocked for me, finding perfect spots for "All Along the Watchtower", "99 Red Balloons", "Hallelujah", and a great closing credit song with My Chemical Romance's cover of "Desolation Row."

Yes, the movie is admirably faithful to the source material, something that can't be said for a lot of previous Alan Moore adaptations (see The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Or don't.) Most of the changes made, I agree with. I'm glad they cut all the stuff with the kid at the newspaper stand reading the comic book about pirates. It added a level to the graphic novel, but we can't have a five-hour movie.

The stand-out in the cast for me was Jackie Earle Haley as Rorshach. Rorshach has the best story-arc anyway, but Haley has to do most of it behind the inkblot mask. Haley has the raspy Batman-voice thing going, but he's able to convey menace with a slight head-nod. By the time his mask is ripped off, I was giddy to see what Haley was going to do and he didn't disappoint. I was also impressed with Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan. The big blue demi-god is emotionally detached, and Crudup, who arguably had the hardest job, keeps him believable. Patrick Wilson is fine as the impotent Nite Owl, a guy who's regressed into his Clark Kentisms the longer he's retired. Matthew Goode was okay as Ozymandias, nothing really special there. Malin Akerman was flat as Silk Spectre for me, but not bad enough to drag the movie down.

I'd be curious about what people thought who hadn't read the graphic novel first. It's a deconstructing take on superheroes, showing that after a few decades of vigilantism, most of the "masks" have been psychopaths themselves. Superheroes have eventually been outlawed, except for Dr. Manhattan, who works for the US government.

We see the Comedian attempt rape and later kill a woman pregnant with his child. We see Rorschach do a number of bloody killings (although I liked the more subtle way he dispatched of the child killer in the book). Dr. Manhattan wins the Vietnam War by walking across the fields and making bodies disintegrate by pointing at them. It's violent stuff.

The ending is different, but I think this ending would be more palatable for non-fans, and I don't think it's worse than the book's ending. Some of the plot points have been used in everything from The Incredibles to Heroes, but this came first.