I remember seeing Fantastic 4 in theaters and coming out disillusioned. What a bad movie that was.

Right now, we finished watching part II: the Silver Surfer, and I just can't believe we actually saw the whole thing. The acting was corny and bad, the dialogue idiotically predictable, and the action... well... nothing we haven't seen before, and actually of worse quality than you would expect from such a big movie.

For all of those of you with good taste in movies who wanted to go see this: Don't.

I KNEW it was Spanish. My pops was watching it and said "Oh its in Italian" so I took his word for it, since its in WW II Italy.

We couldn't tell, since I was reading the Subtitles the entire time and a couple things in Spanish/Italian sound quite similar to the untrained ear (damn romantic languages, all so flowery and flourished).

Watch the trailer here
Looks cool, right?

Looks cool, but I'm going to allow myself to be skeptical until I see it. Looks aren't everything, the plot and story is 70%.

The new "Beowulf" movie looks pretty alright. No?

I studied a lot about Beowulf and Grendel my last year of high school in 2004. I even had to make a Beowulf and Grendel boardgame as an assignment...so I'm interested in seeing this movie.

There was recently a 'Beowulf and Grendel' movie...i haven't seen that one. It didn't strike my attention as much as the new Beowulf one. i will still see the other one though, when i feel like it.

Btw, Ratatouille was a nice movie!! Who else thought so?

Have yet to see the Rat.

Reviews of two recent DVDs we saw:

28 Weeks Later. Very good movie; nice, scary concept (fast, agressive zombies created by a virus). Well acted, great camera work. Well worth the rental.



The Last Mimzy. Ugh. I was looking forward to this one - the trailers made it look like a smart family film with some sort of neat futuristic concept.

Not so much.

A very cloudy concept that is never really well explained. A completely unnecessary and unrealistic involvement of the US government with an anti-terrosim tie in. I especially loved when the government agents all discussed everything that was happening IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE FAMILY, and how the kids - suspected of being involved in a huge terrorist plot intertwined with futuristic nanotech - manage to break out of the facility at night, since everyone had gone to bed. Riiight.

Finally, we get an ending that makes no sense whatsoever, and leaves us with a ton of questions.

Don't waste your time or money on this one.

...since it's unlikely i'll be many more theatres in the next six months or so

Surf's Up: meh...an ok time waster, particularly for the kids, but the deleted scenes show what potential the story had, and wasted. The producers explained that they cut back on scenes about Big Z (don't want to spoil the plot, so forgive the vagueness) as it was taking away from the hero (Cody). Frankly, the hero didn't have much of a story arc, and they wasted an opportunity to explore how the commercialization of sports have stolen the original sense of fun.

Made me appreciate again how superlative Pixar is at this...cutting edge animation, well-developed and unique characters and plots that usually work on many levels.

FWIW, Ratatouille is well worth seeing, especially after the relative disappointment of CARS. I still think CARS was cranked out as a contractual obligation to Disney, and The Incredibles remains Pixar's best so far.

Fun Fact: recently watched, over the course of several days, Surf's Up, Transformers and Constantine...and realized afterwards that Shia LeBoeuf is in all three...that young man is someone to watch as he matures as an actor!

Definitely an actor to keep an eye on. This kid first caught my attention when doing the "Even Stevens" bit on the Disney Channel - thanks to my little Jinx for introducing me to that, still hilarious show - and, as he got older and started showing up in more and more stuff, particularly movies, I thought; "Wow, this kid can really capture a screen no matter what role he's playing!" In fact, I don't think that Will Smith's "I, Robot" would've held my attention for too long if they hadn't thrown Shia in as some "comic relief".

I may have to rent that to watch again...though as an early fan of Asimov, I was almost angered by the movie's casual disregard of his story.

Constantine, btw, disappeared from the theaters faster than it should have. I'm a fan of the Hellblazer comics and had trouble believing Keanu Reeves as a blond, English, chain smoking John Constantine, but he was credible enough once the story premise was transplanted to an "unnamed American city". Lord knows, the camera loves our Keanu!

The movie captured the gritty spirit of the comics instead of simply trying to recreate a storyline, and I think it did well. If they come out with a sequel, I'll give it a go.

Has anyone seen this? Man, it was on network television the other night and I've got to tell you, it was one weird mushroom-psychedelic trip.

Weird. Not bad in its own right, but just plain weird.

We own the Polar Express (I think? We own so many DVDs!). I feel like it is a good movie... just don't look too closely at the characters' eyes.

And suspend your disbelief. If you can do both of the above, it's a holiday classic.

If not... well, yeah. A tad weird.

I think if i had seen that when I was young it would have scared the crap out of me .. trains coming off tracks .. scary hobos .. santa is a freak .. crazy psycho elves .. that whole movie made me uneasy .. although I hear it was neat to see at the IMAX

It kind of tripped me up as something in it didn't quite line up for me.

I LOVE that movie... there is no denying it... I think it is great! And Keanu does a good job.

I also liked him in 'the Lake House', which I thought was also nice. Definately worth watching.

We recently saw 'Stardust'. From the trailer I wasn't that enthusiastic, but it offers some very refreshing entertainment. Not directly a kids movie with some of the things that happen.

I must admit to not having seen 'the Polar Express'. It was on TV one evening, and it couldn't grab my attention. Maybe I need to see it from the beginning. Or mabye I should grab some mushrooms first

I really enjoyed Stardust! I thought it was a very good movie although there were a couple of holes. I like it. I am waiting now to go see Satan's err .. Golden Compass .. I am looking forward to it. It may not live up to the hype but it looks like it was well made