Movie Reviews and a Great Deal....

First the Great Deal.....Big Fish games http://www.bigfishgames.com/ makes interesting puzzle/seek and find/hidden clue types of games. Casual gaming at it's finest. I've downloaded their Demos a ton, but could never bring myself to pay 20 bucks for one of their games. Some people will like them enough to do so, but not me. Well they have one game called Azada that they are blowing out until August 15th for 0.99......a regularly 19.99 game for 19.00 off!!! I bought it and it's a great little game.....worth, in my opinion, 10 bucks but a steal a 0.99. Now for the movies....

The List....Don't bother....and something my Wife and I have vowed to do from now on read more than just the movie synopsis on the back of the box....... What could be so bad about this movie....it had Malcom McDowell (he who played Alex in Clockwork Orange and recently Linderman on Heroes...) who always plays a great villain. It had a Secret Society of Confederate Plantation Holders who combined their fortunes and swore a pact....it helped them survive the inevitable defeat of the Confederate Army.....it had a Young Heir to the fortune who was about to upset the balance.......Sounds good doesn't it? It was interesting to start of with, then everyone was praying and quoting scripture and fasting and studying the Bible and this is how the Dark Magic of the LIST was defeated........at this point I looked at the special features description on the back of the box....."DVD Bible study passages recommended by the Author, How the Power of Prayer can overcome everyday Evil".........<>......If I had read that I'd have skipped it.

The Bank Job.....Hey it's got Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter..) how can it be bad? It wasn't, it was actually good.

In Bruges.....such an odd little film but a good one. About as odd and bizarre as Run Lola Run.....Colin Farrel was actually good in this one, and he's not good in much he needs to do tough guy action roles and they need to stop making him this romantic, leading man guy....his acting chops aren't the best.

Sweeney Todd.....YAWN!!!! I guess I'm just not into musicals.....I like Burton's stuff, like Helena Bonham-Carter, like Depp but this movie was just....meh

10,000 BC......YAWN!!! Made it through 5 minutes of this plodder.....

I am Legend......Good movie, different from the original Omega Man. I liked that the "mutants" in the original were just disfigured humans who the virus made insane instead of mindless zombies like in the new one. Still, Will Smith does a great job.

Dragon Wars....Okay I expected it to be bad and cheesy....it's a Monster Movie the way a Monster Movie should be (not like that Cloverfield Crap) where the focus is on the Monster destroying the town not on how scared the people are (who cares about the people in a Monster movie.....I want to see monster crushing, crumbling and chomping I don't want to know or care if Suzy and Johnny escape in time.....)....but this one was really bad.....it was kind of lame actually although when the Chinese Dragon pops up at the end to kick some Butt...yeah it was good.

The Big Lebowski....Yes I know, a classic, but I've never seen it. I'm glad I did, it was surrealistic and funny in that old school funny (ala Fletch and After Hours and Into the Night).

Now, I've mentioned two films you may have never seen or heard of...actually 3...

Run Lola Run. It's a German film that was inspired by the filmmaker watchin a Woman running on a track one day. Just the motion of the Human body running, the rythmn the trance that runner's get into because of the concentration on the task at hand. The movie starts off with a frantic phone call from Lola's boyfriend Manni.....he works for a Mob boss of some kind and has lost his boss' 100,000 Marcs and needs help now because if Lola doesn't get to him in a hour or two he's going to be killed. Thus the tale begins as Lola busts out of her house running at full speed through the streets of a German City (probably Berlin but the City name is never really revealed). As Lola passes certain people a flash "forward" sequence happens as we see that person's future.......the strangeness (and coolness) of the film is that it is a series of Codas.....Lola gets to her goal, something happens, someone shouts "no!" then the movie goes back to the beginning but there are subtle differences.....the people she passed before are in different clothes or miss crossing her path by a second or two or the car that almost hits her stops before she gets to it and lets her pass......then she gets to her goal again, someone shouts "no!" and it's back to the beginning with different sets of circumstances for the people she passes, etc and ends with a great twist ending. The Techno/Trance music soundtrack helps the mood and atmosphere of the whole film. Give it a try (you will find it in the Foreign film section of most stores) it's really worth it.

After Hours. With Griffin Dunne and Linda Firoentino (she of MIB fame). A mediocre guy goes into New York's SoHo district well out of his comfort zone (he's a cube jockey) and ends up experiencing the most bizarre night of his life....it's like everything that could go wrong goes wrong. I think he ends up having half of SoHo wanting his head.

Into the Night. Like After Hours one of those bizarre 80's comedies. Stars Jeff Goldblum and a very young Michelle Pfeifer. Jeff can't sleep, he's got insomnia and his best friend at work Dan Akroyd tells him to take the red-eye flight to Vegas (from LA it's a half hour flight at most) and take in a show, gamble, get a hooker whatever. He goes home at lunch and finds his wife in bed with her business partner. He wakes up in the middle of the night (actually he never went to sleep, just lay in bed) and takes his friends advice. He gets to the airport parking lot, pauses, then decides he just can't go through with it. At that point he hears a scream and Michelle Pfeifer lands on his car screaming "they're going to kill me we've got to get out of here!"......thus begins a few days of surrealistic craziness all filmed by John Landis in the same tone as what Jeff Goldblum is feeling.....in other words you feel like an insomiac sleep walker. It's darkly funny with a bizarre cast of characters (Michelle Pfeifers brother is playec by Bruce McGill and he's a Gay Elvis Impersonator....need I say more). The Iranian death squad that is chasing them are deadly as well as bungling and add to the dark comedy of the movie (John Landis plays one of the hitmen). The cameos in the movie are great: Jim Henson and David Bowie are two of them. It's a very 80's movie but it's a great film althogether. A definite one to check out....

Bonus Movie I just thought of: Boondock Saints. I saw parts of this at the Discoursers house and he said it was brillant so I rented it and loved it to the point I bought it. It never hit theaters (really not sure why) and it's a cult classic (much like Donnie Darko....a movie I'm still trying to figure out....need to watch it again). It's about two Irish Brothers in Boston (gee ya think...) who decide to become Angels of Death by killing only "Evil Men" and reciting bible passages while doing it. They are being tracked by Wilem Dafoe (as weird as usual) who is a great FBI profiler. Lots of action and crazy little bits of comedy.


Oh I forgot to add one.....Jumper. Great premise, but not even Samuel L. Jackson saved this one from Hayden "I'm the greatest Jedi evar!!!" Christensen's horrible performance....oh wait that's normal for him.........I did like the British Jumper better and felt they should do a movie about him not Darth Whiner......