I watched the X3 (X-MEN 3) teaser online the other day and it was stunningly…boring. I don’t think I’ve ever been so underwhelmed to watch a sequel as I have with this movie (I lied, that doesn’t count the Harry Pooter (yes, I misspelled his name on purpose) movies but then again, I don’t like any of those).

Granted, this is only a teaser trailer, but if the trailer is any indication of the movie, then the word formulaic would be an understatement.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Magneto and his bunch are bad and do bad things, the X-MEN are good and fight Magneto and his bunch. Humans want to kill all mutants and therefore Magneto wants to kill them first; because of this the X-MEN have to protect the defenseless humans.

Didn’t we see that in 1 and 2?

Serenity comes out on September 30th. Can you guess where I’ll be on that day? To whet your appetite, there is a new trailer out for it.

Absurd.

I found this while browsing the web this morning. I think I found my next poster.

I watch about 6 or 7 TV shows regularly. Sometimes I’m too busy to
catch them when they air and I’ll miss them. So in order to stay caught
up with the season, I’ve been downloading the missed episodes using
BitTorrent. I’ll watch them and then delete them after I’m done with
them. Recently,
the MPAA started targeting (read: suing) TV download sites (BitTorrent
sites) in their war to control the visual digital medium.

This is absurd. I don’t download TV shows that are already on DVD,
although some do. I just want to watch the stuff that I have missed.
How is what I do differently from a friend recording a show and giving
it to me? Does it matter if my friend is one person or 10,000? This is
how people like me lose interest in TV shows and stop watching.
If I miss too many episodes of a TV show then I won’t bother to keep
watching the TV show. The MPAA is gonna have their asses handed to them
by their consumers if they can’t figure out how to get the content to
the techno-savvy masses out there. Here is a perfect example. I watch
the TV show Lost. It airs on ABC. If I miss an episode can I go
to ABC’s website and download it or stream it (with the commercials, I
really don’t care about that)? No, of course not. So what do I do?
Download it from BitTorrent. Until the season is over (and the DVDs go on
sale) viewers should be able to legally download this stuff. Until they
can, people will find a way to get it on their own, no matter how many
people the MPAA sues.

When I read stuff like this from the MPAA and the RIAA, I’m reminded of a quote from the first Star Wars movie. “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

The trailer for the new Batman move, Batman Begins is out now. This is the first time in a long time that I’ve seen a Batman movie trailer without throwing up in my mouth. The site is fairly annoying because when you click on trailer it invokes a popup menu. It seems like Liam Neeson decided to train someone worthy instead of that freaking loser Jake Lloyd. Everytime I see the trailer I think Qui-Gon Jin.

I’m sure you’ve seen the snake movies on the Stargate channel…er…I mean the Sci-Fi channel. You know what I’m talking about, the really bad B-movies like Python, Python II, Boa, etc. Ugo.com has the funniest reviews of these movies. The best part: “…Then again, you have to stretch a lot of stuff to make this movie work, such as your intelligence and faith in humanity.” Faith in humanity, that’s rich.

Warning, this contains spoilers. I like M. Night Shyamalan’s movies with the exception of one; his latest, which is The Village. Now, undoubtedly people will say that his movies have started on the downward spiral since the sensational movie The Sixth Sense. I agree and disagree. Compared to The Sixth Sense, his other movies aren’t as good and there is no way that they could ever be. The Sixth Sense was a blessing and curse for Night. From now on, all his other movies will be judged to that standard.

With all that being said, I honestly think that The Village is a Class A turd. It’s not a turd compared to The Sixth Sense; it’s a turd all by itself. Billed as a scary movie set in an 1800’s village surrounded by a forest full of monsters it doesn’t deliver. It turns out that the Halloween episode of Charlie Brown is scarier than this.

Some of the characters in the flick shine and some don’t even sparkle. Adrien Brody as the mentally challenged Noah Percy shines as does Bryce Dallas Howard as the blind, love stricken Ivy Walker. Joaquin Phoenix’s portrayal of Lucius Hunt deserves some praise and at other times you forget that he is even there. William Hurt’s character Edward Walker…yawn, Sigourney Weaver’s character Alice Hunt…yawn. The rest of the cast is pretty much forgettable probably as they were meant to be. 

The story takes place in the village of Covington in 1897. The forest that surrounds the village supposedly has monsters that are called “Those who we do not speak of.” No one from the village ever leaves Covington for fear that the monsters will get them.
From here its a bore-fest of a love triangle between Noah, Ivy, and Lucius. Just when you are about to checkout of the movie mentally, you are given a glimpse of “Those who we do not speak of” which looks like a hunched over person in a red cloak with spines coming out of his back. We go back to a whole bunch of exposition and nonsense only to be awakened from our comas by a sighting of the monster again.

After the last sighting of the monster Ivy and Lucius finally say that they love each other and that makes Noah a pissed off crazy person. What follows is actually one of the best scenes of the entire movie. Noah comes to see Lucius and Lucius lets him in. You can see that Noah is hiding his right hand in his pocket and you cant help wonder what he has in it. Lucius turns his back on him and when Noah doesnt say anything he turns around. The camera pans to a close up of Noahs red, teary eyes and then to Lucius dumbstruck face. For a few seconds you have no idea whats going on the camera slows pans down and you see Noah take the knife out of Lucius’ gut. After that Noah stabs him at least one more time for good measure.
To make a terribly long story short, the town finds Lucius and the town doctor says he can’t do anything without medicine from the mysterious towns that all of the elders came from. Ivy’s father finally breaks down and tells her the truth because he sees how much she is in love with Lucius.

Her father brings her to a shed where there are costumes of “Those who we do not speak of.” Basically the town elders were lying so that no one left Covington. They send Ivy off to “The Towns” to get medicine that will help Lucius. This is preposterous. Why on earth would they send a blind girl when her father could have gone and come back before anyone noticed? Its one of the many times that you will roll your eyes at this movie. It turns out that Noah has actually known about the secret for the longest time since he found one of the costumes under a floorboard. He escapes solitary confinement (which is just a room), gets one of those monster getups and tries to kill Ivy but instead falls into a pit (after she sidesteps him) and dies; more rolling of the eyes.

Ivy makes it to a wall and then climbs over it. There she encounters a…dum dum dum a Hummer and a security guard. He helps her get whatever she needs and she goes back and saves the day.

Basically here is what happened. The town elders lived in present day and they had bad things happen to them. Edward Walker’s father was a billionaire but someone killed him and then hung himself in the closet. Edward inherited his fortune. In therapy he found other people that were similarly traumatized and he made a plan. With all this money, he made a wild life sanctuary that they could live in and pretend it was 19th century. They made up stories about monsters so that no one would leave. Feel cheated? I did.

While purchasing some books on Amazon.com I was reminded that I watched this movie (Master and Commander – The Far Side of the World) at my parent’s house on my last vacation.

I admit, I’m an action movie buff. I like movies “for guy’s that like movies” (don’t sue me whatever cable station you are for using your catch-phrase). For this movie however, I was thoroughly bored from start to finish. The special effects were ok, and the nautical preciseness of the movie is really un-matched in movies in its class. I recall at one point in the movie there was something wrong with the “”http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=mizzenmast&x=0&y=0" target="_blank">mizzenmast" and I remember telling my sister “For the nautical experts out there, they must have been really jacked up on adrenaline when they found out that X happened to the mizzenmast but for everyday joe watching they really had no idea what was going on”.

I was so bored out of my wits that I had my sister put it on fast-forward throughout most of the movie. The plot was so paper thin that just 2 seconds of dialog (between some little kid and the doctor about camouflaging insects) I figured out they were going to disguise the ship and fool the enemy. After that it was all fast forward until the end battle.

At the end battle, Russell Crowe’s tries to find the captain of the enemy ship. He turns a curtain aside and finds a doctor standing over his patient (supposedly the captain). The doctor tells Crowe’s character that the captain died. I just looked at my sister and told her “That’s not the doctor, it’s the captain”. She looked at me and said “How did you find that out”? I told her that it’s just common sense. They used a similar tactic in Superman II where General Zod comes to the Whitehouse and demands to speak to the leader. Some schmo steps out and Zod instantly figures it out when the “leader of so many kneels so easily”. Perhaps it was a surprise little thing, I don’t know, perhaps some people were fooled, but I wasn’t. Then again, I knew the identity of Keyser Soze in The Usual Suspects before the movie ended so maybe I’m some genius when it comes to seeing hidden stuff in movies.

All in all, this movie was like a bad Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I think that Ben Stiller seems to be running out of gas. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve liked a lot of stuff that he has been in; including his short lived TV series (The Ben Stiller Show), Meet the Parents, Keeping the Faith, and of course There’s Something About Mary. However, his latest offerings that I have had the stomach to watch (Zoolander and Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story) seem to be a tad bit uninspired. Really it seems that he is playing the same roles in both movies (a-supposedly-good-looking-guy-with-a-good-body-but-no-brains). I’ll have to admit both of the movies that I didn’t like had their moments. In Zoolander, where the models have a water fight and turn into a gasoline fight and when Zoolander himself is working in a coal mine, paints himself black and hides out in dark part of the cave only to scare his father and Dodgeball’s saving grace is that everyone likes to see someone get hit by big red balls.

Oh and during the previews for Dodgeball, I had the misfortune of watching the trailer for Anchorman – The Legend of Ron Burgandy, Will Ferrell’s latest travesty upon the world. This is the first movie that after watching the previews doesn’t actually seem to contain a coherent plot other than Ferrell running around and acting really stupid. I have to add a disclaimer here, I’ve never really been a fan of Ferrell’s stuff even when he was on Saturday Night Live, so who knows, this movie might attact some people.

I saw the trailer for I, Robot last night while I was waiting for <a href =“http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/secretwindow/cms/” target="_blank">Secret Window to start. I, Robot the movie, for those of you that don’t know is loosely based on the Asimov novel by the same name; and when I say loosely based I mean not really at all. The only things that the book and the movie have in common with each other are the title and the 3 laws of robotics; although those have been changed as well. The laws as displayed in the trailer are:

• They Cannot Hurt Us
  
• They Must Do What We Say
  
• They Can Protect Themselves

In actuality the laws, according to Asimov, are:

• A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
  
• A robot must obey order given it by beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
  
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law

To its credit, the movie looks interesting enough with a robot standing trial for murder, but I believe that in the end, it won’t be a thought provoking movie. I’m sure that average Hollywood will prevail and it will just be mad robots that Willy Smith has to kill while cracking jokes. Regardless, I’ll plunk down my money to see just that.

I remember the comic book that kicked off this notion. It’s only about 15 years old! I couldn’t even drive back then! Now they finally get off their ass and make a movie out of it.

Well, I saw Matrix Revolutions this past weekend. What follows will probably spoil the movie for some, so stop reading if you don’t want the movie spoiled.
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Still with me? Good. Matrix Revolutions suffers the from the same thing that other thought provoking movies suffers, it is the audience. The audience, American in particular, has an addiction-esque behavior when watching sequels to popular movies. A drug addict needs more or better drugs to keep alive his high. This type of mentality can also be attributed to these movies. We were WOWed by the effects and suspense in the first Matrix film so by the time Matrix Reloaded came around, we needed a bigger, better high. Obviously, while the visual effects were good in Reloaded, they weren’t enough to satiate our need (Matrix Revolutions got 54% less box office gross than Reloaded). That same theory applies to Matrix Revolutions. There is not a lot in this movie that can WOW someone that has watched the previous incarnations of the Matrix films.

Since it can’t WOW you with visuals, the story has the duty of keeping the audience’s attention. For the average person, it does this quite poorly. Matrix Reloaded asked a lot of questions that one expects to be answered in Revolutions. I don’t think that it significantly answers any questions, and in fact, it does the opposite. Most people won’t put up with this. Their movie-ADD won’t allow for something that isn’t handed to them and explained to them. I have no problems with not all of the answers being explained, what I do have a problem with is having no answers explained. That’s the same thing that the X-Files suffered from in their late seasons (along with no David Duchovny). The bait and switch can only intrigue your audience so long before it pisses them off.


Matrix Revolutions also commits a large movie faux pas. You don’t care about some of the characters’ plight. The dock scene, although nice to look at, seemed wasted on me because I didn’t care about any of the characters. The kid? The Captain? Why should I care about these people? They have been on the screen for about 1 hour (in the entire trilogy combined), so why should I care about them? The audience wants to watch a movie about Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus. Those are the characters that they have invested their time into. The rest are expendable in the minds of the viewers.


Which brings me to another point. Morpheus’ character becomes a paper-weight after the club scene in Revolutions. It would be better to have him die than drag him around the rest of the scenes with nothing to do.


There are some interesting philosphical and psychological points in this film though. Throughout this film and Reloaded, the topic of choice comes up several times. The Oracle, says to Neo, “Nobody can see past the choices they don’t understand”, and while reading reviews of this movie, I came across an very interesting and thought provoking post on Slashdot. Here is what the whole choice thing boils down. Humans have free will but they don’t realize it. They make impulsive decisions but don’t know why. They are slaves to the ideas they use to justify their impulsive decisions after they’ve made them. They don’t actually think freely, and they certainly don’t act freely. It reinforces what the Oracle says to Neo in Reloaded; that he had already made his decision, but didn’t yet understand why.


Overall, it was an average movie which needs more viewing time to understand all facets of it. However, at 8-9 bucks for a viewing though, I would rather wait for true understanding on DVD.

The new Matrix trailer is up. It reveals more than has been revealed in the past few teaser trailers about what is likely to be happening. I would suggest downloading WGET (available for both Linux and Windows) and using it to download the trailer. If you use your browser (Internet Explorer, Mozilla, etc.) you will only time out about thousand times. WGET has a resume function, so if the connection gets cut off, it will re-try and resume where it left off downloading. The link for the big trailer is: http://progressive.warnerbros.com/thematrix/us/med/rev_theatre_0x3839_640_dl.mov.


Unfortunately, the trailer is Quicktime 6 only.

I was perusing Apple’s trailers site and I came across the link called Shaolin Soccer. Just by the title, I thought that it was stupid sounding. It sounded like it would be like the 3 Ninjas movies. Remember those? I’m still trying to forget. Regardless, I watched the trailer, and now I’m definitely going to see it. If you like Kung Fu comedy, this is right up your alley. It also reminds me of that game, Super Spike Volleyball, for the NES.

Just read that the Kill Bill movie by Quentin Tarantino will be split into two movies. I don’t know about you, but from watching the trailer, which is really entertaining I might add, I don’t see why this movie should be split into two separate movies. It’s pretty straightforward.

“Kill Bill” is the story, told in chapters, of the world’s deadliest female assassin, who survives being shot on her wedding day and, after five years in a coma, seeks revenge on the man who tried to kill her. The film’s samurai-style fight sequences were filmed largely in China and take place in everything from a nightclub to a snow-covered garden to a suburban home.

During Terminator 3, I saw the preview Hidalgo. At first I thought it was Airbiscuit, I mean Seabiscuit (which I won’t be seeing) and after I realized that it wasn’t, I was rolling my eyes because I thought it was going to be a lame movie. Washed up racehorse and rider try new stuff by being some sort of clowns or something stupid.

However after that, it got better. It turns out that some sheik invites them (the guy and the horse) to race in “The Ocean of Fire”. A 3,000 mile survival race across the Arabian desert.

For the entire preview, I was watching the main character and thinking, “Who the hell is that, he seems awfully familiar?”. Then it dawned on me. That’s Viggo Mortensen of Lord of the Rings’ fame. Click on the Hidalgo link above to see trailers of the movie.

I saw Terminator 3 this afternoon. I would have to say that it’s not half bad. Not great, but not bad. There were times that I thought that the humor that was injected into the scenes were a bit “forced”. Humor is fine, but this is a Terminator movie. I thought the guy that played John Connor did a pretty good job and made the character seem believable. The girl in the movie was played by Claire Danes and played the character of Kate Brewster. Mostly I thought that she was annoying because all she did for most of the movie was scream and just react to the stuff that was going on around her. The special effects were top notch.

Below are some observations that I had about the movie (I’ve made the text white because it contains spoilers). Highlight the blank area below to read.


At one point early in the film John has a dream about Judgement Day. I like the visual effects of the skulls all over in the water. Then it pans to hundreds, if not thousands of Terminators (without their human “skin” moving and firing at humans (you never see them though). My only problem with this is that John Connor has never seen a T-100 Terminator without its skin. Only Sarah has.

John Connor keeps trying to stop Judgement Day. I don’t know why he is doing this. It would be impossible for him to stop judgement day. It’s only because of Judgement day that he exists. If there is no Judgement Day, Kyle Reese can’t be sent back through time and there is no John Connor. Judgement Day MUST happen.

Also early in the film, the female Terminator (TX) is driving a huge semi with a crane attached to it. She extends the crane so it is facing sideways into the street in an attempt to destroy Arnold (he is hanging from the very tip of the crane). She drives through three for four buildings, through cement blocks, over cars, through telephone poles, etc. I don’t care how tough a semi is, if you ran into that much shit, friction would eventually take over and you would slow down and/or stop.

Arnold tells John that he didn’t send him back in time this time around. It was Kate Brewster. She did so because John was killed by the same Terminator that is protecting them in the movie. However, by telling him this, he probably won’t allow that to happen. Oy time travel stories are hard on the brain.