Now these guys are true nerds. It’s actually quite well done.

Ok, I saw the Lemon Snickers movie this past Sunday. I don’t know the real title, but that’s suggestive of it. Oh crap, I have to put the title in or nobody will find my blog entry…hold on…wait for it…ahh! Lemony Snicket, that’s the name.

Anyway, what a disappointing movie! I use the word very deliberately. This movie could have been so much more. I like well-made moves, no matter the intended audience (e.g. Pixar movies), so it wasnt’ a case of me not being the right age to appreciate the movie. I liked each and every actor chosen to play a role in this movie; Jim Carey was great, as were the child actors, and the tiny role John Cleese had. The plot was even headed in the right drection, but then it stopped!

This movie was a story of a wonderfully imaginative casting director, screenwriter and set designer, afflicted by a horrible producer. Or maybe the screenwriter died 1/3 through the moviemaking. Hard to tell.

Continue reading to see plot discussion that some may consider spoilers.

The trailers for this movie imply some fantastical and supernatural happenings. The three-eyed frog comes to mind. It’s not even subtle. A three-eyed frog demands a [insert latin here for "a reason to exist" so that I look really smart]. But no, the herpetologist, played smartly by Cleese, just briefly alludes to finding his animals on his adventures. Nothing supernatural, nothing wonderous.

The three children who are orphaned at the beginning of the movie are introduced as having some special traits. The girl is an inventor, the boy is a voracious reader with a perfect memory, and the baby is just voracious. She bites stuff. The children’s traits are used in a few scenes in the movie to good effect, but not nearly enough. You wonder at the end why they bothered. I liken it to seeing an episode of MacGyver where he had some tools in front of him and he just couldn’t think of anything cool to make of them. In fact, a scene like that happened with the inventor girl. Lame.

But the worst fault in the plot was a repeated allusion to some secret society to which the orphans’ family members belonged. It’s never explained! And the mysterious fiery murders of all of the society members? It’s a very mundane plot by Carey’s character to attain the family fortune.

There was so much promise in the hints of secrecy and mystery that I’ve explained above that by the end of the movie I couldn’t stand it! I tell you what they should have done. They should have begun the movie like they did, off the parents, suggest the secret society, introduce the evil Baron, then have the kids whisked off to another world full of three-eyed frogs and carniverous leeches. Then they start talking about how the secret society is a group of people from this other world who have strange powers and whatnot. Then you have a million things you could do with the plot and how the Baron needs the kid’s brains for some nefarious complicated scheme, not because he just wants money.

As you might can tell, I have strong feelings about this. Ugh.

My good friend Keith loaned me The Hulk DVD a few weeks ago. It took me forever, but I finally got around to playing it. I grew up on Marvel comics, man. It’s a good time to be a moviegoer! All of my favorite superheroes from when I was a little nerd (as opposed to the grown-up geek I am today) have been recreated in a spectacular fashion on the big screen, now that CG special-effects can really do my imagination justice. (Not to change subject in mid-stream but wow, I also grew up on LOTR.) It’s awesome. I was a big fan of X-Men most of all and X and X2 did not let me down. Spiderman was excellently done. Then–I saw Daredevil. The huge balloon that represented my fascination and pleasure at seeing my fantasies come to life was immediately deflated. Wow, that movie sucked!

I think that the fear that The Hulk was going to be another Daredevil is what caused me to keep the case on my desk unopened for those weeks (nor did I attempt to see it in the theater). Anyway, let’s not dwell on the negative. The Hulk was actually pretty good. Eric Bana was very credible I thought. I recall when the movie first came out, reviewers cried that there was only 7 minutes of Hulk “face time” during the entire movie, or something like that. To be honest, I didn’t even notice. The pace was good. The ending with Superbad-Dad was a little cheesy, but I liked the rest of it. Good job Marvel. Can’t wait for Spiderman 2 and X3 and whatever else they come up with!

I give The Hulk a 7 out of 10.

The wife and I went out for a big date last night and wanted to see a movie. We sent the kids to her mother’s house so we could “stay out late”. Haven’t done that in a while. We had a nie dinner at Rafferty’s, then grabbed tickets to see Matrix 3 at 8:15pm.

I liked the movie. Not a lot, but it was good and definitely worth seeing. I guess after seeing Matrix 1 and being blown away by the special-effects, then seeing a couple of new things in Matrix 2 (like the virii), Matrix 3 didn’t add a whole lot but to complete the storyline.

Visually speaking, the only new things you see in Matrix 3 are the sheer scale of the setinels and APUs. There are some cool effects where the mass of setinels writhe around in a snake-like conga line made up of thousands. This is the scene where the Zionites are defending the dock against the drillers and setinels in a next-to-last stand. The defense consists mostly of the APU forces. An APU is a mech robot type of thing, controlled by a human in a harness. It has two huge chain guns for weaponry. There were a hundred of these guys on defense. Made for a really action-packed scene and was one of my favorites in the movie.

Umm actually that was my favorite scene and about the only scene that stood out. The rest was stereotypical nonsence from the Oracle, tepid acting from Keanu (whom I like despite his mediocre dialog delivery skills), and equally weak supporting acting. There was less time spent in the Matrix in this movie, so less superhuman feats of fighting and jumping. That means more boring.

I don’t know, it was good to get the rest of the storyline, but jeez, they killed off Trinity and Neo!

I give it a 6/10. For retrospect, Matrix 1 was a 9, and Matrix 2 was a…(never thought about it before) a… 7.

Oh, I almost forgot, how could I forget!??? Persephone showed massive amounts of cleavage in Matrix 3. I therefore change my rating to a 7.

I went to the “hundred-dollar depot” twice this weekend. Therefore, I had a good weekend. Too bad everybody else in the family is sick…that did kinda drag things down a bit. The illnesses range from a head cold to pneumonia + fever & ear infections.

Saw U-571 today, starring Matthew McConaughey (thanks Netflix). Very good movie. Sorry it took me so long to watch the darn thing. It sat on my entertainment center forever. I am definitely one of Netflix’s best customers in that respect. I’ve only seen McConaughey in comedies before, well no I guess he was in Contact too. Anyways, he’s an excellent drama/action actor. The movie was really solid and quite believable I thought. At no point did I look down at my watch wondering how much was left, it was pretty engrossing. I opted to watch it on my computer downstairs instead on the TV upstairs and that worked well. I’m nearly blind so I have to sit so close to the TV to enjoy a movie it’s not even funny. Sitting with my eyes about 10″ from the monitor is much easier to do.

I give U-571 an 8/10 and would have said 9 if there was a little more plot development.

This is my movie review for School of Rock, starring Jack Black.

First, let me say I’m not a huge Jack Black fan. I think he’s funny, great character, and his band Tenacious D has some funny and memorable songs (f*ck her gently is great if you can get over how crude it is), but the music is overall, not that great. My thing about his acting is that he’s too over the top when over the top doesn’t fit. However, I respect his band because they make their live shows available for free on etree.org. (Check out this list of all the bands on etree, your favorites might be there.)

Anyway, back to the movie. The concept has been done many times, most of them with Whoopi. You put a non-conforming person in a situation where conformity is expected, add music. Long story short, Whoopi’s first try was better than Jack’s. The first 10 min of the movie, and the last 15, were actually pretty funny and I enjoyed watching. Unfortunately, the movie ran for 108 minutes. My wife and I were checking our watches a couple of times during the film. It felt REALLY LONG for a movie with a bunch of kids in it. Joan Cusack was her usual slightly odd self, whom I like usually. Jack’s buddy Ned was really kinda sad. I don’t even want to give him a hyperlink here, folks. Let’s just say he played his role perfectly. Those who have seen the movie will understand what I mean by that. Some of the children actors did a pretty good job, and I commend them.

Overall the movie was lackluster and as good as the climax was, it wasn’t enough to pull the whole movie off of the ground. Might be a good movie to rent for some teenaged kids. (Note there is a tiny bit of cursing, but not a lot.)

I give it a 4 out of 10.

No, its not a new movie by any means, and I saw it on a crappy loaned VHS tape, but I am glad I finally watched it. Dragonfly, with Kevin Costner, was a damn fine piece of work. It’s billed as a sci-fi paranatural thriller; much discussion of near-death-experiences and life after death. The movie was creepy in all the right subtle ways that a good thriller should be. I give it an 8 out of 10.