See Stew. See Stew link. Link, Stew, link!
After picking up and tremendously Robot Food's Lame DVD earlier this month, I ordered Afterbang from their site. When I received the package, I found not only my DVD, but also a Lame t-shirt and some robot food stickers.
Anyway, both DVDs are great, and free stuff is cool, so if you're looking for some good snowboard porn, I'd check out the Robot Food movies. I'd suggest Afterbang before Lame, both because it's cheaper and because I liked the music better.
On a whim yesterday, I saw a matinee of Underworld with Mark. All I knew about the movie before seeing it was that there were an awful lot of billboards for the movie about -- most notably on BART, where I saw them every day on my commute for seemingly the last month.
Anyway. Vampires. Werewolves. Vampires versus Werewolves. Kinda confusing at times, no thanks to there being a lot going on (like, hundreds of years of history you're at least briefly acquainted with -- we are dealing with vampires, after all), and several fight scenes that are just shootouts where everyone is wearing black.
The first action scene of the movie, for example, was completely incomprehensible for quite awhile, because it was completely unclear who was who in the fight. We knew which side Kate Beckinsale was on, of course, but other than that it was just kinda a mess until all the extras in the subway station were either killed or had fled. Some simple color coding would have been awfully useful. And speaking of Kate Beckinsale, she was extra hot in this movie.
The action scenes seemed a little spottily edited at times, but that could just be because we're all spoiled by the matrices absurd digital effects. Hoss said he saw an interview with Underworld's director, where he claimed he tried to avoid digital effects as much as possible. The action really wasn't anything special -- lots of loud gunfire, and see above re confusing part.
Also as mentioned above, the story was highly convoluted, and assumptions about who were the "good guys" and who were the "bad guys" were frequently turned upside-down... That's not a bad thing, of course, and in the end, there really was no "good side," but there were a few characters you found yourself wanting to "win" -- unfortunately, not all of them do.
The movie was fairly stylish, and I guess that's a point in the + column. But I still think the original Crow did this style much better, way back in the day.
Spoiler: Finally, apparently bi-heading a vampire counts the same as be-heading one. Who knew?
In the end, it was entertaining, but it had a number of problems that kept me from fully enjoying it. The ending also left a hook for a sequel -- something that wouldn't actually mind much, as long as Kate Beckinsale reprised her role.
3/5.
Saw: Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Last weekend I finally saw Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and I liked an awful lot. When I was little I used to love that ride, so seeing all the little homages to the ride in the movie was a real kick for me. And then rest of it kicked ass too, of course. There was hotness on both fronts, and nice fights, and a few little twists I didn't expect at all. It was by far the best movie I've seen all summer, and the first one I've really wanted to see again.
The truth about Bowling for Columbine.
Heh, and just the other day, I realized that Michael Moore was fairly equivalent to a liberal Rush Limbaugh. Don't get me wrong, I liked Bowling for Columbine for the most part, but I thought it was pretty obvious that Moore was stretching to make his points.
I saw The Hulk last night (at the parkway. yay for the parkway.), and it definitely had its extremes. At times I really liked it, and it times I almost laughed out loud. While I was watching it, I was a little put off by the style, but thinking back on it today, I think it's growing on me. It definitely had some artistic cinematography. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I had serious suspension of disbelief issues...
I mean, seriously, how would a student at Berkeley afford to live in a house like that in the Berkeley hills? And I'd like to know where they found the sign that said "San Francisco 61, Berkeley 65." That's impossible in so many ways.
Saw: Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
I saw T3, and it was enjoyable enough, but probably not quite worth the $6 I paid for a matinee. Maybe $4 or $5. It would have been far better to see it at the Parkway for cheap while eating pizza and drinking beer, and without so many preflight previews and ads -- I'll have to keep that in mind for the other summer movies I want to see. Anyway, I thought it was ridiculous how they got into Cate's father's lab off screen, apparently with no trouble at all. Also, there were a few too many homages to the first too movies -- almost like they thought this movie would be better if it referenced the first two a lot. Finally, while I thought Claire Danes was really cute with her red hair in My So Called Life back in the day, she really didn't do much for me at all in T3.
Arg, between moving and starting a new job and it being summertime, the number of movies I kind of want to see (actually, movies I want to see, but only at a matinee) is getting distressingly long. Here we are:
Jesus, I better get started. Of course, this would be a lot easier if I had DSL at home.
It was good, but I felt like it was a little slow in places, and it was fairly formulaic, and it didn't really have some big message, or offer me very much to think about. I certainly enjoyed it, but I just didn't feel like it had as much for adults as some other Pixar movies have had. 5/5.
Saw Bruce Almighty today, and I was less than impressed. I can count the number of times I laughed on one (possibly seven-fingered) hand, and it got to be as sweet as Pepsi near the end. 2/5.
First, The Matrix Reloaded. I'm not going to say a lot, both because I don't want to spoil things for anybody and because I don't have a whole lot to say.
The short version is, I enjoyed it nearly as much as I enjoyed the original. But it's important to specify that I didn't love the first movie -- I enjoyed it, but a few months after I saw it and realized that everyone else was raving about it, I was left asking "Wait, did I see the same movie you did?" I would give both the original Matrix and The Matrix Reloaded around 4/5, though maybe a little less if I was having a bad day.
The one real problem I had with Reloaded was what felt like a lack of editing. There were a couple of scenes that I would have liked to have seen cut out of the movie completely, and several others just went on way way too long. I was also unhappy with how heavily dependent they made the ending on the "to be concluded." I would have liked to have seen them tie things up at the end of this episode just a little more -- it would have been doable, I think. As it was it just felt like lazy storytelling.
But, I liked the plot twist in the movie possibly more than I liked anything plotwise in the first movie, and there were some awesome action sequences, and overall, I had a pretty good time.
In case you haven't seen the movie yet, make sure you wait through the (incredibly long and dense) credits to see the Matrix Revolutions preview, which I think looked better than Reloaded.
As for X2, I enjoyed that a lot, and would give it a strong 4/5.
I really enjoyed Nightcrawler in the movie, except for the part where they modeled him after the newer more religious Nightcrawler in the comics. But the opening scene with him in the White House was just great.
I also really enjoyed recognizing the other characters that made brief appearances throughout the movie, and liked all of the character development that everyone whose name wasn't Ororo Munroe got. Nightcrawler was good, Wolverine saw good development, and I even enjoyed the little thing going back and forth between Ice Man and Rogue.
The action sequences were great, and I really liked the way all of the pieces of the final sequence in the dam came together. And I admit I didn't realize Magneto's ploy until just a few seconds before it happened. The one thing I didn't particularly like about this movie was that there was no real scene where all of the X-Men were fighting together.
I guess my only other real complaint about the movie was that it was almost too violent at times. Between Wolverine fighting the soldiers in the mansion, Pyro blasting the police, and the Wolverine/Lady Deathstryke battle... I was left saying "God that was violent" a few too many times. Oh, I guess one more complaint was just that Lady Deathstryke wasn't even named in the movie, and she was completely one dimensional (and hence wasted as a character) thanks to that mind control soup.
Oh, what a tangled web he wove
Would I still enjoy The Amazing Spider-Man without Tobey Maguire? You betcha, as long as it still has Kirsten Dunst. ;-)
What follows is a scene from the snowboarding movie that's in my head. The setting is some sort of race or contest between the as of yet unnamed rider, and the rider in black. Assume a long run, with jumps and bumps and drops and trees throughout.
Unnamed Rider: I admit it, you are better than I am.
Rider in Black: Then why are you smiling?
Unnamed Rider: Because I know something you don't know.
Rider in Black: And what is that?
Unnamed Rider: I... do not ride goofy footed!
[Does an ollie 180 and starts to pull ahead. Rider in Black catches back up.]
Rider in Black: You are amazing!
Unnamed Rider: I ought to be, after 20 years.
Rider in Black: Oh, there's something I ought to tell you.
Unnamed Rider: Tell me.
Rider in Black: I'm not goofy footed either.
[Rider in Black switches, and wins.]
So, got any clever names for the as of yet unnamed rider?