utenzi

I watched an odd movie tonight. I actually posted about it two years ago but never got around to watching it until now. The name is Black Sheep and it's a black comedy horror flick out of New Zealand. The movie pulled a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it deserves it. Over at IMDB it only got a 6/10 but I think they missed the humor. Maybe they just wanted a zombie flick. This film pokes fun at all sorts of targets. Global warming, environmentalists, genetic research, corporations, psychiatry, and of course sheep and the people that love them. The tag line for the movie is "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand and they're pissed off" which reflects the movie's plot. You see, apparently there was a little genetic experimentation done on some sheep and things went awry. Horribly awry. And those sheep started to like the taste of meat---human meat. Not so funny, huh? Well in the hands of the director, Jonathan King, it is funny. Oddly enough. The film was r...

That's me down there. Not much detail and there's a reason for that, but first... I've not been feeling very well this week and most days I've fallen asleep soon after getting home from work. Which meant that I wasn't able to sleep very much late at night when I should have been sleeping. What does this have to do with the picture? Nothing really. I just wanted to complain. Well, okay there is a little overlap here. I went to bed early last night at 1am and that had me waking up at 5:30am which is VERY early for me. More like time to go to bed than time to wake up. So to keep awake I cleaned out my fridge and freezer of really old stuff. And went to the landfill before work with two bags of garbage. Since I was being so good about errands, after work I got around to doing a few others. For quite some time I'd intended on getting my hair cut and today I did it. Finally. And that is the reason for that picture. I tried 5 times to get a good picture of my haircut a...

I watched this DVD last night after the Steelers game. And even though I'm not a big football fan, the game was a lot better. The Lather Effect is promoted as an Generation X version of The Big Chill with a soundtrack full of 80s music instead of the 60s classics pushed in The Big Chill. It definitely works as far as the soundtrack goes. Nice tunes though some of them weren't being done by original artists. I guess they had a strict budget. The actors were all pretty good too though they didn't do much acting. Not their fault---the script just called for angst and posturing. Supposedly these were the grown up versions (mostly mid-30s) of SoCal teens from the late 80s. Ha! They were still acting like teens and believe me, they were far too old to pull off that act. Blame the producers, I'd say. This was the pet project of Eric Stoltz, who I think is incredibly likable as an actor, but as a producer it just seems like he's trying to recreate an adult form of the John...

I watched two movies during the night/morning and liked them both. Neither had very good ratings so I almost skipped them but I'm glad I decided to watch them despite the bad reviews. Now, granted many people would not like the first movie, Shoot 'em Up , and most people would not enjoy the second move, George and the Dragon (AKA Dragon Sword) but I liked them. Maybe I was in a very forgiving mood this morning 'cause both movies were a little off the usual path. Shoot 'em Up is a frantic action flick that lives up to its name. It's more a spoof of Tarentino films than anything else but it's done in such a strong straight forward style that it lives on its own merits not only as a spoof. It got a score of 7/10 on IMDB, but they're very forgiving on that. The critics on Rotten Tomatoes only gave it 59/100 and I can see their point. This movie is nonstop action, on steroids!, and the often ridiculous fight scenes can be almost insane. But, at least to my eyes,...

In the wee hours of the morning I watched a movie I recorded last month. I couldn't sleep so I figured 2 hours of explosions and car chases might help. Crazy, huh? The movie I watched instead of sleeping was the high-definition version of Life Free or Die Hard , AKA Die Hard 4.0 in other countries. Bruce Willis, as John McClane, sipping at the Die Hard franchise once more. And it was well worth watching, a 129 minute thrill fest with some pretty decent acting to boot. Did you hear me mention plot? LOL Well, suffice it to say that you'd best not pay too much attention to details while watching this movie because this movie makes sci-fi movies look plausible. It's horrible in that regard. The initial premise of the movie is that the transportation grid of the nation is intentionally fucked up by terrorists and then all outside controls--like traffic lights--are either shut down or left on in a manner to encourage accidents. Yes despite this, John McClane and other principal...

I recorded Blades of Glory about two months ago but never watched it. I'm not a big fan of Will Ferrell comedies, you see. So, despite my having seen several good reviews of this movie, I let it sit undisturbed on my hard drive. That was a mistake. It really is quite funny with nice performances by the aforementioned Will Ferrell as well as Jon Heder, William Fichtner ( Invasion ) and the adorable Jenna Fischer (Pam from The Office ). Had I known Fischer was in the movie, I'd have watched it immediately. Her cute little face almost makes The Office worth watching. (but not quite) To date, my favorite Farrell movie is Stranger Than Fiction in which he absolutely nailed the character of Harold Crick, but here in Blades of Glory he brings to life a very interesting and larger than life character named Chazz Michael Michaels as a counterpunch to the squeaky clean, wholesome Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder). Chazz is a figure skating sex addict with a lone wolf attitude, and tats to ...

I finished reading a book about bananas, of all things, today. I'll probably write up a review of the book tomorrow. I want to mull it over a while. It was very interesting to me, but it had a lot of flaws. I didn't get very much done today. I did finish up clearing off the counter and dry sink in my kitchen. I also made two types of bruchetta and watched a Russell Crowe movie A Good Year . I liked the movie and both types of bruchetta. As for the lasagna yesterday, it's not bad but definitely not as good as the stuff I usually make. I'll have no problem finishing it off tho--in fact it's almost half gone already. The movie has a lot of problems but basically I didn't care, I liked it anyway. Probably a lot of the reason I liked it was how something like 10 or 12 loose ends were cleared up near the end of the film. Or maybe it was the 20 or so loose ends that weren't cleared up! I love thinking about screw upped things in movies, y'know? Some of the lo...

I went to see the movie Michael Clayton tonight. That's the new movie with George Clooney and Sydney Pollack. It got a 91% rating with the critics over at Rotten Tomatoes and 86% with users. That seems about right. It's an interesting movie with superb acting. I question how interesting the actual storyline is--but given the constraints of a minimum of action, the crafting of the movie is excellent. And Hell, there is one explosion --shown twice!-- so all is not lost. But would it have killed them to include at least one car chase? Or maybe some gratuitous nudity? Clooney's role in this movie reminds me somewhat of Syriano, particularly since he's adopted a similar appearance for Michael Clayton. A little heavy, worn down, and tired but he still radiates that special star quality that he has. The personality he adopts is also the same. In both films, Clooney is the guy that makes things work even if he has to bend rules, cheat, lie or worse to get his job done. As for ...

I went to see a movie Saturday night with an ex-girlfriend. She'd heard from several friends that 3:10 to Yuma was really great and she just had to see it --so I was enlisted to keep her company. In the end, I think I liked the movie more than she did--much to my surprise. Now, the movie does have a few problems--like nobody would ever act in the way that the "bad guy," outlaw Ben Wade, does here but Russell Crowe manages to sell the actions, more or less, with a smooth acting style that reminded me more of Clooney than Crowe. In less gifted hands the bad writing would have sank the movie. And that would be a shame since there's some great acting here by Christian Bale (the good guy) and Ben Foster (bad guy sidekick). And the cinematography is first rate albeit there's a few too many closeups for my taste. Now don't get me wrong. The movie is well written for the most part but the actions of the outlaw, Ben Wade, just defy logic at a number of junctures. I...

It was a pretty quiet weekend. Lots of rain and thunder on Saturday night / Sunday morning but it didn't interfere with any activities--at least not for me. I did stay up most that night reading Simple Genius by David Baldacci (of Absolute Power fame). I thought the book started a bit slow and awkward but that was just the first 10 pages or so. Other than that--and a few technical flaws particularly dealing with kayaks and river flow dynamics--it was a very good book. I started it on Thursday night and finished it on Saturday despite not being able to pick it up on Friday. It had to be good for me to read it that fast. Chris and I watched a DVD on Saturday that was pretty good. As you can probably guess from that picture to the left, the DVD was Volver . The movie is in Spanish so if you watch it, you'll have to either understand Spanish or deal with subtitles. It's worth the extra bother 'cause while it's definitely quirky it's also a very good character stu...

I saw The Bourne Ultimatum earlier today with my girlfriend. She liked it more than me but we both thought it was very good. I still like the first movie the best but I admit this was a worthy sequel, and while Ludlum only wrote 3 Bourne novels--I'm not counting the ones completed by Lustbader--it's obvious that the creative team behind these movies fully intend to do at least one more. And that's an entirely good thing since all three movies so far are way above average. Over on the Rotten Tomatoes site , The Bourne Ultimatum garnered a 94% rating from the critics and 92% rating by the folk visiting the site. Those are impressive numbers and this movie deserves them. This movie takes up right where the second one, The Bourne Supremacy (2004), left off. Chris and I watched the first two movies on DVD Saturday and I'm glad we did. It really helps to have recently seen the second movie when watching this new one. In this installment Jason Bourne is still mourning the los...

Last night I watched Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto which is an adventure movie concerning itself with the epic survival experience of a young South American man, Jaguar Paw, set against the backdrop of the waning days of the Mayan Empire, as he desperately tries to save his wife, Seven. There's some trappings in the movie of maturity and spirituality, such as the sage advice that Jaguar Paw receives from his father, Flint Sky --seen there on the right-- while hunting, facing dangers never before encountered, and most of all, when facing death and ruin. Both roles are played quite well by Rudy Youngblood and Morris Birdyellowhead, respectively. In fact the acting in this movie is so good it's very easy to believe you're actually seeing live footage of actual events taking place in the 1500s. Very impressive. Unfortunately for Jaguar Paw and everyone in his village, the Mayans need sacrifices to appease the gods of their people. The Mayans have had a run of bad luck and ...

My girlfriend is off wandering the East Coast so I'm left to my own devices this weekend. While tomorrow I might be finally building a window seat that I bought the wood for nearly a year ago (Sad, I know. I do tend to procrastinate), tonight is being used for movies. So far I've watched The Dirty Dozen on cable and Dreamgirls on DVD. Of the two, I'll go with WW2. While I know virtually everyone loved Dreamgirls, I'm in that small group that dissents. Over at Rotten Tomatoes Dreamgirls got a 78% fresh rating but I found it to be boring. What I did like about it was Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce's wonderful singing and Jamie Foxx giving another great acting performance. There were also very good supporting roles by Eddie Murphy and Danny Glover. Yet, despite those "high notes" the movie struck me as an overly long docudrama which couldn't remember the correct names for the people. Should I blame the Broadway play for that or this movie? I don't know ...

I love to watch the Tour de France --cycling is the only sport that I want to go out and participate every time I watch it-- but I wish bicycling worked better on television. It just doesn't translate well to the screen. I saw two movies on DVD this week and I liked both of them. Stranger than Fiction is a very good movie with great casting; Code Name: the Cleaner , on the other hand, has horrible writing and directing, stupid and obvious plot, but I liked it anyway due to the acting/chemistry of Cedric the Entertainer and Lucy Liu. Stranger than Fiction is a miracle of wonderful casting. There was a short period in the first third of the movie where I thought the voice over gimmick in the movie got old but I think that was on purpose--right after that the plot twisted and Harold Crick (Will Ferrell) met the love interest Ana Pascal (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The contrast between Crick's life before Pascal and after is the point of the movie and that slow passage emphasized the tra...

Deja Vu is a 2006 movie starring Denzel Washington as ATF agent Doug Carlin. I watched it last night and I was quite impressed. The plot isn't easy to describe and I won't even take a stab at it. This is all due to a time travel aspect which makes all the action quite convoluted and often events aren't actually progressing like you think they are. It's a good idea to pay attention to details early in the movie! What I can describe is the basic set up which initiates the sequence of events that change Doug Carlin's life. At the start of Deja Vu, a ferry filled with Navy crewmen and their families is blown up in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. ATF agent Carlin is brought in to investigate the explosion and gets attached to an experimental federal surveillance unit, one that uses technology to directly look back a little over four days into the past. Carlin has the good taste to fall in love with Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton) and that's what pushes the plot. The pr...

I watched the Rocky Balboa DVD tonight. It was a 2006 release from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Columbia Pictures, and Revolution Studios. It was written and directed by Sylvester Stallone who also stars as the central character of Rocky Balboa. The film has a running time of 101 minutes. I thought it started off quite slow and was wishing it'd pick up the pace any number of times. Stallone wrote and directed the movie and it was quite obvious he intended this movie to reach back and pay homage to the early and best Rocky movies. He might have done that just a wee bit too long but this was definitely the movie to do it in. I say this because Rocky Balboa works better than any movie in the Rocky series since the first. At the end of the movie I wanted it to keep on going--and that's the best compliment you can give a movie. The fight scenes in Rocky Balboa are better than any of the other Rocky movies--including the first. It's amazing that Stallone can get in that kind of shape ...

I did watch that last DVD, Infamous , last night and I'm very glad I did. It was very well written, even better acted, and a lot of fun. If you're not familiar with the movie, it's about Truman Capote during the period in his life in which he was researching his book In Cold Blood . In the movie, Capote (Toby Jones) develops a relationship with murderers Dick Hickock and Perry Smith from the time they were first arrested right through their execution. Parallel to this is Capote's struggles to put the experience down in words. The use of his childhood friend, Nelle Harper Lee (Sandra Bullock), to define his struggle is inspired. Many of the statements each Lee and Capote uses about the other are mirrored in their own work and artistic struggle. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek comments and witty conversation along the way but the movie's poignancy is reflected largely in this small collection of people who are at their pinnacle of achievement and notoriety, two o...

Yesterday I spent a fair amount of time in front of the tube while eating burritos made with sweet Italian sausage and drinking Sierra Mist. What a day! What did I watch, you ask? Well, an indie movie titled A Little Trip to Heaven and the last 2 episodes of Season 5 of 24 and the first double episode of Season 6 of 24. I was very impressed with the writing of Season 5. I thought it was easily the most cohesive and well thought out of the 5 seasons I've watched so far. Season 6, on the other hand, isn't starting out very well. It's still quite interesting--don't get me wrong--but when the first episode already has huge credibility gaps you really have to wonder about the rest of the season. Of course since the last episode airs tonight --another double episode--I guess I can spend the rest of the week catching up and hoping that the writing improves during the course of the season. I've got 2 or 3 episodes missing but most were recorded. A Little Trip to Heaven i...

I watched the movie Man of the Year tonight on DVD. I wasn't really expecting to like it very much 'cause I'd seen a number of reviews reviling it for being so uneven. But I was curious so I picked it up from the library this afternoon anyway. The reviewers had it right. This movie is quite uneven and can't decide if it's a comedy, a drama, a spy flick, or a conspiracy movie. And y'know--I really liked it a lot. To me, even if to nobody else, this movie worked from start to finish. I can see someone like Robin Williams working the room during the beginning of a pseudo-campaign and transitioning in just the ways shown here. Barry Levinson, who wrote and directed this movie, is pitch perfect as he moves Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams), a comedy talk show host, through his paces on political, comedic and personal fronts. It is at times low key, at other times divisive, but it targets the political flaws in our system quite well with only rare sermonizing. Not a bad job...

I watched the DVD of the latest Bond flick, Casino Royale, tonight. I was hoping I'd like it but really didn't know what to expect. I saw the original version of Casino Royale when I was a kid and in general don't like the Bond franchise. I'm happy to say that I thought this was the best Bond film I've seen. I thought the middle dragged a little but I loved the opening of the movie and that first chase scene across the construction site. Hell, for the first time ever in a Bond flick I even enjoyed the background animation going on during the titles. By the way, that initial chase scene used Parkour (similar to Free Running), an unusual physical art in which participants use buildings and other obstructions to facilitate their ability to move from one place to another. It has to be seen to be believed. I read several reviews online of this movie and I'm surprised that not one made note of this. It's the first time I've seen Parkour used so effectively in...