Star Wars: Episode III -- What a letdown!

Okay, I just couldn’t wait to write this one (I've been writing it in my head ever since I saw the movie), so here it is, faithful readers. Long months overdue, I know, but finally I present for your reading (dis)pleasure my viewpoint on the big Star Wars finale, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. And all I can say is, “Wow! What a disappointment!” To be honest I wasn’t really expecting a whole lot, but this movie still managed to be a letdown. I even saw it a second time hoping that a new viewing would give me a better feeling about the movie, but all it did was give me an opportunity to really focus on all the things wrong with it.

Now I’m sure all you diehard Star Wars fans out there are already looking to burn me at the stake, but you’ll just have to get over it. Bottom line, this movie was really mediocre. So let’s get right down to it. What was Episode III’s biggest failing? Well, that would have to be its story. I’m sorry, but George Lucas really did a piss poor job here. And while I’m on the subject, let me pose a question: after it was pretty well established in Attack of the Clones that Mr. Lucas really isn’t much of a romance writer, why on Earth would he choose to make his final Star Wars film a tragic love story??? Because in essence that’s what the movie is; well, what it tries to be, anyways.

The basic premise of the movie is that because of his love for Padme, Anakin Skywalker is manipulated and corrupted by the Emperor to travel down the path of the dark side, in the vain hope of saving her life (after having a vision of her dying, presumably in child birth). Okay, so this isn’t the worst story concept every conceived, I’ll grant you that. But George Lucas simply doesn’t pull it off. And I don’t necessarily think it’s because he’s a bad writer (because I don't); I think the problem lies in the fact that this simply isn’t his genre. And what really annoyed me is that this is really a departure from how things had developed in the second movie. In Attack of the Clones we see Anakin struggling to control his anger, and growing frustrated with how he feels the Jedi Council is limiting his development as a Jedi. Now I thought this was a great premise to start his downward path to becoming Darth Vader -- he is consumed by his rage and his desire for power. And there were some elements in Revenge of the Sith that could have played towards this end, but none of them are used.

For example, early on in the film Anakin and Padme discuss her pregnancy, and their fears of what would happen if the Council discovered the truth. Okay, you’ve got a perfect setup RIGHT THERE for where to take the movie. Let the Jedi Council discover that Anakin knocked up Padme, and have him thrown out of the Jedi. At which point, the Emperor steps in, offering to train him in things far beyond anything the Jedi would have shown him. This plays in to both Anakin’s anger at the Jedi Council for throwing him out, and his quest for greater power. From there you set up the scene where Padme tells him she cannot follow him down the path he is following, and at that point he embraces the Emperor’s quest to wipe out the Jedi, fueled by his rage and his sense of betrayal by the woman he loves.

But there's no follow through to this scene at all (making you wonder why the hell it's even in there. Obi-Wan very much says at one point that he knows Anakin is the father of Padme's baby, but absolutely nothing comes of it). So what do we get instead? We get Anakin on his knees crying and moaning because he’s just killed Mace Windu, followed not five minutes later by him ruthlessly slaughtering little kids like they were nothing. What?!? You have got to be kidding me. The entire way that was developed was completely unbelievable as far as I’m concerned. And while we’re on the subject of unbelievable, let’s talk about Hayden Christensen’s performance. Wow, was that not to be believed (and I mean that very much in a bad way). Sadly, this boy just doesn’t have a whole lot of range as an actor. He did a pretty good job playing the angry adolescent in the second movie, but he simply couldn’t believably portray the depth and range of emotion necessary to show Anakin’s descent into darkness. While I mostly blame the story for making this descent unconvincing, the acting seriously made it worse.

And let’s talk about that horrible (and unintentionally funny) scene at the end where the newly masked Darth Vader does his best Frankenstein’s monster impersonation when he breaks free from the lab table he’d been strapped to. That had to be one of the most blatant, cheesy, B-movie scenes I’ve ever seen in my life (I saw more convincing drama in House of Wax, for crying out loud!). That scene was just plain sad.

So after all that criticism, what was good about the movie? Sadly, not much. As is to be expected from a Star Wars movie, the visual effects were pretty damned stunning, and the battle scenes were great to watch, what little of them there were. And that brings up another problem with this movie – we so got ripped off as far as the Clone Wars go. They made this big deal in the hype leading up to the movie about the Wookies showing up, and there being a battle on their home planet. Well, we got the battle, sure enough, but it needed to be about three times longer! You’re just really getting into the fight when suddenly we cut to a different scene. And then we’ve got all the scenes on the various planets where the Jedi get wiped out. There were some really interesting and cool looking planets, but we hardly get to see them for more than 30 seconds (just long enough to see the Jedi in question shot repeatedly in the back before we move quickly on to the next one). It’s like the actual war and the death of the Jedi was completely secondary to Anakin crying about not letting his wife die. We don’t even really get to see them fight back, for Christ’s sake! Hell, we see a youngling barely into his teens fight off more Clone Troopers before he gets killed than ANY of the experienced Jedi do. What a joke! There’s so much potential for some great science fiction battles on exotic planets, to see the Jedi using their powers and going out fighting, and it’s completely skipped over and rushed through so we can get back to Hayden Christensen trying to show emotional depth – and failing (but hey, we have to get back to those scenes, because we all know that dialogue is really George Lucas’ strong point, now don’t we?).

So let the flaming begin. Feel free to tell me that I have no idea what I’m talking about, that George Lucas is a creative genius whose story decisions are not to be questioned. Hell, Kevin Smith was actually bold enough to compare Episode III to Shakespeare! I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but George Lucas is NO William Shakespeare, and Episode III doesn’t even come close to Othello or Hamlet. And what about your friends and mine, the movie critics? Most of them actually rained praise down on the film. One frightening individual (who will remain nameless) even had the audacity to call it the best episode of the six (and I think that’s pushing it even for Star Wars fans – there’s no way you can compare the prequels with the originals). Not all of them feel this way, however. And while I normally won’t quote movie critics directly, I do have to post comments made by Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News (this was pulled from the review for the movie on imdb, which can be found here). “The dialogue is astonishingly feeble, the acting unforgivably wooden,” she writes. Boy does she hit the nail on the head. A number of other critics also criticized the dialogue (but that’s not something I generally make much an issue of, since that’s been the case for all three of the prequels – which is a real shame, considering the original trilogy brought us such wonderful and memorable lines as, “Boring conversation anyways. Luke, we’re gonna have company!” God, I love that line! That whole scene rocked). My complaint with the final film isn’t so much with the dialogue, as with the story as a whole. Mr. Lucas, you could have done so much better.

And with that I will close. I encourage any Star Wars fans out there who might read this to please leave a comment or three giving me your take on the finale to the Star Wars saga. I’d love to see a few good fiery rebuttals to my comments above.

The Summer Movie Season Begins!

So we’ve reached the first weekend of May, and the beginning of the summer blockbuster season (does anyone but me remember back when the summer season didn’t start until Memorial Day Weekend???). The first movie of the year hoping to achieve summer stardom is Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. On the surface, this movie has everything going for it (at least from my perspective): Ridley Scott is a phenomenal director, star Orlando Bloom is always good, and it’s a historical epic (very much one of my favorite types of movies). It even has the critics on its side; most of them gave it pretty positive reviews. So does it make the grade? In my not-so-humble opinion, the answer is sadly, no. While visually compelling and filled with some wonderful battle scenes and some great scenic shots, the story is sadly lacking.

I think my biggest complaint would have to be lack a real character development. As the story unfolds, we never really get close enough to the characters to understand their motivations, Orlando Bloom’s character especially. He has the opportunity to marry a woman that he clearly has feelings for (and in the process save thousands of innocent lives by preventing a European tyrant from taking control of Jerusalem), and he inexplicably turns it down. I’m sorry, but that’s a win-win situation any way you look at it. Supposedly his loyalty to his dead wife has something to do with his decision, but you really don’t get to know his character well enough to find this believable. Especially when he ends up with the woman at the end of the movie anyways. It just doesn’t come across as believable or compelling – Orlando simply comes across as weak-willed and pathetic in my view. But of course this is then contradicted by the way he puts himself in harm’s way to defend Jerusalemwhen it is attacked by the natives (which is sadly ironic considering that he could have prevented the entire attack simply by getting married to a really hot woman that he'd already fooled around with).

I don’t know if this is caused by Orlando Bloom not delivering a solid enough performance (a number of critics very much criticized his performance and questioned his ability to pull off this sort of role, but I have a hard time believing that considering how good a job he’s done in previous films), or simply the result of a poorly written script that didn’t leave him with much to work with, but the end result is a disappointing movie that you just don’t feel drawn into. When I go to see a movie (especially an epic film like this), I want to feel like I’m being pulled into the story, like I’m a part of it all along with the characters in the film. With Kingdom of Heaven, I really felt like I was just a spectator, watching events unfold in front of me without really feeling a part of them. And I think having that connection to the characters, and to the events they are a part of, is what makes a really great film. So while Kingdom of Heaven was enjoyable to watch, I just didn’t feel drawn into it enough to consider it to be a great movie (but it certainly did a better job than a certain highly-anticipated blockbuster that followed it – but I’ll go into that in a later entry).

The other movie opening wide that first weekend in May (well, the other one that I saw, anyways), was far, far from having any sort of blockbuster potential, but was still quite a bit of fun to watch. And that movie would be the remake of House of Wax. Okay, let me get this out of the way first and foremost, since it seemed to be the main topic of conversation for anyone discussing the film – Paris Hilton doesn’t do that bad a job in the movie (none of the critics seemed to have watched any part of the movie except for the scene where Paris gets killed, since that this is about the only thing they talk about in their reviews of the movie – which is pretty pathetic considering she’s not even the main character of the movie, but that’s movie critics for you. Of course, to be completely fair, the only movie reviews I generally read are on imdb, and they simply pull comments from various critics into one overall review, so it could simply be a case that imdb only grabbed comments about Paris's role, and the critics really did have other things to say about the movie). Admittedly, the role Paris is playing (slutty blonde girl) is hardly a stretch for her, but considering how badly I’ve seen this clichéd role overdone in numerous B horror movies, I have to say that she actually did a very believable job with the character. And watching her run around in lacy red bra and panties certainly wasn’t a bad thing. :-)

I have to say, I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. While hardly Shakespeare, it was actually pretty well done for what it was. Now I’ll be the first to say that the original was enough of a classic that it certainly didn’t need a remake, but the creators of the new version did a pretty good job. Most importantly, I think they were successful in not taking themselves too seriously, and kept the movie from becoming too much of a cliché (of course, these types of movies are by their very nature pretty cliche, but this one is certainly no worse than any others in this genre). All the performances were pretty good, and there weren’t too many places where the story was glaringly unbelievable. The only problem I had when watching it wasn’t actually the movie’s fault – at the crappy theatre I saw it in (there are times I so hate Carmike Cinemas), the damned projector bulb went out right at the start of the climactic final scene, and by the time they got it fixed, we’d missed about two-thirds of the big fight with the bad guy (and of course the geniuses running the theatre couldn’t be bothered to back the film up so we could see what we’d missed. They already had our money, so what did they care?).

So if you’re a fan of cheesy B horror movies, I’d say that House of Wax is a must-see. And if you’re not, well then don’t waste your time with it, as it’s not your type of movie (unless of course you really just want to see Paris Hilton die in gruesome (and I do mean gruesome) fashion). I don't know that I'll buy it (unless I can get it for $5 or something), but I'm tempted to rent it, if for no other reason than to see the part of the climax that I missed at the theatre.

The second weekend of May brought us four new releases, but I only got around to seeing one of them (I really wanted to see MindHunters, but sadly it wasn't given a wide enough release to reach Montana, so I'm going to have to catch it on DVD). The one movie I did see was the Jet Li action/crime movie Unleashed. Admittedly, the concept of a man raised as an attack dog is a little over-the-top, but this movie was just fun to watch. The fight scenes are great, the entire cast does a phenomenal job (I especially loved Bob Hoskins' performance, but that's not surprising because he's just such a good actor), and for what it is, the story is actually pretty well written. The critics, naturally, hated this movie, but that's why I have basically zero respect for movie critics (you really have to wonder what sort of qualifications a person has to have in order to be a newspaper film critic).

Well, that's it for this entry. Next up, we have the review that you've all been waiting for (okay, it's probably the review you've all been dreading, but watcha gonna do?)– Star Wars: Episode III. And if you haven't guessed by now from various comments I've made in previous entries, faithful readers, I've got a pretty scathing review lined up for this particular gem of a film (feel free to start writing those hate e-mails– I know they're coming). But you're going to have to wait until next time, boys and girls. Until then!!

End of April

So slowly but surely I'm catching up. Only two and three-quarter months left catch up on!! We close April off with two fun-filled movies (one of which was definitely more enjoyable than the other, however) – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and xXx: State of the Union (which will be referred to as xXx 2 for the rest of the entry, since it’s a lot less to type). Now before I give my own reviews of these movies, I decided to go back through imdb’s movie news archives to read the reviewer clips for the movies that were posted when it was released (mainly because I was just reading some of the idiotic comments reviewers had for Madagascar, and so wanted to comment on them (which I will when I get up to Madagascar), that I decided as I go through my movie reviews, I’m going to go back and see what the critics had to say about them, if for no other reason than because I like bad-mouthing movie critics, and this gives me an opportunity to do so (and in case you’re wondering why I’m just now reading reviews for Madagascar, it’s because that’s how far behind I am on my entertainment news – which shows that no, my blog is far from the only thing I’m way, way behind on. Can I just say that moving to a new place and starting fresh with a new job is just a complete pain in the @$$? No wonder it took me 8 ½ years to leave my crappy former job).

So anyways, in reading over the reviews for xXx 2, I have to say I actually agree with most of the critics (shocking, I know, but hey, these things do happen once in a great while). This movie was pretty disappointing, especially compared with the original. The first movie had a fun, original concept – making a secret agent out of an extreme sports athlete with a bad attitude and criminal tendencies. Okay, so it’s possible (and probably likely) that this has been done before, but never in a big budget film (at least not that I can recall). It was very much James Bond with a gritty edge and a modern youth culture sensibility. I especially loved the scene at the beginning where the James Bond wannabe in his tuxedo winds up at a Rammstein concert and sticks out like a sore thumb (and promptly gets himself killed). And Vin Diesel does a great job. So now we come to the sequel, where instead of the character xXx (a nickname for the main character which was tattooed on the back of his neck), we now have the “xXx program” or something silly like that. And to add insult to injury, I guess in the re-release of the original DVD, they actually have a new short film where they KILL OFF the original Xander Cage (a role that had to go to some no name, as not surprisingly they couldn’t get Vin Diesel to do it). That really pissed me off.

So what did I think of Ice Cube? To be honest, he did a pretty good job with the role. And I’ve always liked him as an actor. He definitely has the right attitude for the part. The problem is that his character is a former special forces operative in prison for punching out his superior officer (who not only desperately deserved it, but NATURALLY is the villain of the movie, and so Ice Cube’s character now gets a chance to get back at the guy who got him stuck behind bars). I’m sorry, but how cliché is that?! After the originality of the first film, it was really, really disappointing to see such a lame, been-there-done-that story concept for the sequel. And of course, to make the cliché complete, Samuel L. Jackson’s character makes the comment at the end of the movie that the NEXT xXx needs to be someone with even more attitude – letting us know that the producers have obviously decided to go the route of the old Batman franchise and change lead actors every film (but at least with these it’s a different CHARACTER to go with the new actor, unlike those goofy Batman movies).

One of the big complaints that many critics had was with the climatic ending chase/fight scene on the bullet train. And again I can’t really disagree with them. While fun to watch, it really pushed the bounds of believability way too far, so that after the movie was over, even though the scene was exciting to watch, your post-movie conversations tend to be more focused on how unbelievable and over-the-top it was, instead of how thrilling and action-packed it was. So overall I’d give this movie 3 stars as a pretty good summer action movie (I’m still undecided as to whether or not I’ll get this one on DVD – probably end up waiting until it’s $10 or something), but as the sequel to the original, I’d have to say it was a complete disappointment.

Lucky for me, then, that this weekend’s other movie was nothing short of wonderful. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was just all around fun! I enjoyed every minute of it. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to see it at the theater more than once, but I’m absolutely buying it as soon as it comes out on DVD. The critics had mixed reviews on this one, so we won’t bother with their opinions on the matter. I was most impressed by Mos Def, who did a phenomenal job as Ford Prefect. But this was hardly his first big movie role (he was also great as Left Ear in The Italian Job), so I don’t suppose I should have been surprised by that. The movie is funny and whimsical (much like the original story), the special effects are well done, and the casting was great (Alan Rickman is a riot as the voice of the depressed robot Marvin). And while it’s not the same actor (I had to look on imdb to verify for sure), the voice of the narrator bears a striking resemblance to the voice from the wonderful old BBC mini-series version of the Hitchhiker’s Guide (which I thought was pretty cool, since I'd always liked that voice for the Guide). All in all, just a fun, fun movie!

And so we leave April behind, and move on into May – only a few weeks until the start of the summer blockbusters (disappointing as many of them were). But we'll leave that for our next action-packed, fun-filled entry! :)

Two in one day!!!

Will you look at that – the blog entries just keep on coming! Two in one day!! How amazing is that?! Let’s just hope I can actually maintain this momentum for a little while. So the week following Sin City brought us Sahara. While not a great movie, it was a fun popcorn matinee sort of movie. It wasn't nearly as good as National Treasure, it was certainly a hell of a lot better than the sadly disappointing Lara Croft films (I still want to slap the writer/director of those films completely senseless for screwing up what should have been great movies). Matthew McConaughey does a pretty good job as the hero here, and I’ve always liked Steve Zahn. Admittedly he tends to play the same goofy sort of character in every movie he does, but he’s really good at it, so I don’t see any reason to complain. And of course Penelope Cruz is just nice to watch.

The movie has all things you’d expect from an action/adventure movie – gun fights, chase scenes, lots of action, a fair bit of comedy to lighten things. Sadly, while it has all the elements you’d expect, it doesn’t really have anything to make it unique or original. So while it is enjoyable to watch, there’s really nothing about it to make it stand out from any other movie of this type. I’d probably give it about 3 ½ stars.

Also released this weekend was Fever Pitch, which I need to see one of these days (if for no other reason than I’m a pretty big fan of Drew Barrymore), but I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet.

So on we go to the next weekend (that would be Friday, April 15^th for those of you keeping track). This weekend brought a single wide release (which I don’t even think I got around to seeing until a week or two after it came out), and that would be the absolutely horrid and completely unnecessary remake to The Amityville Horror. This movie stars serious Ryan Reynolds (you can always tell serious Ryan Reynolds from comedy Ryan Reynolds because he has a beard). Sadly, serious Ryan Reynolds really isn’t very impressive as an actor (his role in Blade: Trinity was just terrible!). He doesn’t do too bad a job here, but it’s still nothing all that impressive. The original of this movie was a really good film – very spooky, very atmospheric. This version basically steals elements from every popular horror movie to come out in the last few years (especially the remakes of Japanese horror films that have been so popular lately), and throws them together around the basic story outline of the original film (they still have the audacity to list this one as being “based on a true story,” which is a complete joke). Don’t waste your time or money on this complete waste of a film.

From utter crap we move on to a pretty good political thriller the next weekend – The Interpreter starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn. While I did like this movie, nothing about it really stands out enough for me to remember several months later. This is one of those movies that I enjoyed, and I’m really glad I saw, but it’s not one I think I’d watch more than once or maybe twice, so I probably won’t get it on DVD. I wish I’d done this review months ago so that I could give this movie the write-up that it deserves, but them’s the breaks. Well, I think that’s enough for one entry. More to follow soon.

Sin City ('nough said)

Frank Miller’s Sin City. I have but three little words for it – OH. MY. GOD. This movie was absolutely f*#@ing incredible!!! And to hell with any of the idiotic, useless movie critics out there who thought otherwise. I loved this movie. I saw it like three times before it left the theatres. Visually, it is stunning. The stark black and white interspersed with bits of color really gets your attention. The stories are involving, the characters are interesting and unique, the women are incredibly hot. Admittedly it is very violent, and there a few scenes that I could have done without (for example, Clive Owen forces Benicio Del Toro’s head into a toilet and holds it there for several seconds to intimidate him. When Benicio pulls his head out, he spits out quite a bit of very yellow water, which stands out all the more since everything else in the scene is black and white). Even the more vulgar, distasteful scenes, though, still very much fit into the theme and mood of the film, so you can appreciate their being in the movie, even if you don’t really enjoy watching them.

I especially like the ending of the movie, which ties in well with the beginning of the film to really complete the stories and tie everything together. The movie certainly isn’t for everyone, but if you like gritty, dark, violent pulp fiction, then you’ll love this movie. I can’t wait for this to come out on DVD. However, to be fair, there are a few negatives. While most of the performances are pretty damned good, Bruce Willis kind of looks like he’s just going through the motions at times. Also, this being pulp fiction, some of the dialogue is pretty over the top. Michael Madsen especially (who’s generally a great actor that I really like) seems to have trouble delivering some of the lines, and they come out kind of flat. But these minor faults can certainly be forgiven in what is overall a fantastic film.

And of course no conversion about Sin City would be complete without talking about the women in the movie. Jessica Alba not surprisingly is incredibly sexy, and gives a wonderful performance. She is just all around a great actress. Alexis Bledel also does a great job with her character (and she's REALLY cute). Rosario Dawson is really fun to watch (and has a couple of great lines), and Jaime King and Brittany Murphy do passable jobs with the roles that they have (although both have somewhat smaller roles). My absolute favorite, though, has to be Devon Aoki’s silent killer prostitute Miho. She is just so cool!

Well, I’ve probably gushed enough about this wonderful, incredible movie. I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who’ll disagree with me, but as far as I’m concerned this is without question the best movie so far this year. It’s worth seeing over and over and over again. Of course, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is out today (I'll definitely be seeing that this weekend), so we’ll have to see how it compares. I’m a big enough fan of Johnny Depp, Tim Burton, and the original story and movie that I fully expect this one to give Sin City a good run for its money (and maybe in a few weeks or so when I actually get caught up with my blog, I’ll be able to tell you how they compare).

Oh, one final note. While checking out imdb’s entry on Sin City (to make sure I spelled everyone’s name correctly), I noticed an entry for Sin City 2 that says it’s supposedly due out in 2006. We can only hope!!!

A new post!! Oh my God! Is it really possible?!?

So after a good 3 months (God, has it really been that long?!) without an update, I’m finally getting around to writing a new entry. I do feel kind of bad about going so long without writing anything, but considering that my blog is only one of a long list of things that I’ve fallen behind on because of my move and new job (and further delayed by my purchase of a new computer that I needed to build, install, and then setup with all my programs,data, etc.), I don’t feel too bad about the delay. Of course, I’m looking over the long list of movies I’ve seen since my last review (which sadly is even further back than my last blog entry), and I’m suddenly realizing just what a daunting task I have getting caught up.

My memory being what it is, there’s pretty much no way I’m going to recall all the movies I’ve seen in the last several months. So I went to my favorite site for movie release information, Greg’s Previews at Yahoo Movies. With that list in hand, I guess I’ll just start at the beginning, and work my way through to the present. It’ll probably take me several entries (and some movies, such as Star Wars: Episode III and Sin City, pretty much require their own entries), but I’ll get there. Promise.

As I’m sure you’ll recall (and if not, here’s your reminder), my last actual movie review was waaaaay back on Monday, March 7^th, when I discussed The Pacifier and The Jacket (both of which are already out on DVD, for God’s sake). So let’s just go from there to the next weekend’s movies, which about as polar opposites as you’re likely to find. First we have a fun, family-friendly animated film. Then we have a very dark, intensely violent action thriller. The first movie would of course be Robots, from the animators who gave us Ice Age. While not as good as Pixar’s films (but that pretty much goes without saying – NOBODY makes animated films like Pixar!), and not quite as good as the Shrek movies, it’s still quite the enjoyable movie. There’s plenty of humor to keep the parents amused (without getting vulgar or adult with the humor, as lame supposed kids’ movies like Cat in the Hat stooped to), and plenty of action and fun for the kiddies to laugh at and enjoy. All in all I think I’d give it 4 stars. Definitely a fun time for the whole family. On the flip side of that, we have the Bruce Willis kidnapping thriller Hostage. While one of my buddies will certainly disagree with me (you know who you are), I have to say I much preferred the more straight forward Assault on Precinct 13 remake. While it had its violent moments, it didn’t have the dark quality or the intensity to the violence that Hostage had. Now don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoyed the movie and I'm glad I saw it, and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys thrillers and doesn’t mind violence, but I don’t know that it’s a movie I’d watch more than once or twice. Assault on Precinct 13, on the other hand, I could watch repeatedly (either version of the movie, as far as that goes). I’d go into more detail on the films, but it’s been long enough since I’ve seen them that I don’t remember more than the broad strokes (guess that’s what I get for ignoring my blog for so damned long!). But I would certainly recommend both movies (to VERY different audiences, however).

Well, while I’m on a roll with this thing, let’s jump right into the next movie weekend, shall we? So back to Greg’s Previews to see what was playing the weekend of March 18^th. Well, what do you know, we once again have two very different movies opening. First we have the Michelle Trachtenberg film Ice Princess, and then we have the sequel to a Japanese horror movie remake, The Ring Two. I have to say, I really like Michelle Trachtenberg. But no, I didn’t actually go and see Ice Princess (I have my pride, after all). Which is not to say I won’t see it eventually. So let’s move on to The Ring Two. While I won’t say it was a complete waste of time, I do have to admit that I was pretty disappointed with it, especially considering that they got the director of the original Japanese Ring series, Hideo Nakata (a true genius of the horror movie genre as far as I’m concerned). It just didn’t have the punch of the original movie. It had its creepy moments, but didn’t really have the frights of the original, and the story sadly could have used a little work. Also, the film was missing Daveigh Chase, who brilliantly played Samara in the original movie (and did the voice of Lilo in Lilo & Stitch, surprisingly enough). So I think if I were to rate it, I’d give it 2 ½, maybe 3 stars.

The rest of March featured a handful of crappy looking comedies, none of which I bothered to go see. So this is probably a good place to stop (so that I can get this thing posted!). Plus, our next movie to be reviewed is the absolute best movie of the year so far (including the summer blockbusters I’ve seen so far), Sin City (which is very much getting its own blog entry)!! I loved this movie so much that with the possible exception of Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, I don’t expect it to get knocked off the top of the list for this year’s movies until Serenity comes out in September (I fully expect Joss Whedon to completely blow away the rest of the competition for the year – God knows he could teach a certain other sci-fi writer/director a few things about putting together a decent story. But I'll go more into that when that particular movie gets its scathing review). So that’s it for now. I will try my best to continue diligently pushing forward with my blog entries, so hopefully you’ll get to see more of my glowing praise for Sin City very soon.

Oh, and in case nobody noticed, to make up for my horrid, inexcusable delay in getting a new post out, I’ve added a new feature to the blog (well, I'll try and remember to do it for every new entry) – I will now be linking all actor/actress names and movie titles to imdb (only the greatest movie information site in the whole world). Later!!