Been a while since I posted up some movie reviews, so here’s some from various movies and DVD’s we’ve seen lately:
Casanova - I was kind of expecting something quite different than what this actually was. For starters, it has an R rating, but where is the nudity? I mean, this is a movie about the legendary lover Casanova!! Come on, show some skin! Secondly, this is really a comedy, and not a historical piece. The history is pretty much all wrong. But as a comedy, this movie is pretty frickin’ hilarious. I laughed a lot while sitting through this. If you like romantic comedies with quite a bit of sexual innuendo (but no actual, you know, sex), and comedies about identity hijinks, you will probably like this. If you’re a big fan of Venice, you will enjoy the scenery in this movie, which was pretty beautiful. 6.5/10
National Treasure: Book of Secrets - basically, not much to say here. A typical action/adventure/mystery type thriller. if you like things like Tomb Raider, The Mummy, Indiana Jones, or especially the first National Treasure movie, you are in the target audience. It is basically eye and ear candy for 2 hours with some humor and thrills and amounts to basically nothing at the end of it. It will not change your life or make you think or give you any new enlightenment about this crazy thing called life. But it probably will entertain you, if you like that sort of thing. I liked it, and overall only 1 or 2 things bothered me, easily overlooked (that I can’t mention without spoilers). Not sure as it’s “must-see-in-the-theater” type movie, probably if you’re not sure about it save it for a rental. 7.5/10
RV - Robin Williams takes his family on a road trip in a rented RV. Hilarity ensues. Really not much to say here except I was laughing pretty much non stop for the whole movie. None of it was dirty humor or druggie humor or stupid ass humor either, just clean, rolling on the floor humor. If you liked National Lampoon’s Vacation, The Great Outdoors, and movies of that sort, you will most likely find this movie funny and charming. 8/10
Bobby Z - this movie is quite possibly one of the worst movies I’ve seen since Syriana. It’s not even a “so bad it’s good” kind of bad, it’s just, bad. The ending totally sucked. Could have been a decent story without such a cop-out ending. Fishburn writes in his role here, I was disappointed, he can act way better than this. Then they try and throw in some huggy feely shit near the end, which ruins what might have been a great little balls-out action movie if they’d have put a few more cajones into it. Blech. 5/10
Good Night and Good Luck - Great A+ level acting, I couldn’t even tell who half the actors were they were so authentic, even Clooney didn’t stand out as his typical Clooney persona. This film is 100% black & white, to get the feel of the era, which was off putting at first but eventually I got to like it that way. This is the story of how a TV news show team takes on Senator Joseph McCarthy during the infamous communist senate hearings era. If you have no idea what I’m talking about you need to read up on this era in US history, it is highly relevant today and serves as a warning as to just how perilous freedom really is, even in the so called Land of the Free. A few bits of this could have been cut out to make it shorter and more to the point. It clocks in at 93 minutes which is short by today’s standards, but I feel a movie of this nature needs to be short to keep people focused on the issue. 8.5/10
The Sopranos, Season 6 - Well, this was… an ending, I guess. I liked about half the episodes of this season, the rest just seemed like WTFiller. If you asked me what I think about Sopranos I have to say I absolutely love this show overall, but I didn’t really think that Season 6 added much to the whole thing. There are a few key moments that really had that awesome Sopranos edge to it, and those are must-see for any fans of the series. Unfortunately the whole season isn’t like that but it’s still worth a view for sure. If you’re expecting everything to get all wrapped up nice and neat with a earth shattering finale, well, don’t expect that, you’ll just be disappointed. If you have never watched Sopranos you should start with Season 1 Disc 1 because you absolutely can not start in the middle and know what the fuck is happening. This is the most realistic authentic feeling mafia show you’ll ever see in some ways, and in other ways it’s ridiculous, but it’s a wonderful ride. Overall series gets a 10/10 for me, I gotta be loyal to “the family” ;-P, but this season, especially with its “ending” gets a 8/10
Fred Claus - Vince Vaughn is Santa Claus’s older, forgotten brother and he resents St. Nick’s good nature and how his parents love little Nick more than Fred. This movie is pretty much fluff, but it’s a pretty funny popcorn movie to go see if you just want a light laugh having something to do with Christmas. There are better Christmas movies out there and there are better comedies out there. Vaughn is fairly low-key in this, not his usual over-the-top assholishness (ala The Breakup). If you hate Vince Vaughn, this movie won’t change your mind. Overall we were more or less entertained, but not wowed. 7/10
Firewall - harrison ford, predicatble plot, he did this same movie already in an airplane i think. family is taken hostage, he’s a bank security guru and has to help the thugs steal 100 million and keep his family alive. too many dull moments talking about boring computer security shit that isn’t even real computer security shit. i am glad we waited to rent this instead of going to see it at the movies like she wanted. oh well, i watched one of her movies so i get to pick next. oh and the blu-ray version of it isn’t impressive at all, looks about like a DVD. 6.5/10
The Aviator - i wasn’t really surprised at this, because i always thought he was an above average actor, but Leo DiCaprio does a smash up job as airplane/movie mogul Howard Hughes in this biographical movie. supporting acting is also top notch. This movie was long. 2 hrs 50 min. A bit too long. And they concentrated a bit too much on his mental illness (they lingered too long on those scenes is what I mean). the scenes involving airplanes and aviation were fantastic. the babes are all pretty hot also. the movie doesn’t cover his whole life, tho, and really only concentrates on a short window where he made his fortunes and ultimate decline in health. his later years after 1947 are not covered at all, and the movie doesn’t explain how he learned to fly or how he knew so much about aviation. some time spent on his formative years would have been nice, and maybe some bits on possible triggers for his mental illness which began to impact his life dramatically later in life. all in all, he was a man of strong character (or is portrayed as such in this film) in some ways, and not in others, but most of all his life was very interesting. 8.5/10
Black Hawk Down - saw the Blu-ray of this yesterday. pretty intense, lots of cool urban warfare stuff. lots and lots of killing. pretty hard to believe our military did such a clusterfuck on that thing (if the movie is a true interpretation of the events). what seemingly should have been a simple smash and grab turned into a day/night long battle. lot of testosterone and people doing stupid things in the name of honor and bravery. overall it was well worth watching again, especially since this is the first time i saw it in HD. 8.5/10
Kung-Fu Hustle - i almost turned this off after about 20 minutes of it seemingly going nowhere and just being really stupid. man am i glad i didn’t. this is one of those really slow starters but once it got going it was absolutely hilarious and the action was over the top of cool. completely unrealistic, sure, but awesome. really a neat little movie. i think the dubbing in places was pretty awful but other than that it was well worth a view. 8/10 (could have been higher if it hadn’t been such a slow starter)
The internets are ablaze with Nerd Rage over the latest 
$3.50