Kataude Mashin Garu (The Machine Girl) (2008)

Ami (Minase Yashiro) is a typical college girl. She's bright, friendly, popular and athletic, with nothing to set her apart from other girls her age other than the fact that she is an orphan, left to care for her younger brother when her father committed suicide after being falsely accused of murder. But while there is tragedy in their past, the siblings' future looks good, except for one thing. Ami's brother has racked up a considerable debt to another boy at school, and that boy just happens to be the heir to a clan of vicious ninja-yakuza. Ami's brother can't pay, violence breaks out and in the course of trying to avenge her brother, Ami is captured by the clan. They torture her and hack her arm right off. Ami escapes, barely alive, and is taken in by the owners of a machine shop who build her a customized, bullet-spewing arm. From that point, hiarity ensues as the quest for revenge is on in earnest.

Trivia: The yakuza family preys to Hanza Hattori, in Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Hattori Hanzo is a highly regarded maker of swords.

I have no idea what brought me to this movie but it was very funny. Let me tell you up front. This movie is not subtle and doesn't pretend to be. It was over the top grusome with blood spraying everywhere like a fire hose. But it is so over the top that you laugh. Of course Minase Yashiro is very pretty and she spends 90% of the movie in that little school girl outfit so that is all good. And with that I think I will leave you with two words...Drill Bra.

The Dark Knight (2008)

One year has passed since Batman (Christian Bale) stopped Ra's Al Ghul's plan to have Gotham eliminated and the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Jonathan Crane AKA the Scarecrow, and after the city was nearly plundered with his toxins. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) and his vigilante alter-ego the Batman (Christian Bale), continue the seemingly endless effort to bring order to Gotham, with the help of Lt. James Gordon (Gary Oldman) and newly appointed District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), a new white knight in Gotham. But a new threat has now emerged into the streets. Hilarity ensues as The Dark Knight (Christian Bale) faces a rising psychopathic criminal called The Joker (Heath Ledger), whose eerie grin, laughter, and inhuman morality makes him as dangerous as what he has yet to unleash. It becomes an agenda to Batman (Christian Bale) to stop the mysterious Joker (Heath Ledger) at all costs, knowing that both of them (Christian Bale and Heath Ledger) are on opposite sides. One has no method at all and seeks to see the world plunge into the fire he has yet to light and the other is the Joker (Heath Ledger) [Okay, Just kidding]. One represents the symbol of hope and uses his own shadow to bring the peace and order he has yet to accomplish doing.

Trivia: This is the first Batman film to not have "Batman" in the title. As a joke, one bat suit was made with nipples, as in Batman & Robin. It was presented to Christian Bale as the real bat suit, but he knew instantly it was a joke, having seen a few design pictures during preproduction. He did pose for some publicity photos in the "nipple" suit. When asked, "Why Heath Ledger as the Joker?" Christopher Nolan said, "Because he's fearless." While filming on the streets of Chicago in April 2007, the filming was carried out under the fake movie title "Rory's First Kiss" named after Christopher Nolan's son Rory. Fliers regarding the filming carried this fake title, complete with a fake "RFK" logo for the movie and an address for the film's production offices. To prepare for his role as the Joker, Heath Ledger lived alone in a hotel room for a month, formulating the character's psychology, posture and voice (the last one he found most difficult to do). He started a diary, in which he wrote the Joker's thoughts and feelings to guide himself during his performance. He was also given Alan Moore's comic "Batman: The Killing Joke" and "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" to read. Ledger also took inspiration from A Clockwork Orange's Alex and Sid Vicious. It's Sir Michael Caine's opinion that Heath Ledger beat the odds and topped Jack Nicholson's Joker from Batman: "Jack was like a clown figure, benign but wicked, maybe a killer old uncle. He could be funny and make you laugh. Heath's gone in a completely different direction to Jack, he's like a really scary psychopath. He's a lovely guy and his Joker is going to be a hell of a revelation in this picture." Caine bases this belief on a scene where the Joker pays a visit to Bruce Wayne's penthouse. He'd never met Ledger before, so when Ledger arrived and performed he gave Caine such a fright he forgot his lines. Bruce Wayne develops and wears a new Batsuit in the film. This Batsuit was an improvement on the outfit from Batman Begins, and made Christian Bale more comfortable and agile in his performance. It was constructed from 200 unique pieces of rubber, fibreglass, metallic mesh, and nylon (producing an impression of sophisticated technology), with elastic banding added for tightening the costume to fit Bale. The gauntlets had their razors made retractable and able to be fired. The suit's cowl was based on a motorcycle helmet and separated from the neck piece, allowing Bale to move his head left/right/up/down, and comes equipped with white eye lenses for when Batman turns on Bat-sonar. The Joker make-up was composed of three pieces of stamped silicone, which took less than an hour to apply to Heath Ledger on each day of shooting. Ledger described it as "new technology which is much quicker to apply than regular prosthetics"; he felt he was not wearing any make-up at all. In only 6 days of release, The Dark Knight made more money than Batman Begins entire domestic run.

Geez it has been a long time since I wrote a review. I am going to save comments about Heath Ledger until later. Currently The Dark Knight sits on the IMDb Top 250 Movies list at the lofty position of 3. This is actually a slip for it since from the first days of the movie it sat at number 1. So is it the best movie ever made? Probably not. But it was damn good and fun to watch. The length got a little long towards the end but though I thought about it, I didn't look at my watch. There was action through out and they kept you at the edge of your seat. The actors. Christian Bale turned in a servicable Batman. Gary Oldman as Detective Gordon was good. Maggie Gyllenhaal was way better then Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. Aaron Eckhart turned in a good Harvey Dent/Two Face. Which brings me to a point. The two villians. Batman movies in the past have suffered from multiple villians. Heck, comic book movies in general usually do (See Spider Man 3) and this movie is no different. If I could have gotten rid of anything it would have been Two Face. Don't get me wrong, the movie did a whole lot better with the two then the franchise had earlier and Two Face's story worked in well with the rest but this movie was all Joker and could have easiler been only Joker and survived just as well. Two Face could have been saved for the next movie. So this brings me back to Heath Ledger. This is his movie, don't even think otherwise. He ownes the movie from start to finish. The scenes with him just seem better. I was waiting for him to come back on screen. Jack Nicolson owned the Joker back in 89, but Heath Ledger performed a hostile takeover. The darkness of these movies compared to the Batmans in the 90's also really helped. Heath got to play an infinitely scarrier Joker then Jack did. It is a shame Ledger passed away. The Joker could have definitely been in another movie.

By the way, I actually got to see this with a bunch of friends in a fancy old style theater (with decorations and stuff from a bygone era) and an organist in Oakland, California. It was an awesome way to see it. And I plan to take my brother to the Imax version sometime soon. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Dirty Harry (1971)

1971. San Francisco is under the terrorizing eye of a psychopathic sniper called Scorpio, who claims in one of his written letters to the SFPD, that he will keep killing until his demands are made. Inspector 'Dirty' Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) is a no nonsense San Francisco police officer with his own ideas of how to handle police work. Callahan has a reputation of losing partners and is not to happy when he is assigned a new partner for the Scorpio case. It becomes a menacing task for Callahan, as he's been assigned to apprehend the menacing killer at all cost. Hilarity ensues as the case later unravels into a cat-and-mouse game between the two men. One killer with a sinister, distasteful laugh. The other, a killer with a badge.

Trivia: The title role was originally intended for Frank Sinatra who had to pull out because of a hand injury. The script then passed to Paul Newman, who also turned it down but said it would be a perfect vehicle for Clint Eastwood. Audie Murphy was first approached to play the Scorpio Killer, but he died in a plane crash on May 28, 1971 before his decision on the offer could be made. It is widely accepted that this movie was loosely based on the events surrounding the Zodiac Killer who was actively killing people in San Francisco at the time. After Harry has foiled the bank robbery at the beginning of the film, he strides over to the one surviving robber. In doing so, he walks in front of a theatre which is showing Play Misty for Me, which Eastwood directed and starred in. The final scene where Harry throws his badge in the river is a homage to a similar scene from High Noon. Although Harry was supposed to use a Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Mag, the actual gun used was the Model 57 in .41 Magnum. All the outdoor scenes were actually filmed in San Francisco except for the bank robbery which Dirty Harry foils, when he first utters his immortal phrase, "Do you feel lucky?" This scene was shot on a set. A police department in the Philippines ordered a print of the movie for use as a training film. In the final scene, Clint Eastwood really did throw his badge into the quarry pond. The SFPD issued another badge with the same number to replace it.

"I know what you're thinking. 'Did he fire six shots or only five?' Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" This is probably one of the most recognized movie quotes of all time and it really shows you Callahan's character. He is blunt, he is cynical, and his methods are definitely unorthodoxed, but he gets the job done and as long as justice prevails the ends justify the means. This is one of the founding films for this type of cop, the hard, rugged loner who always seems to be in trouble with his superiors, but it is also a kind of subgenre of lone lawmen that has been around in Westerns for decades. The problem now, and I think I have mentioned it before, is that I didn't see it when it came out (I was one and Mom and Dad wouldn't take me, dangit!), so I didn't get to see it as a groundbreaking movie. It is a very good cop movie, but I have seen movies like it before. This lowers the mental impact a movie like this should have given me. Sometimes, well most of the time, seeing an older movie like this really impresses me and I marvel on how good they made movies back in the day as it were, but Dirty Harry was just good, not mindblowing good or anything like that. Maybe after reviewing so many movies I am starting to get more cynical, or hopefully, just more discerning and selective as to what a "great" movie is.

Classic Hilarity Ensues: A Look Back

Today I am reposting one of my favorite reviews ever. I had a lot of fun writing this one. Enjoy - Will P.S. be sure to try out my Super Duper Summer Trivia!

King Kong (1933)

Carl Denham, a film director famous for shooting 'animal pictures' in remote and exotic locations is unable to find an actress to star in his newest project and so is forced to wander the streets searching for a suitable woman. He chances upon a poor girl, Ann Darrow, and convinces her to get on a ship with nothing but men and sail around for at least six weeks with no stops at any ports and be in his picture by buying her dinner. I mean really, just because you buy her dinner doesn't mean you can...ahem, back to the story. The crew sails from New York with only Denham knowing the final destination. He is looking for a mysterious island that is not on the charts. It is Skull Island and it hides a secret, a beast known only as Kong. Meanwhile on the ship, first mate and dastardly devil Jack Driscoll starts to fall in love with Ann and Ann with him. Mmmm...first mate. Denham reveals this movie's theme, beauty and the beast. This is pre-Disney, so no talking teapots. The crew finds the island and land to find a politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical native civilization performing a ritual concerning Kong, I swear one of the natives looked just like Buckwheat from the Little Rascals. The natives become fascinated with Ann, the "golden woman" and thinks she would be Kong's type, but the crew returns to the ship with Ann. That night the natives come aboard and kidnap Ann to become the bride of Kong, he has a thing for blondes, I guess. Kong is revealed to be an 18 to 24 foot tall gorilla, depending on where he is at the time, who takes Ann back to his lair for a little jungle fever. A rescue party lead by that cad Driscoll goes to search for Ann, but all are killed by Kong, all that is except that rascal Driscoll who is able to rescue Ann and return to the village. Kong, enraged that some guy would steal his wife goes on a killing spree of the politically incorrect inappropriate stereotypical natives. Denham is able to gas the giant ape and takes him back to New York for some fun. Dubbed "King Kong, the eighth wonder of the world" the great beast is chained to a stage with very strong "chrome steel." When Kong hears that his babe will be married to that scoundrel Driscoll the next day, he goes crazy. Hilarity ensues. Kong searches for Ann who in the mean time has gotten a hotel room with that wretched Driscoll. Kong finds Ann and tries to persuade her to return with him to the island. He says he will clean up the island for her and get rid of all those pesky dinosaurs and he would stop monkeying around with the boys and that they could have a good life together. Ann's answer? Scream. Which seems to be her answer to a lot of things. Kong, feeling boxed in with all the buildings and commuter trains running about, takes Ann to someplace more quiet so they can talk. He has heard the the Empire State Building has a magnificent view so he takes her there. In a classic case of police brutality, the authorities use airplanes to shoot and kill Kong, you know because if you watch Cops, domestic violence is never a good call to get for a cop. Denham then blames Ann for everything with the line, "T'was beauty killed the beast." Typical, blame the woman, if she hadn't been wearing the blonde wig, if she hadn't come on to Kong with all the screaming and the jiggling of her legs and her suggestive dress. That has been happening since Adam and Eve. So the moral of the story: If you gots the Jungle Fever, make sure she is down with it too, or you could end up as a bullet riddled corpse on a New York street, which, come to think about it, isn't that unusual.

Trivia: King Kong's roar was a lion's and a tiger's roar combined and run backwards. Close-ups of the pilots and gunners of the planes that attack Kong were shot in the studio with mock-up planes. The flight commander is director Merian C. Cooper and his observer is producer Ernest B. Schoedsack. They decided to play the parts after Cooper said that since they created Kong, "we should kill the sonofabitch ourselves".

Okay, so I had a little fun with the plot summary above. Everybody knows the plot of this classic movie. King Kong is one of the most recognized, if not the most, character ever created. The movie has had a major influence in film history. It was truely a groundbreaking movie. Movies like Wallace and Gromet: Curse Of The Wererabbit is still using the same techniques that Willis O'Brian used to bring Kong to life. King Kong was the first movie to really give a visual effect a character and identity. Kong comes alive. When we look back on it from our perspective, it is primative and sort of campy, but we still believe Kong is alive and we can connect with him. We still feel sad when he dies at the end of the movie. Not bad for an 18 inch puppet. The movie still stands up to today's mega visual effects movies.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2008)

Good morning and welcome to this special edition of Hilarity Ensues. Today we are celebrating our 3rd blogiversary and we have a special treat for you. I have lined up a special interview. I am really excited about this one but I feel I have to warn you now. We have asked that spoilers be limited as much as possible but our guest is old so he may forget so consider yourself warned. And with that on to the interview.

Hilarity Ensues: I would like to welcome Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. to our blog. Welcome Dr. Jones.

Indiana Jones: Please, call me Indy, the only people who call me Dr. Jones end up being bad guys.

HE: {using my best Sean Connery impression} I thought y'all named the dog Indiana.

IJ: That's funny, did you think that up all by yourself? {mumbles} Geez, if I had a dime for every time someone said that...

HE: Um, okay, Indy. It has been 19 years since we last saw one of your big screen adventures, what have you been doing?

IJ: Well, I have been teaching mostly, I still have some adventures but you know I am getting older, it ain't as easy as it used to be.

HE: What about the War? The last time we saw you was pre-WWII.

IJ: Yeah, I did a few things in the war.

HE: Don't be modest, I heard you describe as a war hero. Well, this time your adventures are in South America, can you give us a little taste?

IJ: Sure, well, you see, there was this cave and when you went in you really had to watch yourself because any false move would get you skewered. I was looking for a golden idol and I was pretty sure it would be booby trapped so I took in a bag of sand, but I miscalculated and when I switched the idol for the bag, I set off the trap and had to get the hell out of there. Then there was this boulder that started to roll...

HE: Um...Indy? I think that was from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

IJ: Was it? I am getting old you know, it ain't as easy as it used to be. That was in South America wasn't it?

HE: Yes, it was. Have you learned to speak Hovitos yet?

IJ: No, I didn't think it was necessary after Belloq died. Okay, where was I?

HE: The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.

IJ: Oh yeah, the crystal skull. Magnificent specimen, made out of seamless quartz, it had dramatic magnetism.

HE: Dramatic Magnetism?

IJ: Well, yeah, you see sometimes it would strongly attract metal, even gunpowder thrown in the air, and sometimes, like riding in the back of a jeep, it would not. Sometimes it would attract things like Dog Tags but leave guns alone. It even attracted gold, which isn't magnetic. All you had to do was drape it in burlap and it was no longer magnetic. That was a nice touch.

HE: Speaking of the crystal skull, what are your thought about leaving biblical legends behind for more far-fetched legends like...well, it is hard to explain without giving it away.

IJ: You mean the alien?

HE: Um, yeah, at least it wasn't me that gave it away.

IJ: You think anybody that has seen the commercials couldn't figure that out? Aliens are everywhere, you can't avoid them, and some of them are better friends then humans. Without Chewy I could never have made that Kessell Run like I did, he was...

HE: Indy? Han? Can we get back to KOTCS? So you aren't worried about the unbelievability of an alien element?

IJ: Heck no, look who wrote the story. George and his space stories have been very good to me. Besides, how believable was a big golden box hidden in a room for thousands of years being able to sustain thousands of live snakes? Or a beautiful French woman being the last descendant of Jesus? Oh wait, wrong grail.

HE: Who is Mutt Williams? And what is this affinity for dog references?

IJ: He is a Johnny Strabler wanna be with his slick backed hair and the comb.

HE: Johnny Strabler?

IJ: Yeah, Marlon Brando, The Wild One? Don't you watch any movies?

HE: I guess I missed that one.

IJ: Anyway Mutt comes to me with a note from Ox, that's Professor Oxley, you should ask him what he thinks about aliens sometimes. Well, Ox was in trouble and Mutt's mother thought I could be of some help.

HE: Who is Mutt's mother?

IJ: Are you sure you want me to say? I mean the spoiler thing you said earlier and all.

HE: If the readers have made it this far, there is no way to stop them now, besides she is in the commercial.

IJ: Okay, Mutt's mother in Marian Ravenwood Williams. You know, from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Ah, Marian. We had fun making this movie. Looks like it is about time for me to go. Thanks for having me, and congratulations on three years.

HE: No, thank you, this has been a pleasure. But before you go I have one more question. In The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, does hilarity ensue?

IJ: What do you mean?

HE: You know, hilarity, does it ensue?

IJ: I don't get it, is this supposed to make sense?

HE: Well, it's kind of me signature gimmick. I also say hilarity ensues some time during the movie.

IJ: Okay, um, oh, that is the name of your blog. Ha, that is pretty funny. Just let me tell your readers. Dear Readers, hilarity ensues from the first minute on. How was that?

HE: Thank you. That was Dr. Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr. And to my wonderful readers, Thank you for your readership, I couldn't do it without you, well, I guess I could, but what would be the point? Thank you for three great years. Be sure to try my current trivia quiz "Father Knows Best"

IMDB Top 250: Iron Man (2008)

Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) is a playboy. He is also the owner of Stark Industries, a company that he inherited from his father. He is also a genius engineer when it comes to making weapons. This is good because Stark Industries is the primary provider of weapons to the U.S. military. On a trip to Afghanistan to show off his new weapons system, Starks convey is attacked and Stark is captured by rebel insurgents. During the attack he is hit by shrapnel and is in danger of dying if the pieces left in his body reach his heart. To counter act this he builds a device that magnetically protects his heart. Meanwhile the insurgents want him to build them a missile system just like the one he was showing off. Hilarity ensues when he decides to build himself a suit, a suit of iron.

Trivia: Rachel McAdams was Jon Favreau's first choice to play Pepper Potts, but she turned the role down. The role eventually went to Gweneth Paltrow. Jon Favreau describes the film as "a kind of independent film-espionage thriller crossbreed; a Robert Altman-directed Superman, with shades of Tom Clancy novels, James Bond films, RoboCop, and Batman Begins." In the comics, Tony Stark participated (and became Iron Man) in the Vietnam War; later this was retconned to the Gulf War. In this film, the character's origin was retconned to Afghanistan, as Jon Favreau did not wish to make the film a period piece but instead give it a realistic contemporary look. Stan Lee, the creator of Iron Man, had originally based Tony Stark on Howard Hughes, whom he felt was "one of the most colourful men of our time: an inventor, an adventurer, a multimillionaire, a ladies man and finally a nutcase." Robert Downey Jr. further described his portrayal of Stark as "a challenge of making a wealthy, establishmentarian, weapons-manufacturing, hard-drinking, womanizing prick into a character who is likable and a hero." To prepare for his role as Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. spent five days a week weight training and practiced martial arts to get into shape. In the scene where Pepper discovers Tony removing the damaged Iron Man armor, you can clearly see Captain America's shield partially constructed on a workbench. This same scene was shown in many trailers, but the image of the shield was edited out. To prepare for his role as Obadiah Stane, Jeff Bridges read some of the "Iron Man" comic books that featured Stane, and grew a goatee and shaved his head (which he said was something he always wanted to do). Gwyneth Paltrow only needed to travel 15 minutes to get to the studio. She claimed that this is a part of the reason she took the role, as she could be home with her two children during the entire shoot. The comic book version of Jarvis is a human, Jeeves-like butler, serving Tony Stark and the Avengers, the superhero team Iron Man helped to found. In the film, Jarvis has been re-imagined as an artificial intelligence. According to Peter David's novelization, "JARVIS" is an acronym that stands for "Just A Really Very Intelligent System."

As I said a few time I think, Marvel Comic adaptations need to be judged on their own merit, compared to other Marvel Comics adaptations. In that context Iron Man is a great film. We aren't talking Oscar worthy or anything but that is not what they were going for. On the other hand, this also fits into the Summer Blockbuster category. It fits well there too. This is just a very fun film to watch. It is amazing what a good actor can do for a film and Robert Downey, Jr. is, among other things, a very good actor. He really makes this film. It just wouldn't be the same without him. Gweneth Paltrow is very cute in her role as Stark's secretary/assistant Pepper Potts (what a great name).

Here are some things to look for: Stan Lee's cameo, he said it was his most fun cameo. Be on the look out for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Engagement and Logistics Division. The characters have fun making fun of it. And by all means, stay till the end after the credits for one last scene, you won't be disappointed.

Remeber to check out my latest quiz (Water Water Everywhere) and send in your answers.

Pathfinder (2007)

When a native woman finds the remains of a viking ship on the shores of North America 500 years before Columbus she find the lone survivor to be a young boy. She adopts him as her own and 15 years later he is at the brink of manhood. That is when hilarity ensues. The Vikings, led by Fran Tarkington, come back and start killing everyone for no apparent reason then they are bigger and stronger and, well, they are Vikings. The only hope for the whole American continent lies on the shoulders of this young man because only he knows the ways of the Viking.

Trivia: Actors wore hockey shoulder pads underneath their viking costume to make them appear larger and fiercer. Despite knowing that the Vikings' helmets didn't historically have large animal horns on them, the film makers decided to add them in anyway. This would work with the modern audiences who have an ingrained stereotype of what a Viking should look like in their mind. Moreover, the horns make the Vikings look more terrifying. The Vikings in the film are actually speaking Icelandic, which is the closest language to old Viking. The Pathfinder's house was constructed around a real tree which was found at the location and had to be re-enforced. The design of the Indian huts was partly inspired by the famous opera house in Sydney, Australia.

Apparently Vikings a vicious hulks of men bent on killing everybody they can find but it also appears that they don't make Vikings the way they used to because a man who was trained as a Viking at the age of 6 (and wasn't good at it then) can grow up in another culture for 15 years with only a single sword to train with and without help from anyone else, a young native woman, and a brave who is mute is able to kick the butts of the biggest Vikings in the group. I will admit, the first few Vikings that this guy kills could have underestimated him but you would think that after a while they would realize that he could fight. This movie also seems to want to point out that the Natives are in the same situation. The wise old pathfinder and elder of the tribe is able to fight and hold his own against the Vikings when the young warrior braves just rush in and get slaughtered in seconds (because they failed to head the white man's warnings. So white man who grew up as a native and old guy = good fighters. Young Indian Braves = bad fighters. I never thought I would say this but Antonio Banderas did it better, as in portraying the Viking culture in the 13th Warrior. Oh yeah, I forgot. They used stock footage of an avalanche. Stock footage!? What the heck? It was right out of a documentary about alpine skying or something. Uggghhh!

Resident Evil: Extinction (2007)

The T-Virus created by the Umbrella Corporation has raged out of control. First it was contained in The Hive, an underground research facility under Raccoon City. It got out. Then the walls surrounding Raccoon City contained it. It got out. Now several years later it has effectively caused the extinction of the human race. Only small pockets of humans still survive but they have to stay on the move. If they stay in one place too long the flesh eating zombies find them. Alice (Milla Jovovich), a survivor of both the Hive and Raccoon City outbreaks is alone in the Nevada Desert. Umbrella needs her because her blood is the key to the cure. From their secured bases across they globe they search for her using their satelites. She knows this. Hilarity ensues as Alice hooks up with a band of survivors lead by Claire Redfield (Ali Larter). The band also has a familiar face for Alice. Carlos Olivera (Oded Fehr) is still alive and with the survivors as they try to stay alive. Meanwhile Umbrella finally gets a break and identifies Alice from Satelite photos near their Las Vegas facility (luckily, this is where their main research into the cure is being held). The head scientist at the facility decides to try and capture Alice...bad idea. At the facility, Alice meets a few of her "friends."

Trivia: Alice's new costume was designed by Milla Jovovich's clothing line, Jovovich-Hawk. This is the first live-action movie trilogy based on a video game. Prints were shipped to some theaters under the fake title "Raccoon City" -- which is the name of the city featured in many of the video games. For the crow attack scene, only two crows were used for the entire sequence. The rest of the crows were entered with special effects.

So Alice progresses from a frightened Umbrella Security employee with drug induced amnesia to a programmed fighting machine capable of telekenesis to a Road Warrior that can survive alone in the wilds if need be, all the while killing flesh eating zombies. Of course, I don't think the word zombie was used in this film either so that would mean the word was never used in any of the movies. Like the last movie, this one suffers a little from the "we have to make it bigger" syndrome, although, RE:A has a lot more zombies in it. So in this one the world is infected. They did decide to create a crow attack (you see the crows feasted on all the dead undead so that couldn't have been good.). So, if you are a movie franchise about flesh eating zombies where do you go from here? They are making a full length CGI animated version of the next movie. I guess Milla Jovovich finally said, "oh you have got to be kidding me." On the whole it is a decent trilogy and it probably helped that I saw all three in a few weeks time so that some of the recalls to the previous movies made better sense to me.

Resident Evil (2002)

Deep in the bedrock below Raccoon City, in a secret research facility run by the Umbrella Corporation known as The Hive, the main computer, known as the Red Queen malfunctions, shuts and locks down the facility and murders all the scientists and employees. Meanwhile Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up on the floor of a shower in a mansion. Alice does not remember where she is or who she is. Alice is part of the security for The Hive, but doesn't remember this. Hilarity ensues when a comando team from the Umbrella Corporation is sent into the Hive with Alice to shut down the Red Queen and reopen the facility...Bad idea. Scientist at The Hive were working on a virus with a small side effect, anyone infected would become a flesh eating zombie.

Trivia: This film was originally titled "Resident Evil: Ground Zero," but the title was changed to just "Resident Evil" after the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA. The password into the Red Queen's Chamber is "12177". Connections to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: - Main character's name is Alice. - Computer is named 'Red Queen'. - 'The Red Queen' needs to kill someone who is infected, so she tries to get someone else to chop off their head. (Off with her head!) - Alice in Wonderland paperweight. - A white rabbit was use to test the T-virus. - To enter the hive they go through a mirrored door (through the looking glass). - The Red Queen also succeeds in cutting off "her" head - the medic in the laser hallway. - Kaplan worries about time, as the White Rabbit does. (Mentioned in commentary) - Matt is sitting on the ledge when Rain and JD hear the first zombie. This is mentioned in the commentary as a reference to the Caterpillar. Even though they're everywhere, the word "zombie" is never spoken in this film. Milla Jovovich's character, Alice, never has her name spoken, written or identified until the end credits. After returning to the laser hallway they find the bodies have vanished. This is a direct reference to the games, in which the bodies will vanish if you leave and reenter an area. Kaplan's lines draw attention to this. Milla Jovovich did all of her own stunts except the pipe jump in the sewer scene. She used a stunt double in that scene, because her agent thought she would get strangled by the hanging wires. During the shooting of the sewer scenes, Milla Jovovich right-hooked Paul W.S. Anderson in the face, giving him a big black eye. By the end she hurt about three cast and crew members. To prepare for their roles, the actors playing commandos, Milla Jovovich and Eric Mabius had a week of commando training (climbing, martial arts, weapons handling, etc.) with ex-Navy SEAL Jaymes Butler. All the minor cuts and bruises on Milla Jovovich's character are real. No make-up was applied.

I admit that I am not much of a gamer and I am not much of a scary movie fan so you are probably asking why in the heck am I watching a zombie movie based on a zombie video game. Well, I will tell you. Milla Jovovich. Plan and simple. I like her, I have since The Fifth Element. I know she has a reputation for not being in "good" movie and most of her roles are of girls who can kick ass. But I like her. So here we are, a bunch of commandos in full black combat gear and Milla Jovovich in a red dress cut to her thigh wearing combat boots. As for movies based on video games this one is actually really good. This a definitely not Doom, thank goodness. Besides the whole zombie aspect you can really see a comando team having to go in and subdue a rogue computer (well, at least I can, I'm optimistic like that). As long as you can get past the dead rising and wanting to eat you, the story stands up rather well. The only problem I see is that they might decide that they need to do a sequel.

Classic Movie Wednesday: WarGames (1983)

A young computer whizz kid (Matthew Brodrick) accidentally connects into a top secret super-computer which has complete control over the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Hilarity ensues when it challenges him to a game of Global Thermonuclear War between America and Russia, and he innocently starts the countdown to World War 3. Can he convince the computer he wanted to play a game and not the real thing?

Trivia: The studio had a Galaga and a Galaxian machine delivered to Matthew Broderick's home, where he practiced for two months to prepare for the arcade scene. The computer used to break into NORAD was programmed to make the correct words appear on the screen, no matter which keys were pressed. The NORAD command center built for the movie was the most expensive set ever constructed up to that time, built at the cost of one million dollars. The producers were not allowed into the actual NORAD command center, so they had to imagine what it was like. In the DVD commentary, director John Badham notes that the actual NORAD command center isn't nearly as elaborate as the one in the movie; he refers to the movie set as "NORAD's wet dream of itself." According to John Badham, the scene of the jeep trying to crash through the gate at NORAD and turning over was an actual accident. The jeep was supposed to continue through the gate. They added the scene of the characters running from the jeep and down the tunnel and used the botched jeep stunt. First cinematic reference to a "firewall" - a security measure used in computer networking and Internet security. This does not predate the existence of the Internet, however, which is considered to have started in 1969. The computer in David's room is actually an IMSAI 8080. The person who supplied the computer for the film tells how Matthew Broderick saved a shooting day by figuring out a programming sequence for the keyboard on his own after instructions were lost. The WOPR, as seen in the movie, was made of wood and painted with a metal-finish paint. As the crew filmed the displays of the WOPR, Special Effects Supervisor Michael L. Fink sat inside and entered information into an Apple II computer that drove the countdown display. Graphics on the large NORAD war room screens were rendered in advance by an HP 9845C desktop computer. In 1982 the 9845C was comprised of a base with built-in keyboard and a 14" color monitor that mounted on top. Cost of a 9845C was about $90,000 (inflation-adjusted) and the entire "desktop" computer weighed about 100 pounds.

Next to the HAL-9000 saying "I'm afraid I can't do that Dave" this movie may have the most famous computer voice in the movies and easily the most recognizable. When Joshua (the computer) asks Matthew Brodrick "Shall we play a game?" it sends chills down my back. Despite the early 80's computer technology this movie does stand up pretty well. I wonder what they would have thought back then if they could see a computer from today. It probably could easily have run that entire room (the NORAD set). This is actually the second movie of Matthew Brodrick's career (after Max Dugan Returns) and three years before really hitting it big as Ferris Bueller. Ally Sheedy plays Matthew Brodrick's girlfriend and I had a crush on her back then (I was 13). Also in this movie is that icon of cinema Dabney Coleman.

Sleuth (2007)

Hilarity ensues as two extremely clever British men are in a game of trickery and deceit. Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine), an aging famous author who lives alone in a high-tech mansion, after his wife Maggie has left him for a younger man; and Milo Tindle (Jude Law), an aspiring actor, equipped with charm and wit, who demonstrates both qualities once again). When Wyke invite Tindle to his mansion, Tindle seeks to convince the former into letting his wife go by signing the divorce paper. However, Wyke seems far more interested in playing mind games with his wife's new lover, and lures him into a series of actions he thoroughly planned in seeking revenge on his unfaithful spouse.

Trivia: This is the second film of Michael Caine's to be remade with Jude Law taking over the Michael Caine role. Previously, Law appeared in Alfie. Michael Caine switches roles in this movie. Caine played the Tindale role with Lawrence Olivier in the Wyke role in the original 1972 version. The film was shot entirely in sequence. The remote used by Andrew Wyke is actually an Apple Universal remote used to control Apple Computers/iPod Docks.

With just about every remake, it is inevitable that if you have seen the original you will compare it to the original and it is hard to review it without being influenced by the original. I have seen the original. The '72 version starring Caine and Lawrence Olivier was a light hearted psychological mind game, not just between the two men, but with the audience. The twists and turns in the movie kept you captivated and it was a tour de force for the two actors and looked like they were really haveing a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. Now back to this movie. The basics of the story are the same so you don't get the same jolt when certain things happen, but on the other hand, Caine's character is completely different then Olivier's. How it is different would spoil the movie for you. All I can say is that both Caine and Law did good jobs playing off of each other, and the movie would probably have rated a little higher for me if I had not seen the original, but once the cat is let out of the bag you can probably bet it isn't going to go near another bag for a long time. (I hope that made sense to you because it sure didn't to me.)

Don't forget to get your trivia game answers in to me.

Live Free Or Die Hard (2007)

NYPD Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) has faced some brutal terrorists in his career, but now, he's about to face what may be his most dangerous enemy yet. McClane receives a call to bring in a hacker named Matt Farrell (Justin Long), because there has been a breach in an FBI computer system. Farrell is one of the many hackers who are suspected in the attack, and all known hackers are to be questioned. But after McClane gets to Matt's apartment, a group of men show up and try to kill McClane and Matt, who barely escape with their lives. As it turns out, a group of terrorists led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) are systematically shutting down the United States computer infrastructure. Hilarity ensues when they crash the stock market, crippling America's economy. It turns out that Matt knows enough about hacking to know exactly how Gabriel is shutting down the USA. Gabriel, a disgraced former Department of Defense employee, plans to bring the country to its knees, but he doesn't count on McClane and Matt figuring out what's going on. Gabriel wants McClane and Matt out of the way, and for McClane, the situation becomes personal when an enraged Gabriel kidnaps his daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who is a student at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Gabriel may think he now has the upper hand on McClane, but he has no idea how far McClane is willing to go to rescue Lucy.

Trivia: The French title translates as "Die Hard 4.0: Return to Hell". The movie's title, Live Free or Die Hard, is a reference to New Hampshire's State Motto "Live Free or Die". Consequently, the New Hampshire state film office received several phone calls asking where in the state the movie was filmed (none of the action was set on New Hampshire and focused on a little New York but mostly Washington). According to Bruce Willis and Director Len Wiseman in the DVD Commentary, the story originally involved McClane's son, Jack. Originally, he was supposed to be the computer hacker John has to deliver to the FBI. Eventually that idea was dropped and the hacker became the Matt Ferrell character. It was then decided to bring in his daughter Lucy to keep up the series continuity of McLane always having a personal stake in what happens in the story. When filming the scenes of John walking through the corridors talking to Gabriel on the two-way, there were no written lines of dialog for Bruce Willis, according to Len Wiseman on the DVD Commentary. So what they did on set was have Willis hold the two-way up to his mouth and speak gibberish so it looks like he's talking to Gabriel. If you'll notice, there are a couple of times where the two-way isn't all the way up to Willis's face and you can see his mouth doesn't match the dialog being spoken. When introduced to an agent Johnson, McClane says: "Johnson, again?". A nod to the two agents Johnson in Die Hard, despite the fact that McClane and the two agents Johnson never spoke to each other or met face to face. The name "Tovarek", which Mai Lihn (the very hot Maggie Q) uses as an FBI agent, is a Polish word and one of it meanings is "hot chick" (the correct Polish word is "towarek", but it's pronounced like this). The car that is stolen in the film by McClane and Farrell is a 2006 E60 BMW 5 series, which was chosen due to a poll that found that people wanted films that had more BMWs in it. The main reason being that the alternatives (Audis and Mercedes-Benzes) were too common and not bold and imposing enough to go with the characters in the film. The particular BMW model (5 series) was chosen because the director, Len Wiseman, found "the 3 series too common, the 7 series too uptight and every other car either too feminine or compensative for a midlife crisis.... Everything McClane isn't, yet".

When in doubt, go back to what made you a bunch of money. Recently this has been happening a bit: see Rocky Balboa, Rambo. However, this is actually a very good movie.The action is not too farfetched (well there is a little poetic license, but what do you expect, it's a Die Hard movie). You would also hope that it wouldn't be that easy to disable America now, or at least the eastern seaboard. By the way, in the Die Hard universe, what did the rest of the country go through when Washington and New York went down? I say this because the bad guys go to one of the power hubs in West Virginia (I'll talk about this later) and it seems that the guards and stuff were pretty much oblivious to what was happening 200 miles away (yeah, they guards did go to the helicopter pad and say that they couldn't land there, but you would expect someplace that vital to be surrounded with a military response if a cyber terrorist attack was in progress). Oh yeah, West Viginia. McClain and Farrell drive to Middleton, West Virginia, yep, I said drive. I checked (excpet there isn't a Middleton that I could find) the closest point in West Virginia to Washington is just under 200 miles (who knows if Middleton is right on the border or not). Now I know this is McClain's movie and he is the hero, but couldn't he get someone else to go check out the power plant instead of driving two to two and a half hours (he didn't look like he was speeding or anything)? I mean he did have a contact with the FBI a few blocks away (at this point the cell system was down). Then while he is at the power plant in West Virginia, Farrell says the Kevin Smith is in Baltimore, except he says he is "close" in Baltimore. I checked, Baltimore is also just under 200 miles away. At least this time they take the helicopter. This is why Die Hard is and always will be supperior to any reincarnation. Die Hard happened in one building, so you don't have to worry about these time issues. But out of the other three movies, this is probably the best.

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3:10 To Yuma (2007)
Number 194 on IMDb's Top 250

Rancher Dan Evans (Christian Bale) heads into Bisbee to clear up issues concerning the sake of his land when he witnesses the closing events of a stagecoach robbery lead by famed outlaw Ben Wade (Russell Crowe). Hilarity ensues when Wade is arrested in Bisbee and Evans finds himself one of the escorts who will take Wade to Contention to catch the 3:10 train to Yuma and prison. Evans will get a much needed $200 for the service. Evans' takes on the job of taking Wade to the station not only to save his land but to prove to himself that he can be more than just a naive rancher in the eyes of his impetuous and gunslinging son William Evans. The transport to Contention is hazardous and filled with ambushes from Indians, pursuits by Wade's vengeful gang and Wade's own conniving and surreptitious demeanor that makes the ride all more intense.

Trivia: The movie was funded in conjunction with New Mexico's Film Investment Program. The weekend before shooting was scheduled to wrap, a freak storm dumped nearly 2 feet of snow on the supposedly drought plagued town. Labourers shoveled the snow from the buildings' balconies and roofs and distributed 89 dump trucks worth of dry soil on the ground. Backhoes created an 8 foot tall rampart of snow just beyond camera sight lines for the remaining 6 days of shooting. The short story upon which the film is based was published in Dime Western Magazine in 1953. The action begins in the hotel room with a deputy sheriff guarding a 21 year old robber. As the bad guy posse rides into Contention City you can clearly see seven men on horseback. But when William is asked how many men are approaching he responds "Seven, or eight." This is a nod to the original version of the movie in which the number of men changed back and forth between seven and eight.

At 122 minutes this movie was 30 full minutes longer then the original that was released 50 years and one month earlier. So, needless to say, there was a lot more in this movie then the original. This is probably one of the few remakes to actually be as good as the original. The orginal, you may remember starred Glen Ford as Wade and is a solid movie, but it was short, at least by today's standard (today only comedies seem to be less then 100 minutes). The extra length gave Wade and Evans more of a change to interact which is one of the really great parts of the movie, not the gun play, not the landscapes, not the horses, though all are wonderful, it is the mind games Wade plays on Evans and the men. Wade truely seems to be playing and really looks like he is enjoying it.

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Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Number 146 on IMDb's Top 250

Benjamin Barker (Johnny Depp) returns to London with the help of a sailor, Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower) after being sent away by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman) who was in love with Todd's wife. Barker, however, has changed his name, he goes by Todd now, Sweeny Todd. Hilarity ensues and songs burst out as he opens a barber shop above Mrs. Lovett's Meat Pie Shop were Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) sells the self proclaimed "worst pies in London." With the help of Mrs. Lovett, Todd plots his revenge on anyone who has ever done him wrong and hopes to be reunited with his daughter, Joanna (Jayne Wisener), who is now Judge Turpin's ward. In the meantime, he might as well help procure some meat for Mrs. Lovett.

Trivia: This is the sixth Johnny Depp-Tim Burton collaboration. They previously made Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride together. Helena Bonham Carter underwent extensive vocal lessons and studied baking in preparation for her role. To prepare for the role of Adolfo Pirelli, Sacha Baron Cohen hired his personal barber as a consultant on shaving techniques, and took up to 16 hours to learn how to handle a razor. Helena Bohamn Carter's hairstyle is tribute to the hairstyle worn by the original Mrs. Lovett, Angela Lansbury. At the end of the song "A Little Priest", Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett strike the same pose as the promotional material used for the original Broadway production of the musical.

The Tim Burton/Johnny Depp collaboration is today's equivalent of the the great colaboration of the past like John Ford and John Wayne. Ford and Wayne made 21 movies together and quite a few are considered as some of Wayne's best like Stagecoach, The Searchers, The Quiet Man, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Burton's films are not as mainstream as Ford's but then again, Depp isn't as mainstreem as Wayne. Depp has a gift for playing the quirky characters that fitt perfectly into Burton's quirky worlds. Helena Bonham Carter also completely fit into that world. She has a slightly grubby quality to her that fits Mrs. Lovett. Oh yeah, this is a musical, I need to talk about the music. Neither Depp nor Carter have sang before and they do admirable jobs of it, again fitting into the Burton world. I realize that this isn't your typical musical fodder, I mean Todd butchers people and Mrs. Lovett cooks them into pies, but it really is a good musical and a great movie.

Transformers (2007)

A long time ago, far away on the planet of Cybertron, a war was being waged between the noble Autobots (led by the wise Optimus Prime) and the devious Decepticons (commanded by the dreaded Megatron) for control over the Allspark, a mystical talisman that would grant unlimited power to whoever possessed it. The Autobots managed to smuggle the Allspark off the planet, but Megatron blasted off in search of it. He eventually tracked it to the planet of Earth (circa 1850), but his reckless desire for power sent him right into the Arctic Ocean, and the sheer cold forced him into a paralyzed state. His body was later found by Captain Archibald Witwicky, and before going into a comatose state Megatron used the last of his energy to engrave a map, showing the location of the Allspark, into the Captain's glasses, and send a transmission to Cybertron. He is then carted away by the Captain's ship. Hilarity ensues as a century later, Sam Witwicky (Shia LeBeouf) buys his first car. To his shock, he discovers that it is not a camero, but Bumblebee, an Autobot in disguise who is there to protect Sam, the Captain's glasses and the map carved on them. But Bumblebee is not the only Transformer to have arrived on Earth - in the desert of Qatar, the Decepticons Blackout and Scorponok attack a U.S. military base, causing the Pentagon to send their special Sector Seven agents to capture all "specimens of this alien race," and Sam along with his girlfriend Mikaela (the aptly named Megan Fox) find themselves in the middle of a grand battle between the Autobots and the Decepticons, stretching from Hoover Dam all the way to Los Angeles. Meanwhile, within the depths of Hoover Dam, the cryogenically stored form of Megatron awakens...


Trivia: Producer Don Murphy decided, after listening to feedback from Transformers fans, to use the voices from the "Transformers" (TV cartoon series). Veteran voice actors Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who provided the voices for the iconic Transformer leaders Optimus Prime (Cullen) and Megatron (Welker), were auditioned personally by director Michael Bay, who feared that their aged voices would be noticeable. Cullen was confirmed to reprise his role, but Welker's voice was too light for Megatron's new beastly look, and so Hugo Weaving took the role of Megatron. However, Welker reprises his role as Megatron in Transformers: The Game. Bumblebee's original alternate mode in "Transformers" was a Volkswagen Beetle, but this was altered to a 1977/2009 Chevrolet Camaro (against Don Murphy's wishes). This was because Michael Bay felt that the Camaro held a more friendly quality than the Beetle, and he wanted to avoid comparisons with Herbie the Love Bug. As a tribute to the series, a yellow Volkswagen Beetle appears next to him at the car shop (and as a joke Bumblebee damages it!). The Decepticons were to have more dialogue in the film, but most of their lines were cut out to keep them mysterious (screenwriter Roberto Orci reasoned that the more a villain talks, the less threatening they are). To please the fans, though, Megatron's classic berating of Starscream ("You have failed me yet again, Starscream...") from "Transformers" was put in the film. Sometimes, the camera was kept in a bulletproof glass box while shooting, due to the intense nature of the stunts. Shia LaBeouf quipped, "The camera's in a bullet-proof box, but what about me?" Optimus Prime is composed of 10,108 pieces. The Decepticons outnumber the Autobots eight to five. This was a deliberate move by the writers to emphasize the Autobots' teamwork, and the threat the Decepticons pose to the world. As that there were no running 2009 model Camaros, Bumblebee was actually created by Saleen inc. The same tuner that created Barricade. Working with the Pontiac GTO along with data and wheelbase drawings of the 2009 Camaro provided by GM, Saleen cobbled together, from the floorboards up, a running "Camaro" in just 30 days.


If you noticed my labels below, I have a new one (HD) that is because for Christmas I got myself an HD TV and an HD DVD player (Whoo Hoo!) so I watched this in High Definition. The ultimate toys for a movie buff. Anyway, back to the movie. It was really short of plot. I mean there was a lot of plot but it was pretty thin. And if you are going to have a Transformer movie, show the Transformers, not the whimpy Shia LeBeouf (although that meant that you got to see a lot Megan Fox, which is a VERY good thing, an uberhot woman who knows cars AND has a bad girl streak?). And they also have a beautiful analyst (Rachel Taylor) at the DoD that figures it all out. Um...Anyway, they also try to add humor into the mix. Why does every retro 70's TV show that is made into a movie have to have added humor inserted? I mean, yes, i was funny to watch the Autobots trying to hide from Sam's parents (who never seemed to look out any of their windows) but it took a little away from the character of Optimus Prime. Have some of the others give you the humor, leave Optimus out of it. There is also said to be a lot of religious overtones in the movie, good vs. evil, Opitmus as a savior like figure spouting grandios phrases to brainwash our kids or something like that. I guess I could see it a little but i was nowhere near what I thought it would be and I don't think people give kids enough credit. Kids are smart too. They can figure this stuff out on their own, it's just a freaking movie people.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

John and Jane Smith (Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) are a married couple, both John and Jane are living unexciting lives and they have both been attending marriage therapy, as their lives haven't been passionate since they got married. But what they don't know about each other is that they are both professional assassins working for two rival agency's. John's latest assignment is to eliminate Benjaiman "Tank" Danz, but it all becomes complicated when Jane is also assigned to eliminate the same target that John has been assigned to kill. Learning that they are both assassins and failing to eliminate the target, both of John and Jane's employers decides that they they should try to take each other out (John kill Jane, Jane kill John) as hilarity ensues. Engaged in a deadly game, John and Jane try to take each other out while learning more about each other's secret lifes.

Trivia: The script reportedly went through over fifty drafts. Brad Pitt left in the middle of shooting for three months to shoot Ocean's Twelve. Near the end of the story, when Benjamin is being interrogated by the Smiths, he is wearing a Fight Club shirt. Brad Pitt starred in Fight Club. When Jane and John are discussing past assassinations, John refers to Jean-Luc Gespar, which was the real name for the character LaMarc in Ocean's Twelve. After the Smiths discover each other's identities, Jane speeds away in the car and John is running after her. He ends up tripping and crashing through a fence, and his gun goes off. The trip was a mistake, and Brad Pitt's reaction, as well as his following ad-lib, "Oh dear God," are genuine.

There is a little joke over at FilmWise.com (the movie forum I frequent) that Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the "Best Movie Ever". Well, it isn't but it is pretty fun to watch. It has all the cliches of an action spy shoot 'em up type thriller, especially in the climactic shootout. Brad and Angeline wear bullet proof vests...vests...as in only covering their torsos. These vest stop probably 50 to 60 shots each, with the rest of their injuries being nicks and cuts and scrapes. But the bad guys, all 20 or so seem to also be wearing bullet proof vests, but our intrepid duo takes them all out fairly easily with one of two shots. The interaction between Brad and Angelina is really what makes the movie for me. Their banter is playful and funny. The trailer, however is a little misleading as it shows Mrs. Smith in several slinky costumes and situations that are not in the movie, she does wear some slinky costumes but only some of the time *wink*.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Nick Smith (Cecil Kellaway), the middle-aged proprietor of a roadside restaurant, hires drifter Frank Chambers (John Garfield) as a handyman. Frank eventually begins an affair with Nick's beautiful wife Cora (Lana Turner), who talks Frank into helping her kill Nick, by "accident." But the best laid plans...cause hilarity to ensue.

Trivia: This caused a stir amongst 1940s audiences who were shocked when it seemed clear to them that John Garfield uses his tongue in one of his kissing scenes with Lana Turner. Lana Turner said that her turn as Cora Smith was "the role I liked best". It took 12 years to adapt the explicit material (by 1940 standards) of the novel into a screenplay tame enough to comply with the Production Code prevalent at the time.

Umm...What the heck does the title of this movie have to do with the actual movie? I mean, there is no postman, and the word postman is never even said, you have to wait till the last two minutes of the movie to figure it out and then it was still kind of "Huh?" Is this a generational thing? My postperson (got to be politically correct nowadays) would never even come to the door, if I have to sign for something, they just leave a note for me to come to the post office. Okay, I know it has to do with having to pay for your sins (What goes around comes around, you have to pay the piper, and all those other cliches). Okay, now for Lana Turner and those dresses. Everything she wears is white (except one notable exception where she wears black and thinks about killing Nick) but besides that, all white. I had heard that Lana Turner was really evil in this movie, or rather that she gained her bad girl reputation from this movie (she is known for her bad girl roles, but she only played the bad girl a few times) and I really started to wonder why, but she got worse (in a good way) as time went on and then I thought that one of the main reasons people gave her this reputation was that Nick, her husband was probably the nicest person every shown on film, this guy was a saint and they very casually plan to whack him.

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The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)
Number 54 on IMDb's Top 250

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is back and he wants answers or hilarity will not ensue. The problem is that he doesn't really know who he is, he just knows that he can kick some serious butt. Bourne tracks down a reporter that has been working on a story about him and has come into possession of new information about the government agency he was a part of. This leads Bourne on a journey from Moscow to London to Spain and finally to New York and his past.

Trivia: During one of the scenes in the New York CIA office, a picture of Donald Rumsfeld can be seen on one of the computer monitors. It took six weeks to film the climactic car chase in downtown New York City. During the final car chase in NYC all the car are going 35 MPH or lower. The NYPD was afraid of pedestrians getting hurt and wouldn't let filming crews go any faster.

If you have read the books, you will know that the movies have little in common with them besides the character of Jason Bourne. Actually the plot of "The Bourne Ultimatum" was made into The Bourne Supremacy. "The Bourne Supremacy" has nothing in common with any of the movies, so it is a little confusing. As a action flick, this has everything you would want, car chases, foot chases, chases across roof tops, chases through down town New York, Bourne gets to beat up a bunch of people who are trying to kill him, stuff like that. We do get to see the return of Joan Allen and Julia Stiles who are now kind of on Bourne's side and not trying to kill him, but we add David Strathairn as the head of Project Black Briar an upgrade to Treadstone which created Bourne in the first place. And now we have to talk about camera shake. You know what I mean, when a film maker uses a hand held camera and constantly moves it around to create an artificial shake that is reminiscent of documentary film making. It is supposed to give a movie a gritty edge and realism to it. And it does...in moderation. Paul Greengrass is obsessed with camera shake. Even when the characters are sitting still at a cafe table talking the camera is moving, shaking, like the cameraman just finished a gallon of coffee. during the fight scenes it was great (it is really used as a cheat in fight scenes and stuff because if the camera is constantly moving, the actors don't need to be as precise in the fight choreography and you can use the actual actors instead of stunt doubles, but I digress). So, in certain points camera shake is useful but not every single frame of the movie please.

Classic Movie Wednesday

The Omega Man (1971)

Robert Neville (Charlton Heston), a doctor, is the only survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons due to an experimental vaccine. The plague caused by the war has killed everyone else except for a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves "The Family". The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believe science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a "user of the wheel", must die before hilarity can ensue. Neville, using electricity, machinery, and science attempts to hold them at bay.

Trivia: The production company wanted a set that looked like an abandoned metropolitan area, but it was too costly to build. The producer drove through downtown L.A. one weekend and discovered there were no shoppers, so the majority of the film's exterior was shot on location during the weekends. British studio Hammer had planned production of Matheson's own scripted version of "I am Legend" entitled "The Night Creatures". However, after being deemed too graphic by censors, the script was rejected and the project lingered, eventually dying.

Charlton Heston is the a legend of 60's and 70's Sci-Fi with movies like Planet Of The Apes, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, Soylent Green, and this one. One of the reasons I picked this one is that Will Smith is starring in a remake this year. Well, I guess it is a remake, It is based on the same story, "I Am Legend" which is also the name of Smith's version. One thing I don't get is that they took every chance they could to show Heston shirtless. Am I missing something here, Charlton was is shape...kind of...but do we really need to see that?

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Zodiac (2007)
Number 217 on IMDb's Top 250

A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. We follow the investigators and reporters in this lightly fictionalized account of the true 1970's case as they search for the murderer, becoming obsessed with the case. Based on Robert Graysmith's book, the movie's focus is the lives and careers of the detectives and newspaper people as hilarity ensues.

Trivia: Screenwriter Shane Salerno optioned the Robert Graysmith book "Zodiac" when he was just nineteen years old and developed it with Graysmith for several years before selling it to Disney's Touchstone Pictures in a seven figure deal. Salerno wrote several drafts of the screenplay before multiple administration changes at Touchstone derailed the project about the mysterious San Francisco serial killer, Zodiac. Producer/Performer Anthony Begonia's parents were classmates of one of the Zodiac victims in San Francisco. The cipher mailed to the Chronicle in the movie was actually mailed to the Examiner. Scenes of Dave Toschi and Robert Graysmith watching "Dirty Harry" were filmed inside the Mann National Theatre in Westwood, CA. The garish color schemes of the movie theater were not added by the art department. The very retro interiors of the theater have remained unchanged since 1969, when the National was first built. Interestingly, "Zodiac" played at the Mann National Theatre in mid March of 2007. Thus, moviegoers watched other moviegoers occupy their seats-- on the National's trademark large screen. Dave Toschi in real life was the inspiration for Steve McQueen's performance in Bullitt. In the film, they remark how his specialized holster is like McQueen's in Bullit.

The interesting thing about this movie is that it isn't really about the Zodiac Murders, it is really about the dectectives and newsmen. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Robert Greysmith who wrote the book the movie is based on. He did a good job stay kind of introverted and mousey throughout the movie which really fit his character. Mark Ruffalo played the lead dectective Dave Toschi and for some reason I kept thinking he was John Leguizamo, they really look a lot alike. Robert Downey Jr.'s presence was also felt. So it was pretty good. Dang it, I can never figure out how to end these posts and I always seem to come up with something lame like, "So it was pretty good."