Recent Rentals...

[Worf101]

Well folks I've been watching movies on the weekends lately and have a few comments.

1. "De-Lovely" - A minus, Thought I was gonna see a "musical" about Cole Porter's life, instead I got more like an episode of "E's True Hollywood Story" about the composer's life. Makes Amadeus look like a chior boy. NOT for impressionable kids under 12. Great music, good movie, not what you're expecting however.

2. "Girl with a Pearl Earring" - "A", Not a "chic flick" but a study in "power" and who had it and who didn't back in the Europe during the time of the Dutch Masters. Fascinating study of men and women bound by money to people they dispise.

3. "Man on Fire" - B minus , A decent star vehicle but not a great one. Better than average but too many plot holes and I figured this one out from the opening credits. Semi - Hollywood ending ruined it for me.

4. "The Village" - "B", Not Mr. Shaylaman's best work. I saw the twist on this one coming as well. Interesting film, excellent use of tension and lighting I enjoyed it but not as much as earlier works.

5. "Cat Woman" - D minus, And to think this woman won an Oscar for Best Actress 2 years ago? Goodness gracious what a mess. What a horrendous mess. Bad script, worse acting and ludicrus CGI. Bad, bad, bad.

6. "The Manchurian Candidate" - D - What were they thinking? Bastardization of a movie that was a best a "cult classic". Terrible direction, awful waste of Denzel's talents. More plot holes than a pound of Swiss. Ouch...

7. "Collateral" - A Minus - Man this movie really shoots my "Tom Cruise can't act" theory all to hell and back. Messrs. Fox and Cruise put on a virtuoso performances in a movie that could've been perfect had there been a few less plot holes in it.

8. "The Punisher" - B Minus - Could've been better it they'd plugged some of the more obvious plot holes in it. A man is persumed dead, he's seeking revenge on people who killed him and his whole family. What the hell does he do but put his face in front of TV cameras and announce to his enemies that he's alive and living in Florida... "come and kill me before I kill you". Makes absolutely no sense.

Well that's all for this installment. Have fun folks...

Da Worfster :cool:

[kexodusc]

Boy Worf, you really said it about Cruise in Collateral...Just when I think he can't get any worse, he comes back with something half decent...best part about this movie is Fox was even better...

Cat Woman gets my vote as 2nd worse movie of 04..."The Grudge" being number 1.

"D" for The Manchurian Candidate? - I've been hearing that a bunch, haven't seen this incarnation of it yet, don't know if I'll waste bottle money.

[Kam]

agree with ya on both of these. village was fun still, had some great moments to it, but revealed the things waaaay too much. and saw this ending coming, although the best of his cameo's so far i thought. collateral was good as well, very slow paced and methodical but left me with a bunch of questions, wasn't sure what was going on with the plot and with vince's issues. but, small things, nothing TOO major. Two quesions on collateral, which is something i might just have missed, but why is it called, "collateral"? and was vince at the very beginning of the movie, going to kill jada first, but since she wasn't in her office, he just moved on down the line? or was it just coincidence that he was at her office at the beginning of the movie?

peace
k2

[dean_martin]

Didn't rent these, but did see them on HBO within the last week and yes they've been out for a while and yes I'm a little behind.

1) Stuck on You - I anticipated hating this because I've never thought that Greg Kinnear was right for the big screen and I've always thought Matt Damon was boring and monotonous in his delivery. But it is a Farrelly Bros. film so I gave it a chance. As far as entertainment goes I enjoyed this movie. IMO, the premise carried me almost through the whole thing. Kinnear's enthusiasm was amusing. I thought it was funny that the "twins" looked nothing like each other. I even liked Cher's role. What can I say? Sometimes mindless entertainment hits the spot.

2) Secret Window - I really like John Turturro's work and I've been going around the house saying, "You stole my stirry" ever since the previews came out so I thought I needed to check this out. Well...I like Johnny Depp too but he just didn't pull off his "turnaround"/alter ego at the end. Turturro was under used. I sat through it and compared to most of the stuff that's on tv it was ok. And, I probably would have eventually rented it if I hadn't seen it on HBO, but for me it's definitely a one-timer.

Maybe I'll make it to the video rental store this weekend.

[Sir Terrence the Terrible]

Worfster,
Gotta agree with you about the cat type chick's movie. Just a mess, a bloody mess in fact. The one saving grace of the masterful bunch of barf is the soundtrack. Some of the effects in the LFE really moved things around in my room(including my pancreas). It had some great sound work here and there.

I really liked The Village though. Much like you said, it is not his best work, but it is pretty interesting none the less.

[Defshep]

In agreement big-time with Collateral. Awesome! Ending seemed a little strained, though. How much blood DID he lose? Thought Manchurian Candidate was well acted, regardless of holes.

[Worf101]

agree with ya on both of these. village was fun still, had some great moments to it, but revealed the things waaaay too much. and saw this ending coming, although the best of his cameo's so far i thought. collateral was good as well, very slow paced and methodical but left me with a bunch of questions, wasn't sure what was going on with the plot and with vince's issues. but, small things, nothing TOO major. Two quesions on collateral, which is something i might just have missed, but why is it called, "collateral"? and was vince at the very beginning of the movie, going to kill jada first, but since she wasn't in her office, he just moved on down the line? or was it just coincidence that he was at her office at the beginning of the movie?

peace
k2

I too liked M. Knight's "Hitchcock" cameo, it was nice, sly and not too obvious.

Collateral's title refers to how the hit man views Fox's cabbie. He's not a target of any of the assasinations but he'll be used to cover his get away. As the cop said, Cruise's hit man make a habit of hiring cabbies to ferry him to his hits, then, once done he kill the cabbie, fakes it as a suicide and disappears. The cabbie is merely what we call in the Army "Collateral Damage', ie, non-military or targeted personell or property that got fragged by accident.

Da Worfster
:cool: