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Movie Mini-Review Roundup I

So for some background, over on the AnacondaSoftware forums, there's a thread about movies that's become basically a roundup of mini-reviews of various movies kept over time. I've decided to start cross-posting these here as well, so here's my newest one, which will be the first one on this site.

the wicker man
Film staring Nicholas Cage, which is a remake of an earlier film I guess. I thought it was pretty interesting. and I must have been off my game that day or something, because I didn't see the ending coming.

prince of persia
I didn't really have much inclination to see this myself, my roommate had me rent it and we watched it with another friend. was kind of okay, I guess, but Prince of Persia had never been that interesting to me in the first place, to be honest with you

teeth
this was supposed to be a horror, I guess? well, whatever it was supposed to, it ended up being laughably pretty bad. don't even know why I watched it all, except I really had nothing else to do at the time

the illustrated man
this is basically a very weakly assembled collection of a few Ray Bradbury stories. the stories themselves are good, and I've heard them adapted to radio plays on Dimension X before, but the attempt at stitching them together in a film wasn't that great. 

the substitute
the substitute was a pretty interesting film, about a covert military officer that goes into a corrupt high school after some students injure his girlfriend (a teacher at the high school) to find out what is going on. I thought it was pretty good, and apparently it did well enough that it got a few sequels.

ponyo
at first I sat there wondering whether Fujimoto was a guy or a girl. then once Liam Neeson spoke his first few opening lines, I found I was suddenly watching Taken. overall, great movie

the horseman
speaking of Taken, this Austrailian film reminded me of that, except that his daughter was already dead. and he has a different set of skills acquired over his career, although no less dangerous. I thought this was pretty good

world trade center
another one starring Nicholas Cage from this set, this drama retells the stories of a group of rescue workers who were there on 9-11. there were a few inaccuracies compared to what actually happened, but overall a good adapatation, and a pretty gripping tale

the omega man
Charlton Heston stars in this second adaptation of I Am Legend. as with the third adaptation with Will Smith, this one differs from the book, in some ways even more so than I Am Legend did. it was pretty interesting to watch, though. 

suspect zero
the description of the film on Netflix didn't mention anything about the psi-ops angle to the film. i had started it just kind of interested, but when that came into the picture it made my interest go way up.

ichi
Ichi is about a blind samurai, and an offshoot of the Zatoichi series (which itself had 26 films made). it was kind of an interesting film, and I may have to look up the other films

premonition
Premonition is about a newspaper that shows the future, which is the evil twin of the Early Edition. very intriguing, but it started getting very weird at the end and im still not quite sure what I was watching...

unthinkable
thriller starring Samuel L. Jackson, this movie was direct-to-video apparently and never appeared in theatres, although I thought I remembered seeing a trailer for it at the theatre once. nonetheless, I thought this was pretty good

sorcerer's apprentice
Hey, another Nicholas Cage movie. I had originally planned on seeing this in theatre, but I ended up being too busy to because that was around when I started working my new job. I thought it was going to be only a mediocre film, it actually proved to be a lot better than I was expecting, and plan on buying it on Blu-ray once I get my PS3 fixed.

mad max
the launch of Mel Gibson's career, as well as a major influence for both the Fallout video game series and the Saw film series (in addition to its own sequels), I thought this was a good movie.

silence of the lambs
it was actually pretty staggering for me how young both Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins looked in this film, especially since Anthony Hopkins was in his 50s at this time. i rather enjoyed watching this film, about Jodie trying to track down a serial killer by fishing for clues from the convicted psychologist Hannibal Lecter. 

cypher
Cypher's an earlier film directed by Vincenzo Natali (Cube, Splice). I really enjoyed this sci-fi movie about corporate espionage. also, perhaps because I couldn't really pick him out until I started watching Stargate: Atlantis, I didn't realize until this that David Hewlett has been in most every film that Natali has done (since they went to high school together)

next
Another Nicholas Cage movie, and now he has the ability to see the future. I have actually seen this once before, and had thought I had written about it in one of these before, but couldn't find it. rewatched it with my friends after we saw Sorcerer's Apprentice based on a comment that was made while watching that. 

equilibrium
my exact statement on facebook was "is watching The Matrix starring Batman. I mean Equilibrium starring Christian Bale.". however, a more accurate description would be Matrix + Batman + 1984. 

donnie darko
something convinced me that I needed to watch this movie, but I don't remember where or what it is. whatever it was, it was well worth the watch, even more so for the time travel (which I wasnt aware of). 

tron legacy
not much to say about this, this movie was awesome

red
The best description I can come up with this one is Die Hard + Ocean's 11. movie was absolutely hilarious.

faster
Faster caught my eye in the Redbox because it had Dwayne Johnson and Billy Bob Thorton as the main billing, and Dwayne out on a manhunt. turned out to be pretty good.

jonas hex
Jonas Hex I remember seeing the trailer for in theatres, but then I don't remember hearing of it ever again. apparently it bombed. a shame, too, because I really enjoyed the movie.

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 16:00:00 -0500

The Air

The woman walked slowly into the bleak, concrete room, and flopped down on a ragged, worn out couch. The ruse was beginning to wear on her, and she didn't know how much longer she would be able to hold it. The acting, the deception, that wasn't all that was wearing on her, their location itself was beginning to get to her. They had been hiding in that old, abandoned warehouse for too long now, she wanted to go back to the warm, welcome feeling of their condo. 

"Water," she said, looking over at the man. He was sitting in a chair, ruffling through a pile of maps and checking them against information displayed on a computer screen next to him. He didn't seem to notice her call, so she sighed, wishing she could do more to help. He always was much better then her at putting the evidence together, and she would have never been able to get to where they were now without him.

She stood up, and walked over to him to get a closer look at what he was doing, but getting closer didn't help. He was figuring paths and weather patterns to take, locations that needed to be acted upon. He was the scientist, not her, and she could do nothing but lend him her support for that matter. "Hey," she said, resting an arm on his shoulder, "do you need anything?"

"Other than Fire to finally show up at the location?" He replied to her without turning his head, although after a few moments he finally shook it in the negative. "No, we're good for now." She turned to walk away, but then stopped as he spoke again. "What about the others? Have they caught on to us yet?"

"Not yet," she said, and walked over to a table to pick up a few papers sitting there. "For the moment, they still think we're all acting according to plan." She chuckled, then walked over to hand him the papers. "It seems that the Bearer told Fire what we were doing, but is keeping them in the dark." They had that working for them still, at least.

As she began to sit back on the couch, the ring of a telephone from another room gave her pause, and then she slowly smiled. She lifted herself back up and walked out of the room, picking up pace as she walked toward the sound. It continued as she hurried: five, six, seven times, and she hurried to grab the phone before the eighth time would send the call to voicemail.

"HellO?" she said, and then listened carefully, a smile brewing on her face as each minute passed. The voice on the other end was giving her good news, and now it was her turn to act. She hung up the phone after the report was finished, not saying anything back to the person on the other end, and headed back into the other room. Her earlier tiredness was gone, she was now excited, and a spring was in her step.

"Water!" she called over to him, as she hurried over to a door in the wall. She opened it, revealing a small closet, and pulled from it two winter coats and put one on. The other she tossed over to him, who had stood up and caught it mid-air as it flew. "Time for us to move, the next phase is ready."

"That was pretty fast," he said, surprise in his voice, as he folded up a couple of the maps and put them into the coat. He then closed up his computer, and picked up a long chain with a key on it. "Faster than I was expecting. And you're sure this information is correct?" 

"Oh yeah," she said with a grin, bearing her teeth at him in mocking."It was all there, eveyrthing is now in place." He tossed the chain to her, and she fumbled trying to catch it, dropping it to the ground. "In fact," she said as she bent over to retrieve it, "if we don't hurry then Fire will arrive there before we do." She picked up the chain, and started out of the room toward the prison cell.

"Well get her ready, then," Water called out after her as she headed through the hall. "We still have some setting up to do there, before we're ready to receive him." She didn't call back to acknowledge, because she knew that already. And he was just being cautious, in her opinion, because most of the work was already in place. There wasn't that much left that had to be done. Fire would soon be theirs.

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:00:00 -0500