The Men Who Stare at Goats

I must say that I enjoyed this film way more than I expected. It's a funny off beat comedy starring Jeff Bridges, Kevin Spacey, Ewen McGregor and George Clooney. I really expected this movie to be stupid and in a really annoying way but it turned out to actually be entertaining. I don't know why I thought this going in, I guess the trailer I saw just didn't work for me(maybe I was just in a grumpy mood). Sometimes entering a movie with low expectations can result in a really nice surprise.

Okay, so this movie is rather ridiculous. It's about a team of Army soldiers who are with a special unit that supposedly has super powers. Things like walking through walls, remote viewing, all the normal super power stuff. Ewen McGregor is a reporter that tags along with George Clooney on some random mission into Iraq. It turns out that Ewen McGregor has super powers as well and the universe actually sent him on this mission. Don't ask me exactly what that mission was though as I'm still not one hundred percent certain. It did seem to have a lot to do with taking acid and freeing goats.

Overall the acting in the movie was great. I especially liked Kevin Spacey playing the total dick head which seems to be a role that suits him. I'm not trying to put Kevin Spacey down here, I love watching him play these types of characters especially in a movie that isn't meant to be taken all that seriously. Tricking a guy into taking acid then freaking him out with by flicking a light in his face was pretty funny. The rest of the cast was solid as well. Jeff Bridges was another standout as the total hippie but the entire cast was great.

The only thing negative that I can say about this movie was it seemed a little thin in terms of plot. This caused the movie to slow down here or there. Luckily there was enough goofy humor and old school rock tunes to keep me involved. If your looking for something fun I'd definitely recommend this movie. I give it a B+.

Green Zone Review

This was a movie that I thought had a lot of promise featuring Matt Damon and the director of the Bourne movies. Unfortunately, it isn't nearly as good as any of the Bourne movies. It's about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now here's a shocker, they don't find any. This movie was actually a lot like watching the news way back in 2003. Which is to say that it was old news.

On top of that the cinematography was a little annoying. They tried to tie the movie together with annoying camera movements, quick zooms and having weird fast focusing(and a lot of random blurriness). I didn't like this at all and I'm sure they thought it might make it seem more exciting but it really didn't work for me.

In short this movie is a rental. I give it a C overall.

Where the Wild Things Are Review

I finally saw Where The Wild Things Are last night by Spike Jonze and I really enjoyed it. I know that a lot of people complained about this movie being a little too wild for kids and it is. This isn't a full fledged kids movie by any stretch of the imagination. However, some kids may still enjoy the movie but I highly doubt many of them will really grasp or appreciate the subtext that runs throughout. This may also be hard for some parents to watch as they may not want to face (or be reminded of) the idea of a ten year old (their ten year old) going through this type of situation.

This movie (as I see it) is essentially about a child who's forced into some sort of premature loss of innocence due to the fact that his parents are getting a divorce. For instance no ten year old should be taught that everything, even the sun, will one day die. For those of us that have long ditched our innocence this is not such a big problem and rather entertaining.

The kid then tries to cope with this loss by escaping to some far off fantasy world where everything in life actually turns out like it should have and how he wanted it to be. The problem is that his sad reality starts to seep into his fantasy and eventually ruins the whole thing.

As for the execution, it was largely fantastic. Visually wonderful, cool soundtrack, and a descent story. You may end up drifting when the story lags here or there but it's not really a big deal and doesn't happen often. For the most part it was a really good time. This movie also made me have a lot of throw backs to being a stupid kid. Especially the play mud fight that always ended in a real fight. Always!

I give this movie A.

Paley Fest: Dexter

So I went up to see Dexter night at this years Paley Fest. For those of you who don't know the Paley is LA's museum for television and every year they put together a panel with the cast and crew of various TV shows. This year they featured such shows as Lost, NCIS, and of course Dexter(my favorite TV show).

They hold this at the Saban theater which is in Beverly Hills. A wonderful place to go see something like this but a little on the large side. If you ask me a little more intimacy would have improved the evening but then they'd be turning away people who wanted to go and check it out. Some of these like the Lost night have sold out completely.

The night started off with an episode of Dexter. I've never seen a TV show on a big screen before and it was a rather unique experience. It made it even more unique seeing the show with a large crowd cheering on the characters. The episode we watched was “Hungry Man” from the fourth season. A great episode if you haven't seen it.

Then the entire cast comes out and sits on the stage right in front of you (John Lithgow wasn't present). They also had several of the executive producers of the show on stage and the writers were also on hand but out in the audience. The panel had something of a moderator that asked them questions. A lot of the questions were about the choices they made concerning the character Rita at the end of the fourth season. Then there were a lot of questions about the future of the show. However, they couldn't say much about it because they wouldn't want to ruin any surprises. After that the audience was aloud to ask anything they wanted.

I had a fun night overall and would highly recommend it to anybody that's a fan of TV and lives in the LA area. For more info go to http://www.paleycenter.org/paleyfest2010/ They still have upcoming events through March like Breaking Bad, Glee and Curb Your Enthusiasm.