An Idea Part 2 Ratings Bonzana Continued and Back with a stinging vengance

Meteor Man is a personal childhood classic. Have to find that on DVD.

The Meteor Man totally kicks Blankman's ass. No offense to Damon Wayans but that film just failed to be even one-tenth as good as The Meteor Man.

Robert Townsend has forgotten more about how to be cinematically funny than an entire clan of Wayans will ever know

And Pete Townsend is awesome!

Public Enemies 4/10

Went to the drive-in last night to see a double feature of Public Enemies and The Hangover. It was like the perfect storm. A movie I really wanted to see paired with one I definitely wanted to see again. Unfortunately, I was really disappointed with PE. The story just never engaged me, and while Depp's performance was very good, no one else's was. I'm not sure if it was Bale's performance that fell flat or the fact that his character was never developed. We learned almost nothng about Melvin Purvis or his motivations. I thought Crudup was a caricature performance of J. Edgar Hoover, and Cotillard was alomst painful as Billie. My wife and her friend both really liked it, but I think that came more from staring at an 80' tall Johhny Depp than it did from the movie itself. I would have done much better watching Bonnie and Clyde for the 10th time if I had wanted to see a good gangster flick, or hell, even the gangster episode of the original Star Trek.

The Hangover, on the other hand, was even better upon a second viewing as you pick up things you even missed the first time. Pretty sure our $6.00 contributed to PE's weekend box office, but I really hope they split it $3 and $3.

Ice Age 3: 7.5/10.

Very enjoyable with a good mix of comedy to keep all age groups pleased.

Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs **.5/****

I liked it better than Ice Age 2, of which I was not a fan of. This time around, the movie seems to lessen what made Ice Age 2 so unappetizing (annoying characters, bad plot, humor falling flat) and this time go back to the basics. Leguizamo is funny as usual as Sid, Simon Pegg was a welcome addition as Buck and the fantasy elements mesh pretty well with the comedy. Some of the jokes in the film do fall flat but Pegg's style obviously helps things as they move along. I also liked the baby dinosaurs that Sid had take care of. But then again, I am a sucker for cuteness factors in movies (example: the Huttlet in Star Wars: The Clone Wars).

I had quite the opposite experience Keyser, I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy PE. Having just been (well yesterday) to the theatre for the first time in months to see Public Enemies, it definitely gets two thumbs up and a 9/10 from me.
Probably the most important effect of the movie was how thoroughly you empathize for the "bad guy." Depp, as always, was utterly charismatic, which made the character but with a deep tinge of brokenness. Bale was effective as his usual self, overly intense and tortured - it fit the part but agreed that it was not exceptional.
I would have liked to see a little more of Baby Face Nelson, the actor who played him was incredible in This is England, however what little we see of him in the film was so grating I don't think they could have possibly included him more.
Marion Cotillard was very good considering the fact that she had to pick up the American dialect for the first time. We really don't see her with any depth until the very last bits of the movie, the last scene particularly, and in those last moments she nails it.

The only disappointment I had was that there were a number of shots that looked like they were home video, and that made it quite apparent they were occurring on a fake set. Sadly, these were some of the major action sequences, so they were greatly cheapened. There were also several confusing too tight on the face shots.

Other than that, there was a preview for Brothers, which I hadn't seen before... talk about INTENSE! They should have called it PTSD. I think it's a shooin' for awards.

Public Enemies 7.5/10

Well i didnt expect to see this in theaters but i had the chance to so i did. Depp was great and Cotillard was good as well. Bale was pretty much a zombie he just went through the motions.

This movie did drag at certain points mainly in the middle. I did enjoy it mainly because of Depp but it was not anything special.

I guess the biggest problem I had with the movie was the direction. I'm beginning to wonder whether or not Michael Mann is intimated by big name actors. He just really seemed lost in this flick just like he did in Heat and Collateral. Maybe he just is too timid to give direction to big name stars and just lets them do whatever they think should be done. Perhaps he should just stick to blow 'em up movies like Miami Vice and make his mark as Michael Bay Lite.

There have been numerous movies where an actor has made us empathize with a bad guy which is a trait of a quality actor, and Johnny Depp definitely falls into that category, but that alone was not enough to carry this movie.

As for Cotillard, I don't really consider having to master another language that big of an "acting" feat. Either you pick it up or you don't get the part, but you hit on my point exactly where she showed no depth for the entire movie until that last scene by which point, I had already checked out on this one.

The Visitor 8/10

Just a superb movie and a superb performance by Richard Jenkins. This movie did a great job of showing what it must be like for illegal immigrants living in our country. The witers and director did an amazing job of not hitting you over the head with any kind of message and they totally avoided any kind of Xenophobia. They didn't try to say there was any right or wrong, just the way it is.

Excellent performances also from Haaz Sleiman (Who can currently be seen on Nurse Jackie) as the immigrant and Hiam Abbas as his mother.

Jenkins certainly deserved his Oscar nomination. I can't recommend this one enough

Keyser Soze wrote:The Visitor 8/10

Just a superb movie and a superb performance by Richard Jenkins. This movie did a great job of showing what it must be like for illegal immigrants living in our country. The witers and director did an amazing job of not hitting you over the head with any kind of message and they totally avoided any kind of Xenophobia. They didn't try to say there was any right or wrong, just the way it is.

Excellent performances also from Haaz Sleiman (Who can currently be seen on Nurse Jackie) as the immigrant and Hiam Abbas as his mother.

Jenkins certainly deserved his Oscar nomination. I can't recommend this one enough

I believe that was one of my top 5 films of the year. Maybe even top 3.

Public Enemies - 7/10

Better than TF 2, not as good as the Hangover...

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: 5/10

By far the most disappointing movie this year.

Public Enemies: 8/10

Very entertaining, Some good performances (Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, and Steven Lang), and some pretty good action sequences. I think my only problems was with the script which has some shortcomings and that the movie does drag on a little. Still a pretty solid film.

Away We Go ***/****

Though the script is only average and very much flawed (a example of why bloggers don't make good screenwriters) and some scenes don't work (such as the Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara cameos and Maggie Gyllenhaal's extremely over-the-top performance), this was a very enjoyable film. John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph play off each other very well and Sam Mendes once again does a great job as director. The episodic structure works to its advantage, combining use of its settings (Colorado, Phoenix, Tucson, Madison, Montreal, Miami) with great character development. Unlike most films of the style or genre, you actually get to know the characters and care about them.

In short, the script is average but the leads and direction are great. However, some of the early scenes and Gyllenhaal's performance cause me to give it three stars instead of three and a half.

Keyser Soze wrote:The Visitor 8/10

Just a superb movie and a superb performance by Richard Jenkins. This movie did a great job of showing what it must be like for illegal immigrants living in our country. The witers and director did an amazing job of not hitting you over the head with any kind of message and they totally avoided any kind of Xenophobia. They didn't try to say there was any right or wrong, just the way it is.

Excellent performances also from Haaz Sleiman (Who can currently be seen on Nurse Jackie) as the immigrant and Hiam Abbas as his mother.

Jenkins certainly deserved his Oscar nomination. I can't recommend this one enough

I thought it was a little obvious at times (I felt hit over the head constantly), and very, very simple, but the performances were excellent.

Away We Go- 7/10 Boush pretty much summed it all up for me. In less capable hands, this would've been mediocre to watchable at best. I mean, besides the main characters and the montreal couple, there is not one even remotely respectable or likable character in the whole damn movie, and most of the dialogue is too childish to be clever or effective. Some of the more intimate scenes with rudolph and krasinski, who are both capable and mostly enjoyable, seem forced and almost as if they've never met each other. But, because Sam Mendes is a beast and knows how to do more with less, its most of his subtle directorial touches that really make it worth watching. It still doesn't seem like a Mendes film though, I might not even consider it when ranking them honestly.

Bruno 8.5/10

Very funny film. I dont get how Baron Cohen can do all these things and not burst into laughter. It is quite offensive and lewd but hey thats to be expected.

Bruno ***/****

This film doesn't even close to being as good as Borat but it still holds up on its own. Sacha Baron Cohen is great as usual and it's amazing to see what he can do on-screen, from playing English chavs to Austrian celebrities. However, I feel the film would have been better had they done the film without a rating (or with an NC-17 rating) and cut down on the staged scenes (such as the interview segments) as well as the whole Alabama subplot and focus solely on what made Borat so popular in the first place: making Bruno an everyman shooting a documentary on what makes the United States tick.

And one last thing: did anyone get the idea that the Alabama scenes in this film were basically the Birmingham scenes from Borat, but only uglier and and with more hateable characters? I liked that in Borat when he goes to Birmingham and stays with the nice Jewish couple at the bed and breakfast, that it showed a different and lighter side of Alabama rarely seen before (that not everyone there is an overly-religious redneck with ugly looks and even uglier tendencies). In Bruno, it reinforces the stereotype that everyone in Alabama is an overly-religious redneck with ugly looks and even uglier tendencies.

And those gay converters were full of crap.

Great avy Busc, I would awful awful things to Salma Hayek.

Moon 7.5/10

Went to see this one by myself last night as the wife had absolutely no interest in seeing it. I'm a huge Sam Rockwell fan and will usually see anything he is in. Really glad I went to see this one as it did not disappoint. Sam plays Sam Bell a mining engineer working on the dark side of the moon for a company that mines H3 (Helium) as the worlds energy crisis has been solved by workable fusion powered by H3. Sam works by himself in this station for a 3 year contract kept comapny only by the station's computer/robot Gerty (Basically a Hal 9000) voiced perfectly by Kevin Spacey. What makes Gerty even better than Hal is that it has a video screen with a smiley face on it that changes the position of its mouth from smiling to flatline to upside down depending on what it is saying.

Complicating things for Sam is that the ships communication satellite is broken and communication with Earth is only possible by sending taped messages and then awaiting a returned taped message which takes a bit of time. This makes talking with headquarters as well as his wife and infant daughter very difficult for him and really contributes to his feeling of lonliness. The movie begins with only two weeks left to go in Sam's 3 year contract so you are given the feeling of hopefulness that his time up there is almost done.

One day when Sam has to go out to fix a broken driller, his vehicle crashes, and Sam wakes up in the infirmiry being taken care of by Gerty. This is where the movie really takes off as Sam starts seeing another version of himself or does he. You're not sure if he is hallucinating from his head injury or there really is some other version of himself wandering the halls.

Don't want to reveal any more than this for the folks that would like to see it, but I thought Rockwell did a hell of a job pulling off playing two roles (And very different versions of the same character), and first time director Duncan Jones (Son of David Bowie) did a yeoman's job in his first time out. (This was also his story idea)

If you like some of the stranger episodes of Twilight Zone, I really think you'll like this. If out of the ordinary, thinking man's science-fiction isn't your cup of tea, avoid it.

I never realized that Duncan Jones and Zowie Bowie were the same person. Did he change his name before becoming a director?

He never really changed his name. Duncan Jones is his given name. His father's real name is David Jones. It was pretty much the media that came up with the name Zowie Bowie

Moon looked really odd i might check it out though.

Buscemi wrote:Bruno ***/****

This film doesn't even close to being as good as Borat but it still holds up on its own. Sacha Baron Cohen is great as usual and it's amazing to see what he can do on-screen, from playing English chavs to Austrian celebrities. However, I feel the film would have been better had they done the film without a rating (or with an NC-17 rating) and cut down on the staged scenes (such as the interview segments) as well as the whole Alabama subplot and focus solely on what made Borat so popular in the first place: making Bruno an everyman shooting a documentary on what makes the United States tick.

And one last thing: did anyone get the idea that the Alabama scenes in this film were basically the Birmingham scenes from Borat, but only uglier and and with more hateable characters? I liked that in Borat when he goes to Birmingham and stays with the nice Jewish couple at the bed and breakfast, that it showed a different and lighter side of Alabama rarely seen before (that not everyone there is an overly-religious redneck with ugly looks and even uglier tendencies). In Bruno, it reinforces the stereotype that everyone in Alabama is an overly-religious redneck with ugly looks and even uglier tendencies.

And those gay converters were full of crap.

I hate stereotypes... One out of every four people in Alabama is black, so I doubt every one of them is a redneck. Maybe it'll change in 2012 when Barkley is Governor. :)

I'm going to watch Moon now for sure now that you said it was Twilight Zoneish.

I saw Knowing (4/10): Why is it that when they try to save a bad sci-fi film they always throw in

Spoiler:

Basically it was a great story with bad execution and bad acting. I used to like Nicolas Cage and thought he was in a slump. He's not. He just seems to suck now...