Saw Toy Story 3 - Laura cried

Laura sometimes has some trouble with Pixar movies. For the longest time, she wouldn't watch Toy Story 2 because of the scene were Jessie the Cowgirl is telling her story of being loved and abandoned by a little girl who grew up.

As a parent, it's hard to sit through those kind of things and not think about the inevitable day when your kid will grow up and shun the very things that they used to love. It's sometimes welcome and sometimes sad.

When Julia was just two or three years old, we watched Monsters Inc. on DVD. At some point in the movie near the end, which may have been the time when Sully says goodbye
to Boo, the girl from the human world, I looked over at Laura to see her bawling like a baby.

I laughed and asked, "What's wrong?"

She said through tears, "This is why I hate Pixar movies. They just SUCK you right in and make you cry!"

Laura eventually got over those two movies's sadder moments and now can watch them with no problem.

However, Laura knew Toy Story 3 was going to be a problem when a co-worker who had seen it mentioned to Laura that it was a great movie and that it was sad.

"Am I going to cry?" she asked.

"Yes."

So Laura was going into the movie expecting it to be sad and expecting to cry.

The movie starts off the bat with a downer of a premise. The toys are in the toy box and have been there for years it seems. They are all that's left of all of Andy's toys throughout the years. They even mention losing some toys, like Bo Peep, who was voiced by Annie Potts in the first two movies, to yard sales. Funny!

Then it's discussed that Andy is going away to college. His Mom is giving away his room to his little sister, so he has to decide what to do with his stuff: take to college, put in storage or trash. He puts Woody in the college stuff and puts the toys in with the attic stuff, but when the toys accidentally get put on the curb with the trash, Woody acts to save them. In the confusion, they end up in the daycare donation stuff.

When they get to the daycare, it looks like all their troubles are solved. They are told by Lotso, the purple bear that leads the daycare, that they'll have a never ending stream of toys to play with, but then things quickly turn for the worse when they are locked in the wing for toddlers, who are much rougher on the toys in the bigger kids room. The toys then have to break out of the day care, which is run like a prison at night.

Eventually, it all culminates with Andy having to say goodbye to his toys as he's leaving for college.

I looked over at Laura while this was happening and she was wiping her eyes. She knew I was going to be looking over at her and she laughed while crying and muttered, "Stupid Pixar."

All in all, it was a pretty good Toy Story movie. I wouldn't call it my favorite. It was pretty funny, but the scenes near the end were rather bleak. Maybe repeated viewings will spruce it up. It still ranks up there with the other ones though. It has a lot of great performances from Lotso to Ken, who spends a lot of time insisting that he's not a girl's toy while trying on tons of outfits.

Saw A Christmas Carol in 3D with Julia with both of us bored with stomach aches...

Now where was I? I haven't had much time to write this blog lately. I've had a pretty brutal release coming up and have been working late a lot.

Laura had to work today, which she normally doesn't do, so I decided that Julia and I should see a movie.

I had seen the trailers for the new movie, A Christmas Carol, and it looked decent. I was even thinking that I would see it when it came out since I love 3D movies, but decided against it once I read the tepid reviews. It's getting a 58 percent positive average rating on the website rottentomatoes.com, but some of the bad reviews highlight what I didn't like about it.

I had read words like 'lifeless' in the reviews and was scared about that so I decided not to see it. A Christmas Carol was never my favorite Christmas story. I only really liked the comedy versions of it like the movie "Scrooged". Also, I still fondly remember the HBO production of it with Rich Little playing almost all the parts. I'm sure it's awfully dated now, but it was pretty funny. In that version, Rich Little, the comedian, plays as W.C. Fields as Scrooge, Richard Nixon as Jacob Marley, Humphrey Bogart as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Peter Falk as Columbo as the Ghost of Christmas Present and Peter Sellers as Inspector Cluseau as the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. What I remember most about it was his choice to play Tiny Tim as Truman Capote.

That special was in my mind as I was watching this movie today because I was wishing that I was seeing that one. I almost felt sorry to drag Julia to see it, but I thought she should at least see it to have a background in the play since it's a classic and often referenced in shows and pop culture.

The previews and even the movie trailer seemed to suggest that this is a modern retelling of A Christmas Carol with more comedy seeing as how Jim Carey plays the role of Scrooge, but that's not the case.

I could not believe how dark this movie was. It was so dark and quiet in the parts leading to Scrooge's ghostly visits that I was worried that they didn't have the projector bright enough. But then when things started to happen, it was all bright and noisy, which I guess was the point.

Robert Zemeckis wrote and directed this adaptation. Maybe Robert is manic depressive because that's how this movie feels. At some points, it's dark, gloomy, quiet and humorless. At other points, it's so loud and silly that you wonder if you're watching two movies. The movie also faithfully uses a lot of the lines of dialogue from the book, which made it hard to follow. I had to explain to Julia what some of the things meant as they really weren't explained well. Some parts felt rushed. Others took forever.

I was so disappointed that they didn't make a more humorous adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Since they didn't, I'm wondering why they even bothered making an animated movie about the story of Scrooge.

I asked Julia what she thought of the movie was and her response was that she liked it somewhere in the middle. It was okay for her, which is my sentiments, too.

One last thing, Robert Zemeckis committed what I think it his greatest sin from The Polar Express in that rather than have several talented people voice the different characters, he had Jim Carey and others voice several characters. Not only is Carey Scrooge, but he's all three ghosts of Christmas. It's pretty obvious during the ghost of Christmas Present sequence because he laughs a lot, which sounds exactly like Scrooge's laugh. It's distracting for me to hear that, just like it was to have Tom Hanks voice multiple characters in The Polar Express. It's a minor gripe, but that's just me.

Hot Rod and Space Chimps...

I just finished the movie starring Andy Sandberg called "Hot Rod". In the movie, a guy named, Rod, has always been trying to do stunts to emulate his deceased Dad, who used to set up stunts for Evel Kenieval. He rides around on his moped in a stunt suit wearing a fake mustache and generally fails at every jump he tries.

All that changes when his step-Dad, Frank, who Rod longs to beat the crap out of, is stricken with a heart defect diagnosis and needs a transplant, which the family can't afford. Rod resolves to do a big jump that even Evel couldn't do to raise money for the operation so he can get Frank better so he can kick his ass.

The premise is funnier than the movie. To be fair, it has some hilarious sequences that make little sense in a logical movie, but feel at home here. Like when he finds out that Frank is dying before he can kick his ass, he goes to his 'happy place' in the forest and proceeds to dance verbatim the Kevin Bacon construction site solo dance from Footloose. Things like that are sprinkled through this movie.

The movie stars Sissy Spasek as Rod's mother. Bill Hader and Danny McBride appear as his two buddies. Will Arnett plays a rich jerk that is dating Rod's secret crush, played by Isla Fisher of Wedding Crashers.

I was asking my brother, Bill, if he had seen this movie, but he had not.

"But I've seen Space Chimps!" he said, which also starred Andy Sandberg as the voice of the lead chimp whose grandfather had been the first chimp in space.



I laughed because Space Chimps is not awful, but it's really kind of embarrassing to watch. It had some definite potential, but it's as if they stopped trying halfway through and just tried to shove it out in time for Summer. Want proof? Rent the movie. You'll notice that the first part of the movie, which takes place in the space training camp for the chimps is fairly detailed and had some good jokes. Then there is the second part, which is set on a distant planet. It's one of the ugliest planets that I've ever seen. It's as if the programmers showed the pre-rendered version of the planet's surface and when told how long it would take to render with effects like textures, shading and what not, the producers on the film balked and told them to cut some corners. That is how ugly the planet looks.



The "villain", and I'm using that term very loosely here, is voiced by Jeff Daniels. Yes, that Jeff Daniels. He's hardly recognizable playing the incredibly annoying, effeminate and high-pitched alien, Zartog, who finds a piece of space equipment that made it to his planet and is using it to torture and terrorize the residents of the planet. All of whom look like squishy, shiny aliens crossed with gummy bears. The chimps make it through space and apparently the last bit of rendered graphics and make it to the ugly planet. Once there, they encounter a helpful glowing creature that screams a lot and looks like a running boob. And when I say a boob, I mean it looks like just that.

I saw this the first time at our really crappy dollar theater on West Center. I took Julia to it and was treated to a constant buzzing from the arcane speaker system. The movie looked like absolute crap because it was grainy and scratched from the constant showings. Turns out, DVD does it no justice. It looks bad...

Watched 'Zach and Miri Make a..."

I just watched the newest Kevin Smith film called Zach and Miri Make a Prono. I'm purposely misspelling the title so it doesn't get stopped by internet filters. A lot of chain stores stocked it with just the title of 'Zach and Miri', which is shown above.

Kevin Smith is the guy who directed Clerks, Mallrats (loved it), Chasing Amy (meh), Dogma (loved), Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (loved) and Clerks II (very good).

His movies are generally dialogue driven with a lot of character back and forth. Usually, there's a lot of cursing and a lot of vulgar discussions. In Zach and Miri, Zach, played by Seth Rogan, and Miri, played by Elizabeth Banks, are two friends who, on the eve of their high school reunion (in the middle of winter for some reason), find their utilities turned off. In danger of getting thrown in the poor house and realizing that they haven't done anything of value, Zach gets the bright idea to shoot an adult movie to pay off their debts due to the fact that all the people they went to high school would probably buy it.

They scrap together a coffee shop co-worker as the producer, a hockey goalie as the camera man, and get some enthusiastic locals to be in the picture with them. The original idea is a Star Wars rip-off, but bad luck occurs the night before shooting and they are forced to shoot in the coffee shop.

The main conflict in the movie is 'Are Zach and Miri going to follow through on their love scene?' and 'Will it ruin their friendship?'

It has some big laughs here and there, but I would only recommend it to people that are not offended by some very raunchy humor in places.

Watched the Ruins....

Maybe I'm just jaded. Maybe I'm just so desensitized with horror films that I just can't get scared anymore. There are exceptions to that rule, of course. I remember seeing the Ring and getting freaked out. The first Grudge picture had some moments. I do remember getting so freaked out by the movie Witchboard when I was in college that I had to turn on every light in the house until someone finally came home. The Exorcist really freaked me out because it gave me the impression that I could fall asleep one night and wake up possessed. The Amityville Horror kind of freaked me out because I kept expecting to see lights go on by themselves and voices yelling at me to get out. The getting-shot-in-your-sleep way of dying shown in the movie freaked me out. I think I have a phobia about things happening to you while you sleep.

I'm not really sure what The Ruins had in mind in terms of scares, though. The film starts with some pretty people (Note to Hollywood. Enough with the pretty people in these films! I find myself hoping they die after enduring their spoiled-kid acting. Also, let's not make them so spoiled.) There are two women, the pretty blond and the kind of complaining, slightly nerdy brunette. The two guys can be narrowed down to the guy who wants to be a doctor and the guy with the beard. They meet a German guy, who suggests they all go on this hike to meet up with his brother, who was checking out some Mayan ruins. He hadn't heard from him in a few days. Spoilers are ahead, but you probably won't care.

So of course, they go to the Ruins. This is part of the problem. It's supposed to look like it's in the middle of a remote part of the jungle, but instead, it looks like it's right behind a well-traveled road. They get to the ruins, which looks like a small pyramid covered with vegetation. The brunette starts snapping pictures while everyone starts arguing with a local that's yelling at them. Anybody with a brain would be able to tell that he's trying to get them away from the ruins, but they get closer until the brunette steps on some vines. Then guns are drawn, their guide is shot and they are forced up the ruins.

Up top, they find the camping gear of the German guy's brother and his friends, but no one is there. They hear what sounds like a cell phone that sounds like the German guy's brother's cell phone. They hoist the German guy down a rope, but it snaps half-way down. The blond is sent down to get him since the rope crank takes two strong guys to turn. She has to jump the last 8 feet, but ends up hurting her knee. They get the German guy up on a makeshift gurney with the help of the brunette. The two women look for the cell phone sound. To their surprise, it's not a cell phone at all! It's the flowers mimicking the cell phone! The vines start to lash at them. They run out and get hoisted up to the top while killer vines try to grab them.

Long story short, they all die one by one as the killer vines prey on open wounds and panicky actions. The blond gets vines in her body from her leg wound, which drives her crazy to the point where she's cutting herself to get them out. The German guy gets his legs cut off by the would-be doctor in the only shocking scene in order to save his life since the legs were infected. All for naught though as the vines drag him away soon after, the guy with the beard pipes up, "Good thing we cut off his legs."

That's just what I was thinking.

All the while, they are held at bay by the locals that won't let them leave because they are keeping them quarantined since they've touched the vines. But as I was watching this go on, I kept thinking, "Well, I only see them guarding the one side. Why don't they try to leave on another side?"

I had to stop watching when Julia walked in after playing outside (didn't want to freak her out). Even though the movie up to this point was lame, I had to see how it ended. I saw the ending and thought, "Well, that was stupid."

This brings me to some quick rules of thumb for college kids/young couples in movies.

1. If you are in a foreign country or strange city, odds are pretty good that you will die.
2. If someone offers to take you or suggests you visit some exotic locale that's off the beaten path, turn it down because you will die.
3. If you're at this locale and people start disappearing, don't wait. Freaking run!

There is a new movie out this past weekend called "A Perfect Getaway" about a young couple that's on their honeymoon. They, of course, are hiking in a remote part of Hawaii. The movie description says this: "But when the pair comes across a group of frightened hikers discussing the horrifying murder of another newlywed couple on the islands, they begin to question whether they should turn back."

You think? They need to study my rules above.

Recent movies I saw...

Last week, I watched a movie called The Room. If you've never seen it, you're really missing out. It's one of those movies that is so bad that it's good. It's kind of gained a cult following for the midnight movie crowds. Kind of like the Rocky Horror movie set, people talk to the screen, throw things and dress up like characters from the movie.

The Room centers around a man named Johnny who seems to have everything. He's a "banker", which he mentions a lot. He has a "beautiful" girlfriend, which is mentioned a lot. He has a pseudo-son that he's putting through school. Everyone seems to like him. Then without warning, his girlfriend Lisa decides that he's too boring, even though she never seems to leave the apartment they live in, and starts sleeping with his best friend, Mark. You know Mark is his best friend because he says it all the time. Lisa's in the "computer" business because that's what she says even though she doesn't seem to own one. People come and go at odd times and some characters are never introduced. The football is tossed several times and not in the 'go deep' kind of way, but in a 'let's-stand-five-feet-from-each-other' way.

I recently got the Riff Trax audio for The Room. Riff Trax is a commentary joke track you can add to DVDs to watch alongside the actual movie. It's pretty funny.

I also watched, Choke, a movie based on a Chuck Palaniuk book. He's the author of Fight Club, which is one of my favorite movies. It stars Sam Rockwell, who you might have seen as Guy, the extra crew member in Galaxy Quest. Choke concerns a man who is a sex addict and funds his psychotic mother's nursing home stay with money from people who have saved his life. He deliberately shoves food down his throat so a kind-hearted stranger will save him. They in turn give him money every now and then because it makes them feel good. He also works at a real-life colonial villager that's like a living museum.

I really wanted to like this movie more, but it's not that funny. I wouldn't recommend it unless you really really liked Fight Club.

Lastly, we saw the movie Public Enemies last week. It's directed by Michael Mann, who directed, Heat, Hancock, the Aviator and other bigger than life films.

Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber. Depp plays him very well as a low-key, muted gangster with a swagger. From what I've read, this is like how Dillinger was as he'd blend into crowds due to his not-so-unique features. Christian Bale plays the man that's tasked with bringing down Dillinger. Bale does a decent job with what he's given.

The movie was pretty good. It had good action scenes, but the movie gets run down by the slow scenes in between. Near the end, I forgot who one major character was supposed to be, so I had to ask Laura to remind me. That's not a good sign. It's a fine picture if you like seeing films about the Great Depression era. Otherwise, I'd probably stay away.

This looks like an interesting movie...

Since 2012 is coming fast upon us, it's only natural that movies about the latest end of the world date would be coming out.

For those of you that don't know, the end of the Mayan calendar is December 21, 2012. It's believed that the world will either end, change drastically followed by a rebirth or machines will turn against their masters.

Here's a trailer for a new film starring John Cuzack coming out in November that explores the second idea.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mktuxQLWrSs&annotation_id=annotation_279660&feature=iv

Movie Review - Right At Your Door

I had seen the trailer for this movie on another DVD, and it seemed like it was a really interesting and thought-provoking movie. While certainly thought provoking, it's only interesting in parts with a twist ending that, while interesting, has plenty of holes in it. I'll be discussing some plot points and the ending, so stop reading if you don't want to know how it ends.



The movie centers around Brad, an out-of-work musician, who sees his wife, Lexi, off to work. Soon after she leaves, Brad hears that several dirty bombs have been detonated in the city (Los Angeles). He goes outside and notices several clouds of smoke in the air. Thinking of his wife, he tries to call her while driving to where she might be. It seems the dirty bombs have a combination of toxic chemicals and an unknown viral agent. Not being able to get through and turned back by police, who he saw kill a man that was contaminated, he rushes back home while trying to call his wife several times. He also stops at the hardware store and steals a boat load of plastic sheeting and duct tape.

At home, he and the next-door handy man seal up the house while they wait for Lexi come home. He waits to do the front door last, but when it looks like she won't make it before the cloud of smoke overtakes the house, he puts clothes, food and water in a box for Lexi by the back of the house and seals up the front door.

What's supposed to be interesting is his decision to not let his wife into the house. She does show up and is mighty pissed when he won't let her in. His reasoning is that Fox News said not to come in contact with exposed people as they may be deadly. Her response is kind of funny: "What the f^&* does Fox News know?" There's a bit of back and forth as they argue about her getting into the house. She also tries to break into the back of the house by throwing her cell phone through a window. In the end, she resolves to her fate of being outside.

The rest of the movie drags and drags with the couple arguing between windows and plastic sheeting. There's also a lot of swear words that really detract from the story. At one point, Lexi says something like, "Well, they're not the f-wording one that's f-wording dying! F-word!" To which her husband pounds a wall and yells, "F-word!" I realize that this is a pretty stressful situation, but surely, they have a bigger swear-word thesaurus out there?

Like any movie out there, there are some head-scratching turns in the plot. As Brad is sealing up his house, I kept thinking, "Why doesn't he just seal off a room for his wife?" Sure enough, he finally does just that, but not until some intense arguing between the couple with F-bombs being thrown around, a character shows up, a character leaves and masked health officials show up a few times.

At one point, Brad stands in his bathtub and dumbs a whole bottle of bleach all over him because... well I'm guessing because he's paranoid about being contaminated. Curiously enough, he doesn't get any chemical burns, nor does his skin or hair turn colors. I don't care how toxic the environment is, washing yourself with a toxic chemical isn't the answer.

The 'shocking' ending comes when health officials show up and drag his wife away. Then the masked health officials inform Brad that the air in his house that they tested (he gave them a sample of something in the house) showed that the house was full of toxic air. Because he sealed up the house, he wasn't getting any fresh air and he's received a deadly dose of the toxin. They aren't letting him out and tell him not to struggle. They nail boards over every window and door and start filling the house with gas. He's killed to stop the possible viral spread of the toxin. Outside, the officials inform Lexi that because she was shut outside, she will likely survive the exposure.

This is where I didn't get the movie. I'm pretty sure health officials aren't just going to kill someone in a house because they believe that he's a goner already. They can probably quarantine someone if they have to. I'd hate to be the official that called for the mass extinction of everyone that sealed up their house only to find out that they might have acted too fast if people survive.

All in all, it's an okay movie. It has a definite point about whether or not we're prepared for a terrorist attack, but it's message is muddled by its plot holes and the coarse language.

Cloverfield and batteries...

I went to see the movie Cloverfield two Saturdays ago. It's the new movie from the Bad Robot production group that brought you the shows Alias and Lost. J.J. Abrams is the producer. If you haven't seen the movie and plan on seeing it, which probably includes none of you, then stop reading. If you haven't seen it and probably won't, then keep on reading.

The movie is basically a monster movie in the same general premise that Godzilla was. A monster attacks a city for some reason and things get destroyed. Where it differs from monster movies like that is that it's shot to look like it was filmed on a small camcorder. This has been tried before in other films like the Blair Witch Project and the Last Broadcast. In the case of the Blair Witch Project, most of the 'scares' occur off screen. It's only at the end that we see something that's a little disturbing, but even that loses its luster after a second viewing.

In the case of Cloverfield, the movie purported to be footage found at the site in New York City formerly known as Central Park. The footage with a guy and a girl talking. It's the morning after of a sleep over involving Rob and Beth. It then cuts to a party where a woman named Lily is telling her boyfriend, Jason, Rob's brother, to man the camera for a going away party. Rob has just accepted a job in Japan and she threw the party.

Jason then quickly asks their buddy Hud to man the camera. Hud is a doofus, but he willingly starts filming and asking goofy questions. Along the way, he awkwardly tries to hit on Lily's friend Marlena.

The party is a stereotypical Manhattan party filled with tons of young and pretty city dwellers, filled with lots of indie rock and filled with lots of inane dialogue. I read one review of this movie in which the reviewer complained that the party scene was too long to the point that you wished that a giant monster would drop down on the sky and start wrecking havoc. I have to agree with a lot of that, but maybe that was the point. You really don't care too much for the characters because they seem like spoiled young adults, so when shit starts to happen, you sort of believe the confusion and selfish choices a few of them make.

At the party, Rob finally shows up and so does the girl he likes, Beth, who shows up with another guy! The word is 'ouch' to describe this encounter, but I'm not feeling sorry for this guy. He's apparently had years to describe his feelings for Beth, who he slept with once two weeks prior (the footage at the beginning was the morning after), but is surprised that she'd find someone else when he announced that he was taking a job in Japan. Rob and Beth fight, Beth leaves, and Rob leaves the party to feel sorry for himself. It's shortly after this point that a giant monster starts to attack the city.

Giant explosions happen across the city. A few buildings get destroyed. People start to freak out and run around in all directions. In the distance, it looks like a giant something is tearing up buildings. The people quickly decide to leave the city, but no one thinks to drive. Everyone starts to walk out of town across one of the bridges (forget which). Halfway across, it is attacked and it falls down, so the survivors of that have to turn around and get out another way. During this commotion, Beth calls Rob. She's hurt in her apartment building and is pleading for help. Rob, of course, decides to go find her. The problem is that this is the direction of the giant monster.

Along the way, they encounter the monster and its fight against the Army as well as some of the monster's babies, children or whatever they were. The babies look and act like little lizard spiders. The gang encounter the little monsters and have to run and hide. In the meantime, the monster is still wrecking havoc. The Army is considering blowing up Manhattan, so they only have a few hours to get out of town.

All in all, I thought it was a really good movie. Previous attempts at a first-person perspective movie have been mostly disappointing. This one had enough realism that you could believe that someone was shooting the footage of this event. The camera's narrator, Hud, while a little goofy, has the right amount of humor, fear, cowardice and nobility to save the footage from feeling hollow. You actually get that this guy is freaking out while running away from the monster.

Those with weak stomachs will want to avoid this film. I've heard of people getting really ill at all the bouncing and running around from the first-person camera, but I was fine when I watched it. If you go, don't be one of those people that were warned beforehand that the movie was a shaky perspective. The information is clearly out there that this is that type of movie. So if you're just one of those people that go to see movies without researching what you're getting yourself into, then I don't really feel sorry for you for seeing something you probably didn't like. Do your homework beforehand. Seriously, we live in the information age. If you can yap on your cellphone while you're supposed to be bagging your groceries and holding up the grocery store line, then you can take the time to get on a computer. Sit. Type. Click. Read. Easy. There. I feel better.

What's intriguing to me about this movie are that people aren't questioning the premise that a huge monster can suddenly appear and start destroying New York. I think that's an accepted fact that this couldn't seriously happen at any time. We are the jaded generation after all, or at least my generation is. I don't know about Generation Y, but I think it'd be the same. We've been raised on monster and fantasy movies that have pushed the envelope of what is real and what isn't real. However, when a movie like Independence Day comes along, people my age are more likely to nitpick the viability of Jeff Goldblum hacking into the alien mother ship's computer with a Macintosh laptop and giving their computer a virus than the viability of 13 huge ships flying across the universe undetected until they fly over our cities.

So I guess it shouldn't come as a shock to me that people are nitpicking Cloverfield because of its controversial use of batteries: cell phone batteries and camera batteries.

After the monster attacks and Rob gets his phone call from Beth, he quickly realizes that his cell phone battery is almost dead. So instead of rushing out of the city, he rushes into an electronics store, finds a new battery, slaps it into his phone and tries to contact Beth again. That's it. That's a huge controversy.

I've read many discussions on the internet movie forums where people are declaring how false it is that a person could just get a brand new cell phone battery and use it because the package always tells you to charge it before you use it. Then people that work for an electronics store claim that they have some sort of charge because the batteries have to be tested before they leave the factory. Then other people tell their stories about how they have tried this before and found that they needed to charge their battery. Then other people challenge that by stating that sometimes they lose their charge from sitting on the shelf and other times it still has some of that factory charge left. And it goes on and on.

The other controversy is about the battery in the camcorder that Hud uses. Most batteries that come with a camcorder generally last between an hour and two hours, so it stands to reason that some people don't believe that Hud could be filming for over 7 hours. Now here is where it gets a little stupid in my opinion.

First of all, it's never mentioned how long Hud films for. You get the impression that he either filmed continuously and had it edited out for the flim version, that he was shutting the camcorder off and on during the night. Either scenario will drain most batteries in a few hours. However, it's also pretty obvious that he was shutting the camera off and on as he had breaks in action. Even if you have a low-cost battery, you can stretch the battery life by shutting it off and on. My old camcorder from the early 1990s had a two-hour battery that I used one day at Disney World for almost the whole day. So now over a decade later we have made significant advances in battery life. I've seen batteries listed at Best Buy that last for over 6 hours.

The problem is, it's never spelled out for the viewer in the movie. So this has led to long discussions about the feasibility what type of camera it was, how long he filmed, whether or not he kept the camera on the whole time, whether or not he recorded the whole time, etc. As a result, people are confused.

Even my brother, Joe, was wondering about that. He admitted that he was a little confused about how long a battery should last.

That's the problem with the viewing public. We need things spelled out for us.

My one big question in the movie is the viability of New York clearing out. For sure, there are people scrambling out of the way, but the city seems devoid of running cars, kids and old people. I didn't get the sense that there was a mad scramble for all of New York to leave the city. I would think that this would take days. But again, this isn't spelled for me, so now I'm a hypocrite for even questioning it while I'm mocking people who question other aspects of the movie. So much for my original premise.

The Bee Movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks and Happy Feet...

Introductions aren't my strongest suit, so let's just say that I had ideas to talk about three different kids movies, but couldn't think of compelling reasons to focus on just one, so I decided to meld them all into one story. That and I had a few of them partly written and was too lazy to finish.

........................

One Friday, Julia and I were on our own. Laura was out of town visiting a friend so I promised Julia that we would see the new movie, The Bee Movie.



We saw the 5:00 showing at the local theater here. Julia was pretty excited to see it. After all, if you've been watching television, it would have been really hard to miss the advertising for The Bee Movie. They were on for the two months before it came out non-stop on the kid channels.

We get to the theater and we go to buy popcorn. Julia really loves popcorn, so we ended up sharing a large popcorn.

Inside the theater, Julia decided that we're going to sit at the very top of the theater so that "we can see better." I tried to tell her that if we sat a few rows closer, we'd see it even better, but she had her heart set on the top row. Once you get Julia's mind set on something, it's hard to change it.

The previews were going and we're eating our popcorn. Julia was holding the huge bag on her lap. After a few minutes, she pulled the popcorn away from me.

I exclaimed in a loud whisper, "Hey! Bring back the popcorn!"

Julia defiantly said, "No, we're saving it for the start of the movie."

I tried to reach across her to get more popcorn.

She pulled away. After a few seconds, she put the bag back on her lap. I reached again. She slapped my hand! I reached again. She slapped my hand again!

I exclaimed, "Hey!"

She said again, "No! We're saving it for the start of the movie!"

I looked at her and then my watch. It's only a few minutes before the movie was supposed to start. I said, "Fine."

I sat there waiting, but I still felt hungry as I had not eaten yet. I looked over at Julia periodically. She was just sitting there watching the trailers, but then I noticed that she was putting popcorn into her mouth every 10 seconds or so.

I said, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."

She stopped eating for a minute. Then she began again.

I said again, "Julia, I thought we were saving the popcorn."

She stopped eating for yet another minute. Then she began eating the popcorn yet again.

I exclaimed, "Julia! Stop eating!"

She didn't stop, so I grabbed the bag. She slapped my hand again. This time, I moved close to her face and I said in a low voice, "Julia. This is ridiculous. I paid for the popcorn, and I'm going to eat it if I want to. Otherwise, I'm going to take this popcorn, throw it away and you'll get none. On top of that, you'll be grounded. Is that what you want? Besides, we can get a refill on the popcorn if we run out, remember?"

She looked at me for a second as if she was trying to figure out how serious I was. I think she got the message. Without sighing, she gave me the popcorn bag. I proceeded to eat.

Ahh... kids, aren't they precious? I'm sure years later she'll be convinced by her therapists that all of her problems in life can be traced back to the time when she tried to conserve her popcorn for the movie, but I ate it anyway. She'll come home one Christmas and yell, "You bastard! You ate my popcorn!"

So back to The Bee Movie...

The Bee Movie was written by Jerry Seinfeld, who coincidentally starred in the show Seinfeld. In The Bee Movie, Seinfeld plays the roll of Barry B. Benson, a young bee who's just graduated from school and excited to pick his new career. He gets freaked out that he'll get stuck in his career choice until he dies. After all, he hasn't seen anything out of the outside world. While flying with the pollen jockeys, the bees that collect and spread pollen, he gets lost in the big city. From there, he meets a florist, who he falls in love with. There are some funny scenes with her jealous human boyfriend and his dealing with the human world.

I don't really remember a lot about how the movie's plot goes, but it somehow moves to bees suing the human race for harvesting their honey without permission.

I fell asleep a few times during the courtroom scenes in the movie, which should give you an indication on how much I liked this movie. All in all, it was okay. It started out pretty good with lots of bee puns and humor that adults could appreciate. I just thought it dragged a little.

........................

Another movie we saw recently was the new movie, Alvin and the Chipmunks. As with every beloved franchise from our youth, they have to remake it into a cartoon, 3-D animated film or combination action and 3-D animated film. This is the latter.



The movie centers around a guy named Dave, like the guy from the original song (played by Jason Lee). He's a song writer, but not a very successful one. He plays his demo tape to his friend, Ian (played by David Cross), who is a record executive of some sort, or maybe he's an agent. Ian rejects it and tells him to find something new, so Dave does when he inadvertently becomes the guardian of three chipmunks who can sing and talk. How does one acquire three talking chipmunks you may ask? Well, if you are in the process of leaving a record company's lobby with a stolen muffin basket, it's possible that three talking chipmunks will jump in after their tree is cut down and erected as a Christmas tree in the lobby of said record company.

They introduce themselves to Dave, he freaks out, throws them out, they manage to get back in, and he blackmails them to sing his songs for free room and board. He throws them out again for ruining his dinner date with the girl next door, who happens to look like a super model (played by Cameron Richardson, who curiously enough played a teen supermodel on the show House, when she was about 24 years old). The chipmunks high tail it over to Ian's house without knowing who Ian is, what he does or where he lives. They sing for him the Christmas song and he proclaims them new artists on the record label!

Apparently, it's possible to record, produce and release a Christmas song sung by Chipmunks not only overnight, but so fast that when Dave is in the grocery store the next day, he hears the song on the loud speaker.

Fame comes to the chipmunks. Of course, Ian starts to wedge himself between Dave and the chipmunks, Dave loses the chipmunks, chipmunks miss Dave, Dave misses the chipmunks, Dave wants the chipmunks back, Ian won't let the Chipmunks go, yadda yadda yadda... the Chipmunks are back with Dave.

I left the movie twice to get a refill of popcorn and to go to the bathroom. Curiously enough, I didn't seem to miss anything. I even took my time. This should tell you that I didn't think much of this movie.

I joked with Laura when I came back the second time, "What did I miss?"

She rolled her eyes and said, "Nothing."

The movie was okay, but lacked a clever plot or jokes that weren't derived from trashing an apartment or chipmunk bodily functions.

The one interesting thing to me was the phone-it-in performance by David Cross, who has a dual career of corny movie actor and hipster comedian. You could tell that he was winking at the camera the whole time. Hey, I understand. If I was bit player actor, I'd probably be happy for any role that came my way, too.

One thing I'm getting tired of in these movies are the uses of the same plot device of two parties getting together, then one party goes away, which the other party realizes they were meant to be with the other all along. It's been used over and over with these films. Memo to Hollywood: Can't we just have a remake of a beloved pop culture icon(s) that involves a different plot device?

............

The next movie has been out for a while, but I'm finally around to reviewing it. It's called 'Happy Feet' and it's a movie about a penguin that tap dances instead of singing, which I guess most penguins do... This month, it's back on HBO and because it's also available in our On Demand section, we get to see it whenever Julia wants to see it. Yay!!!!



The movie centers around a penguin named Mumble. From the start, Mumble is different from the other penguins because he doesn't have a singing voice. Apparently, penguins not only sing, but they sing various versions of popular songs that include, "Heartbreak Hotel", "Somebody to Love", "Kiss", "Broken Wings", etc. It's like watching 'Moulin Rouge' with penguins. Curiously enough, they both star Nicole Kidman.

Watching this movie or even listening in the background to this movie makes me want to shove pencils in my eyes and ears. The butchering of songs is bad enough, but then it takes a turn for the worse by the two voices that Robin Williams provides for this movie. First off, he provides the voice of the sassy narrator, who turns out to be the character of Lovelace, the sassy love doctor, which he reads kind of like a grizzled Morgan Freeman meets Barry White. Then we hear him again as Ramon, the sassy Hispanic sounding penguin that Mumble befriends. For some reason, the writers of this movie felt the need to have the smaller penguins that Mumble encounters voiced like they came across the border.

The segments with Robin Williams drive me crazy because I personally can't stand him anymore. There was a time when I really liked Robin Williams. My brother and I thought that he was hysterical, and we'd see every movie that he was in. After a while, you start to notice that he's just doing the same voices whenever he's in a movie or appearing on a show. His list of characters include the sassy John Wayne, the sassy gay guy, the sassy southerner, the sassy Hispanic, the sassy preacher, the sassy cop, the sassy kid or the sassy grandma. I'm sure I've forgotten one. It wasn't so bad in the movie 'Robots' when he played Bender, the sassy, kleptomaniac robot made of spare parts, but it was definitely restrained. He's much better in movies when he's restrained like his roles in Awakenings and Good Will Hunting.

Another thing that drives me crazy about Happy Feet is the non-stop use of music for the sake of plot. You see the plot revolves around Mumble being an outsider because he can't sing like the other penguins. Because of this, he's kind of an outcast due to his crazy dancing that he does instead.

Because the plot, voices and music drive me up the wall, I'll admit that I'm not sure what happens in the middle of the movie. I do know that Mumble loves a girl named Gloria, he can't sing, he's shunned and explores a lot because of it, which is where it's discovered that fish are disappearing. Where it gets really weird is when Mumble and others try to figure out what happened to all the fish. In a very weird turn, Mumble is captured and placed in a zoo in which he faces real actors. He's depressed because he's away from his family and Gloria, the girl penguin he likes. He starts to tap dance one day, people notice and suddenly it turns into a save the world by dancing sequence. Mumble appears back home (with a tracking device on his back) and convinces the penguins to dance to bring back the fish. They do and the humans watching are astounded. It ends with real actors yelling at each other about how they must save the penguins!

It's a very weird movie, and I can't believe it got the good reviews it got. Julia seems to love it though, which I guess is the whole point...

We saw the Simpsons Movie with Julia...

I'm starting to feel the need to get back into the swing of things and put out sordid details of my personal life for all of the world to read. Heaven knows, I don't spend nearly enough time dishing with my fellow employees to get all of this out of my system. My wife clearly is tired of hearing me talk about them as she recently admitted to me that she usually only pays attention to the first and last thing that I've told her, which is really quite touching.

On Saturday, we decided to go see a movie as a family. Usually, we're stuck with the family fare of movies like Ice Age, the Shrek movies, and such, but recently we did get to see A Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller, so we're hopefully starting to swing towards some movies we can all enjoy. Laura suggested that we go to see Underdog, but then I suggested that we go see The Simpsons Movie. Laura shrugged and said, "Sure". Julia seemed to be just as excited to see either movie, so it was settled on The Simpsons Movie.

I had heard from a co-worker who took his son to see The Simpsons Movie that it was very inappropriate for children. I heard it, but completely forgot that he told me this until he reminded me on Monday that he told me not to see it.

I guess I kind of knew what I was in for by taking out daughter Julia to see the movie. She had just turned 6 about two weeks ago. I remembered back that when I was her age I was often seeing movies that I probably shouldn't have like Jaws or Smokey and the Bandit. We also had HBO in our house so seeing those movies wasn't too hard because my parents couldn't sit down and watch everything with us. I think they were trusting the judgment of my older brothers, but they tended to gravitate towards the movies that my twin brother, Bill, and I shouldn't have been watching, so I'll just blame them (read with sarcasm guys...).

The Simpsons Movie is rated PG-13 and for good reason. While the series often features mature humor with their violence and sexual innuendo, it's still a little tame by movie standards. Free of the shackles of TV censors, The Simpsons Movie amps up the jokes to a more vulgar degree.

The movie centers around the pollution in the lake in Springfield and how Homer's love of a pig ultimately dooms the town. It seems hard to believe that the two are related, but they are.

One part of the movie really stood out for us...

Homer and Bart are fighting early in the movie. Homer then starts daring Bart to do things. Ultimately, he dares Bart to skateboard naked to the Krusty Burger and back or he'll call Bart cowardly for the rest of his life. Bart takes off naked. For a while, you only see his bottom. Then he switches to the front view and his lower is body blocked by a series of sight gags. Then, he moves behind a fence and you get a nice view of his... umm... noodle... before he trips and plasters his naked body in front of a glass window with only Ned Flander's french fry covering up that part.

Laura and I roared with laughter, but also cringed. At the same time, we both looked over at each other and winceed. Julia was roaring with laughter.

All in all the movie is really funny with only a few parts that made us wince: A character flips a crowd off, two guys kiss and a few references to sex. Otherwise, it's a real family pleaser!

The next day, we are at the YMCA to go swimming. Julia is getting dressed in the family locker room when she tells me, "Daddy, do you know what my favorite part of The Simpsons Movie was?"

I ask, "What?"

Now I'm not a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I did gather some subtle hints that peaked my interest and gave me a good guess.

Earlier that day, I was getting dressed and three times during that process of getting dressed in my bedroom, Julia burst in. I finally had to yell at her to stop walking in as I was trying to get dressed.

So later that day at the YMCA when Julia said, "When you get to see Bart's WEINER!!", I really wasn't that surprised for some reason. I had a hunch you could say...

"You did, huh?" I asked sheepishly.

"YEAH! It was so FUNNY!!!" she laughed.

I laughed, but then reminded her that this probably isn't a very good topic to discuss at school because it was inappropriate. She agreed.

I think I remember bragging all the time in grade school that I got to see a lot of movies that I probably shouldn't have like Animal House and Caddyshack, but that was in the 70s when such actions were deemed cool. Nowadays, it could probably get you into some hot water with other nosy parents.

I would like to point out that we in no way let Julia watch stuff that's inappropriate for her. You would think that me with my liberal dose of unhealthy movies when I was younger wouldn't mind if Julia got exposed to movies for older viewers. Well, you would be wrong. While I cherish every memory of that time, it also made me a paranoid mess when I was growing up. You try to relax swimming in a lake during the summer when you think that there's a slight possibility that a shark like Jaws or piranhas like the movie Piranha are going to attack you. You try to sleep when you think that some demon in your house is going to possess you, like in the Amityville Horror. You try not to be afraid of spiders after watching Kingdom of the Spiders when you're a little kid. For good measure, show a little kid Earthquake and then ask him if he's afraid of the Earth moving beneath him.

This was a lesson, though. There are several sites out there, like Parent Preview, that screen movies and rate them based on family friendliness. They even list the objectionable parts. Next time, I'm going to check out that site before going to see a questionable movie.

Saw the movies 'The Queen', 'Children of Men' and 'Grindhouse'

I used to be up on all the movies that came out, but then something happened in my life that put a snag into that hobby, which is having a baby (not me, my wife... although I obviously helped kick start the process...)

After the baby came, the semi-regular trips to the movie theater stopped. Also, it seemed that I didn't have as much time to watch movies that I rented, either because of many reasons (our schedules and other factors).

Now I'm trying to make an effort to stay on top of my movie viewing, which is so important on the grand scheme of things, I realize. I would stockpile them and wait until I retire to catch up on them, but I'm sure by then my tastes would have changed drastically.

Last night, we watched the movie, "The Queen", starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II. The movie takes place mostly during the days after Lady Diana died in a car crash. Having been stripped of her title as 'Her Royal Highness' (a few references to former HRH), the royal family did what they thought was proper when Diana passed... nothing. Their reaction, especially Queen Elizabeth's, are what move the story along.

Tony Blair had just started as the new prime minister a few months before the tragedy and it's really interesting to see the interplay between the elected officials and the monarchy. They claim that they know what the British people want even though they are sheltered miles away in a vast estate. They continue to claim that the British people will come to their senses, but as the days build between the death and the funeral, the lack of anything from the royal family causes tension between the public and the royal family until they are finally forced to action to make it look like they actually cared for a person they despised.

While I'm sure dramatized a lot, it is still a fascinating and sometimes funny movie about the Queen Elizabeth II and how she handled the death of Lady Diana. I'd recommend it.

...

Keeping with our British theme, Laura and I watched "Children of Men", a movie about a future world in which women are barren and the last birth was 18 years ago. The world is now a place where terrorism runs rampant, immigration is a crime and refugees are caged like animals. The movies protagonist, Theo (Clive Owen) is dragged into a fight to deliver a woman, Kee, who is about to deliver the first baby into the world in years.

The movie starts out a little slow, but the action gets moving fast. The action scenes are amazing in that they were often shot with just one camera following the action, which gives the movie a very tense feel to it as you follow Theo through some very harrowing situations. The action is also very unique. One scene in particular has Theo trying to jump start a car down a hill while people are running after him.

I'm sure some people might scoff at the statements made in the movie. There are many comparisons to how Jesus was born. Also, the themes of immigration I'm sure will turn some people off (as we're going through some pains with this ourselves in this country), but anyone that isn't very easily offended by that should be fine with it.

I really liked this movie. It's exciting and makes you think.

...

I drove to Lincoln a few weeks ago to see the movie, "Grindhouse", with my brother, Bill. We hadn't seen a movie together in a while. After all, with both of us with kid(s), it's hard to coordinate time for a movie, let alone in another city.

Bill secured a sitter for his kids and my kid and we were off to see the movie.

For those of you (all 5) that don't know about the movie, "Grindhouse", I'll explain. "Grindhouse" is a double feature film from directors Robert Rodriguez of Spy Kids and Desperado fame and Quentin Tarantino of Pulp Ficton and Kill Bill fame. The movie is basically split into two parts. The first is "Planet Terror", a movie about a toxic gas that turns those unlucky enough to be infected by it into skin-lesioned, flesh-eating zombies. The second movie, directed by Tarantino, is called "Death Proof", about a guy that kills people with his death-proof car, a car reinforced for stunt work in Hollywood pictures.

Now you might be wondering why we'd want to go see these pictures? Because we were weened on horror and action films, we tend to like unwinding with films that we can turn your stomach or frighten you. Remember, we're the generation with the low work ethic because of our numbness to television, so our fondness for violent pictures shouldn't surprise anyone.

When we got to the theater, Bill got in one line and I got into the next line. We continued talking about whatever it was we were talking about when a woman in front of me asked, "Are you both twins?"

We paused and replied "Yes" at about the same time.

The woman asked, "How old are you?"

We said, "36."

The woman said, "Oh, I have twin boys who are 26."

"Ooohh." We replied politely.

This happens a sometimes when we're together. People are amazed that grown men are twins and have to ask us about it. I don't mind, but Bill sometimes gets a little annoyed by it.

Bill pays for his ticket and I'm still waiting behind the woman with twin boys.

The lady with twins pays for her movie. I move forward to pay and a lady starts to step in front of me.

I say abruptly, "I was next."

The lady that stepped in front of me says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were with her." indicating the lady with twins.

I buy my ticket and start to think. Did she mean that I look young enough to be that woman's son or old enough to be dating her? I wasn't sure if I should be offended or complimented.

The first part of Grindhouse is a zombie flick called, "Planet Terror". "Planet Terror"'s plot revolves around a deadly biological warfare virus that's unleashed over the population of a small Texas town. It turns most of the inhabitants into puss-filled, boil-covered, flesh-eating zombies. The rest of the town has to survive.

It's pretty mindless, but pokes fun at all sorts of action movie cliques. It's a bit gross and over-the-top in it's zombie special effects, but if you can stomach that, it's a pretty fun ride.

One interesting twist to movie is that a go-go dancer named Cherry Darling, played by Rose McGowan, gets her leg amputated early on in the movie. She spends the next part limping around on a makeshift leg made of wood until she's fitted for a gun for the leg. Now if you've seen the trailer or commercials, then you've basically seen every part of this sequence with her leg-gun contraption. So prepare to be disappointed...

Of course, by the time I'm writing this, Grindhouse is now out of the theaters, but oh well...

The next part of Grindhouse is a Quentin Tarantino movie called, "Death Proof". While I'm a big fan of his most well known movie, "Pulp Fiction", I would have to say I was a little disappointed in "Death Proof".

"Death Proof" follows the story of Stuntman Mike played by Kurt Russell, who has a car that's death proof. He uses that car to kill women by slamming into his first victim's car head on.

Now "Death Proof" would be an exciting movie if it wasn't for all the inane dialog that you have to sit through. The movie starts with a bunch of women talking shit with each other about men and relationships and stuff. This goes on literally for about 25 minutes before something interesting happens. You'll literally look at your watch wondering when the action is going to start. I realize that dialog is meant to get you invested in the characters, but this dialog is all loud and ultra-witty to the point where I almost didn't care who theses characters were. Also, I can't remember much about who the different women were supposed to be. By the time, some action happens, it's much too short and I stopped caring long ago.

Thankfully, "Death Proof" has two parts. The second part follows Stuntman Mike as he targets four other women, two of which are stuntwomen and one is a makeup artist (played by Rosario Dawson). The second part starts like the first part with a lot of ultra-loud and ultra-witty dialog. Mercifully, it's a lot shorter and the action starts a lot faster. The movie ends with an extended car chase that's pretty cool and it's a nice payoff that saves the movie from its horrid beginning.

I saw Saw III, but it this Saw is rusty

Here I am with my timely review of a DVD that came out several weeks ago...

I am kind of a fan of the Saw series. I saw the first one and was blown away by some of the twists and turns in the movie. I also liked the main villains plans to test people by playing games. In the movies, his victims are kidnapped and usually wake up to find themselves in a precarious position and a very short time to get themselves out of it. Most of the time, the game player has to do something very unappealing to get themselves out, but the end result if they don't is death.

It's a grim movie, but from time to time, I feel the need to watch grim movies like this. I think I get in the mood when I'm under some stress.

Another reason I watched them is because it's like driving by an accident. You wonder how it happened and who's hurt. I watch and wonder what I would do in these situations. Probably as well as the victims in the movies since I'm kind of a klutz and prone to injure myself at any mundane moment.

I thought Saw 1 was pretty good. Saw 2 was good, too. Then I rented Saw 3. From the get go, I'm a little uneasy about this Saw. Things just don't seem right. Stop reading if you don't want spoilers by the way.

It takes a long time to set up this movie. By the time we get to the actual game, the movie is well over 30 minutes in. The first set of games probably could have been set up in flashbacks.

So our villain Jigsaw is still testing people. He also has an understudy in the whiny Amanda. Amanda kidnaps a doctor to keep our Saw alive, who is suffering from brain tumor. The swelling on his brain is causing him very limited mobility. The game starts with a dual game of the doctor having to keep Jigsaw alive while wearing a trap tied to his heart rate. At the same time, a game is starting with a man that had his son killed by a driver. He can't get past it and even scolds his daughter for touching his 'things' in the kid's room. He wakes up in a crate and must go through a series of tests. In a twist on the first films, he's not stuck in a trap, people related to his son's death are in traps. He must decide to free them or let them die.

In my opinion, this was a huge mistake. The traps are too easy for him to get out of and yet he manages to mess them up.

This live-or-die scenario is only interesting for a short time. Much of the time is spent watching the traps move as the people that are strapped in edging closer to death while Jeff agonizes about saving them. To me, this would be a no brainer. As much as I would be angry about a family member's death, I'm not a killer and I could find it in my heart to forgive someone, especially when it was circumstances beyond my control. Jeff, as with all of Saw's protagonists, they never learn their lesson, so we are forced to watch Jeff, close his eyes, moan, curse the sky, agonize, yell, scream, cry, etc. You name the emotion, Jeff emotes it.

It was right at this spot when I realized why things didn't sit well with me. The man in the last test is strapped up in a large machine that will slowly twist his arms, legs and neck (in that order). This man is not a small man (probably around 230 pounds) and is off the ground a bit. Seeing him in that state suddenly made it clear, who in the hell put this guy up there? Jigsaw is a zombie and his assistant is barely 130 lbs. Besides the fact, Jeff, the "hero" in this movie, is no spring chicken himself.

Also, by my count, there were 6 people kidnapped and put in place for this test. How does one accomplish that in a big city and not get noticed? Amanda would literally have to have a large delivery truck complete with huge vials of chloroform to keep people knocked out. Think of all the planning that would have to go in this. You'd have to kidnap them one at a time in various locations around the city. One person gets kidnapped in a hospital locker room of all places. I'm sure the security guards and camera caught none of that.

So you have to break in to someone's place of residence, kidnap them, drag them to the van while avoiding detection, tie them up, drive to another place, kidnap that person, drag them to the van while avoiding detection, repeat until all are kidnapped, take them to their various places (all the while making sure they are chloroformed enough to avoid waking up too early) and getting all the traps in place without dying yourself. It's no wonder Amanda is freaking out at this point. She's running herself ragged!

So Saw tries hard to break their own molds in the third incarnation, but I think their emphasis on emotional traps runs a little hollow, especially since the only thing I found disturbing in this movie wasn't even violent. A little girl is scolded by her Dad for playing with her dead brother's toys and after all the gruesome incidents in the movie, all I can think of it how sad she looked.

If you like this sort of thing, I guess I'd recommend it, but if you aren't a fan of these types of movies, I'd avoid it.

No Contact, but I wish I had made Contact...

Now it can be told...

I'm usually a pretty easy-going guy. I really really hate confrontation, especially with strangers, but there was one time at the movies when I so lost my cool that I not only yelled out loud, but I also almost chased down a total stranger to let him know exactly what I thought.

Contact, the movie based on Carl Sagan's book starring Jodie Foster, was coming out and it looked really good. In retrospect, I can now safely say that it's one of the most self-indulgent pieces of tripe that I've ever seen. In addition, it's filled with acting that fills almost every niche: overacting, wooden, laughable, stiff. You name it, it's in there.

For some bad reason that I can't remember, I thought it'd be fun to see it on the opening weekend. Being that I hate crowds and so does my wife, it was a stupid idea. The odds that we'd not only get a good seat and not be bothered by people were pretty slim. As it turns out, I was bothered by someone more than I've ever been bothered by someone at the movies. It was worse than the time I saw The Mummy Returns with my brother and some yahoos behind us started screaming "Yeah! Rock! Yeah!" We looked at each other, nodded and moved to the other side of the theater. We had no such luxury this night because it was sold out.

The movie Contact is like that old capsule cold remedy of the same name. The Contact cold medicine commercials had the visual of slow-motion-pulling the cold capsule apart and all the multi-colored medicine beads fell out and bounced around. That is how this movie feels. It's like a mishmash of people throwing in every idea under the sun because it might be neat.

In the theater, the movie starts. Contact starts with a view of Earth with music and other atmosphere noise. The view then pulls back as it races through solar systems, stars, planets, etc. It's semi-neat, but way too long at 3 and a half minutes of mostly silence. I had a feeling right then we were in trouble. In the row I was in, there was an empty seat to my right. Then there was a lady, who was next to the empty seat, with her husband, who was three seats away from me. I could hear him murmuring to her during the sequence such obviousness as "They must be going through other universes."

They were an interesting pair, those two. She was silent save for the popcorn bag that she felt compelled to roll up when she was done eating a handful or two and then she would unroll it when she wanted to eat more. During this movie that was every 5 minutes of 'CRUMPLE' 'CRUMPLE' CRUMPLE', MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH, 'CRUMPLE' 'CRUMPLE' CRUMPLE'. That alone was almost enough to set me off. If you're going to be eating it during the whole movie then why in the hell are you making a shit-ton of noise opening and closing it!?

The husband was even worse. He felt compelled to make a comment, explain things to his wife or guess at every upcoming thing in the movie.

Right off the bat, after the second scene starts, we see a young Eleanor Arroway, or Ellie, on her ham radio. She's calling for someone to pick up. A guy finally comes on the other end. She asks him where he is from. The guy says "Pensacola." She asks her father, "Pensacola. Where's that?" Before her father can answer, Mr. Helpful responds in a hurried whisper, "Florida!"

Back to the movie, we see Jodie Foster playing a grown-up version of Ellie starting her job with SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) in South America. She's now a scientist. From the start, her character makes no sense. She listens to stars for noise. Her first one is one that was a parser cataloged in 1982. This is all well and good, but shouldn’t' she be tracking stars that haven't been analyzed before? Soon, she runs into a long-haired man named Father Palmer, a man that almost became a priest, but now writes about human relations in technology. They hook up and she never calls him again.

Along the way, we're introduced to characters like the sympathetic blind scientist, the smarmy politician, the crazy cult leader, the lovable scientists, etc.

Later, we're shown a flashback clip of Ellie as a girl. She's looking at stars outside her home and calls her Dad to come see them. He doesn't answer so she goes to investigate. The guy in the theater now turns into Mr. Guesser and offers this nugget, "He's dead!", which is sort of correct. Her father has had a heart attack. She slow-motion rushes to get her father's pills which are down the hall to which Mr. Guesser responds with "It's the wrong pills!" Um, no jerk, she was just too late! I start seething. It's only 15 minutes into the movie and already I feel like strangling this guy.

Back in the movie, Ellie goes into a meeting for private funding to use a bank of satellites in the New Mexico desert for SETI use. When the trustees have the gall to question the practicality of listening for life in space, Ellie responds in here usual mature fashion by ripping them a new one. She makes an impassioned speech about crazy ideas like someone flying or breaking the sound barrier and only asks them for some ingenuity. Coming from someone that sounds like a raving lunatic, how dare they question the importance of finding other life? In a normal world, she'd be thrown out and made a laughing stock, but this is Hollywood where impassioned speeches get people to change their minds everyday so she gets her funding.

At the new place, she quickly gets word that her funding isn't getting cut, but rather the use of the government-owned antennae dishes. Again, it's that same Washington guy played by James Woods that shuts her down. She reacts in the same way by throwing a hissy fit. In true Hollywood fashion, shortly after she's told that she has three months left on the project, she hears a signal coming from space soon after and the movie is off and running as they excitedly start cataloging the signal.

Because it's such a huge discovery, the government gets involved. James Woods shows up as a government official. He's the one great thing in the movie as he flings semi-condescending zingers to the scientists. Angela Basset also shows up as (I'm assuming), the secretary of state and in my opinion is extremely wasted in this role. Oh sure, she does make a complaint about Hitler being the first thing the aliens see (they transmitted back the 1936 Berlin Olympics broadcast), but most of the time she is delegated to such hard hitting dialogue as "Doctor, what does it mean?" or "What do we know?"

Meanwhile, Mr. Guesser in my row is offering all sorts of guesses. He guessed wrong about what the first transmission was. Later in the movie, Ellie gets an email and he shouts out, "It's the priest!" Wrong again, but I started guessing that I was going to have to kill him if he didn't shut up soon.

Back to the movie... Perhaps the most ridiculous thing about this movie is the use of the whole CNN staff. I can understand using Larry King as a host because he does play himself very well and has done so in several movies, but to use the whole network roster? It gets a little sad and it now looks very dated to see stiff newscasters reading fake copy about a supposed real event. It comes off more like they were reporting the weather, as opposed to the historic event that it's supposed to be.

Even more cringe inducing is the use of a real President Clinton speech in the place where the president comments on the transmission from space.

Look, I know that Hollywood really loved Clinton, but the speech comes off as extremely vague for such an event. I would have to believe that a monumental event such as this would have to call for a president to be extremely involved, especially with what comes later. Where was Morgan Freeman when we needed him? He's played a credible president before. For that matter, if you're going to use the real president at the time, why wouldn't you at least try to cast the rest of his staff as their real-life counterparts? Without familiar names it just appears as it is, a bad use of stock footage. I think it's the only movie that's ever used real-life footage of a sitting president in a fictional film.

Later, a blueprint is found in another layer of the transmission. It calls for a pod to be built on top of a tower around what looks like those rotating hula hoop things from Superman: The Movie. The pod calls for just one person to ride in it with no food or bathroom. Apparently the aliens didn't plan for a long trip. This brings me back to the president. I would have to think that a real president would again be really involved in this process.

The day of the pod launch comes and it gets destroyed. Apparently, they'll spend billions of dollars on a high-tech space pod, but cut the security budget so that Gary Busey's kid gets up to the tower to sabotage it? We have the Army and we even have the technology of a photo ID coupled with an appropriate security roster. And isn't that a warning sign to run when you see someone that looks like Gary Busey's kid? I don't know about you, but if I see Jake Busey anywhere near, I'm running.

By the way, Mr. Guesser became Mr. Obvious and commented 'Uh Oh' when Jake Busey showed up. While he didn't put two and two together about Jake being the leader of a doomsday cult until they pointed it out in the movie (his response: "Oh that was the guy!"), he did appropriately point out that some shit was going down.

So with the sacrificial lamb out of the way, Ellie gets picked to go into space. It's an overly long sequence that requires her to emotionally stroll down a long walk way to get sealed in the pod. I know she's crazy, but don't you think that she'd be excited as hell to go visit ET? She walks down the hall like she's going to a firing squad.

Thankfully, this whole sequence was really loud so I could only hear the murmur of Mr. Obvious/Guesser/Helper. Ellie is thrust up and down worm hole after worm hole until she gets to the end. There she meets the alien representative, who shows up as her father! Apparently, it would be too distressing to see a real alien? As if the horrific space voyage wasn't horrible enough?

She's sent back home and the pod falls into the safety net. At this point, the bad news is given. She had never left! Now I know I'm not a scientist and that I don't know squat about how technology works, but I do think that if I was going to send someone into space using a new-fangled pod delivery system that I'd test it out first to see if it worked.

At this point, Mr. Guesser burst out loud, "I knew it!!!!" I'm thinking, "Sure you did!"

So of course there's a congressional inquiry about the debacle and Ellie is put in the spotlight as someone who collaborated on a multi-billion dollar scam. Of course, she responds in her usual respectable demeanor, by crying and yelling that it was true. Way to not appear as a raving lunatic!

After the hearings, Angela Basset, in one of her small lines, says to James Woods that the static that was recorded by Foster lasted a whole 18 hours, which would mean that even though it was instantaneous, she was gone for 18 hours. James Woods' response: "Really?!" Mr. Obvious' response: "Really?!" My response was to glare in his direction.

At the end of the movie, right before the credits, the following appears on the screen: "For Carl". Mr. Obvious responds with, "Carl Sagan!"

I yell out, "No f^&*king shit!"

The credits roll and everyone picks up their stuff to leave.

I turn to my wife and calmly say, "I'm going to tell this motherf^&*er how much he ruined this movie for me!"

I turn around and start walking toward the guy, who seems very oblivious to how annoying he was. Laura is desperately clinging to my arm. She keeps saying, "Don't!" "Stop!" and "It's not worth it!" several times. I finally calm down, but inside I'm still fuming at this guy. I just can't believe that he can't understand that no one wants to hear his commentary. I also couldn't believe that his wife would put up with his helpful suggestions through every show or movie that they'd watch.

I can just picture him watching Seinfeld with her and when Kramer walks through the door, he'd chime in with "That's Kramer!"

I think I might have enjoyed Contact had I watched it at another screening. It taught me a valuable lesson. Don't go see Jodie Foster movies if you don't enjoy overacting... that and don't go see a movie on opening night if you afraid of someone ruining because odds are pretty good that they will.