Do you ever see a movie because you just liked the name of it, and saw a little bit of a teaser trailer? That's why I went to see I Am Legend. And honestly, I didn't know much about the story except Will Smith was the last person alive in Manhattan for some reason. I didn't know or couldn't remember the reason, but it sounded cool.

And the other reason I went to see it I suppose was that I was watching an episode of Diggnation, and Kevin and Alex both said it was an amazing movie. So I knew I had to see it.

First of all, props to the filmmakers for making such a highly believable movie. When Will Smith is driving his Mustang down broadway, and the camera pulls back, you see that Manhattan has been overrun by nature. The streets are full of weeds, not a soul is stirring, he truly has the city to himself. And the various wildlife that now inhabit it as well.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. I suppose I was looking for a bit of an action movie - guns, explosions, and in the end our hero would be victorious. What I got, was more suspense than I was expecting, and more drama. This just in: Will Smith can act! For a large portion of the movie, Will Smith is the only actor on the screen. He carries this movie on his shoulders. And he does it well.

I won't ruin the movie for you. I do recommend people to see it. Be prepared to be on the edge of your seat through a good portion of it. And be prepared to jump a few times - I did several times. It's also a movie that sticks in your brain a few days after you go and see it.

 

The original Miss Moneypenny, a Canadian actress named Lois Maxwell, has passed away. Rest in peace.

 

OK the movie has been out for a couple of weeks now, so if you haven't seen it and don't want to know what happens, stop reading now. I'm not going to detail the plot in depth, but some of the things about this movie that irked me happen later in the movie so they are considered spoilers.

In general, I really like the Bourne franchise. They are not the typical "explosions every two seconds" type of faire. Typically, Bourne is trying to escape from most conflicts, and is most likely to be found scaling a wall to disappear than setting elaborate traps to catch people.

I think the essence of Bourne vs. Bond is that Bond is chasing people while Bourne is being chased.

That being said, I went to see this movie opening night. In general I liked it. My one major gripe with it is that it left a lot of questions unanswered. I was expecting to leave the theater having all the major plot lines closed in a neat little package. Instead it ends kind of mysteriously, with a couple of lose ends hanging. Some say this leaves open the possibility of another movie. I doubt there will be another, so it's just annoying.

Some of the major questions left hanging were:
a) Why did Bourne volunteer for Treadstone? What was the old him running from that made him agree to give up "David Webb" for good and become Jason Bourne?
b) It appears the director of the CIA, who knew about Black Briar and was trying to set up Pamela Landy to take the blame for it all got off Scott-free at the end. So he is at least one significant bad guy who is still at large and can come after Jason Bourne again in the future.
c) What was the secret relationship between Julia Style's character and Bourne? At one point she says to him "So you really don't remember anything from before?" and he says "No". But that is never brought up again. Were they romantically linked in the past?

Anyways, all in all I enjoyed the film. But if it really is supposed to be the end of the series, you'd think these plot holes would be filled in for the viewer, instead of just alluding to something and never delivering the goods.

Rented the Al Gore documentary, An Inconvenient Truth last night, PVR'd it, and watched it today. Overall its a well done movie showing Gore's myth-busting presentation on the environment, interspersed with a candid interview with him on the subject.

First, I think everyone in the industrialized world should be required to watch this movie once.

Now since Gore was at one time the Vice President of the United States, and by some counts should have been President in 2000, there is obviously some reference to politics in the movie. He of course has to point out the fact that Bush at one time appointed a former oil-lobbyist to head the Environmental Protection Agency. And when that man was caught hand-editing a press release before it was sent out, removing a lot of the scariest facts from it... he was forced to resign and went right back working for the oil industry the next day.

But the political aspects can be easily ignored whatever your political stripe. The meatiest parts of this movie involve startling facts that lead the viewer to an unarguable conclusion --- we need to reduce our CO2 emissions dramatically. We must - the consequences of inaction would be disasterous.

Perhaps you think that is not the type of movie for you. You'd rather see some great action movie, or a light-hearted comedy. I urge you to see it regardless. My wife started watching it with me, and got really into it as well. This movie is that riveting.

Gore has given this presentation "well over 1000 times" he says. So the presentation itself is extremely well polished. The graphs, pictures, film clips and animations all do an excellent job at getting the point across. A short clip on green house gases done by the folks from Futurama was funny yet disturbing. I cannot say enough good things about this movie - rent it. Buy it. However you can get it, get it and watch it.

The hardest hitting part for me, was when he showed 750,000 years of CO2 levels and Earth temperatures. The graph was cyclical, going up and down, sometimes straight up in a dramatic fashion. Over 750,000 years though, the highs and the lows were mostly uniform. I was all ready to shout at the TV screen - "You see, we're just in another period of Earth warming! It happens every 20,000 years or so!"

After showing the graph and describing its history, Gore added the 2005 numbers to it. Whoa! The CO2 number was double the previous high. The 2005 number hit the top of the projection screen. And then Gore said, here's what the number will probably be in 2055, 50 years from now. He picked the "low number", not even the medium or high. And oh. my. god. it was double still! He used a self-operated crane to lift himself to way above the projection screen. That for me hit the point home solid. There is no debating now. Humans are destroying the planet with reckless CO2 use.

This is a similar graph, with today's figure on it. 50 years from now, the number is expected to be in the 700 range.

 

Crank is a movie that stars Jason Statham, the lead actor from The Transporter movies. It also stars Amy Smart as his girlfriend, who I swear I know from somewhere before. But looking at her resume on IMDB, I haven't seen anything she's been in... Maybe just her name sounds familiar.

Anyways...

The movie has an interesting plot: a hitman is poisoned in his sleep, and only has an hour or two to live. He quickly discovers that adrenaline can prolong his life, so while trying to exact his revenge he keeps having to find ways to pump up his adrenaline.

OK, let's start with the good bits of this movie.

* It was funny. There were several places where the audience broke out laughing. So for an action movie, some genuinely funny moments is a nice twist. 

* The cinematography was innovative. If you want to see an example of bad cinematography, take a look at Bourne Identity 2 - the camera was jumpy, and the action sequences were blurry. I thought Crank had some interesting camera shots. In one scene, Statham runs down an alley while one of his killers is on the phone with him. He actually runs past a video projection of that person on the phone. I thought that was a cool technique I hadn't seen before.

* It delivers on the action. So I went to this movie hoping to see some fights and car chases, and that's what I got.

Now let's be honest and talk about the bad bits too:

* Some plot holes. Well, let's be honest. The guy is given a poison that should kill him within an hour. Even though he discovers that when his heart is pumping and his adrenaline is running, it reduces the effect of the poison... there were plenty of places in the movie where his adrenaline should be lower. He's sitting in a restaurant with his girlfriend having lunch --- why isn't he keeled over on the floor from the effects of this poison? Lots of driving, lots of cab rides... The times when the poison affected him were not consistent...

* The poison itself. If you're going a kill a guy, kill him. Shoot him in the head or something. But why inject him with poison and leave a DVD movie for him to learn about his impending fate? Now I guess some bad guys have a huge ego, and love torturing people a little bit or rubbing it in someone's face that they are about to die. The movie never really explains the "why" of it's central plot theme.

(Well, I guess there wouldn't be a movie if they killed him in his sleep... that's a factor.)

Anyways, this is a decent movie. See it on DVD. Or download it. 6.5 out of 10.

 

Rip It, Mix It, Burn It. That used to be the Apple iPod ad slogan, until the record companies declared ripping illegal. Coincidentally, the iTunes Music Store also debuted around the time that slogan died, as it become against Apple's financial interest for customers to Rip music. 

Speaking of which, no one ever "mixes" any more. I had a friend in University that used to make killer mix tapes. For you younger kids, he would get some good songs and put them on a cassette tape that you could listen to in your car. With the advent of the iPod, and MP3 players in general, I now carry 1,000 songs around with me everywhere, and mix tapes are dead. I do miss them, because creating them was an art. Not to mention the actual art my friend used to hand-draw for the lining of the cassette holder.

The next evolution in home-rolled entertainment became SVCD. It was so easy to take an AVI or MPEG and burn it on a CD-ROM. Even old DVD players supported VideoCD format. The downside was CD's could only support 70-80 minutes of video content. So if your movie happened to run 90 minutes, as most movies do, you ended up having to split the movie over two CD's. It was a bit of a pain to have to get up and switch the CD in the middle of the movie, but programs such as TMPGEnc made it so easy to convert and split long movies. Burning SVCDs were easy.

I have always found burning actual DVD's hard. Extremely hard. First of all, the CD/DVD burning software that I have does not convert the movies from AVI format to the proper DVD format. You have always needed DVD Editing Software. I even tried some trial-versions of DVD editing software, like Pinnacle Studio, and even could not get 1% close to getting it to work. I was destined to not be able to burn a DVD playable in a DVD player.

But then I found Avi2Dvd. I have used this software before and could not get it to work. But I downloaded the lastest free beta, and have been burning DVD's like crazy for two days. Whatever the author changed, it works. It really really works.

Now the basic DVD Burning is fairly simple - load the AVI file, leave the default settings alone, and click Add Job and then Go. Easy. Not even 1-2-3. As easy as 1-2.

You can also author DVD menus, although I have not yet tried to. You know, that intro screen where you can either press play, or set some options, or view a chapter guide. You can make them. And it's all free.

Really amazing. If you have some videos on your PC (home or otherwise) and you want to turn them to a DVD, look no further. The quality has been amazing so far. No coasters, no audio-video sync problems. So far, perfect.

I may have just bought my last $5 movie... blank DVD's cost 25 cents a piece!

 

I watched "V is for Vendetta" even though I did not really want to. My wife wanted to see it, although I don't know why. I didn't know much about the movie other than the title and the movie poster. And I was slightly afraid of both.

It turned out to be a wonderful movie. The best I have seen this year. Stop reading this, log off the Internet, and go see this right now.

The lead protagonist, V, is played by Hugo Weaving. The only thing I know about Hugo is that he played Agent Smith in the Matrix movies. He rocked in those films. First there were the 50 copies of himself that fought Neo in the schoolyard. He came in from every direction, and Neo fought all 50 of them. Then there were the 5,000 copies of Agent Smith watching as he fought Neo in the rain. He must have spent weeks doing head shots, different reactions, looking different ways. Hugo Weaving rocked the Matrix movies, and he rocks this one.

Natalie Portman ain't too bad. She has to stretch her acting muscles a little more in this one than in the Star Wars movies. I didn't like her acting in the Star Wars movies, so it's good to see her show something different.

Anyways, there are fast parts, with blood and killing. There is some of the trademark Matrix time-slows-down-while-the-knife-flies-through-the-air stuff, but not too much. And there is a true "detective" type story built in here as we try to figure out the story before it reveals itself.

All in all, a good movie. Hollywood should make more like this.

 

Sure the trailer looks funny, but is the movie going to be as funny as the trailer? Did they give away all the good parts in the trailer?

Thankfully, the answers are yes and no. Yes, the movie is funny too, and no, the trailer doesn't ruin it.

After having my tastebuds nearly ruined by Lord of the Rings last night, I needed a sorbet tonight: something to cleanse my pallet. Some mindless fun.

Owen Wilson plays Dupree. Dupree is both a best friend to Carl, and is also constantly messing up. Wilson played the exact same character in Wedding Crashers, Shanghai Nights, and Zoolander. So I am glad to see he isn't stereotyping himself.

Matt Damon plays Carl. While Dupree is 30 years old and partying like he's 18, Carl has grown up and now has a wife, house and job. He's working hard to make a living, sometimes working late nights to impress his boss (who also happens to be his father-in-law).

Anyways, this movie does a pretty good job following the formula in other buddy pictures (Saving Silverman and Envy both come to mind). One friend is too serious, and the other is too laid back. Not to ruin it, but as the formula goes, at the end of the movie the serious one has learned to loosen up and the laid back one finally gets off his lazy ass and does something.

Good movie. Funny. Cute. Love Kate Hudson.

 

I don't think I can beat the Ask a Ninja review of this film:

“The other thing about this movie was... everybody was a pirate. If you were in the first movie, and you're weren't a pirate, you're now a pirate in this movie.”

“The only thing to which there were more than pirates in this movie are plotlines. Everyone gets a plotline. If you were a dog, you got your own plotline.”

This review is so much funnier once you've seen the movie!!!

 

Minor spoilers ahead.

Sandra Bullock and Keanu “Whoa!” Reeves are reunited in this romantic tale about:

OK, there are these two people, and they fall in love. But they can't be together - there's an impossible and almost insurmountable barrier between them. All through the movie, one person is trying to get them back together but circumstances and bad timing keep them apart. At some point during the movie, one of them loses hope but the other doesn't. And then at the very end of the movie, they end up together. The End.

Wait, am I now quoting myself? Am I quoting myself on something I said 10 minutes ago? As Keanu would say, “Whoa!”

Basically, I'll start off by saying this is not my type of movie normally. I went because my wife is a Sandra Bullock fan. And Sandra and Keanu together? Well, let's just say I had two choices: see the movie tonight, or patiently wait in the parking lot of the movie theater for 100 minutes. I decided to watch. And I was pleasantly surprised.

The movie is well done overall. The writing is excellent. Since Keanu and Sandra are basically the only two characters in the movie (other characters probably had less than a week of shooting), the writing must be good to carry the story.

The movie had excellent direction and cinematography too. It wasn't just slapped together, there is a good feel to the movie. The timing is good, it doesn't drag. There are no real “loose ends” hanging in mid-air at the end of the film. From almost the opening scene, to the last scene, the story weaves together well.

Now this movie is not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Clearly, at opening weekend a majority of critics didn't like the movie. But I went in expecting a slow-moving romantic drama. I wasn't expecting “Speed” or “Fast and the Furious”. So I got what I expected.

There were a couple of points in the movie I found touching. There is a point where Sandra's character is heart-broken - and it was a touching scene. Likewise Keanu also had a chance to cry, and those are the moments over which the characters bond.

So I liked the movie. There's some interesting summer blockbuster's coming, so don't worry. The sappy romance stuff is out of the way for the next little while.

 

I have a brilliant idea. I'm going to hop on a plane tomorrow and head to Hollywood. I will make a bijillion dollars writing movie scripts.

(Idea #1) OK, there are these two people, and they fall in love. But they can't be together - there's an impossible and almost insurmountable barrier between them. All through the movie, one person is trying to get them back together but circumstances and bad timing keep them apart. At some point during the movie, one of them loses hope but the other doesn't. And then at the very end of the movie, they end up together. The End.

“But wait”, you say. “That's been done already.” Really, sounds original to me. “How about Casablanca? An Affair to Remember? Sleepless in Seattle? You've Got Mail? Kate and Leopold? Ghost? City of Angels? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind? The Lake House?” OK, OK, you've got me. I have another idea. (By the way, that's a lot of Meg Ryan movies in there. I'm glad she's given the forlorn lost love role up.)

(Idea #2) Now, this has not been done before. You take two people, and at first they are just friends. He helps her with something. She helps him with something. In the end, the two friends realize true love is staring them in the face. They end up together. The End.

“Sorry, that has been done too.  When Harry Met Sally? French Kiss? Addicted to Love? Forrest Gump?”

OK, I give up. I guess I'll stay here in Toronto writing blog entries.

 

Continuing on my review of the X-Men movie, there were a couple of things that bothered me. Don't read if you don't want to be spoiled.

1) The big fight scene at the end, where Magneto sends in the few hundred or so anonymous mutants. Remember, they have to be mutants because Magento rejected Mystique when she lost her powers.

So mutant after mutant rushes forward, and is either killed by Wolverine/Beast or shot by the dart. Question is, what happened to these mutants powers? Not one of them turned into a fireball, turned invisible (that we know of), raced at the speed of sound, and so on. They just jumped off the bridge, and ran right into the soldiers and their darts. Some just ran straight to their deaths with no apparent reason or hope. Perhaps Magneto had them pumped up with excitement. But if I was there, I'd be like “Hey, I'm here to help Magneto. You go first and I'll be right behind you...“

I was expecting at least one of them to have some special power they could use to avoid the darts. Or some type of Wolverine/mutant fight.

2) The bridge. Yes, the famous bridge scene. Magneto reconstructs the golden gate bridge so that it attaches the mainland to Alcatraz. The question everyone is asking is, why did he do it? Why not just float his mutant army over on some huge piece of metal - why the whole bridge?

3) Rogue. Why was she in this movie? What was her character's purpose?

Actually, to put it another way, I think the writers wanted to show that not all mutants like their powers or find them useful. Rogue's power was exploited in X-Men 1, as she was used in the device that tried to turn everyone into mutants. But she can't fight, and clearly has no “role” at this point. But she could have been removed from the movie completely, and the movie would not be any different. I think the “don't like my powers” thing could have been shown another way.

4) And lastly, the X-Men characters (Storm et al) were struggling with the concept - why would any mutant want to cure themselves. To me, that was never the issue. The issue was, when a parent discovers their child is a mutant, would they “cure” them? With the cure, not another mutant will be allowed to grow to an adult. The movie never mentioned this, although clearly the inventor of the cure did so to cure his own son. That's the issue. “Why cure yourself?” is largely irrelevant.

That's all for now. It's a good sign I guess that this movie is still on my mind a few days after I watched it.

The other movie I saw this weekend was X-Men 3: The Last Stand. This movie fit the X-Men formula to a T. Well, sort of.

I don't want to spoil it, but the basic premise is that Jean Grey has come back to life as The Phoenix. The Phoenix, as comic book readers know, is the most powerful mutant yet. The problem is that she has anger issues, and so she is not on the side of our heroes. She falls prey to the sweet-talking Magneto to help him fight against humans.

In X-Men 2, the death of Jean Grey was used in the same way the death of Data in Star Trek: Nemesis was. Script writers are by-and-large a lazy bunch, and killing off a major character gives them 10 minutes of easy-to-write dialog, if you include the touching funeral and all. Well, I guess if you read the comic you would have seen it coming, but still....

In X-Men 3, the writers go ballistic with this idea. Let's see... 3 major mutant characters are killed (I mean characters from pervious X-Men movies, not new characters for this film), and 3 lose their powers permanently. The movie actors have been doing interviews around the talk show circuit claiming this is the last X-Men movie. But this movie does leave the door wide open for a sequel. Or at least a bunch of spin-offs with perhaps a Wolverine movie, or a X-Men Students, Starring Noone Famous edition.

I left the theater feeling satisfied. I saw what I was expecting to see. Either you like comic-book movies like The X-Men (in which case you will like this too) or you don't. I do, generally speaking. So X-Men 3 gets a thumbs up from me. Be sure and stay in your seats during the credits to see the small scene at the end. If the last 1 minute of the movie left the door open a crack, the scene after the credits blasts the door off its hinges.

It looks like the summer blockbuster season has kicked off in earnest. X-Men 3 is here. Superman is coming. There looks to be some good comedies on the horizon (My Super Ex-Girlfriend, and The Devil Wears Prada). Should be a good summer.

 

I went into this movie having briefly seen the reviews on other sites. To summarize the pre-release reviews, critics generally said “avoid it”.

But, my wife likes Jennifer Aniston, and I am a sucker for a good romantic comedy, so we go see this film on opening weekend.

All in all, I liked it. The movie gets credit from me for attempting to break the “mold” of romantic comedies. In fact, the movie tries to infuse some real drama and real emotion in between the laughs. At one point Vince Vaughn is screaming at the top of his lungs in frustration, and there is no punch line. Later Jennifer Aniston has her heart broken and is crying, and she can't be consoled.

But there are some genuinely funny moments as well. And the supporting cast really does a good job in supporting the primary actors.

But as much as I liked the movie, I can understand the criticisms that are made of it. Genre-breaking movies such as this are somewhat doomed to endure the wrath of movie audiences and critics. I don't think there is any way to avoid it. It's as if you created a James Bond thriller where, at the end of the movie, the bad guy succeeded. Bond was too late to stop it, and the bad guy detonated the nuclear device and killed millions of people. And then the movie ended. I think people would leave the theater a bit disappointed with that. So too are people disappointed when a romatic comedy doesn't end in the normal way.

All in all, I would say this was a pretty good movie. I am glad I saw it - it wasn't a waste of money. But don't go in there expecting to see Sleepless in Seattle or Notting Hill. The movie tries harder than most to make this break up resemble a real-life breakup - and sometimes it ain't pretty.