Yup. By any means necessary bro. Words can't do it justice.

Wilde (1997)

What a character Oscar Wilde was! Loved it! Wanna check out his other chit now...

I was so excited flipping around On-Demand tonight, finding a movie I never saw before starring Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron! That is, until I started watching it. The Astronaut's Wife (1999) is one of the stinkiest flaming shit piles I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of 'em!

******* SPOILERS BUT WHO CARES - SAVE YOURSELF 109 MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE *******
2 astronauts go on a shuttle mission to repair a satellite, but upon its explosion, they lose contact with Earth for 2 minutes. They're brought back safely, so it seems, until weird things start happening, and one of the astronauts dies. His wife commits apparent suicide, while pregnant with twins (2). That all happens pretty quickly -- the fate of the other astronaut and his wife takes an hour longer of screen time apparently. A now ex-NASA worker finds out some peculiar things and contacts Depp's wife (Theron), who's also carrying twins (2). Theron ends up believing said NASA guy (who's now also apparently dead) who said that Depp really isn't Depp anymore, (Depp also killed her sister, by the way), so she attempts to abort. Depp-who's-not-really-Depp lays down the law, Theron threatens suicide (with questionably-alien twins (2) still in womb) while cleverly killing fake-Depp instead. She later is seen remarried as the twins (2) hop on the bus for their first day of school.

From uninspiring "writer"/"director" Rand Ravich who hasn't done much of anything before or since, nor who apparently gave a shit about continuity or editing. I have to question Depp's and Theron's WTF-were-they-thinking agents here.

4.8/10 - IMDb
5.8/10 - Netflix

Keeping with "The 2 Theme" here, I'll give it 2/5.

As great as Depp is, he does work the occassionally lousy movie.

Shit happens.

Though I enjoyed NICK OF TIME, which many don't.

I've heard of The Astronaut's Wife, but never have seen it. Since it's one of the stinkiest flaming shit piles, it's sounds like not seeing it is a good thing.

I just completed my purchase of the Bourne series. I got Borne Ultimatum today. Btw, I ended up, per some of your suggetions, getting the "wide screen" version instead of the full screen. All I need now is Sopranos Season 6 (parts 1 & 2) and I'm a happy camper.



TIS


Ronnie, I loved "Nick Of Time". It wasn't a real popular movie, but I thought it was good. Yet another example to how versatile an actor Depp is. I swear he can play anything.

Huh. That's strange, because I remember watching The Astronaut's Wife and really liking it!

But that was a long time ago, and I'm guessing it was somewhere around when it first came out. I'm no movie critic anyway, but that'd make me about 10, so I can at least depend on that as an excuse for my bad movie judgment.

Speaking of Johnny, I really want to see Sweeney Todd!

Speaking of Johnny, that's probably why you liked it regardless!

Do you really think I'm that shallow?

But it does help that he's a talented actor and plays great characters. It's not only about looks, Geoff.

Plus, Depp is brave to try to sing in TODD, for either he'll pass or fail spectacularly this side of PAINT YOUR WAGON.

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS (2007) - **1/2

I complained before in my NATIONAL TREASURE review of how ludacris that whole plot set-up for the treasure was.

Now having seen its sequel BOOK OF SECRETS, I spoke way way way too soon about "ridiculous."

I mean, at least that whole set-up of the Templar/Mason treasure made simplistic sense, even if perhaps too exaggerated. But now with SECRETS, where Cental/South American ancient peoples build a city of gold up in South Dakota to Queen Victoria helping the Confederacy to George A. Custer searching for the city itself, quite frankly the clues and scheme of BOOK OF SECRETS makes no sense at all.

The primary problem I felt with the first TREASURE picture was how for such an adventure story, it felt lukewarm. To put it another way, An undercooked action tempo that never ignited. Starting from the car-chase in London, I quit trying to logically comprehend the story and simply went with the visual narrative like I did with Brian DePalma's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE.

Director John Turtletaub continues and actually improves his competent direction from the previous picture by hooking me into chase after chase which distracted me enough to quit wondering how someone can digitally control Buckingham Palace as easily as an electric razor. At least that sidekick is actually useful and meaningful this time around beyond being the one-liner machine with feet.

What pushes BOOK OF SECRETS though into a passively entertaining time at the theatres is Ed Harris. For such great actors involved and not given much to work with, Harris takes nothing and uses his awesome presence and masculine charisma to actually accelerate the film's tension by himself.

From THE RIGHT STUFF to THE ABYSS to APOLLO 13 and to the recent GONE BABY GONE, Harris is currently the best working-American actor have never won an Oscar.

Now that's a bigger disgrace than Nic Cage's haircut.

There is other throwaways I enjoyed, from Cage going hyperbole with an argument at the Palace to Helen Mirren's fighting with Jon Voight, to the underrated Bruce Greenwood being awesome in his (too) brief shots as the President.*

In a way, I actually sorta enjoyed BOOK OF SECRETS, for it had something that was absent in TREASURE.....moments of real narrative energy. Plus, the American theatrical release is tagged with a new charming Goofy "How to..."cartoon, so that's a plus. Though I must say, is it a problem if I liked that joker at the Home Entertainment System more than I did the movie?

*=Anyone think its weird how the "Book of Secrets" has a chapter on the JFK assassination, whom Greenword portrayed in THIRTEEN DAYS?

I was really enjoying Art School Confidential (2006) a lot -- perhaps something you have to really *get* to understand, seeing into the main character's head, yet still seeing beyond it -- but then there's the last act, when everything just fell apart as far as I'm concerned. A shame, really.

A talented young man goes away to Art School and falls in love with a model. Technically, he's perhaps the best artist around, but the "fake" artist gets the girl because this young man is missing something -- and his mentor provides the catalyst he needs. Now... also add a serial killer to the story to kick it up a notch. lol

Problems aside, I liked it.

IMDb: 6.4/10
Netflix: 5.8/10
Ebert: 8/10
JGeoff: 7/10

Saw Spiderman 3 last night. Although the special effects were as good as expected, I found it to be a bit of a jumbled mess. Too many villains on too many fronts, and Peter Parker ordering the landlord's daughter for cookies and milk? Just silly. And when he became consumed by alien meteorite (which conveniently hitched a ride on the back of his moped), his transformation into evil entailed wearing black and having greasy hair??

It was entertaining, but certainly not the best of the trilogy.

I agree SB. Spider-man 3 had fantastic special effects, but the storyline was overdone. They really made Peter Parker look ridiculously foolish in this one.


I did enjoy the Sandman and how they made him transform, and the fighting scenes were very good. But it always puzzles me why the writers get away from the storyline in the comic book, which always turns out to be a recipe for disaster ( See the Incredible Hulk for proof).

They probably could have cut out about a 1/2 an hour from the movie, which in my opinion would have made it a bit better.

Thomas Haden Church was excellent as The Sandman, but I just found it to be WAY too much information. MJ, Harry, Peter, they're all caught up in this teenage angst of who loves who. It seemed to high-schoolish for characters that are supposedly living on their own in NYC.

For some reason I've never been able to get into Spiderman. I never went to the theater to see. However, only the last couple months, when it was on tv, and due to the writer's strike and all the repeats, I watched the first one. It was ok. The second one was on shortly after and I only watched some of it. Again, it was ok.

I don't know if the star (Toby McQuire?)is right for the part for one thing. Then again, what do I know. I've always been more a Superman fan myself.


TIS

I watched MEET THE FOCKERS last night.
Seen it loads of times before but every time the little kid says asshole it just cracks me up

I just purchased and watched (again) The Bourne Idenity. And, I don't feel like scrolling back to see if I went into detail commenting on it so I'll just refresh my comments if I did.

Briefly, for those who do not know, Jason Bourne was picked up, floating at sea with two bulletholes in his back. He had no idea who he was or what had happened to him. He soon discovered that he had a bank security box with several different passports/Id's, and lots of money; Seems to have the aability to size people up quickly; AND that there were people out to get him. This along with having the capabilities to kick some serious butt. He meets a woman while on the run who ends up reluctantly (at first anyway) his partner while on the run as well as a girlfriend. When it comes time for this girl to have the option of leaving and going on her own, she tells Jason, "you'll forget all about me." Jason replies, "How can I forget you, you're the only one I know?" The rest of the film his a wonderful cat/mouse, action-filled chase theme.

I only wish I had seen t his at the theater on the big screen. This was about my 3rd vewing and I found just as exciting as the first two viewings. One of my favorite movies. For me that says a lot, because I am not a big purchasesr of movies. I knew I wanted this one right after seeing it the first time.

I have all three in the series and intend to watch Bourne Supremacy and then Ultimatum next.

TIS

I saw the Bourne Identity and didn't think much of it at the time. I thought it was decent, but everyone I knew kept going on and on about it. I've never been very big on action movies so maybe that's why, but with what I have read here about the following two movies it sounds like the Bourne series is more than just a lot of action. I'm going to get all three and watch them one of these weekends.

Bibble,

Absolutely, it IS a matter of taste. One man's masterpiece can be another man's junk I guess. Myself, I am not into Harry Potter or Spiderman at all, but am well aware of how many people are. As I said, I seldom purchase any movie, unless I really enjoyed it, and this I did. And, found the sequels just as good. That's unusual.

TIS

Juat watched The Last Castle with Robert Redford and James Gandolfini. Gandolfini was just magnificent in this. The movie is good, not great, but certainly good.Redford and Gandolfini turn in excellent performances. Definitely worth seeing.

Last castle is really interesting if not for the last 10 minutes or so, which was quite bad.

I think Rod Lurie was trying to create a macho-masculine picture of awesomeness to the kin of THE GREAT ESCAPE or THE DIRTY DOZEN, and it doesn't really work.

A decent picture, but one that most would agree could have been better.

I finally got around to seeing Douche's favorite movie, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (1999), and thought it was hilarious! One of the very few times I actually uttered any audible sound that could be construed as laughter while watching a comedy by myself. I'm really surprised IMDb viewers only rate it 5.5/10 and Netflix 3/5. I say 4/5.

What movie outside the Godfather Saga has 2 actors in it who were previously named Don Corleone?

Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

I LOVE heist movies, I really do -- my favorite perhaps! The good ones are SO very clever, that I can't wait to be fooled at the end! Ocean's 11 was like that... Ocean's 12 even was like that... The Score (with the only other Don Corleone) was cool... The Italian Job... As a kid, the Mission: Impossible series was one of my favorites! I love being fooled with such cleverness that I want to award the Nobel Prize to such filmmakers (or writers at least) who'd probably even make the CIA and FBI nervous!

Too bad this wasn't one of those films.

I was thoroughly anticipating "the greatness" coming into this, but was instead thoroughly disappointed in its lack thereof.

The acting was good -- loved seeing Al in the presence of the Ocean's cast! Other than that, I think it fell flat on its face. The editing was horrendous -- so much so, that I couldn't even figure out WTF was going on sometimes! The context was okay, but the story was WEAK! At least weakly told.

I expect A LOT more from an Ocean's movie than this! There wasn't even a twist at the end?! Five minutes into it, it's already going -- great! Then they're going. Fine. Just nothing fancy, and certainly nothing bigger or better than the previous two. But fine. Thrill me in the end again, I'm waiting... but...

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Nada.

The most predictable shit ever, without any originality whatsoever. Incredibly disappointing! I had such high hopes.......

I might even go so far as to call this a piece of shit. But hell, I give it some slack since it's one of my favor genres and a sequel to one of the best in that genre. (But it still sucked.)

IMDb: 7.1/10
Netflix: 7.2/10
JGeoff: 6/10

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END (2007) - ***

For a Disney-released "family" movie, the opening is pretty surprising grim. Scores of pirates, or suspected of piracy, are hanged in an automatic process much like the Nazi death camps. Civil liberties under English law are suspended as the corporate monopoly rules this domain of the British Empire.

A kid, facing the noose, starts singing the pirate's song. The rest follow in harmony, defiant to the last drop.

Alot of people hate this movie, but how many despised movies have such a great opening? It's the best-shot sequence in Gore Verbinski's trilogy, and it serves its purpose: This conglomerate and its CEO are dead certain in their cause to rule the waters of our world. This may be a Mouse House production, but not even the children are safe from the villains.

I do agree with many detractors that this film is pretty overlong, the plot is very convulted, the action is all over the place, and the movie at times is more interested in showing off how much money Disney spent on its budget (reportedly $250 million) than actual storytelling, and you know what?

I say the exact same thing about the first PIRATES picture, and I enjoyed that one....and I like this one too.

Maybe while people loved the first movie, I rode it for what it was....a B-adventure movie. The most expensive probably in history, but it delivered the swordfights, cannon-fire, and wenches. The story went off the plank, but I was satisfied. The sequels are much the same, except the fans are exposed to the reality, and mutiny. It's TEMPLE OF DOOM* all over again.

The difference though that the PIRATES pictures have from other B-pirate fare is the dedication from the filmmakers to jam incredibly complicated as hell details into a very simple story.
What originally were cheap jokes actually mattered a few pictures later.

Fact is, it all makes sense once you learn everything from the dialogue and actions. I must say, I gotta give credit to producer Jerry Bruckheimer, regularly a sworn enemy of mine, to actually stick with this grand plan of density that Verbinski and scriptwriters Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio had cooked up.

The problem though with AT WORLD'S END, as with the rest of the trilogy, is that all this information and tidbits fly straight at us through quick expositional, and very unnatural, dialogue. Get distracted by a crying baby or ringing cellphone in the theatre, and boom you're already screwed.

Add the fact that you need to have seen the other pictures to connect the dots, and for an audience used to simply coasting through the visuals and narrative roller coaster, I don't blame them for becoming irritated at their lack of understanding what the hell is going on.

That said, at least all this confusion adds to something substantial ultimately through concentration and repeated viewings, right? It's like what the MATRIX movies promise, but never delivered.

There are some glaring flaws that sorta bug me. After Davy Jones takes back his boat, why do the remaining redcoats onboard still fight the pirates on? Surely after their boss literally gets plugged, they would know that if their side wins, they would become fish food. Why do two background characters from the first movie return?

Plus I didn't like Norrington's exit, that the great Chow Yun Fat is again shafted by Hollywood with a pitifully limited role, and the ending itself.

Reportedly, the fates for Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom's characters switched during production, and I wonder if they should have stuck with the original plan.

Certainly AT WORLD'S END obscenly tries to point towards this possible destiny for Depp, and seems more fitting. Maybe the switch occured because Verbinski wanted to pull the rug on our expectations, or because Bruckheimer needed an opening for Depp to return for a fourth PIRATES picture, leaving behind his (too expensive) co-heroes.

Then again, maybe the ultimate ending is more unintentionally poignant. Captain Jack Sparrow may indeed accomplish his immortal desires, but not as he expected.

In further possible solo-cinema stories, he'll continue to be funky, always scheming and backstabbing friends and foe, fighting menacing well-designed CGI monsters, and somehow coming out on top. Even if Depp abandons this star-vehicle, Sparrow could continue on as the James Bond for the high seas.

He'll have the license to sail.




*=The "TEMPLE OF DOOM" Scenario, as I call it, is where a really good garbage movie is disguised as a great, or highly-shot, picture by its window curtains, like RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. It's fans get peeved off when the sequel opens up the curtains and is much more open of what it is....like TEMPLE OF DOOM.

Heat (Pacino and De Niro) and The Score (De Niro and Brando). Those are the first and only two that come to mind.

Anyway, I went to see Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light the other day. Spellbinding stuff, and if anybody finds the chance to experience it on the big screen, do so.

My new top five of 2007:

1. Zodiac
2. I'm Not There
3. Silent Light
4. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
5. The Darjeeling Limited

But I expect that to change in a few hours; I'm going to see Syndromes and a Century.

OCEAN'S 13

Thank you very much.

And Ocean's 13 (Garcia)
I don't know why I brain-froze on those 2 you mentioned

I've got to start recommending films to people on here again. I feel like you guys are missing out on a lot of excellent films this medium has to offer.