When the new TV-movie 24: Redemption begins, television super-hero Jack Bauer is in Africa, helping out at a school for orphans and trying to avoid a subpoena that would summon him back to the States.  However, this being 24, it isn’t long before a perfect storm of evil warlords, conniving businessmen, and some pretty bad luck result in Jack being stuck in the middle of a coup, determined to protect the school’s kids and get them safely to the American embassy.

And, hey, I sort of remember why I used to like 24 so much, back in the day!  

For the record, my position on 24 is as follows:  the first two seasons were pretty much genius (except for the occasional stupidity with amnesia and Kim Bauer in jeopardy); the first half of season 3 (Jack Bauer fighting drug lords in Mexico) was dumb, but the second half (which, as I recall, dealt with the potential release of a horrible toxin) was better; season 4 started off great with some interesting new characters (“Behrooooz!!”) but quickly got bogged down in ridiculousness; season five was pretty much the same; and season six was, for me, just unwatchable.

But this new installment is pretty entertaining.  Not phenomenal, mind you, but better than 24 has been for years.

What’s good?

The story is stripped down — gone are almost every familiar character and location.  This enables the writers to jettison all of the baggage of the last several seasons and concentrate on telling a tight, exciting story — Jack’s mission to protect the kids and get them to the embassy.  It’s a very linear action-adventure.  (The only two characters other than Jack who we’ve seen before are Powers Boothe as President Daniels, on his last day in office, and Peter MacNicol as his advisor Tom Lennox.  Frankly, I wish the writers had gone all the way and gotten rid of these two characters as well.  First of all they remind me of annoying past storylines that are far-better forgotten.  Secondly, both play one-note, unlikable characters.  Its good to have villains, but that’s not these guys.)

Wait, I was talking about what I liked!  Robert Carlyle does some great work as Jack’s old friend Carl Benton.  Its nice to see another character on 24 who is as capable and heroic as Jack.  I liked seeing Tony Todd (Worf’s brother Kurn from Star Trek: The Next Generation), although he has a very small role here as the evil Colonel Juma.  Hakeem Kae-Kazim gets a lot more time on-screen as the Colonel’s right-hand man, and he’s a lot of fun to watch.  Note to Powers Boothe: this is how you play a villain — not… [continued]

The folks over at aintitcoolnews have posted something very cool — a slightly tweaked version of the new Star Trek trailer.  It’s basically the exact same trailer, with one big glorious change made to the very last shot.  This isn’t a fan-made hoax, this is a real first glimpse at something cool from J.J. Abrams’ new movie.  Now, this addition to the trailer could sort of be considered a spoiler, so beware (although this particular plot point has been pretty common knowledge since the movie was first announced over two years ago, and I have no doubt that it will feature heavily into trailers that will get released closer to the film’s opening).  Anyways, it’s pretty neat, so check it out here.

I have a lot more to say about the Star Trek trailer, but I’m holding it in for now.  In the mean-time, there have been a LOT of words about the trailer written all over the web, and here are my two favorite pieces so far:  Devin over at CHUD (Cinematic Happenings Under Development) identifies a lot of the fears that long-time Trek fans like myself have over the new film, while Moriarty at AICN expresses a much more optimistic and excited view (which is where I’m at when I’m not getting insanely crazy over the idea that this new film seems to be ignoring established Trek continuity like the back-story that Robert April was the first captain of the Enterprise.)  OK, deep breaths…

In other news:

Wired Magazine has an amusing article on The Five Awesomest TV and Movie Spaceships.  I still think the refit U.S.S. Enterprise (from the first 6 Star Trek movies) is my favorite, but this fellow’s picks are pretty good, too.

There’s a neat new motion-poster out for the new Terminator movie.  See the thing in motion here (give the image a minute to get going), or click here to see a still of the poster’s final image.  Cool poster, but if this movie winds up actually being any good I will be stunned.

Can someone explain to me why Fox isn’t making lots and lots of X-Men sequels?  OK, the third one stunk, but it made a lot of money, right?  There are so many great X-Men characters and comics that are just waiting to be made into awesome films — what’s going on?  Instead, Fox is making spin-offs (there’s the Wolverine movie coming out this summer, inexplicably titled X-Men Origins: Wolverine; and they’re also working on an Ian McKellan-free Magneto spin-off titled, oh yes, X-Men Origins: Magneto), and now word comes that Fox is gearing up for an X-Men PREQUEL.  Read Variety’s story here.  A… [continued]

In the weeks before Marvel’s The Incredible Hulk opened this summer, there were a lot of stories on-line and in various entertainment magazines about a dispute over the editing of the film between Marvel and star Edward Norton (who played Bruce Banner).  As the tale was told, Norton was fighting for a longer cut of the film that would include more character development, while Marvel wanted a leaner, more action-packed version.  

Ultimately, it seems that the latter is what was released to theatres.  And while I found the film to be fairly enjoyable, it certainly didn’t blow my skirt up the way Iron Man had the month before.  I also found it to be inferior to Ang Lee’s weirder, more cerebral 2003 movie The Hulk.  

But I was intrigued to read that the DVD of the new Incredible Hulk movie would include a significant number of deleted scenes (almost 45 minutes worth).  That’s not the same as having an extended cut of the film to judge, but I was still very curious to check out all of that additional footage to see if I felt those scenes’ inclusion would have strengthened the film.

Well (and I’m not sure if this is good or bad), with just a few exceptions I must report that they would not have.  What we have here is a fascinating study in film-editing.  There isn’t one scene, amongst the deleted footage, that is a complete “thank god they cut that” clunker.  Everything is good, and interesting.  There’s an opening opening to the film in which Bruce Banner tries (unsuccessfully) to kill himself; scenes that show us more of the life Bruce made for himself on the run in Brazil, including how he created the science set-up in his apartment; several additional scenes with Betty’s new boyfriend Leonard (whose presence on-screen suffered the most in the theatrical cut); several scenes with General Ross which shed some more light on why he was so focused on capturing Banner, etc. etc.  It’s all decent stuff.  

Probably the best scene is a monologue by Ross, in which he describes his awe at having seen a glimpse of god (in his encounters with the Hulk), and he compares himself to those great men throughout history who have dared to grasp such power for the good of mankind.  It’s a great moment of acting, and it makes his character a bit less of an evil-for-no-reason villain, while also making him even scarier as we glimpse his passionate dedication to the cause.

And yet, none of these scenes really would have added much of anything to the movie as a whole.  Is it sort of neat to see how Bruce… [continued]

I’ve seen some very funny movies in the theatres lately, but let me tell you about the two best pieces of entertainment that I’ve seen this week:

Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith — Back in 2002, film-maker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, etc…) released a two-DVD compilation of the best moments of five lengthy Q & A sessions he had held at various college campuses.  This little slice of comic genius was called An Evening With Kevin Smith.  It is a raucous, profane, and relentlessly entertaining four hours spent learning FAR more than you probably ever wanted to know about Kevin Smith’s life, career, show-biz interactions, and sexual habits.  The kids ask Smith questions on all sorts of topics, and he answers with surprising honesty and brilliant humor.  The man is a spectacular story-teller.  There are so many gems to be found on this DVD set (one of the most-watched in my large DVD collection), but my two favorites concern Smith’s experiences filming documentary footage for Prince (“Chaka mad?  Chaka real mad!”), and his lengthy tale of the year he spent, in the late 90′s, working on a Superman movie script for Warner Brothers.  In addition to being one of the funniest stories I have ever heard (as Smith goes into painful, hilarious detail of the ins and outs of trying to get the relaunch made in crazy Hollywoodland), that tale also serves to explain (to me, at least) why so many big-budget Hollywood movies wind up being so awful.  Oh, and the epilogue to the story, about Smith’s public fight with Tim Burton, is a classic as well.  Oh, OK, and I must also mention the tale of Smith’s first hook-up with the woman who would become his wife.  This story might sound innocuous, but it has to be heard to be believed.  (Remember what I wrote before about Smith’s honesty?  Let’s just say that it is on full display here.)

In 2006, Smith released An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder.  While bearing a phenomenal title, this set contained footage from just two Q & A shows, and as a result it was a bit weaker.  (There was less material to draw from.)  However, that’s not to say that there’s not a lot of fun to be had.  The discussion of Jason Mewes’ “half-half-whole” technique (which I will not explain any further here) in particular is a winner, and left me anticipating the hopeful future release of a third DVD set.

Which brings us to Threevening.  This double-DVD contains footage from just one show, but it’s a doozy: Kevin Smith’s celebration of his 37th birthday with an almost five-hour Q & A… [continued]

In the new comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, we witness the interesting collision of two comedy worlds.

Kevin Smith has been making raunchy comedies since his black-and-white, made-for-no-money-whatsoever debut film Clerks.  Although his subsequent films (Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Clerks II) have varied somewhat in tone (as well as quality), Kevin Smith has established a distinctive (and, for those of us who love his work, tremendously enjoyable) style to his films.  He has an ensemble of actors who have appeared regularly (Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck, Jeff Anderson, and many other familiar faces), and there’s a distinct cadence to his wonderful dialogue, which can be counted on to be chock full of obscure pop culture references, vulgarity and frank discussions of all-things sexual.  

It might not be so apparent, but Kevin Smith’s dialogue-focused films, featuring a lot of young people having one gloriously off-color conversation after another, were once quite ground-breaking.  (I can’t think of any movie, before Clerks, that had anything remotely similar to the famous “how many dicks did you suck” conversation.)  But in recent years it has been the films coming out from the Judd Apatow troupe (The 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Superbad, etc.) that have been taking up all of the comedy limelight, and pushing the envelope forward.  (Clerks is raunchy, but to me at least, Superbad is WAY raunchier.  Go ahead and re-watch the first five minutes of that movie and tell me I’m wrong.)

While everyone (myself included) has been singing the praises of Judd Apatow and everyone else involved in this recent wave of highly successful comedies, I don’t think quite enough attention has been paid to just how influenced these films have been by Kevin Smith’s work.  And so, as one watches Zack and Miri Make a Porno unfold, there is a lot of enjoyment to be found from the comedy circle completing itself, as we find so many familiar faces from the Apatow movies now starring in Kevin Smith’s latest film.  

The two headliners are, of course, Seth Rogen (who appeared in both Apatow TV series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, had a supporting role in The 40 Year Old Virgin, starred in Knocked Up, and co-wrote and co-starred in Superbad), and Elizabeth Banks (the “junk in the trunk” girl from The 40 Year Old Virgin who has been all over the place this year, most recently in W. and Role Models).  While several Smith regulars also appear in Zack and Miri, such as Jason Mewes (finally playing a character other than Jay) and Jeff Anderson (Randall from Clerks and Clerks II), Rogen and Banks also brought along… [continued]

So Steph and I caught Quantum of Solace on Friday — What a fun time in a theatre!

The showing started off with several exciting trailers for some of the big blockbusters that will be arriving in the spring.  Quite a few of them didn’t interest me, such as Angels & Demons, the Da Vinci Code sequel (or is it a prequel?).  But there were two that sure as heck did.

That was the new trailer for Watchmen.  (See a larger version here.)  Watchmen is the beloved graphic novel (called by Time Magazine one of the 100 greatest novels of all time) that was published by DC Comics in 1986.  The first trailer was just imagery, whereas in this trailer we get to see some plot and a goodly amount of dialogue, giving us a slightly better idea about how these characters are being brought to life.  And so far, so good.  The trailer sells the movie on its simplest level — that of a murder mystery.  (Costumed “heroes” are being picked off, one by one — but by whom??)  That’s probably a wise choice, but I do hope that there winds up being a lot more to the movie than just that — I want the film to capture some of the complexity of the graphic novel.  

(Much more than just a whodunnit, Watchmen is a fascinating deconstruction of our modern superhero myths, asking how the modern world would be changed if superheroes really existed, and what would the people who chose to put on garish costumes and go out and fight crime really be like?  The plot is intricate, and the character arcs consist of brutal psychological realism.  Visually it is a tour-de-force, utilizing symbolism, recurring visual motifs & parallel structure to connect disparate scenes and ideas.  I could go on and on about Watchmen…. and I’m sure I will in a future post as the movie approaches!  Suffice to say, I am a bit nervous and VERY excited to see the finished film in March.)

Then there was this:

[UPDATED -- Click HERE to view a crystal clear official version of the trailer that just became available, or check out the shaky bootleg below.]

First of all, props to the Paramount marketing department because they totally fooled me.  I had read on-line that the first full trailer (there was a teaser released last Spring) would be shown with Quantum of Solace, and so I was watching carefully for it.  But when this trailer came up, starting with a kid racing a car through a desert, I thought “oh well, that’s not it, maybe the next one.”  It wasn’t until the… [continued]

I seem to be alternating between manic euphoria over the impending arrival of J.J. Abrams’ big-screen big-budget Star Trek relaunch/reboot/whatever, and tremendous pessimism that a film trying to re-cast the iconic roles of Kirk, Spock, etc., can’t possibly be good.

On the euphoric side of town, I have been breathlessly counting the days until the arrival of the first big trailer, which will be premiering this weekend.  And most of the cast pictures that were revealed last month were very encouraging.  (See my blog post from October 16th.)

Then Paramount released to Entertainment Weekly the design for the new Starship Enterprise.

Uh oh.

OK, so between the original Star Trek series from the ’60s, the movies, and all the subsequent TV show spin-offs, there have been a heck of a lot of different Enterprise designs out there.  My favorite is the one from all the original Trek movies (Star Trek: The Motion Picture through Star Trek VI.)

This is known in Trek parlance as the “refit” Enterprise, as it looks quite a bit snazzier than the Enterprise as seen in the original series.  

The reality is that the producers of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, quite rightly so, felt that the simple design of the original TV Enterprise wouldn’t hold up on the big screen.  The explanation given in the movie for the new look of the Enterprise is that the ship has been in drydock for two years, getting re-fitted with the latest tech.  It’s a bit of a stretch, but since the refit design is so magnificent people seemed to go with it.  

So that brings us to J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek movie.  Although the plot is still a tightly-kept secret, it seems to be the story of Kirk and the gang getting together as young officers, before they were on the Enterprise… or perhaps very early on in their adventures on the Enterprise.  In other words, it appears to be some sort of prequel to the events of the original Star Trek television series of the ’60s.  That would indicate that the Enterprise seen in the movie should look something like the second Enterprise pic found above.

Well, instead it looks like this:

Now, look, I need to hold back my judgement until seeing the ship in motion.  I remember seeing the first pictures of the X-Men in costume from way before the first X-Men movie came out… and seeing that first picture of Tobey Maguire in his Spider-Man costume… and both times thinking “oh my god, that looks horrible.”  And yet, in both examples, in the actual movie I thought the costumes looked just fine.  So one really… [continued]

I am not very well-versed in Westerns, but I do know that I usually enjoy them when I see them.  When I heard that Ed Harris was directing the new Western, Appaloosa (only his second time directing, the first being the phenomenal Pollock), I was interested.  The terrific cast — Harris himself, along with Viggo Mortensen, Jeremy Irons, Renee Zellweger, and Lance Henriksen — sealed the deal.

Virgil Cole (Harris) and Everett Hitch (Mortensen) are lawmen-for-hire who come to the town of Appaloosa to help rid the townspeople of a troublesome rancher named Randall Bragg (Irons).  Through fear and intimidation, and the occasional murder, Randall and his men have had the run of the town, pretty much able to do whatever they please.  But the townspeople have finally had enough, so they hire Cole and Hitch.  The two men have cleaned up plenty of frontier towns before, but this time a woman (Zellweger) is going to make things a lot more complicated. 

If that sounds like a fairly typical plot for a Western… well, it is.  Appaloosa is a rather traditional tale.  The filmmakers aren’t out to re-invent the Western – they’re just out to tell as good a Western as they can.

And for the most part they succeed.  The strength of this movie is the actors.  It is great fun watching Harris, Mortensen, Irons, and the rest of them go at it.  All are such powerful, charismatic figures — watching them bounce off one another is a great pleasure.  

I don’t know that I’ve ever seen Ed Harris give a bad performance.  Last week I re-watched Glengarry Glenn Ross for the umpteenth time, and his farewell rant towards the end of the film (“What is this, courtesy class?”) is something I can watch over and over again.  Harris is the lead of the film here, in many ways the “hero.”  But he’s not afraid to show the cracks at the edges of his character.  Virgil Cole is a man who can fall into a rage when angered, who is not very learned, and who can make some bad decisions when a pretty lady is involved.  But Harris also imbues Cole with a basic decency as well as an abundance of inherent charm.  This is a man it’s hard not to root for (even when the film gives us some reasons why maybe we shouldn’t).

I have really been thrilled, over the past few years, to watch Viggo Mortensen in the various roles he has taken on post Lord of the Rings.  He was so spectacular as Aragorn that I could have seen him get trapped in that role.  But in films like Eastern Promises and this one, he has created… [continued]

Having recently read the book What Just Happened? by Hollywood producer Art Linson, I was naturally intrigued to find out that a movie based on the book was about to be released to theatres.  (Albeit rather under the radar, as no one I know of has heard of the film.)

Well, the film What Just Happened (without the question mark that was in the book title), directed by Barry Levinson, was indeed released last month.  It stars Robert DeNiro, Bruce Willis, Stanley Tucci, John Turturro, Catherine Keener, and Ribun Wright Penn.  And it’s directed by Barry Levinson, who helmed Diner, Good Morning Vietnam,  Rain Man, and Wag the Dog.  With such talent behind and in front of the camera, it’s somewhat disappointing to realize that the film is just mediocre.

The book What Just Happened? takes place over the course of several years in the life of Art Linson, during which he worked as a producer for 20th Century Fox and produced one bomb after another.  (Not intentionally, mind you!)  The film What Just Happened takes several of the best stories from the book and works them into the fictionalized tale of a week in the life of Hollywood producer Ben (DeNiro), trying to stay afloat as he deals with weasely agents, egomaniacal stars, and his own personal problems. 

There is certainly fun to be had in the film.  DeNiro is great, as always.  He invests Ben with a certain good humor and even — dare I say it? — some dignity.  He’s just a lot of fun to watch, as he subsumes the tough-guy persona he’s so often played on screen beneath Ben’s schlubby skin.  (I could almost imagine the part being played by Woody Allen.)  And Bruce Willis is a riot in the Alec Baldwin role.  While producing The Edge, Linson had a famous enounter with Alec Baldwin who, though he had been cast as the young hunky photographer in the film, showed up overweight and with a mountain-man beard that he refused to shave.  Well, no surprise, that conflict is a central one in the film, and the scene where De Niro confronts Willis is a gem.

But the movie isn’t quite the laugh riot I was expecting.  Levinson has often demonstrated as strong an interest in the dramatic storylines in his films as with the comedic elements.  In his best work, he’s able to balance the two to produce something really powerful.  Here, the drama and the comedy don’t quite mesh.  There are long stretches of the film without much to laugh about, but those dramatic stretches didn’t have the impact that I’d imagine Levinson intended, at least not for me.  I never became emotionally invested in Ben’s struggles.  

It’s… [continued]

Despite some terrific trailers that had me excited, most of the reviews I’ve read of Oliver Stone’s W. were decidedly mediocre.  Nevertheless, I was very curious, so I decided that I needed to see the film for myself.

And I’m glad I did – I found the movie to be tremendously entertaining!  As you’ve all heard by now (this is the one element of the film that most critics have been excited about), Josh Brolin is terrific as George W. Bush.  Brolin walks the fine line between imitating the President and inhabiting him.  This isn’t just Will Ferrell playing Dubya on SNL.  Not to knock Mr. Ferrell (who is a comic genius!!) but Brolin brings powerful life to his performance.  And this is critical, because Stone is asking the audience to spend two hours with this man who, ultimately, the movie evaluates as a failure.  That could make for very unpleasant viewing!  But Brolin, along with Stone, is able to balance the humor and the intense gravity of the situations throughout the film.

Stone has an interesting task in helming a biography of a sitting President, without the benefit of a decade or so of hindsight.  Most thinking Americans have their own opinions and evaluations of George W. Bush (I know I do), but it’ll be interesting to see how we look back on this man in 20-30 years.  Stone’s hypothesis (along with screenwriter Stanley Weiser) is that Bush is a man always chasing after his father’s approval, and always falling short.  Is this the truth?  It’s hard for me to say, but Stone certainly crafts a compelling case.

As George Herbert Walker Bush, James Cromwell (L.A. Confidential, Babe: Pig in the City, The Green Mile, and of course he’s also Jack Bauer’s papa) is a towering figure, and the strained relationship between these two men is the centerpiece of the film.  We feel the elder Bush’s love for his son, but more strongly do we feel his profound disappointment.  Many of the reviews I’ve read expressed some surprise that Stone’s film wasn’t more critical of George W Bush.  I’m not sure what movie those reviewers were watching, because to me this film is an evisceration of Dubya.  No, he’s not protrayed as a complete incompetent caricature.  But to me the figure-person for the audience, and for Stone, is George Herbert Walker Bush.  When he evaluates his son as a failure, that to me is what we the audience are supposed to feel — that evaluation is the statement of the film.  As I said, in that respect it feels like an evisceration.  As the film reminds us towards the end, this isn’t just a game — real people’s lives, literally, have been affected by this… [continued]

Well this is very exciting!  I am quite pleased to welcome our very first guest reviewer to this site.  Josh Lawrence, who is currently making his home in jolly ol’ London, has sent us his thoughts on the new James Bond film, Quantum of Solace!  This is an special sneak preview, as the film doesn’t open here in the States until Nov. 14th.  (Please note that Josh’s review contains minor spoilers, but nothing that hasn’t already been revealed in the trailers or in the many articles that have been published promoting the film.)  

So, what did Josh think?  Take a peek!

To say that Quantum of Solace is the 22^nd installment in the Bond franchise is a bit misleading: the new film (already released in the UK) should truly be seen as the second film in a new genre of Bond films starting with the excellent Casino Royale.

In Casino Royale, a quasi-prequel with Daniel Craig in the title role, we see the virtual apotheosis of Bond, from a rough fighting machine who earns his “license to kill” to the determined professional who shows resolve and firmness but also a new humanity in his pursuit of the organization behind the villain Le Chiffre. The film’s closing, with his iconic introduction as “Bond, James Bond” delivered a phenomenal punch, conveying that Bond is now truly a double-o agent and leaving audiences breathless for the next installment and his pursuit of those responsible for Vesper Lynd’s death.  

Quantum of Solace, a title that does not any more sense after one sees the film, is sadly a real disappointment in the wake of Casino’s compelling story which marked a new, grittier direction for the series.

The story picks up in the minutes after the previous film’s ending, with a promising fast-paced car chase, as Bond scrambles to transport his prisoner, Mr. White, to a hideout in Sienna for questioning.  It is a rough chase, reminiscent in its sheer violence of the porcelain-crushing bathroom brawl in Casino, and could lead one to believe that Aston Martins are an adequate substitute for military-grade Humvees. 

Sadly, it is the first of many violent, eventually excessive chases: over 106 minutes the audience is treated to several more car and motorcycle chases, a boat chase, and an imagination-stretching plane chase/dogfight. 

If this sounds a bit like some previous Bond flicks—those wonderfully campy films that feature lots of chases, gadgets, booze, beautiful women and sexual innuendo—you are onto one of the central problems of Quantum: while it is unmistakably a dark, fast-paced film in the spirit of Casino, it is as if the producers deconstructed the earlier Bond films and borrowed sporadically, and not terribly… [continued]

A pretty slick new trailer for the seventh season of 24 is on-line here.  After a dreadful sixth season and a two-year hiatus, it’s hard for me to muster up much enthusiasm for the return of this once-great show…but the trailer is snazzy, and hope springs eternal!  We’ll see…

Joss Whedon updates his fans on the status of his new show Dollhouse here.  There have been a lot of rumors about trouble on this show, and Joss sets the record straight in his always hilarious style.  I’m not exactly reassured, but a new Joss Whedon show is something to anticipate, so I’m hoping for the best.  Hope it lasts longer than the killed-WAY-before-its-time Firefly.  Sniff.

Speaking of sci-fi, as we count the days until the the final batch of Battlestar Galactica episodes being to air, the web-site Galactica sit-rep has a pretty thorough update on all things Galactica.  Check it out here.

You’ve all probably heard that Terrence Howard, who played Tony Stark’s buddy Rhodey in Iron Man, has been replaced by Don Cheadle for the sequel (coming in 2010).  Entertainment Weekly has an interesting theory as to why the change was made, and you can find that here.  Whatever the reason, I’m disappointed by the switch, as I really enjoyed Howard’s performance in the first film and hate this kind of continuity change mid-series.  That being said, Don Cheadle is a tremendous actor, so this could be worse.

Let us end with the greatest and weirdest story I’ve read in a long time.  Is Fox planning on re-making Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the FOURTH of the five original Planet of the Apes films)???  Check out this story.  I can’t imagine that a) this will ever get made, and b) that if it did, it would be any good.  Still, what a bizarre and wild idea!!!

Lots of movie and DVD reviews coming in the next few days… and tomorrow, we have a special guest reviewer from across the pond give us his thoughts on the new Bond adventure, Quantum of Solace (which doesn’t open here in the States for two more long weeks)!!!  See you then!

This past weekend my wife Steph and I threw our third annual EZ Viewing movie marathon.  This has become a yearly tradition for us, in sort-of celebration of my birthday.  (I was inspired by the idea of aintitcoolnews webmaster Harry Knowles’ annual 24-hour Butt-Numb-A-Thon, about which I’ve been reading for years.)  During EZ Viewing we screen five films, using a projector to create a “big screen” effect.

Here’s this year’s selection:

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Glengarry Glenn Ross

Iron Man

My Blue Heaven

Star Trek III

An eclectic mix, to be sure!  But all five are movies that I absolutely love to death, (and several of which I’ve written about on this site before).  Getting to watch them with my friends on a big screen was a blast.  Can’t wait ’till next year!!

I’ve got a lot of blog posts to catch up on in the coming days.  I’ve seen a bunch of films, new and old, over the past few weeks that need reviewing, and I also have some fun links to share with you all.  So I’ll see you right back here tomorrow, OK?