Salt

  The car  wrecks are so harsh  nobody would've got up to continue  chasing the bad guy into the next collision. But I go to movies to get entertained. The story is entertaining, moves along, has  a couple  twists,  and it’s really nice to see a female lead like Jolie in this stereotypical male role.

Must see on big screen?	NO, but enjoyable	loses a little credibility with too many  not-believable over the top stunts for any one female or one male lead
wait for DVD or rental?	If money’s tight	Lack of  believability  in  stunts won’t get lost on  home theaters
OK for your elementary school child?	No	Violence
OK for your child  14 or under?	No	Graphic Violence  throughout the  movie
OK for Family movie night?	Yes	If  mature audience
OK to watch  it with Mom  & Dad?	Yes
Add to your collection?	Yes	If you collect Action thriller   genres
Comments?	Enjoyed seeing Jolie   get pasted  just a much as she kicked ass	Several really good supporting actors weren't utilized better, sad!

LiveJournal Tags: Salt,Jolie,Spy movie,action,thriller

Inception

Suspenseful Sci Fi  heist flick reminiscent of a complex visual  John La Carre novel; expect many will hate it OR  view repeatedly to understand/figure  it out

Must see on big screen?	No	Lots of nice  effects but that's not the driver here
wait for DVD?	Yes	The complexity will spurn sales & rentals
OK for your elementary school child?	No	Violence
OK for your child  14 or under?	No	Confusing reality is a major theme of the movie
OK for Family movie night?	guarded Yes	If  largely a mature audience
OK to watch  it with Mom  & Dad?	guarded Yes	If they like Sci Fi
Add to your collection?	Yes
Comments?	highly likely  to stimulate  conversation post viewing	The ending will make it more difficult  to absorb  after   only 1 viewing

LiveJournal Tags: Sci Fi,suspense,thriller,altered states,sleep,dreaming

Strategizing & Regrouping

I've been gone a while, off evaluating what to do with my writing efforts in this particular regard, while my intent never was to abandon this blog. I’m so glad to be back in full force  now!

One thing  I somehow never seemed to manage to get posted here previously is how this blog originally came into being, and that is part of my recent hiatus also; getting a few facts together from old email records for you as well as doing some new research too.

See, I  found I have a penchant for accurately rating,  reviewing,  summarizing, describing and critiquing movies quite accidentally. It all started with an e-mail distribution list to a select few friends and a hobby of going to the movies just about every Saturday of my recent adult life - for the past ten years at least. That should mean I have  about 500 some documented movie reviews, wouldn’t it? Yes.   So, my first recent  decision was to lose the legacy stuff.  You will only  find reviews from  the   most recent month and today going forward here.   My email records indicate I started writing and posting  movie reviews via   email when  the oldest of my 2 boys  was 8.  I didn't do much else for fun back in those days and  yes,  of course they went occasionally too, content depending. I wasn’t dating in the beginning, just going largely alone.  As my boys  they grew up our Saturday   movie escapades were becoming  quite  the family “thing”. 

My thought process and methodologies began to change after I had accurately picked  the Academy Awards Best Picture five years in a row; it would have been 6 in a row but I blew it on  "Crash". I did not,  still do not,  like Crash. I have yet to know or  meet  someone who says: "Dude,  let's watch Crash, it's awesome!"  Been awhile but I picked Capote  that year to win.

Eventually I would together a string of dates with the same woman and she said "Why aren't you blogging your reviews?"   I said "Blog, what is  "blog"? It was a little after that point my distribution list had enough people in it that told me they were swayed by my reviews and opinions as to which movie to see or to  spend their money on that I started this site.

So back to the email thing  and I got hammered immediately after confiding in several people that I wanted to  write for a living and was I  good enough to make money at it?

I listened to their feedback and my inner spirit both.

I was told I needed less a gimmick, but a format, something to make me stand out from other critics.  The majority of my friends told me they didn't want to read a monolog  with allusions to  bits of obfuscated references and “out there” knowledge  when reading a movie  critique,  just a quick short "should I see it or not?"  and "Is it worth the coin to go or not"?

FYI Fandango  Fan reviews follow a similar concept using only “Go” or “Don’t  go” or something very similar.

What  follows next will be  a posting of  the movie  I saw today in a format I hope you  find helpful for deciding  where to spend  your entertainment dollars.

LiveJournal Tags: Academy Awards,critic reviews,movie reviews

Pirates:The Good & The Bad

The bad news is that  neither Orlando Bloom nor sexy and sensual  Kierra Knightly opted for a four-peat of the Disney Blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean  to start filming this summer in Hawaii.
The good is my expectations for Johnny Depp not to disappoint us in what should be the last of this series of Pirate sagas.
Read more about it here: http://m.www.yahoo.com/

Related articles of Interest

• Fourth 'Pirates' to be filmed in Hawaii (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Johnny Depp Never Leaves Home (inquisitr.com)
• Johnny Depp is highest paid actor with £21m deal for next Pirates film (telegraph.co.uk)

Law Abiding Citizen

Gerard Butler's grisly 21st Century cinemagraphic version of Crime & Punishment aka Law Abiding Citizen, is far more violent than last years Academy Award winning No Country for Old Men.

It remains to be seen over time whether Butler earns respect in his corner of the sandbox shared with the likes of the Cohen brothers, Scorcese, and others,  in this his explorative foray into the flaws in our legal system. Butler is off to a good start putting a footprint in the sandbox with this visual and powerfully conflicting moral exposition exposing flaws found in  our legal system as a Law Abiding Citizen.

LAC will make you think, and stimulate conversation amongst you and your educated friends afterward, guaranteed.

This movie is not for the squeamish even though only R rated. My date fior this movie won't go out with me again  because in  her  aversion to the violence, she quipped, "If you liked that we have zero in common". I guess I'm better off.

The thing about LAC is that  while you might be put off a couple times like  I was, the basic premise and though provoking story will make you pick a moral stance.

Why does our legal system allow plea agreements with murders and felons who admit guilt  in  crimes?

The flick is thought provoking, with more than two or three scenes where you and every other viewer watching with you will jump right out of your collective seats, guaranteed.

The execution in the prison is not for any children nor the squeamish.

Crimes against children are suggested and implied without being explicitly potrayed.

I would not invite my children at 13 or under, to watch this with me.

Certainly not for squeamish adults - turns out my date kept her hands over her eyes through large portions of the movie.

You might too. I did not, but I would never relish listen to the perp's recounting of how he dismembered his family's killer's body.

Too violent for owning the DVD to watch again for me.

The Soloist

Is The Soloist good? Yes! Is Jamie Fox terrific playing Nathanial Ayers, musician extraordinaire? Yes! Is Robert Downey Jr.'s performance worth seeing? Yes! Do you need to see it on the big screen to avoid losing any impacts? No. Does it make you cry? Yes, a bit sad too. Would I recommend you see it? Yes, it's a wonderfully acted and entertaining story - an emotional accounting of a musical prodigy who falls off the face of the musical world and largely out of sight until discovered by a reportner (Downey), who knows how to follow his instincts with a story, Ayer's gradually succumbing to the the inner voices of his schizophrenia and decline from aocial skills becomes the focus while Downey's character struggles to wonder how to un-do it all. While I liked the movie, it really doesn't go anywhere and could've been titled "How The Homeless Become". The stats at the end of the movie are moving, but all in all nothing in The Soloist is provacative enough to make me feel compelled to go donate to a shelter, and other than the music interest, I wondered how the movie failed to drive the need for homeless support home. OK for inquisitive youngsters who care capable of understanding sometimes things go wrong in between folks ears that cause them to run aground in the stream of life. Anyone with a ucical career interest should like like this too.

State of Play

No doubt Russell Crowe knows how to pick a script he can excel with, and he does so as Cal, a reporter who probably crosses the line of investigative reporting when working the murder story of a lucious redhead who turns up dead sometime after ending an affair with Ben Afflack's character Steven,  the Congressman in this suspenseful thriller that runs amuck where politics and investigative journalism mix with friendship and corruption. The Dad doesn't see the need to rush out and see State of Play on the big screen but does give a solid 3 on a scale of 1 - 5 as a should see at least on DVD. State of Play scores a NO on the Digital Dad's scorecard in the "Kids under 13" categoryof my ratings system. Parents though, cuddle up and enjoy this thriller when its up for grabs on your Netflix subscription or blockbuster rental night, but I wouldn't rush out of the house to see it in a rainstorm.