The Ringer

I can't in good conscious call The Ringer a good movie, but unlike Freedomland, it wasn't a complete waste of my time. I would have given the film a little more respect if the group of friends actually were mentally challanged, rather than actors trying to fake it (although they did a decent job.) A movie like I Am Sam that does feature actors that are actually challenge is more appropriate. Other than that, the movie had a weak plot at best, but its a comedy, so no one should expect the greatest plot. Johnny Knoxville shouldn't be disappointed for having made the movie, but lets look for better things to come.

Freedomland

I have rented over 280 movies from Netflix and seen countless others before that. Freedomland is possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. What is with Samual L. Jackson that he does so many good movies and so many HORRIBLE movies. Most of the time there are two things a movie is about: What its about (the plot/story line) and what its really about (the deeper message). However, you can't try to protrait a deeper message without a plot, which is what Freedomland seemed to try to accomplish. There were multiple scenes that made absolutley no sense in the big picture. I don't care for Julianne Moore before, and this film only reafermed my distain for her. I can understand she was trying to play a crazy character, but wow. I supposed some of the fault should also lie with the director, cause I could have never accepted any of the scenes she did. I feel bad for Richard Price, the author of the best-selling novel that the movie is based on. I didn't read the book, but I'm guessing they did a horrible job moving it to the big screen (and if movie is an acurate portrayal of the book, then this should have never been chosen to be made into a movie). I usually find a way to like something about most of the movies I see and I almost always at least enjoy watching a movie, but Freedomland was definatly an exception to both of those statements. Don't bother.

X-men Trilogy

I had only seen bits and pieces of the first X-men, so I watched the first two installments before seeing the third in the theater. As a disclaimer, I must mention that I am only moderately familiar with the details of the X-Men series and comics, so I have no historical bias as to how the storyline developed, all I know is what I saw while playing the arcade game at the skate rink. That being said, I would tend to disagree with the choice of making Wolverine the main character of the series (and as rumored the star of a solo project) as he is technically one of the weaker characters and traditionally not one that was focused on. ENDING GIVE AWAY WARNING! For those of you who think that the series can not continue as it ended in the Last Stand with the death of Professor Xavier, Gene Grey, Scott Summers and the (possible) loss of powers to Mystique and Magneto; I hope you stayed past the credits. A short scene after the credits revealed that Professor Xavier may not be dead, and may have taken over someone elses body. This is an incredible interesting cliff hanger: How can they continue the series with Professor Xavier in the form of another person, yet still being voiced by Patrick Stewart? Debate will rage until the next installment comes out, and probably still after that. I think its obvious that the cinematic version of X-Men is targeted at those with minimal exposure to comic book story lines, yet that shouldn't really bother the uber nerds who know the orginally story lines; they should just be happy they got to see the comic book made into movies.

Syriana

I'll be honest, this movie made me feel dumb. I consider myself fairly worldly and aware of most current events in the world (probably more that the average person), but apparently I needed to know more about the oil industry and middle east politics to be able to watch this film. At least thats the impression I got. Its been a long time since I have been this confused by a movie. It became a tiresome guessing game by the end of the film to try and decipher who was being talked about and which company was doing what. Yet, all that being said, I still think that the movie deserved most of the nominations and such it recieved. What I could pull from the storyline was very good. I would like to say that Syriana is a movie that everyone should try to watch to understand better how things really work in the world, but that would be a real stretch, because I know there are lots of people who would never be able to finish it (or even understand it if they did). Whether it was good or not I think it's important that these type of political movies are made to bring these type of issues to the attention of the mainstream

Running Scared

WARNING! THIS MOVIE IS NOT MADE FOR FEMALES! This film is definitely a "guys movie". There is violence just for the sake of violence and boobs just so there can be boobs. Yet, the amazing thing is that the film has a very strong and complex story line. Many times, an action movie will have those same characteristics and have a weak or no plot at all, which was not the case with Running Scared. I think Cameron Bright (who plays Oleg) is an amazing young actor, and although his accent wasn't the greatest, Paul Walker played the bad-ass role decently well. This movie could be added to the list of "movies I didn't expect much from but ended up really liking", and I would put in on the top of my recommendation list. The movie didn't have the strongest finish, but there really wasn't a better way to finish the movie, so overall hats off to those who created the best "kick-ass" movie I have seen in a long while.

Aeon Flux

This is one of my other favorite genres of movies, and no that doesn't mean science fiction, which I suppose technically this movie would classify as. I am talking about movies that create totally different worlds that the ones we live in (I Robot, Chronicles of Narinia, Lord of the Rings, but also Vanilla Sky, The Village, and The Island). All these movies are examples of extremely creative and well written story lines. Film makers had an extreme challenge when moving Aeon Flux from the tube (it was originally an MTV animation) to the big screen. I can't say that I ever watched more that two seconds of the animation show as I passed by it channel surfing, so I can't compare the cinematic version to the animated one; but I would have to say that (from what I know about the animation version) the film makers did a great job. They created a complete unique world to that of the one we live in now (there are many parallels), yet they do great job of explaining what needs to be explained, and letting the viewer discover the rest on their own. What bothers me the most about the movie is that there is no way to continue the story. I would have loved to see more of Charlize as Aeon (great to see her play a sexy character for a change), yet the film ends at a perfect stopping point. It leaves plenty to be iterpreted and completed in the minds of the viewer, but there is nothing left to explore in another film. I would have been interesting to see if they could have split the story line into smaller parts and delve deeper to create a two or three part series, but I can also see why they didn't do that. In any case, a great movie to urge the viewer to think about the world we live in today and how possible the world from Aeon Flux really is.

Brokeback Mountain

To be honest, I may not have seen this movie if not for all the accolades and controversy it created. And, as Jake Gyllenhaal said at the MTV Movie Awards, the fact the the movie was getting nominations and even wins in certain categories (like best kiss) is a big deal. The stuggles of the gay culture are becoming less taboo and more main stream, which is a good thing. And as the government ponders over gay marriage, the issue is something that has forced most Americans to discuss how they feel. The issues that are behind the movie aside, I thought the film was an excellent representation of a relationship between two people that just isn't allowed to happen, for any number of reasons. I think Jake and Heath both did magnificent in what was no doubt a difficult movie to shoot. The main reason why I like Brokeback Mountain is that no matter who you are or where you come from or what you believe in, you can see similarities of struggles in your own life that Jack and Ennis go through in the movie. The other reason I liked the movie is that every once and a while there would be a scene that makes a vast majority of people uncomfortable. I think it was intentional. These scenes force you to decide how you feel about a vast range of issues. Brokeback Mountain is likely a difficult movie for most people to watch, and thats okay, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't see it. In fact, I think it means just the opposite, everyone should see this movie BECAUSE its difficult for most to watch.

Red Eye

Thrillers are one of my favorite movie genres. Lots of people don't like them because they may be too predictable, and to them I say: If you have time to think about what's going to come next, they you really aren't getting into the movie the way you should. I hate those kind of people, if you can't allow yourself to escape what's around you and delve into the world that the film makers have created, then you shouldn't be watching movies. With that off my chest, I think even those nay -sayers may have enjoyed this film. I think both Rachel McAdams and Cillian Murphy did excellent jobs in each of their roles. The aspect of this movie that I loved was we finally saw a strong female character fight back, and not fight back in a comply wussie manner (I especially liked the pen to the throat and the heel of her shoe in his thigh). The ending was a little lack luster, yet it seemed a bit more realistic that many theatrical endings. And props to Colby Donaldson formerly of Survivor fame, to his first significant role on the big screen, nicely done.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Excellent. Thats really all I can think about in regards to The Exorcism of Emily Rose. All around, excellent. It was an extremely brave and courageous move on the part of those who created this movie to combine a courtroom movie with a horror movie, especially given that it worked out so well. The movie follows the trial of Father Moore who is charged with criminal negligence in the death of Emily Rose. The horror portion of the film comes in the flash backs during the testimony of all the witnesses. What I liked the most, and what I think is the greatest strength of the movie is the fact that whether or not you believe that posession, exorcism and things of that nature are real or even possible, you can beleive that your side was protrayed acurately. The movie does not force one side of the story versus the other, it simply puts forth all the information and accounts, and lets the viewer pounder what they wish to believe. The movie was well written, well directed and offered an extremely great performace from Jennifer Carpenter (Emily Rose). The movie is not just for those who enjoy horror movies, in fact I can see where some hard core horror fans may be disappointed, because thats really not what this movie is about. The movie really is about taking an extremely creative route to get the viewer to think about what is and is not possible. Excellent.

Fun with Dick and Jane

The movie didn't sit well with critics, viewers didn't have many good things to say, and I hadn't heard good things from friends and family; however, I wanted to see the movie so I didn't let other opinions stop me. I'm not going to lie, when I hear things like that though, it does somewhat lower my expectations for the film. I can see were all the bad things are coming from after seeing Fun with Dick and Jane. The most disappointing thing about the film is that it COULD HAVE been an excellent film. You have Jim Carrey, the greatest comedic actor of the current generation, and an extremely creative premise to go off of. There are scenes through out the first have of the movie that just seemed as though the didn't belong (the whole INS thing, for example) they brought on boredom and didn't contribute at all to the story. However I thought the second half faired much better, with the robberies and the final great hiest. The movie overall wouldn't rank to high on my greatest films of all time, yet I don't think is something that Jim Carrey or Tea Leoni should be asshamed to have been a part of.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe

First of all I want to stress that this movie is not intended to be directed towards childeren, no more than the Lord of the Rings trilogy was. Not only is the story not geared towards childeren (battle scence and an overall dark and scary tone) the movie is nearly two and a half hours long. The four starring actors are all childeren, but the story is one that is similar in nature to that of Lord of the Rings. That being said, I am waiting with much anticipation for the remainder of series, hoping that they will indeed make all the books from the Chronicles of Narnia series. I did read the series of books as a child, but I'm not going to lie and try to draw comparisons between the books and the movie because I truely can't remember. I think the acting done by the young cast memebers was terrific and I am looking forward to their performaces in movies to come. Overall I thought the movie was well done, the special effects were excellent in the manner that you didn't really notice them. Lastly, I think it is important to note that like most movies made from book serires or most series of movies, one movie is never really a complete story and should never be viewed as though it was a complete movie. This movie is simply the first chapter in what should be a series of movies, and I am looking forward to those coming chapters

RENT

This was one of the most interesting films I have seen in recent history, and possibly interesting for all the wrong reasons. I can understand the reasoning behind making a popular Broadway musical into a feature film, as you try and bring its ideals and story to those who would never have the chance to see the musical on Broadway. Yet making any musical into a feature film creates numerous problems. Now, I haven't seen the stage version of Rent so I don't have that to compare it with, however I thought the film version had an extreme lack of dialouge, espescially in the first half of the movie. I fully understand that its a musical and songs come with the territory, yet this is one of those problem areas when you convert a musical to the big screen. People want more plot developement WITH DIALOGUE. Also, in theater its okay to have the two acts be rather differnent, but the differences in the two halves of the movie made the storyline a bit more incoherent. Again, I don't have the theater version to compare it to, but its seemed at times that the movie was being contraversial just for the sake of being contraversial. Another noticable difference between the stage version and big screen is the difference between a live performace and being able to try again til you get it right. All of the singing performances int he movie were excellent, but probably too excellent, as they had that "too polished" feel that dubbing or voice overs give films. Be it what it may, the movie was likely too long, had too many songs, and the storyline wasn't tied together that well. The attempted to being theater and musicals to the mainstream takes more effort that to just perform on more expensive sets til you get it right. It could have been better, but in my book fell well short.

The Skeleton Key

To be honest I enjoyed this film more than I expected to, as it didn't do the greatest with critics. I expected the storyline to take those all so cliche turns of most thriller/horror films. Although the film didn't take many of those weak turns in plot, the storyline wasn't the strongest in history. Many may find the story dull or unbelievable, but those kind of people really shouldn'e be watching movies anyway. The music throughout the film attempted to make the story something it wasn't, trying to keep you on edge for that next scare in the story. There were some points were a good scare was necessary, yet they may have strived to put a few too many in. All in all I thought the movie did the best it could have given the story line, creative but not all that believeable to the great majority.

Proof

After a while its going to be more than just cliche to film a movie about a crazy mathematician, but I thought this installment did rather well. Gwyneth Paltrow did an amazing job. You spend the entirety of the movie deciding whether or not to believe what she says. Also she is happy in the movie for all of 10 seconds, which must be difficult as an actor to stay in character when your character is constantly depressed. The movie is about a mathematical proof, one that no one in history has ever been able to solve. The question becomes whether it was Catherine (play by Paltrow), or her deranged father in the late years of his difficult life, that wrote the proof. And heres the beautiful irony: there is no proof that showes that Catherine wrote the proof. It may seem corny, but the movie is done well on this premise.

Capote

A rather disturbing drama that follow Truman Capote as he attempts to write a book about the murder of a Kansas family. Capote (played by Seymor Hoffman) becomes attached to one of the accused murderers. Yet although it may appear to be a friendship at first, it seemed that he didn't want the convict to be executed simply so he could continue his story and he had no real feelings about weather the man lived or died in the end. It was interesting to see that his good friend was the author of To Kill a Mocking Bird. Phillip Seymor Hoffman deserved all the accalations he received for his portrayal of Truman Capote. An odd film full of great acting.

Good Night, and Good Luck

Deserving of all its Academy nominations. It is intersting to view a time when journalists where to avoid any and all opinions in all matters. The film was some what dull and lacked much ability to keep your attention, yet the story was one that needed to be told. Many of Murrow's predictions of how TV and its journalists have more or less come true over time. It would be nice if we could have journalists on TV again that we could trust the way we trusted Murrows, Cronkite and others.

A Start

There is no way I have enough time to write a review of every movie I have seen, so instead, I am just going to start from this point and go forward. Let me know if you feel differently.