A few weeks ago olga_ukraine and I went to check out Pan's Labyrinth. I saw a few trailers for it and it looked pretty cool. But it was one of those things where it could go either way. I tried to talk chris025 into seeing it, but when he saw it was done by the same people as Hellboy he refused to go. At least olga_ukraine's got balls enough to check out something new and different.

Plot: It's a fairy tale for adults. No, it's not porn. There's a young girl who is caught between two worlds. The real one and a fairy one. She had to pass some tests to get from the real world back into the fairy world. I'm doing a bad job explaining it. Here's my new plot explanation: guns, fairies, a dude that kills children and has eyes in his hands, explosions, a maze, torture and death. Roll credits, fine.

What I thought: I kinda liked it. It wasn't a Hollywood movie, so I couldn't really predict how it was going to end. I liked that. What I didn't like was having to read the subtitles because it's a Spanish movie. Although I did like the fact that I understood a decent amount of the Spanish.

Should you see it? Yep, but rent it. As if you'll ever be able to find it in the theaters now anyway...

Last weekend olga_ukraine and I were hanging out. She doesn't really like talking to me, so she suggested a movie. When she saw that this one was almost three hours long it was decided.

Plot: This is the story of the creation of the CIA. There's a lot of backstabbing, lies and treachery - all important ingredients of a good movie. There was also murder and LSD. Good stuff.

What I thought: It was a good movie, but not great. It didn't drag, but I can't really say it was spectacular either.

Should you see it? Yes, but wait for DVD.

The other day chris025 said, "Let's go see that there Rocky movie. I was in. So I saw e_nizzy and Joey last night and told them that we were thinking of seeing it today. They were in. I emailed and called chris025 about seeing it but he was asleep, so we went and saw it without him.

Plot: It breaks down into three parts:

1. First hour: Rocky is sad because his wife is still dead and the neighborhood is going down the tubes. So he gets a license to fight again.
2. Next 1 minutes: Rocky trains while inspirational music is being played in the background.
3. Last half hour: There is a fight between Rocky and the current heavy weight champion.

What I thought: The first hour sucked. Then it got better from there. Not great, but better. It ended up being OK.

Should you see it? No. Rent the first four and watch them instead. If you feel that you must see this one then buy your ticket and show up an hour late.

Last night olga_ukraine and I decided to hit dinner and a movie. We did dinner at Rubey Tuesday's where I got a big plate of cholesterol (aka cheese fries). Mmmmmm. So I was in prime condition to watch a great movie. Or even a good movie. Shoot, I'd even sit through a stupid movie, which is what I did.

Plot: It starts out with one. Some guy is sitting around, living in the jungle and minding his own business when his village is attacked and all the survivors are taken prisoner. They are taken to a Mayan city. Some are sold as slave, some are destined to be human sacrifices. The main guy gets away and starts to run. This is were the plot ends. The rest of the movie is him running. That's it plotwise, so don't worry about reading any spoilers to this movie. There wasn't anything that could be spoiled.

What I thought: When it was over I turned to olga_ukraine and said, "That sucked." I'll tell you why. No plot. That's bad, but it could be redeemed. No explosions. Ok, things are getting serious. Usually, you need at least a plot or explosions. Both is good, but you need at least one. However, there would be one way to salvage the movie. Monkeys. Ok, they're in a jungle so this might save it. Yes, there are monkeys in the movie. Unfortunately Mr. Mel decided to make them bad and not very significant to the movie. The movie was too far gone, so the insignificant bad monkeys are not enough to raise it back up.

Here's some more reasons the movie sucked.

• When he was being chased, the main character didn't give the finger to the people chasing him. There was one great place in the movie where this would have been appropriate. I called drmellow and yarbiedoll after seeing the movie (to warn them not to see it) and yarbiedoll agreed that this place would be perfect for flicking them off. If you suffer through the movie, you'll know where it is.
• The prop animals sucked. There is a puppet on an animal getting killed. It reminded me of a bad 80's special effect puppet: you would have to be 'special' for it to make the desired effect.
• There was no climax to the movie. The beginning (where it had a plot) set something up for a great showdown between the main character and one of the bad guys. There was a lame showdown that just sucked.
• The ending was stupid. After the chase was over I was thinking, "Good, I suffered through that, now the movie can start rocking." Then they rolled the credits and I wanted to start a riot. Man, this movie sucked.

I do want to say that the beginning was good. The past few months the Discovery Channel and Science Channel have been doing shows about Mayan pyramids and culture and the Spanish conquerors. The first part of the movie followed what they shows were saying (that people weren't really keen on being enslaved and sacrificed and that Mayan culture wasn't very nice in general). One of the pyramid movies talked about how the Mayan temples were built and they said that a lot of wood was burned for making the materials. In the movie I thought it was good to see the lack of vegetation and erosion near the Mayan city.

Both olga_ukraine and yarbiedoll compared this movie with Last of the Mohicans. They should be ashamed of themselves for doing that. Here's how the two compare. Both had green stuff (jungle and forest). Both had people running. Last of the Mohicans had a great plot and is a great movie. Apocalypto just plain sucks.

Should you see it? NO!!!!!!!!! The government should abolish capitol punishment and replace it with watching this movie. Except that would probably be considered torture.

Last night I went out with a good friend and saw Blood Diamond. We invited some other friends, but they were tools and decided not to show. But that's ok, because I had a good time with the friend that did show. Before the movie we went to DuClaw's and I got the beer sampler. Nine beers in an hour, I was feeling good.

Plot: A villager is enslaved and forced to work in a diamond mine. He finds a big diamond. Lots of people want the diamond, including Leonardo DiCaprio (who has come a long way since Critters 3). There's lots of fighting and violence. In all the hoopla, the audience is given a lesson about child fighters and how they are stolen and brainwashed into killing machines.

What I thought: This wasn't a light, easy movie that makes you feel good when you leave. It brings to light the problem on nine year old boys doing heroin and shooting people with machine guns. It was a good movie, but the subject matter is depressing.

Should you see it: Yeah, it was pretty good.

Erik and I have been wanting to see the new James Bond movie for a little while. Being slackers, we never got around to it. Yesterday he sent me an email saying, "Chris, I really look up to you and I want to be like you and will you hang out with me and I'm free tonight." I told him we could go see the movie and that he shouldn't use run on sentences so much. Or something like that.

Plot: International espionage, betrayal, murder, explosions, cobra vs mongoose fights and a chase scene that's completely out of this world. That's some (not all) of the things that happened before the opening credits. I can't even come close to outlining the entire plot in under one kilobyte. The basic gist is that this is the beginning of Bond, James Bond.

What I thought: It was crazy sick, off the hook! This is definitely worth seeing. It was non-stop awesomeness. Lately I haven't been a real big fan of the James Bond movies, but this one really grabbed me. I even really liked the opening credits scene where they go to animation, which I usually really hate. The thing that made this a great movie for me was Bond. He was real in this movie. He wasn't the super secret agent that can't be touched. He was human. He could get beat up and shot. He bled. He made mistakes and he suffered because of them. He was a real human.

Should you see it? Yep, it was good stuff. Just don't go to Beltway Plaza. A police officer ended up having to come in to calm some people down during the showing. Ghetto...

Erik called me up and said he wanted to see Borat. I said, "Hunh," thinking that would be that. But he pressed. "Let's see some movie." I relented, "OK, we can see Borat." So we went to see it.

Plot: There is a comedian who is pretending to be doing a documentry for his "home country", which is one of those -stan countries in Eastern Europe. Borat goes to America and falls in love with Pamela Anderson after seeing a Baywatch episode. So he decides to go to California to marry her. The movie is his trip across the country. He goes up to regular people and records how they react to him being a twit. Being a twit includes being sexist, making fun of Jews, and acting like the sterotypical "just off the boat" forigner.

What I thought: OK, I'm not gonna fib. There were some parts that I thought were great. Laugh out loud funny. But I can't remember any of those parts right now, which kinda makes me think they weren't all that impressive to begin with. I also think that since I saw it with Erik and Joe (he showed up) I was laughing more than I would have been if I saw it by myself, or maybe even different people.

Even in the theater I remember thinking some of the stuff was wrong. And I'm not talking about the naked men wrestling each other in the hotel room. One of the things that I didn't like was all the Jew jokes. But wait, I'm allowed to laugh at it because it was a Jew that was making fun of them. But they weren't all that funny. Actually, they were pretty stupid. So I didn't really like the Jew jokes.

But I could look past the Jew jokes if that was the only thing that bothered me. The other thing that bothered me about the movie was that the humor was based almost entirely on making unsupecting people look stupid. It was supposed to be funny when Borat was rascist and foul at a high society dinner. It was also supposed to be funny when he hitch-hiked with the stupid college frat boys. It was supposed to be funny when he got interviewed on TV and acted like a twit. I'm not really sure why I laughed. One of the people on the TV show lost her job because of him. Hahaha, what a great laugh.

So why is it supposed to be funny when someone looks stupid?

Should you see it? No, not really. It might make a good rental movie if you're drunk. Maybe...

I haven't been watching enough movies lately, so my girl and I went out to see this movie last night. I hadn't heard much about it, but what I had heard looked good. Actually, I guess it _sounded_ good, since I _heard_ it. But what I read about it looked good, so it was all good.

Plot: Batman vs Wolverine. Ok, it was the actors for the two supermen. In this movies they were magicians. They start out as assistants to a magician, but then something goes wrong on one of the performances. As in, life changing wrong for everyone involved. So Batman and Wolverine go their separate ways, which is actually the same way, but they go that way separately. What I'm saying is that they become competing magicians. Not just regular competing magicians, but top notch competing magicians. One is a great magician, but the other is a great salesman. So the one spends a lot of time and effort trying to figure out the secret to the other's tricks.

Just the story about the magicians trying to steal each other's tricks was really good. Then they go and add another element. Enter Tesla, the wizard (because he does magic, but it's for real). Tesla builds a machine for the show, which is really cool. I'm not positive on how it works, but it has something to do with top hats like Slash wears and black cats. So there's a machine that does a cool wizard trick. One of the magicians uses it and really amazes the other magician. Then at the ending everything is explained and your jaw drops a few inches and you say, wow...

What I thought: wow.... It was a really good movie. It was fun, good effects and a great plot. Plus it's one of those where you get to the end and see the rest of the movie in a different light. There are a couple of revelations, so if you pick up on one (I thought one was obvious halfway through the movie), you still get some more. wow....

Should you see it? Yes, definately worth the movie ticket price. Even at $9.50, which is really too much for a movie to begin with, but alas...

A good friend and I wanted to go see a movie one night. Since she's a sick and twisted individual I suggested we go see the massacre movie. 'Cause nothing's more fun then sitting in a dark theater with a good friend and watching people get butchered with a chainsaw.

Plot: A town dies. One of the families decides to stick around even though the town is over run with bikers and hippies. Bikers and hippies aren't known to stimulate local economies, so the family has to learn to survive using non-traditional methods. Aka - canabalism. Mmmmmmm, hippies.......

What I thought: It was disturbing. This subject matter was disturbing, but only slightly so. The special effects were disturbing to the point of disgusting. It hit the subject matter straight on, but failed to entertain, and that's the rub. Don't watch this movie before eating rare meat.

Should you see it? Nope. Skip it completely.

This looked like the movie of all movies. Not only did it have all those great actors, but one of the actors was Jack Nicholson. That dude is one serious bad ass. So when my brother was in town we decided to all go out and see the movie.

Plot: There is a bad ass gangsta running around (Jack). He's just being one bad mo-mo. Some kids join the police force. Some of the are good and some are bad. What ends up happening was the police had moles in the gang, while the gang had moles at the police station. So everyone was trying to figure out who the moles are.

What I thought: It was a decent movie. Personally, I could've used a few more explosions or car chases. Maybe a car chase that ended in an explosion would have been nice. Especially if monkies were involved.

I didn't think the movie held up to the hype that was surronding it. Maybe I'm asking too much, but when my father buys me a movie ticket I expect to get his money's worth from the experience.

It's a long movie. It didn't really drag anywhere, so that was good.

Should you see it? Yes, but wait for DVD.

My girl and I decided we wanted to go see a movie. So we were trying to decide what to see. She suggested Little Children. I went to Yahoo movies and read the write up. It looked good, so I said I was in. Then I tried to find where it was playing. Only one theater in DC. Gulp, was this one of those independent movies. I'm all for gay rights, but I don't want to watch 90 minutes of gay cowboys kissing each other. So I re-read the review. Nothing about cowboys. Maybe some kissing, but no cowboys. I decided, OK, I'll give it a try.

Plot: This is a tough one. See, this one actually had a real plot that's hard to sum up in a few sentences. Let's see. There's the pedophile that was just released from prison, the midnight football team made up of cops, the mom's club, and a few other characters. They interacted with each other. That's about as good as I can get for the plot without writing more than I want to write right now.

What I thought: It was really good. Borderline great. It wasn't because the subject matter was fun. It wasn't because the plot was mind numbling. It was because the characters were real. They weren't Hollywood characters. They had depth and couldn't really be pigeon holed into stereotypes. The good guys were doing bad things, the bad guys were lovable. At the end you felt bad for the pedophile, because he knew there was something wrong with him and he wished he could change it.

Should you see it? Yep. Definately worth the trip into DC.

A while ago e_nizzy and I went to see Invincible. We both thought it looked pretty cool. Marky Mark all beafcaked out and playing football. We ended up seeing the film in Beltway Plaza. For those not in the know, this is a ghetto theater. It's so ghetto that there's a police station in the mall (right next to the theater actually). It's also so ghetto that a few of the doors leading into the mall were propped open and had signs on them saying that they didn't work. e_nizzy tested this and found out that they actually were working.Let me tell you another reason why the theater was ghetto. The movie started about 45 minutes late. And the twits didn't even give up free popcorn to make things better. I even 'asked'.

Plot: Marky Mark is a poor bartender. The Eagles suck, so they decide to have open tryouts for the team. Marky Mark goes to the tryouts and makes the team. It's a tough road for Marky, but with the support of his friends and family he makes it through and becomes a real football player.

What I thought: e_nizzy summed it up as we were leaving: "It's hard to screw up a sports movie." Exactly. The movie was good for a sports movie, so if you like those then this would be a decent movie for you.

Should You See It? Yes, but don't take e_nizzy. For one thing, he's already seen it. For another thing, he creeped me out when he turned to me with a twinkle in his eye and exclaimed how muscular Marky got. I'm surprised he didn't say anything about the tight pants the dude was wearing.

Last night a friend and I went to see Lady in the Water. We both thought it looked interesting, so we wanted to give it a shot. Even with all the bad press it got about the writer kinda going crazy and rebeling against everyone in the movie biz.

Plot: There is an acient fairy tale about women who live in the water. They are trying to get up with the men who live on land, because they have something important to tell them. I think it was something along the lines of, "Hey, you're fly is down." One of the women makes it to a swimming pool and makes contact. Then she tries to go home and that's where the trouble starts. A big grass dog is chasing her and trying to prevent her from getting home. It's up to the apartment people to keep her safe.

What I thought: It was a pretty good movie. It didn't really have any suprise endings, which the writer (who's name I can't spell) is famous for. I liked that. It was just a straigh up movie. I liked the plot idea and the characters. All in all it was a good, un movie.

Should you see it? Yep. I don't know if it's theater material, but it's worth checking out.

Last weekend I went to see Pirates: Dead Man's Chest with three people from work. We grabbed some food first, then headed to the movie. During dinner we talked about work. I wonder if I can charge the time to work?

Plot: Disney wanted some more money. Oh wait, I mean Elizabeth and Willy wanted to get married, but adventure happened instead. Captain Jack Sparrow, some British guys, some freaky looking monsters, a little rum and general back-stabbing piracy.

What I thought: I agree with one of my co-workers. It was pretty lame. I'm a huge fan of the first movie and I was hoping big stuff from this movie. Didn't happen.

Should you see it? Rent the DVD if you're really curious.

Last night chris025, neebs, G and I got together for dinner and a movie. We went to the Mills (where I think I saw darkangel451, but I'm not sure). neebs wanted to see the pirates movie, but we vetoed that idea. chris025 isn't interested in the pirates movie, and I want to see it with my hot girlfriend. So we saw Superman.

Plot: Superman left Earth to check out his home planet. Then he came back after 5 years. This story is him picking the pieces back up. Speaking of pieces, he also got back up with Lois Lane. Superman also gets shot in the eye, which is pretty silly for a criminal to do because the bullet just got crushed without making the man blink.

The sub-plot: The father sends his only son to Earth. He was sent because the humans have an incredible ability to love each other. The son is to live with the humans, but never be one of them. In this version of the story no one gets crucified (see above paragraph where son gets shot in the eye).

What I thought: Kevin Spacey did a great job playing Lex. The movie was pretty good overall. Maybe a little long, but good none-the-less.

Should you see it? Yes, but maybe not in the theater. I think there are other movies out there that will be better.

Last night a good friend and I went to eat sushi and see X-Men 3: No More Sequels. The first two were pretty cool, so induction would

point to this being pretty cool. But I'm not sure how good a proof induction is, because how do you prove it without using itself and begging the question?

Plot: Magneto vs Humans, X-Men vs Magneto, humans vs everyone. That just goes to show that humans are pretty violent people. But the plot... Magneto raises an army to take over the world. There are some fight scenes. Beast makes an appearance. Stuff happens, people fight, things blow up, credits roll, and a post-credits scene is shown.

What I thought: Wow. They made some pretty bold moves with main characters. As in a few of the main characters aren't gonna be in X-Men 4 (unless they show up as memories). The rumor I heard was that this is gonna be the last X-Men movie.

It was a pretty good movie. I wish Nightcrawler was in it, but whatever. Good plot, good acting, good times.

Should you see it? If you like the first two this one will be fun for you.

A few weeks ago a good friend and I went to see Scary Movie 4. I should have written this review sooner, but I've been busy. Busy slackin'.

Plot: Yes, there was a plot. The plot was to spoof lots of other movies.

What I thought: It was a good time. The movie was pretty funny, especially the beginning and ending skits. Some of the slapstick in the middle was kinda lame, but all in all it was a good movie. I'm pretty impressed with the Scary Movies and their abilities to stay funny and pull in big names (Dr. Phil and Shaq were in the opening sequence to this one).

Should you see it? Yep.

Last Wend I was supposed to go to pool league. Erik called me up and told me not to go. He said I would have more fun hanging out with him and Joe. I agreed. Thus we went to see Inside Man.

Plot: Something about a bank robbery that wasn't for the money. And the robbers were playing the cops who were trying to play the robbers. Blah, blah, blah...

What I thought: Pay attention. I pick my words carefully. I say exactly what I mean and I never repeat myself.

I'm glad the guy never repeated himself, because the movie was long enough as is. I thought the movie was a good one hour movie that lasted for two hours. The climax wasn't very climatic. Other than that it was OK.

Should you see it? Yeah, I guess. Most of the people I know who saw it enjoyed it. The only other person I know who didn't enjoy it is a paranoid recluse who's opinions on movies I always take with a grain of salt.

My lunch partner was bothering me about seeing V. He told me I just HAD to see it. So a few of my homies went to see it last Sun. We went to the Bowie theater where the projector froze during the previews. So I called one of the managers at home and he told me to go outside and tell someone who was there. And people call me a slacker...

Plot: The hero is a terrorist who is trying to change Future England's society. He does this by killing people and blowing stuff up. There was an explosion set to nice music, dogs, a cool mask, some torture and head shaving, a train, some knifes and a final explosion.

What I thought: I liked the explosions, because they included fireworks. I bet if real life terrorists used fireworks we wouldn't be at war with them. We'd just smile and say, "Well, at least it looked cool when they blew up the plane I was on."

The movie got a little slow and boring near the end. I think it had something to do with a plot. Hollywood seriously needs some editors for the movies now a days. It was cool for Lord of the Rings to take three years to watch, but that doesn't mean everyone should go there. When you've got what you think is a good two hour movie go back and cut another 40 minutes out. Then the movie would probably be good and not boring.

The slowness was forgiven because there was a cool explosion and knife fight at the end. The knife fight was cool, because it was more a slaughter than a knife fight.

Should you see it? Yes, then talk about how it compares to today's society. Just don't forget to mention the explosions (and fireworks).

A bunch of my friends said they would go see Underworld with me last Friday. Then they all ditched me for better stuff. So I cried. This morning I stopped crying, so tonight I went to the movie. e_nizzy and Joe were also there (in the background). We went to the theater in Annapolis, so I finally got to use the free ticket I got when e_nizzy and I saw Van Helsing there back in 2004.

Plot: Unfortunately, yes. Something to do with vampires and werewolves lychin or something like that. There are these clans fighting, then some nakedness (but not enough damn it), some things fight some more, I think the plot is advanced but I wasn't really paying attention to that, then some yawning, and back to fighting and death.

Two things they could have gotten rid of to make this a better movie: the plot and the love interest.

They could have salvaged the love interest if the nudity was more sleazy and less silly. Maybe they should have done half the screen as a porn and the other half as werewolves and vampires ripping each other apart. That actually sounds like a really cool movie. As long as Kate Beckinsale was on both sides of the screen. Holy crap, I just thought of something great! I think they might even be able to do this with that there 'Hollywood Magic'. Kate Beckinsale romantically involved with Kate Beckinsale. Romantically involved in the sleazy sense.

There was no way to salvage the plot.

What I thought: OK, I've been telling my friends that the first Underworld is a classic, slightly above Casablanca and It's a Wonderful Life. I still stand by that statement. However, I've also been telling people that this Underworld must also be ranked highly among the classics. I sadly must retract that statement. It should be ranked on par with the classics.

The best part of this movie was the way the goth guy killed other people. If you don't know which character I'm talking about it doesn't really matter. He kills people (werewolves and vampires) with his bare hands. Punching through them and just ripping them apart. Pretty freaking cool.

I was not impressed with the Interview With The Vampire rip off with the heart beats while the goth guy is drinking blood from Kate Beckinsale's wrist. That just pissed me off.

Should you see it? Yes, it's worth the $12 just to watch the different ways the non-esential characters are killed. But take a pillow, because there are some boring parts. And don't expect anything as great as the first one.

PS: Kate Beckinsale is the sexiest woman ever when she wears that spandex leather.

e_nizzy and I were going to go see Munich, but there was a mix up with the showing times. We ended up seeing this instead.

Plot: White coach gathers a bunch of black kids to play college basketball. This is before hockey was the only sport white people could play. So the black kids came together as a team and gave the smack down to the white people.

What I thought: It was a decent movie, but very predictable. The movie would have been better if the black kids lost the basketball game and the team bus flipped into a ditch on the way home. That would really catch the audience off guard.

Should you see it? Yeah, but wait for DVD.