Anyways, fantastic show if you’re in the market for some great entertainment. Completely character driven and very rated R.

On a side note, I truly believe that HBO is what Hollywood should be. On to The Wire.

If this series is even half as good as the book, it will be fantastic. HBO tends to go all out too, so my hopes are high. More @ Inside Game of Thrones

I think the term “every cliché in the book” has become a bit of a cliché in and of itself, but if there were such a book, these guys found it, read it, reread it, and then plagiarized it. All of it. Every cliché in the book, as it were.

Just one more thing and then I’ll shut up. I’ve noticed that every natural disaster movie that’s released tries to out do its predecessor in terms of death toll. Twister (96) and Dante’s Peak (97) both wipe out various sized towns. Volcano (97) wipes out a major city. Deep Impact (98) and Armageddon (98) wipe out half the planet. The Day After Tomorrow (04) wipes out most of the planet. 2012 (09) …… I can’t say what happens, it would spoil the movie. Let’s just say, to beat it, the next natural disaster movie is going to have to wipe out the entire planet, repopulate it, then wipe it out again. I can’t wait.

Although I think Hollywood is dying a slow, painful (and well deserved) death, I love seeing all these modernized versions of older movies coming out, i.e., James Bond, Batman, and now Star Trek. Coincidentally, my daughter (11) has been showing more and more interest in the Star Trek franchise. She’s even been watching all the old Next Generation episodes. Last week, she was rummaging through a bunch of old VHS tapes (remember those) at her Grandfather’s house and found the complete set of the original Star trek movies. She’s been begging me to watch them ever since. What a little geekling.

And where would one even begin? Think about just doing one track at a time. How stupid would you feel? Pretty impressive though, I must say. Kudos to you my good man, kudos to you…

Here’s the intro scene. SHAFA-BOOIE!

On a related note, “Transformers the Movie” still holds the title of most incredible animated movie ever made, followed ever so closely by Titan A.E. and the Secret of Nimh. Oh, and all of Hayao Miyazaki movies. That guy’s pretty impressive.

I’ve never been a huge Superman fan. I have nothing against him personally, he seems like a nice enough guy. My brain just never really clicked with the concept of an all powerful super man, if you will. He’s like the swiss army knife of super heroes; laser eyes, freezo breath, super strength, gravity defying, x-ray vision, bullet proof, rocket proof, missile proof, umm, pretty much invincible. Where’s the fun in that?

But wait, I recall enjoying the original Superman movies with Christopher Reeves. In fact, I really enjoyed them. Then it dawned on me. It’s not Superman himself that everybody loves, it’s what he stands for; truth and justice. The fantasy that someone is watching over us no matter what. This is an important fantasy, especially in the world we live in today, and this movie did a great job in representing that fantasy. I’m getting a bit too philosophical though.

The bottom line is that Superman Returns did a great job stimulating multiple emotions and not just the ones that are typically associated with this sort of film. The cast was fantastic and the story grabs you right from the beginning and doesn’t let go until the closing credits. True, the movie could be slow at times, but slow doesn’t always translate into lack of intensity. I caught myself holding my breath quite a few times and not just during the action scenes. Louis and Superman had some unforgettable moments together.

I think you get the gist of this review. I would seriously recommend this movie to anyone, Superman fan or not. I think it’s that good.

The only two real contenders in Pixar’s line up are Finding Nemo and the original Toy story, and believe me when I say that I enjoyed Cars only half a hair more than the latter two. Cars was definitely the most visually appealing of them all, but what did it for me was the movie’s setting. It was very nostalgic and that was the clincher.

That’s all I’ll say though. I give Cars a 9.5 out of 10. Oh, and I highly recommend going to see this movie on a rainy Saturday night, with about 100 screaming children who are up way past their bedtimes, strung out on an endless supply Junior Mints. It really amplifies the experience.

By the way, check out this unbelievable tidbit from Rottentomatoes.com.

“The addition of reflections in practically every shot of the film added tremendous render time to the project. The average time to render a single frame of film for “CARS” was 17 hours. Even with a sophisticated network of 3000 computers, and state-of-the-art lightning fast processors that operate up to four times faster than they did on “The Incredibles,” it still took many days to render a single second of finished film.”

• TurboTanks
  This game is like a stripped down version of Combat for Atari.
• The Ultimate Face
  I spent way too much time on this website trying to create an exact replica of my face.
• Cool Mosaic
  This is a neat Mosaic. You really get the sense of infinity here.
• Dungeon Escape
  A simple little action game, but still very addicting.
• Treasure Box
  I can’t even describe this game. It’s pretty damn cool though.
• Java Sand
  Sand. Lots and lots of sand.
• Lightning Pool
  Speed pool. Really addicting.
• Escapa
  I hate this stupid, stupid game…
• Stick Arena
  Here’s a cool multiplayer shooter. Takes a little getting used to.
• Bert is Evil
  I know this a old, but I was looking through my del.icio.us tags and I saw this. It’s just too funny.

Okay, there you have it. Don’t blame me if you get fired.

On an unrelated note, you guys may also want to check out this post from Buzz Patrol. I won’t tell you what it is, but I’ll give you some hints. It has to do with awards, Scarlett Johansson, and cleavage.

See what a great liar I am? The reality is I usually never admit to my mistakes and I bury the truth deep within the bowels of my soul, hoping that no one ever discovers my dark little secret. Alas, I made an error in judgment that I feel I need to address. Back in October I reviewed a movie called Serenity. I stick by my review for the most part. It’s my thoughts about the T.V. show Firefly that I wanted to amend.

As I said in my review, Firefly is the T.V. show leading up to the movie Serenity. I also mentioned that I watched it and hated it. However, I never really gave the show a fair shake. I only watched the first episode, which I read recently was never intended to be the first episode. Fox, in their infinite wisdom, decided to shuffle the order in which the series would be aired. After Serenity came out I decided to make good on my promise and give the show another chance. I am so glad I did. I rented all the discs from my local video store and watched the entire season in a week. I loved the show so much that I bought the DVD set and watched the entire season again. GEEK! I know, but it could possibly be one of the best sci-fi shows ever. As a matter of fact, I don’t think the term sci-fi best describes this show.

My initial reason for not liking the show was due to its western motif. I’m still not a huge fan of that per se, but the characters Joss Whedon created are so much greater than the environment they are in. The characters in Firefly are so entertaining and interesting (and completely original) that I quickly forgot what it was that turned me off about the show in the first place.

There, I’m glad I got that off my chest. Now I can sleep at night. I’m also half way through season 2 of BSG and I’m loving every second of it. For those of you have not yet seen it, I would highly recommend it. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m afraid I’ve already said too much.

So why did I go see this movie if I didn’t particularly like the TV show? Because I’m a sucker for space operas. I can’t not see them. While where at it I should admit to a couple of other soft spots I have. I love movies with women that kick ass, martial arts, and that showcase camaraderie. I tend to let my guard down a bit when when reviewing movies that have one or more of those characteristics. I’m ashamed to admit that there are more than a handful of movies that slipped into my DVD collection that otherwise would not be there considering my strict and often ruthless guideline to what I consider to be a great movie.

Serenity, to my pleasant surprise, had a bit of all four of those characteristics. Now that you know that, you must have deduced that I may be a bit wishy washy with this review and that you should take it with a grain of salt. I would agree with you. The movie had average special effects, sub-par acting, and a mediocre plot, but I still enjoyed it very much. It will definitely end up in my DVD collection. If you can get by the many flaws of the movie and strip away the layers of blah, what you have at the core is a fun shoot’m up space saga that does a good job of keeping you guessing. I would love to be able to rave about how great the special effects were and how deep the plot is, but I can’t. They were simply okay. But okay seemed to work just fine. Let’s get real for a second here. My grandmother isn’t coming to see this movie. As a matter of fact I can’t think of one member of my rather gigantic family that would come to see this movie. This movie isn’t for them. It’s for me and space geeks like me. And for us, it was a pretty fulfilling ride.

The cast of Serenity consists of the original cast of Firefly. You won’t see any Oscar nominations here, but the chemistry and the diversity of the actors seemed to work extremely well. As a rule I try not to get too deep about the plot or the characters in my movie reviews, but I feel I must mention Summer Glau. The movie is worth seeing just for her. Not necessarily her performance, but for the character she played. (Although her performance was hands down the best in the film.) She plays a character called River Tam. Let’s just say that she is what Jessica Alba’s character should have been in that other failure of a TV show, Dark Angel. Minus the psychic ability of course. I honestly got goose bumps watching some of her scenes. That’s all I’ll say though. You’ll have to see the movie for yourself to see what I mean.

I’m glad I saw Serenity and I would definitely go see the sequel. If I had to give it a tag line I would say it was a “fun-filled, adventurous space saga that is caught somewhere between cheesy and epic”. Kind of a broad statement I now, but I’m a bit out of practice. All in all I think Joss Wedon got it right. It makes me wonder if I was to harsh on the original Firefly series. I think it’s time to revisit the old show and give it a second chance. What the hell, it’s only $3.00 to rent at my local video store. Why not?

// Update: My new thoughts on Firefly //