Nels, heart of the game looks good. Thanks for the note

Rocky Balboa - I expected the warmed-over boxing clichés. I expected the dollar-store dialogue. I expected Stallone's bad acting. What I didn't expect was the stultefyingly dull first 1 hour and 12 mintues. I couldn't get this out of my dvd player fast enough when it was finally over.

Confetti - The Wedding Planner meets The Office in this mockumentary about a British wedding magazine's contest to find the most original wedding. Some funny moments, but this film could have really benefitted from the Ricky Gervais touch.

The rain just isn't letting up here on the "Wet Coast;" nothing to do but watch movies...

That's not rain, that's "liquid sunshine"....(heh-heh!)


Oh, and I'm watching Casino Royale on SD DVD tonight.....

Rocky Balboa - I expected the warmed-over boxing clichés. I expected the dollar-store dialogue. I expected Stallone's bad acting. What I didn't expect was the stultefyingly dull first 1 hour and 12 mintues. I couldn't get this out of my dvd player fast enough when it was finally over.
Rocky was horrible. I grew up with Rocky and was expecting better. The ending was solid though but the first hour was HORRIBLE!!

I watched blood diamond last night. It was great. A bit slow in the middle but eye opening to say the least.

Also, Im starting 24 season 4 tonight. (Season 6 is crap so far!)

The Pursuit of Happyness - Will Smith turns in an earnest, heartfelt performance in the real life story of Chris Gardner, a struggling medical equipment salesman and single father who tries to improve his lot by signing on for a prestigious internship as a stock broker, even as he has to line up at a homeless shelter for a bed for he and his son. Tugs at the heartstrings in all the right places. Also noteable for making Thandie Newton into a total b**ch.

Daniel Craig was as boring as the movie or you could argue the plot made him boring. The movie started out well but went down hill quickly. I hear people calling the poker game as the highlight of the movie. That sums it up. If the best part of an action movie is a card game then boy is the movie in trouble.

A cold war novel ends of being a post 9/11 movie. Ouch. I guess we can't have bad Russians anymore.

NO Classic Villian
NO memoriable Bond Girl
NO memoriable Song
NO memoriable action scene

I don't know James. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie over the invisible car, space lasers, and parasailing off collapsing iceburgs of the last. I also thought of Bond movies as spy movies not action movies. With the reboot of the series so to speak, the movie was more like a first novel in a new trilogy. Casino looks to be setting up an interesting arc that the next one will build on.

My take:
NO Classic Villian - We keep seeing potential vilians but they are but soldiers to something bigger. Stay tuned!
NO memoriable Bond Girl - I found Eva Green very hot
NO memoriable Song - Hit or miss. I kind of like it.
NO memoriable action scene - The early chase was intense and fun (crashing through the wall for instance). And the final one was good. It's more down to earth than the superhero type stuff and it was refreshing to me.

Trust me, I hated the invisible car as much as everybody else. I kind of missed the era where the KGB and the Russians were the bad guy rather the "terrorists" of post 9/11.

The opening scene was very Bond-like as well as the end (painful minutes leading up to the end though). The 2 hour Sony commercial padded in between was my letdown.

I need to watch the Connery movies again.

Children of Men - Excellent movie. Can't say too much, but it was awesome. Great single cuts, especially at the end of the movie.

Watched Happy Feet on the plane back from London. I thought it was very good. Featuring the voices of Elijah Woods, Nichole Kidman, Robin Williams and Hugh Jackman, its a story about a Penquin that is 'slightly' out of place. Its a family film, sure, but Robin Williams cracks me up whenever he is in an animated film. I believe we are in the golden age of animated feature films and bought this one for my collection.

Charlie Chan in London 1934 starring a young Ray Miland.
Charlie Chan in Egypt 1935 starring a young Rita Cansio later known as Rita Hayworth.

Love these old films. For me Warner Oland plays the best Charlie Chan. The only thing missing from these to films is Keye Luke who played his #1 son.

I watched Rocky last night and I've got to say I thoroughly enjoyed it...an old guy with one more fight left in him. I guess this will be on TMN soon, hopefully in HD.

Children of Men - In the post-apocalyptic year 2027, much of the world has fallen into chaos, women have been mysteriously infertile for 18 years and England is a xenophobic police state. When a young refugee woman is found to be pregnant, an already-thin storyline collapses under the weight of bad dialogue and acting, ridiculous characters, lots of shooting and explosions, and a terrible ending.

Sid says, "This was a dull and disappointing piece of cr@p."

The Illusionist - our second magic movie and "eye treat" over the past short while. We much-enjoyed viewing 'The Prestige', and did this one as well. We found ourselves completely absorbed in the story, acting (Ed Norton, et al), and "wonder" of it all, from start to conclusion. It's obviously quite a different movie from the other 'magic' movie, and possibly not quite as well 'executed' (re: the "magic" involved, and how it was done for the film, and all), but in our opinion, a delightful, much-enjoyed view!!

Babel - finally got around to viewing this one. Agree with eljay's previous comments (provided in post #1171 on this thread). He provided a good description of the story-line (should anyone still need such), and we sure agree with his overall assessment of the movie.

We "wondered" at first, but the movie and it's 'separate' stories, quickly caught our attention, as we realized how they were to be weaved together, and all.

For us, another 2+ hours well-spent in front of the our tv screen viewing one of the "newer" movies released to dvd.

Volver - Almodovar movies are a hit & miss proposition for me; I just couldn't connect with this one. I couldn't even warm to Penelope Cruz' Oscar-nominated performance; her singing is really bad!

Casino Royal - Worked for me, nice that they took it back to the beginning. Best Bond movie i've seen in long time.


Rocky - Kind of a slow start but still an enjoyable movie.

Both have good sound for the home theater.

Casino Royal - Worked for me, nice that they took it back to the beginning.
Back to the beginning of Summer 2006.

Blood Diamond - A large and rare raw diamond serves as the focal point of this story, set amid the revolutionary chaos of Sierra Leone in the 1990s. The native fisherman who discovers and hides the stone wants nothing more than to find his refugee family from whom he was separated by the local militia. The mercenary diamond smuggler offers to help the fisherman in exchange for a share in the diamond's value, which he sees as the means to settle his debts and move on to a better life. And the jaded American reporter has an opportunity to expose the unseen struggles that lie behind the gems, and the treachery of the hypocritical merchants who continue to peddle their blood-soaked wares.

A potentially excellent story - in the vein of "The Constant Gardener" - about the human cost of corporate greed is somewhat marred by overly-contrived "dramatic" scenes, discordant moments of "humour" and an unnecessary "love interest" subplot. Both Djimon Hounsou and Leonardo DiCaprio do, however, turn in decent performances.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - Kazakh reporter Borat Sagdiyev heads to New York City on a fact-finding mission for the benefit of his beloved country. Once there, he becomes obsessed with Pamela Anderson and embarks on an eventful cross-country journey to Los Angeles to marry her.

Clever humour it's not, but if you're in the mood for something silly - and even a little tasteless - this movie certainly has its moments.