London Boulevard

Nice!  Colin Farrell is the best I have ever seen him.  This movie rocked yet is smacked a ton of "Layer Cake" (2004).  These British crime films are such a mental contradiction: how can people with such proper accents be so nasty?  Whatever.  So the story line is the same: crime dude is honorable but wasting his honor in a non honorable profession and he wants out.  However, the kingpin likes his style and wants him to stay and promises the world.  Can he get out? 

If you liked "Layer Cake," you will like this, but don't see them too close together because it will be kind of like seeing the same movie twice except one will have subtitles.  The acting was awesome, the directing was great, the script rocked and the cinematography was good too.  Only goofer was the music that flared whenever Farrell and Knightley started doing the clutching prelude to other stuff stuff.

Monsters

Eh, it was okay.  A satellite goes into outer space to get some samples from somewhere and upon re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, it blows up and spreads its cargo in the area between the US and Mexico.  Now you have an infested area of big, I mean BIG aliens cruising the area and doing battle against the military forces of Mexico and the US all in an effort to just survive.  In the middle, a photo journalist must escort the daughter of his media mogul boss through the zone to safety in the US.

I am so sick of movies with kids of the rich slumming.  Call me pessimistic, but even when I hear about this sorta thing in real life, I don't buy it.  The girl annoyed me.  The dude was okay, but he ticked me because of being a dad who wasn't in his son' life.  Okay, now that I have destroyed (or at least found no reason to appreciate) the leads, well, it wasn't something that I would click past if I saw it on TV.  In better hands, this movie could have really kicked.

The score is something that I have to draw attention to becuase I don't even remember it.  When that happens, I am of the mind that it must have been good; it didn't detract so it must have added.  The acting was kind of like an uninspired Costner grade.  The directing, not bad, but still it could have been better.  As for the cinematography, it was good.  Script, it was okay.  If you are left with nothing else, you could do far worse than this.

2046

Darn!  I have been stoked to have really hit a vein of cinematic gold, but this last strike of the pick popped someone's septic tank.  I had no idea who or what was going on other than following the exploits of this dude who is obsessed with shagging a specific harlot...unfortunately, all the other harlots he does nic nic with just aren't of the caliber of this one.

At first I was intrigued with the sci fi aspect, but it went to heck and I lost patience waiting for it to come back.  Bail.  I am not even going to jam the directing, script, acting, cinematography or score.  The only score I can remember was...well, the dude scored a lot and I can really remember a specific one.  Avoid this.

The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch

No one I have ever seen or heard of, breasts I hadn't seen before (and still not enough to save this film) and that is it.  There was a ton of promise and action and all of it, but something was missing.  This film was like smelling a big, juicy, perfectly seasoned and cooked steak and then sinking your teeth into a veggie burger.

This post is being done over a week since I saw the movie and since my queue has been hijacked by 2 chick flicks and a kid flick, I am using my time away from the DVD player to write this.  Don't see it.  No one in it really gets me to root for them.  The hero personifies "Rage Against the Machine" as he protests social injustices, yet cruises back to his 4,000 square foot penthouse in downtown Hong Kong to sulk and mope.

Two Days In April

Wow!  This was really something to see.  Okay, full on dude film...unless you are a mother (of an NFL dreaming boy) who doesn't want her son treated like a piece of meat and needs a bit more ammunition for her case.  So this film follows 4 college football players from the end of their final college football season to the start of mini camps at the pro level.

The film covers what is at stake and all the stuff that they go through and must train for beyond what they did in college: Pro Days, Senior Bowls, Interviews, the Combine, etc.  There are shots and scenes that dehumanize them and just make them animals.  Slave trade is what it is.  The last part of the film covers each of the four in their houses, hotel rooms, etc. as they watch the 2006 NFL draft and hope to be called in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd rounds and beyond.  I never knew the gap in salary and how much difference there was.

This was a gripping film.  I got to 11:00 PM a few nights with a 4:30 AM wake up the next day but could not stop watching.  Wow, it was something.  The filming was great, the acting (there was none), the script (there was none), the editing/directing...heck, SEE THIS!

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

At the beginning of this one, I was "Wow, oh man, this is great, oh wow!" but the weirdy thing was that during the day, I didn't find myself eager to get home and turn it back on and all.  It may have been the start of 2 kids in baseball, swimming, and cub scouts that had me worn out, trampled and looking like a piece of road kill bacon.  Not sure, but I did finish it.

Donnie Yen, who is in just about the last 10 films I have seen was in this one too and his fight action is awesome!  He has some of that floating/flying Hidden Tiger stuff going on but not so much that you are thinking to yourself, "Hey, now I know what those opium dens were for: dreaming up floaty fight scenes."

I kept thinking that the mask and all were like Bruce Lee in "The Green Hornet" TV show and yep!, there was a comparison and some connections.  Still good and this is a film that I can recommend, but not one that I would jump up and down and rave for.

Acting was good, directing was good, writing rocked, and the music...eh, okay.  Cinematography was awesome!

Ip Man: 2

Hold the phone!  Not since the Rocky series have I been so into a final fight!  Wow, awesome fight scenes and fights and wow!  Donnie Yen translated into English is Steven Segal: kidding he is not but he reminds me of Segal.  What I like about Segal is none of the Van Damme.'beaten to within an inch of his life only to rise at the last second and kick butt' stuff.  No, with Segal, you get, boom boom bad guy down!  Nice, I like it.  Donnie Yen as Ip Man is like that and also like Segal, there is nothing but a calm expression on his face as he puts a full on beat down onto his opponent. 

The acting is good until it breaks from the English subtitles and the Brits begin speaking English.  The only other flaw I saw/heard was the occassional time when the music was so bad I was able to actually notice how bad it was.  Other than that, the cinematography is great, the directing was great and the action scenes just rocked!  Script, good again until the English start speaking...then it is kind of cheesy.  Cool dealio is the surprise pupil Ip Man gets at the movie's end