Steve Zissou, played by Bill Murray (Lost in Translation), makes documentaries on his exploration in the deep sea. However, his most recent projects have been flops, and his money as well as producers are starting to run low. His most recent documentary is split into two parts, because he thinks his partner is eaten by the dreaded Jaguar Shark.

While at the premier party, his son–maybe, Ned Plimpton, played by Owen Wilson (Starsky & Hutch), visits him and joins the Life Aquaticteam. Zissou, with his son, now must fight pirates, his wife Eleanor, played by Anjelica Houston (Royal Tenenbaums), and a newspaper reporter whom he has a crush on but at the same time doesn’t trust named Jane Winslett, played by Cate Blanchett (Lord of the Rings trilogy).

In its most simple form, this movie can best be described as a British comedy, very dry humor. However, it does go into greater detail about the lack of a farther-son relationship between Steve and Ned. Ned, of course, falls in love with Jane, creating tension between father and son. The larger story shows the total lack of confidence Steve Zissou has with life outside the ocean, and now between the loss of his friend and his failures, he begins to show his lack of confidence with the ocean.

Director Wes Anderson (Rushmore, Bottle Rockets) must have some issues with his father or conversely none at all, because both this movie and “The Royal Tenenbaums” stories are based on questionable father figures. I found this movie to be quite entertaining, and maybe just a bit too long. There was a part about ocean pirates which didn’t make sense, providing conflict between Steve and his crew. Maybe the sequence could have been done another way, but I didn’t find it too distracting. I also dont know why all of the animals in the movie are fake except for the Killer Whale; doesn’t make sense.

I hope Bill Murray gets another nod for an Academy Award® nomination. I felt he did an outstanding job playing a difficult character. Owen Wilson is also good in this type of movie, since this style of humor is made for him. I will ask Wes Anderson not cast Anjelica Houston for a while. She looks too much like her father, and sometimes I can’t get past that. However, she is a fine actress.

I will sum up by saying, again, this movie is not going to be for everyone just because of the style Anderson has in filming and writing. My own personal fear is I am beginning to tire of this style myself, and because of it, I may not like his next offering. I may be jumping ahead of myself. If you haven’t seen a Wes Anderson movie, go ahead and watch this one. You just might enjoy it.

Brian

The movie is based on famous children’s books written by Daniel Handler. I have never read the books, so I don’t know how close the movie follows them. However, after watching the movie, it would appear the books do not transfer well onto film.

The premise of the story is, three children, whose parents are killed in a mysterious fire, are turned over to their cousin, an actor, named Count Olaf, played by Jim Carrey (Bruce Almighty). Olaf does not hide the fact he is trying to get rid of the children in order to inherit the enormous wealth left by their parents.

After trying to get them killed in a car/train “accident,” the kids get transferred to another relative, an Uncle Monty, played by Billy Connolly (The Last Samurai). However, he is killed by Count Olaf disguised as a scientist. The kids are then turned over to their Aunt, Josephine, played by Meryl Streep (The Manchurian Candidate). Yes, you guessed right. She too is also killed by Count Olaf.

The climatic scene of the movie is when Olaf discovers, if he marries the oldest of the three children, being 14-year old Violet, played by Emily Browning (Ned Kelly), he will inherit the parents’ wealth. So, he produces a play in which he will marry Violet, while all those watching think the wedding is not real. See what I mean? Dark, but not very funny.

I would like to give kudos to director Brad Siberling, who has also directed “City of Angeles.” He did a nice job of mixing in the narrator of the story, being Lemony Snicket, voiced by Jude Law (Alfie–and every movie that came out this year), in such a way to help explain the story.

The acting was nice, but since all adult characters were written over the top, especially Count Olaf, I did not find any of them enjoyable. I feel Carrey did the best he could with the role of Count Olaf, but it appears to be such a difficult role, I don’t know if anybody could have pulled it off. I would liked to have seen Robin Williams in the part. The two child actors, Emily Browning and Liam Aiken (Road to Perdition), who played the middle child Klaus, were quite enjoyable.

From what I have been told by a friend, the movie stays pretty close to the books. So, if you like the books, by all means go see the movie. If you haven’t, I think there are better movies out there.

Brian – the Naked Gun

Antonio Banderas (Once upon a time in Mexico) is Zorro who is trying to retire to make his wife, Elena, played by the ultra-hot yet horribly soiled Catherine Zeta-Jones (Ocean’s Twelve) happy so they can spend time raising their son. However, Zorro is accidentally unmasked and his identity is notice by two American Agents who force Elena to divorce Alejandro and fall in love with a Spanish Lord who is coming over to live in America but actually has much darker intentions.

There is nothing original about this movie. But that is actually a good thing because as I started watching the movie my fear was that they would make the kid a large part of the movie doing unrealistic adult like activites, see the child in the movie The Mummy Returns as an example of what I am talking about. Fortunately the writers left the kid as a small player, barely annoying so the movie was watchable.

The bad thing about the movie is that it is WAY TOO LONG. This movie had a habit of over stating the obvious and then underlining it with its plot points. If that had not shown the audience that two guys had discovered who Zorro was, the audience would have been interested in knowing why Elena divorce Alejandro, apparently. Instead since we saw them seeing the unmasking, we knew that the two men were framing Elena. We also now that the Spanish Lord was bad form the time his evil face was on-screen. But yet the writers had to hammer the point into the skull of the audience with many scenes that weren’t necessary for the story. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were responsible for this bomb of a movie. They also penned this summer’s flop The Island, so what they are still doing in the business I don’t know.

I can’t say too much more about the movie. It’s not horrible, but it’s not good. I do know that Orci and Kurtzman’s writing make Jane Austin’s stories exciting and full of energy. I would love to say that Catherine Zeta-Jones is what makes this movie worth seeing, but knowing that she is soiled by Michael Douglas at least once a week is too disturbing to think about. Ignore this movie and find something else.

Brian – the Naked Gun

The movie takes place in the 1940′s and discusses the creation of the All-American Woman’s Baseball League which supplemented the men’s baseball league during the war. Again, it’s not a baseball movie, but more of a political commentary on how these women were given an opportunity to play a sport which was “men only.” I say this, because there are many times during the movie when the script talks about how important women were during the war. There also was the obligatory comment of the situation of black people in America during that time, with their separate but equal situation. There are also lots of relationship issues which happen between sisters, but that’s something I can’t relate to.

The best two reasons to watch this movie are Tom Hanks and Jon Lovitz. Tom Hanks (The Terminal) plays Jimmy Dugan, manager of the Racine Peaches. His timing is effortless and plays the role of a has-been baseball player, full of regret, beautifully. If it wasn’t for him, the movie is not watchable and should be burned in effigy of Bill Clinton.

The other reason to watch this movie is Jon Lovitz (The Stepford Wives), who plays the role of baseball scout Ernie Capadino. He scouts the two main characters Dottie and Kit. His sarcasm and wit are biting, and it’s a part which seemed to be written for him. This made it so enjoyable. Also worth mentioning is the script. While I hated the political commentary of the movie, the humor written for Hanks character, as well as Lovitz, was flat-out hilarious. So, I do give kudos for writers Lowell Ganz (Robots) and Babaloo Mandell (Robots) for the humor of the movie, not the politics.

Notice how I have not mentioned the “real” stars of the movie, the women of the baseball team of which the story was about, with the exception of Geena Davis (Stuart Little 2) who plays Dottie and Lori Petty (Tank Girl) who plays her younger sister Kit. These two do a good job tackling the sister-sister relationship.

Other than these two, the parts could have been played by anybody, and for the most part they were, except for two actresses who were cast for only one reason, name recognition. They were Rosie O’Donnel and Madonna. I thought Madonna was a pointless character, written in the show as a cheap fifty-cent hooker, which her character basically pointed out. The only reason she got the job was, she was friends with director Penny Marshall. Speaking of her, Marshall (Riding in Cars with Toys) made the decision to make this movie more politically driven than character driven, which I feel is a poor choice. This movie could have been a great character movie and would have been much more enjoyable.

That’s that. If it wasn’t for Hanks, this movie isn’t worth that fifty cent hooker I was talking about earlier. Watch this for Hanks’ acting ability, ignore the rest.

Brian – the Naked Gun

Basically, the premise is, the world is about to go into war with one man creating all of the weapons to profit from this event, and our heroes are trying to stop them. They are Allan Quartermain, played by Sean Connery (James Bond movies), Captain Nemo, played by Indian actor–as in the country India–Naseeruddin Shah, Mina Harker, played by Peta Wilson (TV’s Le Femme Nikita), Tom Sawyer, played by Shane West (TV’s ER), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, played by Jason Flemyng (From Hell), and The Invisible Man, played by Tony Curran (Pearl Harbor). The bad guys are The Phantom/M/Professor Moriarty, played by Richard Roxburgh (Van Helsing), and Dorian Gray, played by Stuart Townsend (Head in the Clouds).

This ensemble cast is very good with enjoyable performances by Stuart Townsend and Peta Wilson. Connery is Connery. With the exception of “The Avengers,” I can’t remember a movie he did which I didn’tlike. I also enjoyed Shane West who, in this movie, looks like a thin Jack Black.

I think the story is what hooked me, however. I like this concept of bringing in literary greats into an ensemble movie. The good guys basically chase the bad guys around the world and also try and conquer their own personal demons at the same time.

My dislikes were small. Special effects were not the best, and I would have liked a happier ending. Although, you knew it kind of had to end the way it did.

Overall, I like this small picture. Get past the special effects and enjoy the film, because if you can’t, you are being to nit-picky and shouldn’t watch any movies ever again!

Brian – the Naked Gun

So in part two if this last film we pick up with the kids still running for their lives and looking for the last of the Horcruxes to destroy.  They eventually figure out that one of the last remaining Horcruxes is somewhere in Hogwarts so the gang head back there and make their last stand.

The movie did keep me interested from beginning to end.  I also enjoyed the fact that the film was darker than the others, if not in reality, then at least it was implied. Knowing that the students who were supporting Harry Potter were fighting the bad guys in the school, the assumption should be and would be that some of them were dying.  We didn’t see any of it but, it had to be the case.  At least I look at it that way.  I don’t want to sound moribund but since war is something to avoid if possible and if not possible ended as quickly as possible, having children die, even if assumed, is a good way to get that point across.  Because in war, children die.

One of the things that I did not like was the sound of the film.  There were many times when I had to rewind the DVD in order to hear what the hell they were saying.  Especially in the beginning with that damn Goblin.  I turned it up all the way and still couldn’t hear him so I had to turn on the subtitles.  I know my hearing is getting bad, but I shouldnt have to do that just to figure out what the hell they are saying.

Oh, and one last thing.  There are certain things I like when it comes to romance in movies.  It’s because there are so few that I would like to have them fulfilled.  I wanted Harry and Hermione to get together.  I don’t care if the books have Ron and Hermione…I wanted Harry Potter to be the one.  This disappointed me, even though it was in the book, the hero should get the girl.

On a whole, I enjoyed the film, I enjoyed the entire series, but I am glad that it is over.  I am sure these movies will be held dear to all of the Harry Potter fans but  in my humble opinion this series finishes a distant fourth behind Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and yes, even Indiana Jones.  But it has been an entertaining 15 years of movie going.

Alex Rogan, played by Lance Guest (Jaws: The Revenge,) is a young 20 year old who is upset that he is stuck in his boring life living in the trailer park with his mom and brother. He is a handyman at the park and even his girlfriend, Maggie, played by Catherine Mary Stewart (Weekend at Bernie’s,) appears to be happy living there even though she is loyal too him. The one thing that Alex is really good at is an old video game called The Last Starfighter. After Alex breaks the record one night, a man named Centauri, played by Robert Preston (The Music Man) who claims to have invented the game, takes Alex for a ride in his car. Only it is not a car, it is a space ship and Alex finds out that the game is actually a training program for Starfighters. Alex is then recruited to be a Starfighter in a war against creatures that want to control the universe.

Like I said in the opening, the special effects for the movie were unique. Other than make up and the explosions on Earth, the entire film was computer generated. Now, it is obvious that the effects look like a computer, actually they look like a video game with graphics in the early 1990′s. Because the effects looked like that, watching the movie now is funny. I am sure that Michael Gates would be laughing the minute he saw the SFX but if it wasn’t for this movie, movies like Cars and Finding Nemo would have been delayed a couple of years at least.

The acting is very 80′s even though there were two Academy Award ® nominated actors in this movie. Robert Preston who was Centauri, was nominated for supporting actor for the 1982 film Victor/Victoria. Dan O’Herhily, who was the alien navigator for Alex, Grig, was nominated for best supporting actor for the 1954 film the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. When they are on screen, there is a decided calm, for a lack of a better word, in the acting from the other younger actors who are on screen with them. By far the most annoying actor was Norman Snow (Manhunter) who was the evil Xur. He was supposed to be crazy but it just came off stupid and annoying.

An interesting side note on the movie is that Director Nick Castle was “The Shape” in the original Halloween movie and Lance Guest made his acting debut in the sequel, Halloween II. Another note is that this movie was the last movie for Robert Preston who died of lung cancer three years later.

This is a very entertaining movie but the story is silly. If it wasn’t for the special effects, the movie wouldn’t even be discussed. The special edition DVD has the making of the movie and that was fairly interesting. If I become really wealthy one day, I will own this movie, but if I don’t, I will be sure that if it is on TV, I will watch it.

Brian – the Naked Gun

The story is about how a supposed American Military hero, Nathan Algren, played by that American stud Tom Cruise, is asked by Colonel Bagley his former commander, played by Tony Goldwyn, (girls will remember him because he was the bad guy in the 1990 Patrick Swayze movie Ghost), and the Japanese Ambassador to the US, to train a new army for the emperor of Japan to defeat the evil Samurai that are fighting the changes being brought to Japan by the Ambassador. Since this is a typical Hollywood movie, our hero, Algren (Cruise), is a drunkard who is haunted by his military past of slaughtering millions of innocent Indians in the late 1870′s. He was commanded by General Custer of the 7th Cavalry, which for those people who slept through history class, fought the Battle of the Little Big Horn, where he took 700 lightly armed Calvary officers and fought 2000 Indians, and lost, badly. But since most of Custer’s men were slaughtered, Algren must have been out sick that day of the battle. So Algren is haunted by visions of his next duty, which is the slaughter of Indian women and children, probably some kind of reference to the Battle of Wounded Knee where American Cavalry did slaughter a bunch of Indian women and children to revenge the death of Custer. His commander of course was Col. Bagley (Goldwyn) who he now hates. Anyway, Algren agrees to go to Japan and train the new army how to fight with its new weapons being provided by, you guessed it, America. So Algren takes his badly trained men into battle and loses, badly, to the Samurai, and is captured by the Samurai leader Katsumoto. From this point on, the movie takes a left turn and becomes a good movie.

Ken Watanabe, who does a brilliant job playing the part of an old warrior trying to keep his county from losing its identity, plays Katsumoto. I was really taken aback by the overall tranquility and for lack of a better term, spiritual nature of the Samurai that he portrays. Watanabe actually practices many aspects of the Samurai in real life according to IMDB.com. He just does an outstanding job in the movie and deserved the Oscar nomination he got for Best Supporting Actor, which I hope he wins.

The rest of the movie is the same stuff. Algren tries to come to grips with his past and redeem himself by fighting along side the noble savages of Japan, blah, blah, blah. The director of the movie was Edward Zwick who has direct one of my favorite movies, Glory, and also other movies, The Siege, and Courage Under Fire, does a good job with an easy Hollywood script. John Logan who has helped write great movies, Gladiator, and horrible movies, Time Machine and Bats, wrote the screenplay and it is a reflection of his other plays combined, some parts very good, some parts very bad. The other actors in the movie do an admirable job but clearly the Japanese actors out act the American ones in this movie.

Go see the movie, its worth seeing. However without Watanabe, this movie would be pretty average.

Brian-The Naked Gun

The premise for “The Last House on the Left” is straight forward. Two girls, Mari and Phyllis, go into town to celebrate Mari’s 17th birthday and run into four criminals who have bad intentions. They end up taking the two girls into the woods with intent to rape and murder them. By pure chance, they end up getting taken to the woods across the street from where Mari lives, where her parents are worried waiting for the arrival of there daughter from the previous night. After getting raped, Phyllis tries to escape, get help and get three of the four bad guys away from Mari since she is still a virgin. However, the girl gets caught and is brutally stabbed to death, hacked up by the three. Mari tries to have the fourth guy help her escape. He is the only one with a conscience, but she gets caught, raped, told to walk into the lake in the woods and shot in the head.

The four bad guys–when I say “guys,” I do mean three guys and a girl–clean themselves and go to the nearest house to rest. Well, it turns out to be Mari’s house, and the parents for some reason, even though they are unacquainted with the visitors, let the killers in and have dinner with them.

Later, the mother sees one of the bad guys wearing Mari’s birthday present, a peace symbol on a necklace, and the parents go into the woods and discover Mari’s body along the lake. The parents go on a vengeance spree and kill the bad guys.

The movie has a few things which bring it down. Why would the parents be entertaining anyone, let alone strangers, while their 17 year old daughter is missing? How did Mari’s body get so far away from the lake? Not to mention, how did her parents find Mari in these woods, even though Phyllis runs for quite sometime and never finds the house or the road before getting killed? Why do you make the cops so completely inept? It makes the movie sappy. If the cops are smart and still unable to get the bad guys, then it gives some credibility to the bad guys and their smarts.

The one actor of note is David Hess, who portrays Krug Stillo, the evil guy who does the rape scene with Mari, played by Sandra Cassel, then shoots her. He is excellent in this role, and quite terrifying in his portrayal of this rapist. He alone keeps this movie from being campy.

I can only imagine the two scenes which made this movie shocking were the rape scene of Mari and the murder of Phyllis. Both have a sense of realism which is unnerving, adding to the fact it was shot in such a way it makes the film look like a documentary. This also adds to the disgust you have for the scenes.

However, there is nothing else in the movie which makes this a horror flick. I don’t know how else you can classify this movie, but it is not scary. I will say, the fact these are ordinary people committing these crimes does allow you to realize this is a possible scenario. That is scary.

Commentary on the DVD is provided by Wes Craven, his first movie by the way. It is actually very humorous, and you discover this movie was made with his statement being the peace movement, while a wonderful ideal, is nowhere near reality. His commentary during the rape scene is also very well stated, and I agree with him whole hearted.

This movie will not scare you. I do not advise women to watch this movie for the realism factor, especially if this has happen to you. However, this is not a gore scare, but a psychological scare. By our modern standards, the film’s scare factor is mild at best.

Brian – the Naked Gun

The last Caesar of Rome, Romulus Augustus, played by Thomas Sangster (Tristan + Isolde) is captured and taken to a remote island fortress by the Gaul’s who have captured Rome and the remaining pieces of the Northern Empire. While being held captive, Romulus finds a sword with a mysterious background with the help of his former teacher Ambrosinus, played by Ben Kingsley (Amadeus.) One of the last Roman guards, Aurelius, played by Colin Firth (Love Actually,) stages a daring rescue of the Caesar and decides to take him to the last remaining loyal outpost with a Roman Legion, Britain. Once there, however, they discover that the Legion has been disbanded and that they are all farmers, no help against the Gaul’s who are following and Vortgyn, a man who is looking for the mystical sword and kills everyone who does not help in the search or gets in the way.

The biggest problem with actual movie itself is the lack of a true nemesis. The story is split between the conflicts on the continent (Europe) and that of Britain and two different nemeses are created. The only constant is a minion of the Gaul King who has let the boy escape and hunts him down in Britain. Especially hazy is the character Vortgyn because he is in nowhere near enough of the movie to be the main nemesis and there is no character development for him. He is a bad guy who kills people who don’t help him find the sword. Is he a bad guy? Yes. But give me something else to go on.

The acting was fine but seeing Ben Kingsley in yet another movie that is going to do nothing at the box office makes me ask why is he taking these rolls? For every great movie he is in i.e. Schindler’s List, Amadeus, he is in movies that are absolute crap for his caliber of talent, i.e. A Sound of Thunder. It was great seeing him in this movie but why isn’t he in movie that are Oscar contenders anymore? It doesn’t make since.

One thing that was wonderful about this movie was Indian actress Aishwarya Rai. Wow, is she hot. She definitely gives this move a 9+ for eye candy alone. Oh and she can act too, so its not all beauty and no brains. She has it both and I can’t wait to see more of her.

Lastly, this movie is not the greatest, but the producers should have done SOME advertising for this movie. I did know it existed until I saw a poster at the theater in the small town, (granted I live 10 minutes from Denver, but still,) I live in and only saw TV spots for it the same week of its release. The distributor of the film is The Weinstein Company, and I have seen them do this to movies before. You would think that with a little money spent that they could at least get a little more back. But no, if its not going to make 100′s of millions than its not worth it.

This movie is good enough to see on DVD, but that is about it. It doesn’t suck, but it could have been better.

Brian – the Naked Gun

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