this is what titanic would have been like if you took out all the mushy love story crap. and despite not having "an emotional center," poseidon was easier to stomach since it was only half as long as that epic. then again, poseidon isn't going to win any oscars for anything except maybe "best cgi wave." then again, oscar winners suck...so...i've heard that josh lucas is getting all these prime time roles because they are desperately trying to make up-and-coming young hollywood lead men. verdict on mr lucas? a matthew mcconaughey-lite without the charm.
i realized while watching da vinci code how hard of a job it would have been to make this movie. forget the expectations, those were huge indeed. but all the exposition of the book and the way it flows is not really conducive to a fine film. so, given that degree of difficulty, i thought the movie was not too bad. we got what we expected, but nothing more.
a swing and a miss. despite being highly anticipated, art school confidential ended up being pretty disappointing on all fronts. director terry zwigoff has achieved cult status for crumb and ghost world but with this film he really makes you wonder if he was the one responsible for those previous achievments. max minghella, son of director anthony minghella (cold mountain, talented mr ripley, english patient), might have looked the part, but he certainly couldn't act it.
when was the last time you walked out of a movie? well for me it was last friday, within 20 minutes of watching akeelah and the bee. and i was movie hopping too, meaning i was virtually watching it for free. despite an interesting marketing strategy with starbucks and good reviews, this movie was about as bad as it gets. terrible dialogue (i mean, really bad), incredibly stereotypical characters, and a premise that has already been done countless number of times. i don't even have a word (or a country of origin) for how bad this movie was shaping up to be.
as many critics have noted, it's easy to take pot shots at american idol, simon cowell, and president bush. so really, why watch an entire movie about it? because i was movie hopping that's why. there were few truly hilarious moments in this satirical piece and any of the laugh out loud moments were provided by the stereotypical gay middle-eastern male who longs to be the new madonna. you know, that old stereotype. not really a must see in any sense of the word.
the big hype for this movie (well, in my movie watching circles) was to see keri russell as a gun toting heroine. instead we got about ten minutes of screen time, most of it spent with her looking like felicity had suffered from a terrible domestic violence situation. all in all, a huge disappointment. however, the movie itself wasn't too bad. nothing terrible or particularly great, but entertainment nonetheless. tom cruise is still the man, i don't care what anyone says.
about what one would expect from a movie about 9/11. it shows some of the chaos behind the scenes while also drumming up anxiety for the heroic cockpit rush and resulting plane crash. i wouldn't really call this movie a must see but it's definitely going to be talked about. but quite honestly, i didn't find it that impactful either way, negative or positive. so really, so so all around and nothing that you wouldn't expect out of this vanilla treatment.