curse of the golden flower

apparently i watched this with a whole theater full of my countrymen. seriously, 99% of the people walking out afterwards was chinese. we chinese sure got an eyeful -- of breast. the costume "design" consisted of a lot of busty chinese women (oxymoron, i know) in tight corsets. the day-glo set design was a bit over the top and the ending a bit non-sensical, but it's another melodramatic chinese movie in the same vein as hero, house of flying daggers, etc. lots less fighting though, which didn't really detract from anything however.

charlotte's web

who didn't deeply love charlotte's web as a kid? i guess it's odd that all these children would end up in love with a spider but the power of fiction is strong. so, how hard was it to make a spider -- an icky scary creature -- lovable on-screen? well, it's easy if you rely on using julia roberts' familiar voice. roberts' was able to make charlotte more comforting than scary. not big surprises here, but no huge triumphs either. just a direct live action adaptation of a children's classic.

night at the museum

another half hopper of a movie. we probably left at just the right time, after all the animated museum bits had come to life. it was probably all downhill from there. not that it was exactly uphill before we left, but anything involving a natural history museum is slightly entertaining for me.

seeing robin williams as teddy roosevelt gave me a kick though, for some illogical reason.

happy feet

why aren't all movie theatres hoppable? they should have a one price sees all type of deal. instead i'm forced to hide and lurk and wait for attendants to stop paying attention. it's part of the fun i suppose, but then you can get stuck watching half a film (or all of it) that absolutely blows -- like this one! it's like karaoke -- and tap-araoke -- with animated penguins. terrible.

donnie brasco

did you know that this movie was slated to be made much earlier but due to the success of goodfellas in 1990 and how thematically similar the two movies were, had to be pushed back (released in 1997)? pacino and depp are on top of their game and this movie is an enjoyable dip into the mafia world.

is anne heche annoying or what? what has she done that has been good? she's like the older, more famous version of gretchen mol.