Wedding Crashers was all right, but it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be. Vince Vaughan and Owen Wilson seem like they'd make a dynamite comedy duo, and, in fact, they were pretty good, but only some of the time. The rest of the time the movie came off as either cute or embarassing, but not hilarious. Still, Juliette liked it quite a bit, so maybe I'm just too uptight.

Viewed: 2005-08-07 | Released: 2005-07-14 | Score: C

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Tim Burton's new interpretation of Roald Dahl's novel was really good for what it was. What it was was a very funny and visually interesting film. Freddie Highmore was perfect as Charlie Bucket, and Deep Roy made for a hilarious group of Oompa-Loompas. (He played all of them.) What it was not was a movie that matched my feeling of what Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is. It just didn't feel like the story I grew up with. But, hey, that's only my opinion, and I will grant that my image of the story was influenced very heavily by the original film.

Viewed: 2005-07-15 | Released: 2005-07-09 | Score: B

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I'm a little torn on how to rate this one. The problem is that, in any of it's incarnations, War of the Worlds is not a very good story. It's essentially all about an idea, so, as Juliette so aptly pointed out to me, it winds up playing like a disaster movie and suffers from all of the problems intrinsic to that genre. Still, as short as it was on plot, it was still very successful at maintaining a high energy level and feeling of suspense. I even managed not to hate Tom Cruise very much, which is a pretty huge accomplishment in and of itself. I suppose I will grudgingly give it a third star as a very good example of a film type I don't particularly care for.

Viewed: 2005-06-30 | Released: 2005-06-22 | Score: B

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I suppose by now anyone who reads these reviews should be getting used to me saying that I'm not very familiar with the source material for a film. Well, here's another case where this is true. Still, Batman has always been interesting to me for much the same reasons as he's interesting to anyone: the darkness, the inner demons, etc. This film did a great job of bringing all of that to the screen for me. Christian Bale gave us arguably the best film Batman ever, and the supporting cast was great and included some surprisingly big names. Gary Oldman as a Jim Gordon who has yet to become the Police Commissioner, Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, and Michael Caine as Alfred all brought exactly the right qualities to their performances. Tom Wilkinson, Cillian Murphy, and Liam Neeson were also pretty good, and Katie Holmes was surprisingly adequate without a hint of awful to her performance. And, of course, another huge part of the film was Gotham City, which had so much personality that it was practically a character itself. I really liked Christopher Nolan's take on Gotham, a grittier, more realistic version than Tim Burton's more cartoonish interpretation that still managed to feel epic.

Viewed: 2005-06-23 | Released: 2005-06-14 | Score: A

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This is the third Miyazaki film I've seen and I think I liked it even better than Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away. It may have something to do with the mythology of the story being a little more accessible to me in its Western-ness. (That's Western as in the opposite of Eastern, not as in cowboys and six-shooters.) Whatever the reason, I really enjoyed this one. Miyazaki has such a great sense of the fable, and is a master of creating a feeling of epic in his films. Something about his movies grabs me on a very visceral level. The only problem is that I tend to leave his films a bit confused. I can never quite put my finger on just what affects me. With Howl's Moving Castle, I got the feeling that there was a lot of background from the novel that was left out. No matter, I'll just have to put the book in my reading queue. My last thought is that I think at some point I'd like to see a subtitled version. A lot of times English-speaking voice actors tend to overdo anime, and this one was no different. Christian Bale, especially was over the top, although Emily Mortimer and Jean Simmons had their moments, and Billy Crystal was surprisingly good.

Viewed: 2005-06-14 | Released: 2005-06-09 | Score: A

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If you're not in the mood for an action flick, it would probably be best to avoid this one. After all, that's all it really is: an action movie with a reasonably clever premise. The film takes normal marital friction and amplifies it to the point of comic ridiculousness. Most couples keep little details from each other, but in this one it's that they're both assassins. Every couple fights, but in this one they fight with guns. Juliette got a little bored, but I thought that it was pretty well paced. I suppose if you're not into long fight scenes, though, it could get quite stale in places. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie managed decent chemistry, although I always find Jolie a little too cold and a little too into herself. I'd say she did better than average in this one, though; you could tell she was trying. Juliette pointed out—and I agreed— that Brad Pitt had excellent timing.

Viewed: 2005-06-11 | Released: 2005-06-09 | Score: B

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As it turned out, Juliette and I had very different opinions about this one. Coming out of the film, we gave each other our impressions as we always do. I said that I thought that the first five minutes were kind of boring, and that I thought Renée Zellweger was miscast. She was quite surprised, because she thought this was one of Zellweger's best performances. However, despite our differences on the chemistry between the two leads, we both agreed that it was a good story and that Russell Crowe and Paul Giamatti did excellent work as Jim Braddock and Joe Gould.

Viewed: 2005-06-04 | Released: 2005-05-22 | Score: B

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You know it's not a good sign when you're at a children's movie and even the kids in the audience are hardly laughing. There were a few bright spots—the lemur king, voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen of Da Ali G Show, was pretty funny—but overall the film was boring and unoriginal. I really wish that filmmakers would realize that it takes more than a few big names and one-liners to make a good animated movie. For that matter, I wish they'd figure out that just because an actor is famous does not mean that he or she will be good as a voice actor. But, since Madagascar opened at number 2—only bested by Revenge of the Sith in its second week—I doubt the studio execs will be learning this lesson any time soon.

Viewed: 2005-05-29 | Released: 2005-05-26 | Score: D

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Kevin Smith was right—this is the Star Wars prequel we've been waiting for. OK, so some of the dialogue—especially the parts involving Padme and Anakin's relationship—is pretty wooden. But, come on now, you aren't looking for a great love story in this movie. You're here to see Anakin become Darth Vader, and you won't be disappointed. Hayden Christenson got a lot of criticism for being too whiney in Attack of the Clones, but his portrayal of Anakin's fall is excellent. Of course, the real stars of this one are Ian McDiarmid and Ewan McGregor. McDiarmid pushes the villain angle to its limits in every direction and never goes over the top. And as for McGregor, well, I don't mind telling you that the last scene between Obi-Wan and Anakin brought tears to my eyes. I don't know if I can honestly say that this is my favorite Star Wars movie—the original trilogy was just such a big part of my childhood—but I can say that Revenge of the Sith is, without doubt, the most powerful, intense, and moving film of the entire series.

Viewed: 2005-05-20 | Released: 2005-05-18 | Score: A

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I didn't think there'd ever be an Orlando Bloom performance that didn't make me cringe every time he opened his mouth, but I guess I was wrong. While he was by no means spectacular in this movie, it was definitely a huge step up for him in terms of acting. As for the film itself, Kingdom of Heaven is long on setting, if a little short on plot. The audience is treated to a visually beautiful movie full of panoramic scenes of city and desert. Not much really happens, though—in fact, Juliette fell asleep. Even if there wasn't much to the story, though, I still liked it. Ultimately, Kingdom of Heaven can be viewed in two ways. On the one hand, it's about a transition from one world to another—out with the old and in with the new—and I've always found those points in history to be intensely intriguing. Jeremy Irons, in particular, does a great job of portraying a man caught up in that change. On the other hand, it's a story of personal redemption—Balion goes to the Holy Land to atone for his sins and find peace from the pain of his life—and while a better actor than Bloom could have done more with this part of the story, it still worked out well enough for me.

Viewed: 2005-05-12 | Released: 2005-05-05 | Score: B

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