the journey

The Dark Knight

Hollywood has had a rash of mediocre movies like The Happening, Speed Racer and Indiana Jones, so I hope this one isn't another summertime dissapointment.

Watch the Trailer on Yahoo! Movies

Tags: The Dark Knight

The Happening (review)

It sucked.

I wish it weren't true, but it is.  The Sixth Sense was superb, the Village and Lady in the Water were tolerable, but this one was pure drivel.

The plot was brain-numbing, the political statement was all-too-obvious, the typical suspense and plot twists (and director cameos) were painfully absent, and Shymalan's quirky creativity was nonexistent

Don't waste your gasoline, time or money.  I'd give it a C-.

Dang.  What a disappointment.

Tags: The Happening

Movies I can't live without

Though you wouldn't know it by the number of books I review, I love movies.

And there are a number of movies I could watch a million times.  Seriously.  Whenever I'm channel surfing, I will always stop and watch any of these.  

They're listed in no particular order.

• The Shawshank Redemption (my #1 pick)
• Godfather Trilogy
• Just about anything by M. Night Shyamalan
• You've Got Mail/ Fried Green Tomatoes (weird, I know) 
• Bull Durham
• The Sean Connery Bond movies
• Christmas Vacation (my favorite Christmas movie)
• M * A * S * H
• Fight Club
• Pulp Fiction
• The old Universal Studio's monster flicks
• The Great Escape
• The Day the Earth Stood Still
• That Thing You Do
• Bourne Trilogy
• The "Fridays" trilogy
• I better stop there because I could go on and on.
• Incidentally, I've seen Monty Python's Holy Grail so many times that I can easily pass it over from time to time.

I was temped to include the Matrix and Star Wars movies, but I've become tired of them.  I think I've reached the saturation point with them.

Feel free to add any of your favorites in the comments section.

Technorati Tags: movies, favorite movies

Iron Man is superb!

Iron Man is solid gold!  I can't see how the new Batman movie could possibly be better.

Here's the official trailer:

Here's the official Iron Man web site.

Tags: Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr.

The Happening (2008)

Ok I'm psyched.

M. Night Shyamalan has another new movie coming out soon.  I can't wait.  Here's the trailer as it appears on YouTube:

Tags: The Happening, M. Night Shyamalan

Cloverfield (2008)

This appears to be a Godzilla-like movie.  Can't wait for it!

Click here for the official site.

Technorati Tags: Cloverfield

I am legend (2007)

Hollywood has been lax in producing decent blockbusters for the last year or so.  If the best they can do is Spiderman III, then we're in big trouble.  For someone like me who is an avid movie-goer, it's been very dissapointing.

Despite this trend, however, I'm looking forward to Will Smith's new movie.  Early reactions to the movie have been very favorable.  I hope it's as good as they're saying.

Visit the Official I Am Legend Website

Tags: Will Smith, I Am Legend

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption

I just finished reading Stephen King's novella, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, in his collection of stories known as Different Seasons. Sadly, it's significantly different from the screen adaptation known as The Shawshank Redemption. But I digress.

Other than Red's famous "Get busy living or get busy dying" quote (the book atributes it to Red, not Andy), I suppose these are two of my favorite quotations:

"When I get out of here," Andy said finally, "I'm going where it's warm all the time." He spoke with such calm assurance you would have thought he had only a month or so left to serve. "You know where I'm goin', Red?"

"Nope."

"Zihuatanejo," he said, rolling the word softly from his tongue like music. "Down in Mexico. It's a little place maybe twenty miles from Playa Azul and Mexico Highway 37. It's a hundred miles north-east of Acapulco on the Pacific Ocean. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific?"

I told him I didn't.

"They say it has no memory. And that's where I want to finish out my life, Red. In a warm place that has no memory."

___________________________________________

We're glad he's gone, but a little sad, too. Some birds are not meant to be caged, that's all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.

Tags: Stephen King, Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, Shawshank Redemption

How Saving Private Ryan should have ended

This is funny stuff.  Let's hear it for the many faces of Tom Hanks.

HT:  Bob Blog

Source: How it Should Have Ended

Tags: How it should have ended, Saving Private Ryan, Tom Hanks

Greed is good!

Here's someting I ran across while preparing for a sermon on greed.

Who could forget this classic movie clip that typified a generation known for greed?

Tags: greed, Michael Douglas, Wall Street, decade of greed