Sequel Much?

Evan introduced me to one of his terms on Tuesday evening – the “Lost in Space ending.” It was in reference to Salt, which was left fairly open ended. In its defence, there was no way of wrapping up the action without taking another hour or so. Still, Evan was a little disgusted with so blatant a sequel hook.

I don’t remember much about Lost in Space except I watched it on a plane 12 years ago and it killed Matt LeBlanc’s career. Whoops. Apparently the end of it has the group jumping to a random location in their spaceship, where I’m sure they would have one of their many adventures, if the audience is kind enough to keep attending these movies (they weren’t).

The Lost in Space ending is not to merely imply a sequel. It’s to invite one so emphatically that the studio is almost required to green light one. Of course, studios are driven by money far more than writing, so they aren’t required to do anything of the sort. Sucks to be you, writers.

It got me to thinking about which films get sequels and which don’t. Most successful films, if they want, can probably squeeze a trilogy out of its material. Even moderately successful movies can get a sequel (See: Big Momma’s House).

The most prolific series is probably James Bond (in Western Cinema anyhow). I don’t know enough about Bollywood or Hong Kong to guess at what’s popular over there, but if I had to put money down, I’d bet on Godzilla. Even his enemies have franchises. Mothra, King Ghidora, Mecha-Godzilla (widely considered to be Godzilla’s greatest nemesis, although we all know that it’s really dubbing). A more recent series might be something like Once Upon a Time in China (currently at 7 movies, according to IMDB).

Western Cinema has Disney, which milks its movies to death with sequels. It’s like Nintendo that way. Mind you, it’s like Nintendo in a lot of ways. Easily identifiable mascot, a home in G-rated media (or E, for everyone) with infrequent visits to PG material … is Disney the Nintendo of Animation, or is Nintendo the Disney of video games?

Besides James Bond, western Cinema has Star Trek (at 11 movies), Star Wars (7 theatrical movies) and Harry Potter (6 movies, plans for 2 more). And a bunch of trilogies. At least, that’s what I thought - until I stopped to think about it, and came up with a bunch more.

Rocky has 6 movies. Terminator, Die Hard, Rambo, and Indiana Jones all have 4 movies. Karate kid (seriously!) has 5. Superman has 5. Batman has 6, with plans for a 7^th. Police Academy has 7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have 4. Aliens and Predators have converged to provide 9 movies in 2 franchises.

Horror movies deserve a shout-out of their own. They almost all have Lost in Space endings, and shamelessly plug their villain into anything involving young people (particularly women) getting killed, often in gruesome ways. Friday the 13^th has 12 movies. Nightmare on Elm Street has 9. Halloween has 10. Saw has 6, and comes out with a ‘new’ one every year. ‘New’ is in quotation marks because it’s pretty much a remake each time.

I have no idea why horror movies are able to be milked more than other genres. Is it that they can pay actors less because they don’t need to act? Are the budgets less because they always shoot at night? I don’t know, and frankly, I don’t intend to find out.

The interesting thing about most of these (except for the horror ones) is that they're almost all based on pre-existing works. James Bond was from a book. Star Trek was from a TV show. Superman and Batman were comics. Harry Potter was a book.

So unless you’re a visionary like George Lucas (Star Wars), an unemployed actor that can write a movie analogous to their career like Sylvester Stallone (Rocky), or an incredible dick to work with like James Cameron (Terminator), you’re pretty much out of luck. You can get three movies out of your great concept. But for the love of all that’s great in cinema, please wrap up your storylines. Unless you want to end up like Lost in Space.

Salt

This is not a movie about the dangers and benefits of sodium chloride. It’s more about the dangers and benefits of a female Jason Bourne – this time played by Angelina Jolie (although there is a disturbing moment where she’s disguised as a man, using a lot of latex).

The movie starts off with a very uncomfortable (for me, at least) scene, and then gets into some talking, before there’s a pretty long chase (interrupted by a short preparation segment). Shortly thereafter, it wraps up the plot – or at least, what I thought the plot was. I had some idea of what the story was, but they finished it up in less than an hour. From there, I had no idea what was going to happen - which is nice. It’s rare where a movie can go anywhere and I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

This isn’t a perfect movie, however. The music is … not great. Amy thought it was awful. I thought it was better, but not much. The composer is James Newton Howard, who’s a bit of an obvious composer. As in, whatever’s on screen will be obviously reflected in the music.

There are some lines that are very clunky. There’s an atrocious edit between a scene beside a subway and a cut to a singing choir. It’s incredibly jarring, and the editor should have known better. Apparently, the Russian is decent except for Jolie’s, whose accent is atrocious (according to Amy, who would actually know).

The ultimate endgame of the villain is clichéd. As Eyk said to me “Wow - that’s never been done before!” and my sarcasm detector went off the charts. Plus, near the end there’s a loading screen that, given even a modicum of common sense, would never be possible. The circumstances surrounding that loading screen would guarantee that there should absolutely be no loading screen.

There’s a ridiculous descent of an elevator. Jet Li knows how to get down without equipment.

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I thought it was a little odd that a German guy would introduce himself in English before knowing the nationality of the stranger he was talking to, but my friends explained it was probably in the US instead of, you know, Germany. The guy is an arachnologist, which is a nerdy career, but it’s probably called a spider scientist by everyone normal (arachnologist isn’t even recognized by my spell-check).

The movie had a MacGyvered projectile near the beginning of the movie, so I was hoping there would be more of that (Burn Notice has reignited my appetite for homemade devices), but no.

Still, definitely a theatre movie. Of course, part of the entertainment was the company I kept while watching it, so thanks for watching it with me. Be aware you may need a Y chromosome to enjoy it. I think Amy was more entertained by our comments than the movie, so it might help to watch it with friends. Just not Salt. She’ll mess you up.

Salt...Evan's Take

Guns!
Spies!
Russians!
Double Agents!
Angelina Jolie!

If we look at the Mindless Movie checklist (if someone knows where this is then please let me know...I seem to have misplaced it), "Salt" is filling every check box all the way down the page. Benjy really liked it while Amy seemed to hate it. I would say I sit somewhere in between. I liked that they kept me guessing with the twisting and turning plot. I also liked the unique action sequences...remember I like movies that do fresh new things when it comes to action scenes. And Angelina Jolie is pretty nice to look at for a few hours (better than Tom Cruise, whom the script was originally written for). But you can read about most of the things that I would talk about from Benjy and Amy. So I decided to avoid rehashing all of the same things in this post. Instead I have decided to do a shameless spoiler post and complain about all of the things that have aggravated me since I left the movie theater. And the more I have thought about it, there are more and more things in this movie that are just plain stupid.

So as a service to those of you who may wish to see this movie in the future...
SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!

First off...What is up with the title of the movie? It comes from Jolie's character name, Evelyn Salt, but from what I can tell they could have given her any last name at all and it would make no difference to the movie. It's not as if "Salt" evokes any type of emotion or excitement in an audience. It's like naming a movie "Pepper" or "Ketchup". So for future reference...spices and condiments should not be used to name movies...end of story.

Next...I had no idea that "arachnologist" was a real profession or that there could be a leading expert in the world on this fictional subject. OHHHHHHH! Spider expert...well why didn't you say so??? I thought it might be some other random word with "ologist" tacked on the end to make him sound smart. I have so many issues with this guy that I don't even know where to start. Let's begin with the fact that there is no way that an arachnologist has the ability to attract someone like Angelina Jolie. Sure...true love is blind...but this dude eats breakfast with spiders on the table. Heck, he probably enjoys sitting in a dark room milking them for their poison! Oh, don't let his dorky/psychopathic veneer fool you...he probably has to beat the ladies off with a stick!

Even more ridiculous is how Dr. Spider and Ms. Salt met for the first time. Evelyn Salt was assigned to "get close" to the arachnologist because he was able to go into North Korea to study spiders. Really??? Kim Jong Il, the "Supreme Leader" of North Korea, has such an affinity for spiders that he allows western arachnologists into his country to study them? Maybe there is a worldwide arachnologist society with so much political influence that he just couldn't turn them down. Or maybe Mike Krause (the arachnologist in question) is such good pals with the communist leader that when he asked for the release of his wife from a north Korean prison, Kim Jong Il simply couldn't say no. BFFs for sure!...No word yet if Mike forgave him for the whole torturing Evelyn stuff... (Just as I was about to post this I discovered that Arachnology is a real science...according to Wikipedia...there are even academic societies...although none from North Korea surprisingly!...I believe a quick Google image search for "Arachnologist" *Not for the squeamish* proves my nerd/psycho point...check out the one with the spider on her face!!!)

So if you suspend your preconceived notions about science nerds and communist leaders then this whole part of the plot makes perfect sense. Except if you then start to question how every agent in the CIA is actually a Russian sleeper agent planted before the Cold War ended. It's getting a little tough to incorporate Cold War story lines into current movies. The Cold War ended in 1991...19 years ago...and we are led to believe that there was a large group of children being trained for the sole purpose of bringing down the American scum. 12 year old communists...dangerous stuff!!! So when they finally get around to putting their plan into action their first act is to...kill the Russian president! Wait...WHAT??? That's an aggressive strategy to return mother Russia to world domination...let's see how this plays out.

The biggest problem that I have with this movie isn't the fact that Angelina Jolie falls out of a helicopter into the Potomac and swims safely to shore...or that jumping from truck roof to truck roof on a freeway interchange could never happen (although this was mindlessly entertaining)...or the time that Angelina dresses up as a man with a latex face (*shudder*)...or the part where the CIA AND the Secret Service appear to have the Russian president locked down and one of the characters says something to the effect of "We'll if she is going to try something now it's going to be amazing!". That's not even foreshadowing for crying out loud!!!

My biggest problem with this movie (as it is with most movies these days) is the shameless attempt to generate a sequel for every movie that is released. One of Jolie's last lines is "I'm going to kill them all" and the final scene has her running through a forest evading her captors. I hate this so much! Is it too much to ask to have a nice story told in 2 hours or less and wrap everything up nice and neat so that I can move on with my life? I think Benjy made an interesting point...movies that become successful franchises typically come from stuff that people have already been exposed to (books...comics...TV Shows...Oh I am scared to see if they keep making "The Last Airbender" movies!). I can only think of a handful of recent franchises that started as just movies...The Matrix...Shrek...Austin Powers...Pirates of the Caribbean (although apparently this is based on a Disney theme park attraction). However, studios keep trying to generate sequel buzz. Of the movies we have watched this summer...I can count at least 7 that had shameless "Lost in Space" endings (Benjy explains this term in the link above). One will actually get another crack at it ( it was already a sequel...can you guess what it is?) and maybe a couple more will have some more money thrown at them, only to repeat the cycle and leave the next movie dangling out there in a sequel black hole.

Need a rating...I give it four CIA agents out of 7 russian sleeper spies. Yeah...that sounds about right!

Missed Mindless Movie - The Losers

A few months ago, I saw The Losers. It wasn't very high quality (the viewing, not the film). So when it came out on DVD a few days ago, I grabbed the chance to watch a higher quality version of it.

The Losers it based on a comic book, named because each of the members of the team has been responsible for the death of someone in the field (I think. I could be way off ... yup. After checking Wikipedia, I'm way off). In the movie, they're losers because insults = love. Or something.

Anyway, it starts off with a simple mission in Bolivia that goes wrong because an air strike can't be cancelled and there are children in the target area. Cue the team rescuing the children, only to have them blown up when a missile hits the chopper they were supposed to be on (but put the kids on instead). They get blamed for the death of 25 kids and listed as deceased.

So begins their adventure of revenge against Max, the guy that got them blacklisted (and blew up the kids, but that seems to be the lesser motivation). Pretty soon we get a heist, a break-in, a twist, a betrayal, and a lot of violence. And a lot of jokes. Seriously, this is one funny film.

In fact, it's pretty much exactly what I want in a film. Everyone seemed to be having fun. Jeffrey Dean Morgan got to relax and have fun, Zoe Saldana got to look sexy and have fun, Jason Patric got to chew scenery and have fun, and Chris Evans got to be Chris Evans and have fun (he has a lot of the best lines).

It contains the single best 'caught with his pants down' line ever - "Like the angle of the dangle?" Plus, everyone seems to be a little genre-savvy, so there's no one holding the idiot ball or villain ball (for too long. It crops up a bit).

Violence and jokes - this is what I like. Throwing Zoe Saldana in there is just a very nice bonus (extra points if you knew she was in Pirates of the Caribbean before you read this). It's just really good fun.

My only complaint is that they didn’t use the song Black Betty enough. They played a few seconds of it right at the beginning, but then switched to something generic. Black Betty is a great song that can work in an action movie, as seen here.

This is a theatre movie. Unfortunately, it's out on DVD so the best chance is to get a big TV. There were some sequel hooks in there (one of them looked like it involved the satellite from Goldeneye), but because this movie was marketed poorly, it didn't get a long theatrical run. Which also means its chance of a sequel is nearly none. But just like the soundtrack, "Don't Stop Believing."

Inception

Sorry for the short post, but there's not a whole lot I can say without talking about specific parts of the movie, or parts that weren't in the movie.

A group of us went to see Inception on Tuesday night. It's well-acted, with a very mind-bending/reality-bending concept, even more so in the Matrix. Of course, since I knew the basic idea going in, I was even more confused about what was supposedly a dream and what was supposedly reality. Are people outside the matrix actually outside the matrix, or merely inhabiting a different matrix constructed for people who reject the 1999 reality? Does anyone ever escape, or is the Architect too clever to create only one layer of simulation? I'd have blown your minds, but it's a fairly easy concept to understand.

There are a lot of concepts in this movie that I could talk about and spoil pieces of (that was poorly worded). But since I think everyone should see it (and then we'll talk about it), I'll refrain from doing that. So there's not a whole lot to talk about. I guess I'll talk about the vague (few) things that disappointed me.

The theatre audio wasn't great. The right speaker kept cutting out, so the audio level jumped noticeably (it wasn't enough to deafen, but very annoying). The music was all right, I guess. Hans Zimmer is turning into John Williams. Fantastic music that goes right with the movie, but not something you'd want to listen to by itself. Which means I probably won't buy the soundtrack. There was only one good song I can remember liking (although the movie was so engrossing it's possible I simply forgot other good tunes).

There was a fairly long setpiece in the snow (A la James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service), but since everyone was wearing white parkas with hoods and ski goggles, it was really hard to tell who was who.

I think the thing I was most disappointed in was that it wasn't what I was looking for in a mindless movie. There weren't enough jokes (there were some, and they were really good), and there wasn't enough action. Sure, there was some, but not up to, say, the A-Team. It was enjoyable to think about (and you'll be left with many questions), but I really look forward to going to ridiculous movie. This was not a ridiculous movie.

Still, it's a theatre movie. It's hard to be mindless when most of the movie takes place inside of an actual mind. Who's mind, though ... that's the question.

Inception...Evan's Take

Every so often a movie comes along that delivers a truly unique movie experience. The plot is something imaginative that audiences have never seen before, which is very difficult to do in this day and age of rehashing what's considered to be tried and true (see Knight and Day). The cast is filled with brilliant actors who nail every scene and make the story believable. And the movie making itself is filled with amazing cinematography and fantastic story telling. "Inception" is definitely one of those movies. It might as well have written the book on that type of movie. As a result...I feel silly writing about it considering that it is definitely not a "mindless" movie. But in the interest of keeping my immense fan base happy and avoiding countless irate e-mails asking for some sort of explanation as to why I have neglected this movie...I will try my best to offer up some opinions.

Let's start with writer/director Christopher Nolan. I think it is safe to say that Nolan is one of the greatest film makers of this generation. If you have a look at his body of work it includes inspired movies like Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (one of my favourite movies ever) and now Inception. The guy just doesn't seem to make a bad movie (I now want to watch The Prestige and Insomnia). The really impressive thing to me is that he seems to take his time when making movies, as evidenced by the fact that he has only directed 6 films since 2000. He isn't out there making any old thing just to try and capitalize on his success (screw you M. Night Shyamalan!). He appears to have a passion for making movies that are truly amazing and well thought out, which becomes abundantly clear when you see the final product on the silver screen. Ok...that's enough gushing about my man crush on Christopher Nolan.

The movie itself is an absolute masterpiece. I was surprised to find out that despite the critics calling the plot complex (which it is...) I was able to follow and understand everything that was going on. After the movie, as we were all standing around talking about the movie, there were some new questions that were raised which I hadn't thought about but they didn't affect how much I enjoyed the movie. I also found it curious that I didn't know much about the plot going in to a movie. Oftentimes, I will pick up enough from the trailers to get the gist of the plot or I will read some previews and some of the critics will let slip some rather important aspects of the storyline. In the case of "Inception", my guess is that Nolan gave you just enough to pique your interest ("Oh...It's about stealing dreams? Cool!") and the critics just didn't know how to explain enough of the plot in a coherent manner to fit their word limit. "Inception" is really something that you need to experience to appreciate the simple complexity of it.

I was really impressed with the acting in this movie as well. I expected great performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Michael Caine and Ellen Page (the Canadian acting sensation!) who are all proven Hollywood commodities. But who knew that Joseph Gordon-Levitt had more acting skills than playing an alien posing as a teenager on 3rd Rock from the Sun? (It wasn't until I was in the car that Jeff Lipkewich pointed it out to me...I did not recognize him at all!) Word is that he is a front runner to play the Riddler in the next Batman film...sounds like this guy is a rising star. Not to mention the fact that he is part of one of the coolest fight scenes that I have seen in years that happens in a hotel with shifting gravity where they run all over the walls (Watch the trailer below and you get a very brief glimpse of it between 38-41 seconds...dont blink!). You might ask yourself, "How is there shifting gravity in a hotel?"...well after you see the movie it will seem so simple and you will also appreciate how awesome this fight scene really is! (As a side note...doesn't the music in the trailer give you chills?...Good music in this movie...it was done by Hans Zimmer...I looked for it because of Benjy).



I don't know what more there is to say. This movie is by far the best movie I have seen in a few years and probably ranks right up there as one of my favourites of all time. I am giving it 10 dreams out of 10...and I am not dreaming!*

*(...I think...)

PS - I would like to point out that I finished my review before Benjy did...this is a first...and it might very well be the last time this ever happens.

Also, we went to this movie as a large group and tried to convince some people to contribute to our blog (or the larger blogosphere) with their thoughts...You can check out what Amy thought about the movie here.

Music

Music in movies has been around since ... well, movies have been. During the silent film era, it was mainly limited to a piano in the actual theatre (so prices were jacked up to pay for the piano player, almost like 3D today). When sound was added to movies, soundtracks were added as well.

Music can add a tremendous amount of depth to movies. Sure, a lot of emotional scenes can carry themselves without music, but sometimes a particular piece can take it above and beyond. For instance, the tail-end of the song “The Bridge of Khazad-Dum” helps to emphasize the loneliness and hopelessness of the fellowship after Gandalf had fallen (the muted sounds also help). And in Return of the Jedi, the Ominous Latin Chanting foreshadows what would happen to Luke if he fought Darth Vader in anger (it would be bad … evil Jedi bad).

These days, there's a large difference between a soundtrack and a score. A soundtrack for most movies is all the pop songs used in the movie. The score is the background music, generally performed by an orchestra or symphony. In some cases (where there is no pop music in the movie), the score will be released as a soundtrack, confusing the issue further.

I fell in love with movie scores when my brother bought the soundtrack to The Rock, a pulse pounding score by Hans Zimmer. The theme was the first song I had stuck in my head (for about two and a half days in grade 8. It was pretty epic). Since then, I've kept my ear on certain composers, and try to pay more attention to the music in movies than other people. It's probably because of my music background - I played piano for years, being forced to practice for 45 minutes every day (except for Sundays ... and Easter ... and Christmas and summer holidays. I was so hard-done-by).

Anyway, this post is mainly to differentiate between scores and soundtracks. That's not to say that soundtracks are bad. For example, the soundtracks to both live-action Transformers movies are good (by good, I mean that I'd listen to more than one song on the album. By today’s standards, that's fantastic). But the scores for both movies are excellent. They're both by a guy I had never heard of before called Steve Jablonsky (who sounds like a movie character, but he's a real guy who writes real good music).

The score for the first one is actually a bit weird. There's an official score (that's for sale), and an unofficial score that was probably put together by someone who had access to the actual music clips put into the movies. On the unofficial score, each song is 30 seconds to a minute and a half long. On the official score, each song is a longer take on the themes used throughout the movie. For instance, in the movie, Bumblebee's theme is pretty good (being heroic and all that). The official score, however, uses two and a half minutes of build-up and a minute of payoff, and should probably be playing when Jesus returns to Earth. It's just that good.

As I paid more attention to who wrote the scores (I have to stay a while after a movie's over to see their credit), I kept noticing the same names coming up. It makes sense, because Zimmer started a music/production company and hires a lot of the composers, who often write the style of music (heroic/bombastic) that fits in so well with summer blockbusters. Anyway, just to give you a heads up on the names of composers you should follow (if you see their names in the credits, think about buying the score).

1 - Hans Zimmer: You'll probably have heard of him, since he did the score for Gladiator (in the interests of honesty, I listened to it once, and it didn't grab my attention). He's done a whole bunch of other films too, including the last two Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the Christopher Nolan Batman films (and Inception), the Lion King (it's not just Elton John), Blackhawk Down, Pearl Harbor, and Mission Impossible II.

2 - Trevor Rabin: For my money, though, I'd rather have this guy's scores. He started of as the guitarist of the progressive rock back Yes. Now he does the scores for films like Armageddon (although the best song was done by another guy, and you can only get it on a bootleg two disc edition that's not even legal ... so yeah), the National Treasure movies, Bad Boys II, The One, Bad Company (containing the ridiculously awesome song BMBBO), The 6th Day, Remember the Titans, Deep Blue Sea, and Con Air.

3 - Mark Mancina: I heard about Mancina when he did the score for Bad Boys (released in 1995, one of my favourite movies ever). Of course, they only released a soundtrack for it, containing a bunch of rap songs I was uninterested in. 12 years later, they did a limited edition score (they only made 3000), and I snagged one because I'm only one of 3000 people who actually paid attention to the music in that movie. He hasn't done much that I've been interested in since, but the score for Bad Boys is spectacularly awesome.

4 - Steve Jablonsky: Like I said before, I only know him for doing the Transformer movies, but they're ludicrously awesome.

5 - Klaus Badelt: Zimmer's protégé. He did the first Pirates of the Caribbean before his mentor stepped in to do the rest of the trilogy ("Uh, thanks Shifu. It's not like I couldn't have done it or anything"). He also did Equilibrium (an underrated movie with an alright score).

6 - Harry Gregson-Williams: He did the best song on Armageddon (Asteroid Chase - Goodbye Independence). He also did Enemy of the State and branched out into video games to do Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (the theme of which is phenomenally awesome).

7 - Nick Glennie-Smith: He doesn't write much original music, but helps other people write theirs. He's collaborated on most of the music already mentioned on this page, and conducts a lot of it.

8 - John Powell: He's done the music for the Bourne Trilogy, Hancock, Kung-Fu Panda, and Knight & Day.

9 - Shiro Sagisu: He did the music for an underrated movie called Casshern (pretty much a live-action philosophical Anime). I have no idea what else he's done, but the score for Casshern is absurdly awesome (and the soundtrack is pretty good, too).

10 - Howard Shore: Lord of the Rings. Enough said.

11 - James Horner: Apollo 13, Titanic (even if it was overshadowed by Celine Dion, the score was amazing), Mask and Legend of Zorro, Field of Dreams, Avatar.

12 – John Williams. Where would any composing list be without him? The Star Wars theme is arguably the most recognizable in movies (fun fact: The Imperial March wasn't used in the first Star Wars. It debuted in The Empire Strikes Back, and there’s a heartbreakingly bittersweet version right at the end of Return of the Jedi, where Luke and Anakin finally have a face-to-face). He’s also done the music for the Indiana Jones Trilogy (if “Adventure has a Name” then it also has a theme song) and the Harry Potter movies.

Keep in mind, these are only limited selections of what these guys have done. They have many more credits to their names, and you should definitely check them out. You should also check out the scores for the following games: Halo, Halo 2, Halo 3 (I don't know about Halo Wars, Halo 3: ODST, or Halo: Reach yet), Mass Effect, and Mass Effect 2.

A rising phenomenon is also music produced specifically for music trailers. It used to be that music from trailers would take pre-existing music or free music, or music from the soundtrack, and use it for the trailer. As an example, music on the trailer for Armageddon was from The Rock. These days, though, there are production houses that specialise in trailer music. X-Ray dog is one, but I have come to like Two Steps from Hell. Unfortunately, they don't sell their albums. Well, they do, but only to people who make movie trailers. Basically production companies. So their music is not publicly available. A lot of it has been posted on Youtube, and some kind (but ethically challenged) soul has posted a few of their albums on torrent sites. So it's possible to acquire for the less scrupulous among you. Well, as long as you’re going to steal, you may as well steal great music.

Sorry for the link-filled post, but it had to be done. I just wanted to expand your horizons a bit. For those of you who don't know about scores, there you go. And for those of you who think an orchestra is for playing Mozart ... well, you have me there. But in their spare time, they can do this stuff too.

For more awesometastic music, go here.

Predators...Evan's Take

I take way too long to get these things finished and by that time I have forgotten all of the cool and witty things that I want to say about the movie I watched (at least that's an excuse that I try to use to cover up for how these are generally not cool and not witty). I also feel the pressure to get something up before I head out to "Inception" and I really shouldn't let these things pile up. In addition, after reading Benjy's post about "Predators" I felt that I needed to throw out a few positive points of the movie to counter balance what appeared to be five fingered slap to Adrien Brody's face. I am starting to wonder if he actually did like the movie or if he just like the scene where a spine is extricated from a body and everything else just got in the way.

So really quickly..."Predators" is everything you would expect from a Predator movie. There are gory fight scenes aplenty and you can play the game of trying to cell who dies next. It's exactly how I thought it would play out. Ensemble cast??? Of course most of them aren't going to make it through the movie...I'm not spoiling anything here...If you don't know it's going to happen then you have not watched any Predator/Alien/Resident Evil/etc. movies. Some of the characters are interesting (see Lawrence Fishburne) and they all have interesting fighting styles that make for some fun fight scenes. And they had enough new stuff in there to make it feel like a unique movie while still being part of a franchise (Who knew that the Predators could use both heat AND sound to target their prey?...Oops...I've said too much!).

I love how some people critique the dialogue of this movie. Anyone who has seen the first "Predator" movie with Arnold knows that it isn't really a dialogue driven plot. I remember sitting at home one night with my roommate and we stumbled upon a Predator marathon on AMC or Space. Anyways...we watched the last half of "Predator" and marveled at the lack of dialogue (although by that time the only character left is Arnold and he is just setting up his trap and building up to the climax of the movie...so it's probably good that he wasn't talking to himself). "Predator 2" comes on, with Danny Glover as the star (I know!!! Danny Glover was apparently an action "star"...who knew???...then came the unfortunate "Operation Dumbo Drop" and so went his career...sigh). Within the first 10 minutes we both came to the realization that there had already been more dialogue in this movie than there was in the entire first "Predator" movie. Plus, all this dialogue was taking away from the Predator shooting laser beams and slicing and dicing lesser cast members. In the case of "Predators", I didn't find that the dialogue added or detracted from the story at all. In my opinion, as long as the characters weren't miming for two hours on screen, that was enough to keep things movie from one fight scene to the next.

There were a few scenes in the movie that were reminiscent some of the scenes from the first movie and they warmed my heart as I remembered back to long bus trips when I got to watch movies like "Predator" without my parents knowing. I am sure you all remember the scene where Arnold is falling off a cliff in a forest into a lake or how he sets up his elaborate trap in the final scene...if you watch this movie you will be reminded of those scenes. But they don't make it obvious so you get to appreciate it after the fact.

I am wondering where the franchise goes from here...In the first movie there was one Predator and he took out everyone except Arnold, who had to use an elaborate jungle trap to overcome the alien. In the second movie, Danny Glover gets the honor of taking out the Predator...but he somehow does it in hand to hand combat. Really??? Danny Glover can take out a predator with his bare hands while Arnold Schwarzenegger needs an entire jungle...Yeah...I believe that! And now "Predators" has a group of these aliens are killed by a band of mercenaries and war heroes essentially identical to the group from the first movie. Are the Predators getting softer? We have gone from Arnold getting rolled by a single intergalactic killer to Adrien Brody kicking multiple Predator asses on a distant planet. What's next?...The cast of High School Musical singing these once ferocious beasts to sleep in an another exciting combination of movie franchises? Maybe they can team up with the Twilight cast and we can get rid of a few of those annoying vampires and werewolves (fingers crossed!!!). They need to be careful because they are losing the fear and mystique that got attached to the Predator from the first movie by slowly eroding their awesomeness in subsequent movies.

In terms of mindless movies...I would say that "Predators" definitely fits the bill. I enjoyed myself and there were plenty of giggling "that's awesome" moments, which I haven't had for the past few weeks. I would agree with Benjy's disappointment with the edited scene from the trailer but if there had been 18 laser beams pointed at Adrien Brody and he somehow got away then the previous paragraph would have been even easier to write. So...let's give it 4 explosions out of 6 epic death scenes...yeah...that sounds about right.

Predators

Too bad this movie wasn’t in 3D. That would have been … well, it would have made the gruesome scenes even more gruesome. And by gruesome, I mean awesome.

This was a good movie, so let me start off with the bad. I don't do this to bash the movie, but because in good movies, the bad stuff stands out (just like in bad movies, the occasional good thing stands out).

First off, the music isn’t good. It tends to clash a lot, and be over the top when it doesn’t have to be. It really distracts from the movie. And there’s no melody that you’d actually want stuck in your head. Just not good.

Secondly, there’s an overuse of a particular shot. To build tension, a lot of movies will delay showing whatever it is that a character or characters are reacting to. So in this movie, the team will come across something strange, and the camera will pan across all of their faces, and the music will build, and then (with a loud/annoying clash), it’ll show the whatever. But they kept doing it for every new and strange thing they discover, so by the end, I just wanted to see the darn thing. I already know what a surprised Adrien Brody looks like. I saw that five minutes ago. Stop wasting my time!

Thirdly, there are two fights that are pretty silly. The first is a fight between a Yakuza member (he’s Japanese, so he must know how to use a katana) and a predator with a type of bladed tonfa. If there’s to be any equality in the fight (so it’s not a curb stomp battle … who wants that), the yakuza member and the predator have to be roughly equal in strength, speed, and reaction time. But since they evolved on two different planets, what are the chances of that happening? The second fight is a ridiculous one between two predators. It looked like two football players tackling each other over and over again.

Fourthly, the villain decay. In the first Predator, the titular alien came down to South America and took out a special operations team. It took Arnold Schwarzenegger (hey, my spellcheck knows his name!) to kill him. The second movie had Danny Glover. Then the predators teamed up with humans to kill some Xenomorphs (what nerds call the aliens from Alien). The Next movie (Aliens vs Predator 2: Requiem) I didn't watch because it looked like it was made of awful. And now it’s up to Adrien Brody. Adrien Brody! The guy who could play Bill Gates if they ever made a movie about Microsoft (oh wait, they did. They had Tim Robbins playing Bill Gates … sorry, Bill Shmates. It was a terrible but fun movie called Antitrust, and its most redeeming feature is Claire Forlani. That girl is beautiful).

Fifthly, the trailer lied. Not just misled. Lied. There’s a scene in the trailer that has Brody lit up by about a dozen alien weapons (like a laser sight on a sniper rifle). It directly contradicts facts in the movie. It’d be like if the trailer for Return of the Jedi has shown a dozen lightsabers. Robert Rodriguez (the producer) talks about it here.

Fifthly, Laurence Fishburne. Don’t get me wrong, his acting is terrific. His character is slightly off at first, and gradually gets crazier. The only problem is … well, I can’t actually explain what it is without spoiling part of the movie. Also, he delivers a lot of exposition. It’d be even more boring, but Fishburne’s delivery makes it a lot better. Still a lot of dialogue to explain what goes on, though.

Sixthly, some minor plot holes. I can’t really elaborate on those without spoiling the movie, so we’ll just have to have that conversation after you see it.

I think that’s about it. Everything else is pretty good, and there are a few scenes that are fantastic. Seriously, Evan and I turned to each other and said “Awesome!” at times. They’re just that good. The plot starts off pretty generic, but gets better as it goes along. There’s a lot of violence. Just when I was wondering if there was any green blood (surely not all the blood in every species is red), they showed green blood. There are decapitations, and an epic spine removal. The actors can act, and the settings were fantastic. They relied on real-world costumes and special effects, and kept the CGI to a minimum (except for a shot of the solar system, which looked fantastic). There is a lot of good stuff here.

Overall though, there are just a few too many problems for it to be a theatre movie. It’s definitely a DVD movie, hopefully on a big TV with an awesome sound system. With the lights off. At midnight. On Halloween.

3D

I went to The Last Airbender this past week. It was the first feature film I saw in 3D (that I can remember. It’s possible that something’s slipped through the cracks). The 3D in that film was mediocre, as it has been in most movies, except for Avatar.

Avatar was filmed using techniques and cameras designed for 3D. Due to the success of Avatar and other 3D movies (Up comes to mind), a lot of films set to release afterwards but filmed beforehand (using traditional cameras and techniques) were and are being pressured to release in 3D (see: Clash of the Titans, The Last Airbender). But since the 3D is all done post-production, it looks gimmicky.

I imagine that the situation is similar to the one in film when sound and then colour were introduced. A lot of films were in the can, and suddenly had to compete against films with something extra. Of course, a lot of people were against the changes (“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” – H.M. Warner, Warner Bros, 1927). I’m guessing they thought it was a gimmick that would quickly pass (just like the internet).

Anyway, 3D these days is akin to colouring in a black and white film after the shooting’s done. Technically, it’s possible – it’ll just look terrible.

However, as 3D becomes more mainstream (it’s not going away. Get used to it), films will go into pre-production knowing that they’ll be released in 3D, and can prepare accordingly. So while films may not look like Avatar (which was designed to be a visual spectacle, but not necessarily an entertaining film), the quality of 3D will improve, just like it did with sound and colour.

The Last Airbender

There are two types of bad movies. Some are empty bad movies, like Robin Hood. They’re bad, and they’re empty. There’s nothing there. It’s so generically bad. It’s almost like an apathetic teenager. They don’t get in trouble for acting out – they get in trouble for not doing anything.

The other type of bad movie is full. It’s the type of movie they used to feature on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. They’re gleefully awful. To continue the person analogy, they’re like reality TV show stars. They’ll do anything for money, and they’re so easy to mock. The Last Airbender is this type of movie. There are so many things wrong with it that I want to watch it with other people and mock it to death.

Don’t watch it alone. It will suck out your soul. It’s that awful. Watch it in a group, and tear it to pieces. It’s fun!

First, though, I should probably start with what the movie does right. It’s a short list.

1) The special effects. The four basic elements get played around with a lot, so water gushes and flows into tentacles that can entrap people, fire zips around and knocks people over, air swirls into whirlwinds and sweeps people of their feet, and earth … earth gets the shaft, actually. Playing with Earth mainly means telekinetically throwing rocks at people, which can be very useful, but doesn’t look as cool as a jail made from ice spikes.

2) The plot. Or at least, the basic plot elements. It takes the general story of someone who’s told they’re the saviour, refusing the responsibility, having a few misadventures, and then accepting their status and saving the world. It works well (see: Star Wars, The Matrix), even in terrible movies like this one.

3) The 3D effect lend an air of surrealism to the vision sequences and add to the believability that they’re taking place on a different plane of existence. Having things a little blurry is nice for visions. Having things blurry in 3D visions helps to take us into the vision.

4) There are moments of acting and some lines of dialogue that don’t fall flat. They’re few and far between, but they’re there (if you look carefully).

5) The main character fights with a staff that can unfold into a handheld hang glider. It’s pretty sweet.

What was wrong with the movie? It probably starts at the top, with M. Night Shyamalan. As Evan said when his name came up during the credits: “Stop making movies!” His dialogue is terrible (he wrote the script. The only reason the plot is decent is it’s based on the plot of the first season of the show), and he doesn’t try to get anything more than wooden performances out of the actors.

Which is the second problem. I don’t mind an understated actor. I’d prefer one to someone who chews the scenery, actually. But these actors aren’t just wooden, it's like they're just saying lines. At least their eyes don’t move when the read the cue cards.

I think the problem is that Aang (the lead) was probably cast for his martial arts prowess, and then they crossed their fingers and hoped he could act. He can’t. Maybe he’ll improve, maybe not. Casting someone who’s known for something besides acting can work (see: Will Smith, Beyonce Knowles), but it can often backfire (every model Luc Besson casts in his movies, except for Milla Jovovich. She can act, of a sort, but does it really matter? Milla Jovovich). So his performance is unusually bad, especially when he’s called on to show emotion. Hey Shyamalan? You can’t add in emotion afterwards like 3D.

The 3D is hit and miss. It was added in post-production, and it shows. Some scenes are only in 2D, and they’re fine. If the entire movie had been done that way, it would have been fine. Some 3D scenes actually work. It even adds to the vision scenes. But sometimes the 3D is just wrong. It’ll have one character in focus, and the wall behind them will be fuzzy (like it would be in real life), except that it’s the same fuzzy across the entire wall, instead of getting fuzzier the farther away from the focus it gets. It’s just not how the eye perceives the world. There are other times when some of the characters seem to have a bit of a shimmering outline. It reminded me of the scene in Return of the Jedi where Luke’s fighting the Rancor. On the old copies (VHS), Luke has a visible black outline, denoting where they cut around him on the blue screen. For some people it’s not a big deal, but for others it really breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

There are some martial arts scenes in 3D, but I’m not sure that the eye can change focus quickly enough to follow the movements as they change depth. So martial arts might get worse (or at least less comprehensible) as 3D is introduced more widely. I’m not sure, though. It’d be nice to see a kung-fu movie in 3D, just to show if it’s possible.

And there are some atrocious shots as well. One particularly abysmal shot has a conversation showing two sides. One of them is 2D, and the other is 3D. The 3D shot shows Aang’s face taking up about 80% of the screen. It was so terrible I thought Fathead was going to sue.

Their main method of transportation is an animal that looks like a cross between a giant inflatable six-legged cat and Falkor. Riding around on an animal? Old school. Riding around on a silly animal? Not cool.

Some people in each elemental nation have the ability to use that element. Such a person is called a ‘Bender.’ With the resurrection of Futurama, I was dying to hear a “Bite my shiny metal ass!” Alas, like many other things in this movie, an opportunity missed.

This is a movie to avoid at all costs … unless you want to tear it to shreds with friends. That could be fun. It’s like the new millennium’s version of Plan 9 from Outer Space, or Attack of the Killer Tomatoes from Mars. Some people might not like that, though. Evan was physically affected by the enormous suckitude of the movie. I thought he was being tortured, he was squirming so much.

In the end, it seemed like he made it for his kids (he watched the show with his kids). I’ve got nothing against doing stuff with & for your kids. In fact, labours of love for children are to be applauded. The only thing is that the movie is rated PG. Which means his kids should be 13 before they see it. And by the time they’re that old, they’ll realize their father makes really bad movies. So that’ll be awkward. Just like this movie.

The Last Airbender...Evan's Take

Can anyone see a bruise on my forehead? It's a little sore from all the facepalming (aka...brow smiting) I did Tuesday night between 7:40 and 9:40pm. That was when Benjy and I went to check out M. Night Shyamalan's latest effort, The Last Airbender. If this was an "effort" I would hate to see him mail one in. There is no way to sugar coat it...this was a giant pile of steaming 3D crap that should never be viewed for $15...or any other price for that matter. (I'm glad I finished my 1/4 bag of popcorn during the previews because it would have just tasted bitter otherwise...On a positive note, I actually pitched a shutout during the preview game which should have warned me that something was amiss).

Where to begin with this mess??? I wonder if Benjy kept track of the number of times that I leaned over and said "This is terrible!". I am pretty sure that it is a substantial number but let me outline some of these terrible points for you here:

Terrible point #1 - Dialogue
The dialogue in this movie was absolutely ridiculous. Sometimes the characters would announce to the audience what they were doing in a particular scene...even when we could see exactly what they were doing on screen! Hey Shyamalan...You are making a movie!!! The pictures move and I don't need characters to announce when they are leaving the scene or if they are going after someone...I can see them doing it. I'm surprised that you didn't try to have braille printed on the screen.

Terrible point #2 - Acting
It doesn't really help the cause of a movie with a terrible script when the actors look like they are performing the Saturday afternoon show of the local community theater group. I wonder if you have to pay an actor the same amount of money if you just use cardboard cutouts of them during filming? I have decided that the terrible acting is Shyamalan's fault as well. Somebody should tell him that you can do more than one take if the previous ones suck. Or maybe he has no idea what sucks...or even scarier is that he thinks that the takes were good!!!

Terrible point #3 - 3D
3D movies is the wave of the future. Avatar was a great movie in part because the 3D technology was planned from the outset and used the enhance the movie experience. The Last Airbender had 3D added in post production...not because it would enhance the movie experience but because the studio could charge an extra $5 to unsuspecting movie goers. Most of the 3D scenes look like those old movies that were filmed in front of green screens (Plenty of examples in this 1963 Herbie - The Love Bug clip) . Actually, they probably were filming in front of green screens...I just had no idea that it could still look that bad in 2010. The really frustrating part is that there are only a handful of scenes that have been converted to 3D. Thanks for making me wear those stupid glasses for 2 hours! I want my five dollars back...and for you to stop laughing at me M.Night...

Terrible Point #4 - Random Narration
The movie starts with a scrolling text similar to the start of Star Wars movies. Shyamalan decides that it is important to also have Katara's voice act as a narrator and read this text to the audience like we are a bunch of five year olds. I don't believe that he actually thinks his audience is a bunch of illiterates. He was probably thinking about the PG audience that may not have been able to read the text all that quickly. Or maybe he was thinking that using some fancy font helped to set the scene and establish a mythical world. It doesn't really matter... What was ridiculous is how this narration was used randomly throughout the movie. Instead of setting up each new scene with the narration and maintaining some type of continuity, Shyamalan instead decides to have this narration come in at seemingly random times in the movie. I found it distracting and incoherent. However, the narration did provide one of the highlights of the movie. In the scene where Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) meets Princess Yue (Seychelle Gabriel) from the northern water tribe, the narration explains that they "became very good friends" as they exchange glances with each other. After that line, the audience is supposed to believe that these two are inseparable and madly in love with each other. It is brilliant...Shyamalan put an entire love story into a 2 second blurb!

Terrible Point #5 - Name Pronounciation
I am not a fan of the Nickelodeon cartoon on which this movie was based. I have seen it a couple of times because I an old roommate of mine used to watch it and I happened to be in the room. In the TV show the main character's name is Aang, which is pronounced like "bang" without the "b". In the movie, they have decided to pronounce the name as "ong" like "long" without the "l". You might be saying to yourself..."Evan, this is very petty of you to criticize how names are pronounced. You are just trying to find stuff that is bad with the movie." But stay with me here. I am assuming that Shyamalan sat down and actually watched the TV show. If you are going to make a trilogy of movies, it is the least you can do. So I am confident that he heard how the names are supposed to be pronounced. I believe that this gives us a concrete example of how terrible a director he is. Of all the things he could have taken creative license on (he is after all both the writer and the director) he chooses to change the pronunciation of a name to some pretentious sounding version of the original. That was the best he could come up with! The guy caught lightning in a bottle with "The Sixth Sense" and has progressively been coming up with lamer ideas until his big twist is "Let's say his name differently!". On the other hand, if he didn't watch the TV show ahead of time then he just gave all the fans of the show a fully extended middle finger (in which case he is not a bad director...he is just an asshole).

Terrible Point #6 - Killing a franchise before it starts...
I think this is the most shameful part of what M. Night Shyamalan did to this movie. Paramount Pictures (like every other production company) wants to make movie franchises that are guaranteed to make money and they thought they would have a hit with a Last Airbender Trilogy. The story here is original, interesting and unique. The concept of "bending" and having characters that are able to manipulate fire, earth, wind and water open the door for some potentially epic action sequences (actually some of the action in this movie is really well done...it was perhaps the only bright spot in this abomination). There was already a significant fan base who would buy tickets and drive the hype machine. The best part was that all of the hard parts were taken care of in the TV show. And then they decided to hand things over to Shyamalan...who proceeded to screw everything up beyond belief and alienate so many people that it is unclear if Paramount will be able to justify making any more movies in this series. I still think this story has the potential to be a successful movie franchise...just not with Shyamalan at the helm.

I think we will see some good come out of "The Last Airbender". I am fairly certain that this will be the last movie that they print Shyamalan's name on the poster like he is God's gift to the silver screen. I for one would be repelled by future movies if I knew he were involved in making them. Apparently this has already begun... One can only dream that this may be the final nail in the coffin ensuring that Shyamalan is never allowed to make movies again...

PS - I'm not even going to bother with a random rating...it will always be zero...

Ratings

Ratings are tricky things. Sometimes they’re useful – hotels, for instance. From the star rating, you can tell the difference between an $8 a night room (comes with free bedbugs) and an $800 a night suite (comes with free … everything. For $800 a night, there’d better be free everything).

But for more subjective topics, ratings can be near-useless. Take music, for instance. There’s so much variety between songs, CD’s, and artists, that one can be loved and hated by two similar people. Whatever the majority of people think, someone, somewhere, will like it (see Fed, K-).

It’s a little better with movies, but not much. When critics say a movie is good, they’re not actually making a quantifiable statement about the movie. They’re saying they think it’s good. And due to differences in taste, it could mean the movie is terrible (for you).

Of course, critics also have another problem. It’s related to studying literature in school. I never enjoyed any book we studied in school because I was too busy paying attention to whatever literary devices the teacher wanted to point out. I think critics are the same way – they’re too busy thinking about what they have to write about the movie that they forget to sit back and enjoy it. I hope that doesn’t happen to me. I want to enjoy the movie, then (almost accidentally) write about it. I try not to think about what to write until afterwards.

Anyway, this post has gotten way off-topic. What I mean to say is: I’ve discovered a ratings system for the movies. From now on, I won’t be giving movies two thumbs up, 4 stars, B+, 7 splotches of goodness, or the colour yellow. No, I’ll be judging them based on how and where I’d like to see them. Good movies will be theatre movies, and moving down the scale to rental DVD’s, bargain rentals, free on TV, and avoid entirely.

So far, we’ve been lucky, in that the movies have been top-heavy. Ironman 2, Prince of Persia, the A-team, and Knight and Day have all been movies I’d like to see on the big screen. This doesn’t mean you must watch them in theatres. For instance, the action in the A-team has a lot of explosions, which should really be experienced on a huge screen. However, the action in Knight and Day is not as kaboom-y, so it could probably be experienced on a nice home-theatre system. But I’d want to see both of them in theatres.

Jonah Hex is a free-on-TV, maybe a bargain-bin-rental-if-it’s-only-a-dollar type of movie. Robin Hood is a change-the-channel-if-it-comes-on-TV movie. If you get it as a gift, take it outside and douse it in Holy Water (and watch it sizzle and melt). Seriously, avoid it at all costs.

Keep in mind, though, that these ratings are completely subjective, and likely wrong. Also, I have a much higher tolerance of trash than other people. Which, come to think of it, is a fairly accurate depiction of the state of my room.

Knight and Day...Evan's Take

Benjy has clearly taken to this whole blogging thing much better than I have as he has already reviewed the last movie we saw AND come up with a ratings system (thus making my fledgling ratings system that much harder to come up with).

However, since I am so much slower writing these movie reviews it gives me an opportunity to read what Benjy thinks about a movie. Oftentimes we will agree on movies...In the case of "Knight and Day" our opinions are like night and day (Ahhhhhhh...Peter griffin would be proud...kinda).

The more I have thought about it this week, the more I felt that I have seen this movie before. It's like the big wigs at 20th Century Fox had some large checklist from previous action films and just started adding stuff until they had 2 hours worth of footage that they could slap together and charge $15 to watch it. Lets quickly look at some of their checklist:
- Spy movie - check
- Unwitting female character who gets drawn in to a situation by the smooth talking spy - check
- Catchy title that implies some link to the movie but actually makes absolutely no sense - check
- Guns - check
- Fight scenes shown at a blistering pace - check
- Plane fight scene - check
- Explosions - check
- Exotic locations - check
- Car chase scene...NO WAIT...lets make it a motorcycle chase scene!!! - Check!
- Rogue secret agent - check
- Impossible invention that must not fall into the wrong hands - check
- Invention falls into the wrong hands - check
...You get the idea...

The thing that I found strange is that when picking the lead actors for this movie...they must have had a list that was about 10 years old because I kept feeling that Diaz and Cruise were no longer the box office guarantees that they were when they were pre-JT and pre-CRAZY! I mean, they could have made this movie an infomercial for the potential benefits of botox. I haven't seen that many crows feet since "The Birds"(baaaazing!!!).

I should also point out that I have a bias against Tom Cruise in movies...even though I tend to enjoy some of the stuff he is in. For those who know me, I have a strange thing about celebrities teeth. They make tons of money, the least they could do is invest in some braces for crying out loud! If you want to talk about people with bad teeth, I have lots to contribute to that conversation. Anyways, Tom has nice and straight teeth at first glance but when you look a little closer, it looks like he has a tooth that is directly in line with the indent in the middle of his upper lip (the philtrum...I looked it up...you are all better for knowing that). Don't believe me??? Check out this picture! That central incisor lines up exactly with the tip of his nose...It creeps me out. Thankfully I didn't notice it all that much this time around...maybe he got some dental work?...or had his philtrum moved in a cosmetic procedure?

I will say that there are a few redeeming qualities of this movie. The movie definitely fits the bill for a "mindless movie" (according to our undocumented definition) and the argument could be made that it tried to take all the best scenes from action/spy movies from the last 10 years and cram them into one movie...(Unfortunately I like to say "Hey, I've never seen that before...Cool!" when watching a movie but some people might enjoy it). Additionally, the comedic timing of Cruise and Diaz is really bang on. Cruise is actually really funny and it's almost as if he uses parts of this movie to poke fun at himself in real life. I did enjoy his character quite a bit and it is worth it to check out his performance.

I still don't have a good ratings system figured out yet and I'm not about to steal the one that Benjy is going to use. When it comes down to it...if you have actually made it this far reading the post you either found me extremely enlightening and witty in my analysis or you are my mom. Either way I can pretty much give the movie any random rating that makes absolutely no sense considering most people have moved on with their lives. So lets go with 3 Knights out of 7.5 Days...yeah...that sounds about accurate...