The Lose The Hands Post.

What was the most annoying thing about going to see The Green Hornet?

Was it
a) Some of the dialogue (not exactly a successful line walked between funny and serious)?
b) Missing a fair bit of it by nodding off (I guess my Cineworld card will have to be used for another viewing)?
c) Realising that no score album is out so far, making this the first costumed hero flick since Spider-Man 3 to be so unfortunate?
d) The git in the back row who kept putting his/her hand in front of the projector?

Answer: d). Emphatically d).

The Step Up 2 The Vantage Point Post.

I went to see Step Up 2 The Streets and Vantage Point on Saturday. We might as well run a comparison...

Story: The former's climax is obvious from the word go, but the latter can be called many things - predictable not being one of them. Advantage: Vantage Point.

Acting: Neither is the kind of thing you go to for performances (with the former it's all about the dancing, the latter has tension up the wazoo), but Dennis Quaid makes the latter - almost as good at going "DAMMIT!" as Kiefer Sutherland, he is. Advantage: Vantage Point.

Altierre Factor: Briana Evigan and Cassie Ventura vs. Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana and the baddies. No contest. Advantage: Step Up 2 The Streets.

Music: Not a fan of what's called "urban" stuff, but Step Up 2 The Streets also has an almost too emotional Aaron Zigman score. Vantage Point's 24-esque music by Atli Örvarsson (and, this being a Hans Zimmer offshoot, others) does at least fit the movie better. Advantage: Vantage Point.

Action: Come on. Advantage: Vantage Point.

Emotional Content: Step Up 2 The Streets does have heart, while Vantage Point only has emotion in the Forest Whitaker parts. Advantage: Step Up 2 The Streets.

Reason To See It In The First Place: I hadn't seen the first Step Up, whereas Vantage Point is a one-off. Advantage: Vantage Point.

Winner: Vantage Point, duh. Briana "Thank goodness she wasn't related to the Bear" Evigan notwithstanding.

The If You Can't Say Something Nice Post.

In my determination to post something every day on this tundra of self-indulgence, I'm not always clear on what I want to say. I could yell at Hello!'s most attractive person of the month poll for intimating that Nadine Coyle from Girls Aloud and Emma Bunton from the Spice Girls are more fanciable than Jessica Alba, or gripe about Sharon's failure to appreciate Heroes (only two weeks to go before it's time to haunt certain sites again and/or hope the BBC hurries up with its airings of season two), or lament about how Prince was right in the end... you turn on the news and every other story is about how somebody died.

But let's be positive instead. Let's look at the nicer things in life. Like Monica Bellucci, for instance (illustrated with regards to Shoot 'Em Up). Or sleep. Or sleeping with Monica Bellucci.

Now isn't that better than ranting?

Roger Ebert writes...

Remember the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex has his eyes clamped open and is forced to watch a movie? I imagine a similar experience for the architects of our catastrophe in Iraq. I would like them to see No End in Sight, the story of how we were led into that war, and more than 3,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of other lives were destroyed.

They might find the film of particular interest because they would know so many of the people appearing in it. This is not a documentary filled with anti-war activists or sitting ducks for Michael Moore. Most of the people in the film were important to the Bush administration. They had top government or military jobs, they had responsibility in Iraq or Washington, they implemented policy, they filed reports, they labored faithfully in service of U.S. foreign policy and then they left the government. Some jumped, some were pushed. They all feel disillusioned about the war and the way the White House refused to listen to them about it.

The subjects in this film now feel that American policy in Iraq was flawed from the start, that obvious measures were not taken, that sane advice was disregarded, that lies were told and believed, and that advice from people on the ground was overruled by a cabal of neo-con goofballs who seemed to form a wall around the president.

The president and his inner circle knew, just knew, for example, that Saddam had or would have weapons of mass destruction, that he was in league with al-Qaida and bin Laden, and that in some way, it was all hooked up with Sept. 11. Not all of the advice in the world could penetrate their obsession, and they fired the bearers of bad news.

It is significant, for example, that a Defense Intelligence Agency team received orders to find links between al-Qaida and Hussein. That there were none was ignored. Key adviser Paul Wolfowitz's immediate reaction to Sept. 11 was "war on Iraq." Anarchy in that land was all but assured when the Iraqi army was disbanded against urgent advice from our people in the field. That meant that a huge number of competent military men, most of them no lovers of Saddam, were rendered unemployed -- and still armed. How was this disastrous decision arrived at? People directly involved said it came as an order from administration officials who had never been to Iraq.

Did Bush know and agree? They had no indication. Perhaps not. A National Intelligence report commissioned in 2004 advised against the war. Bush, who apparently did not read it, dismissed it as guesswork -- a word that seems like an ideal description of his own policies.

Who is Charles Ferguson, director of this film? A one-time senior fellow of the Brookings Institute, software millionaire, originally a supporter of the war, visiting professor at MIT and Berkeley, he was trustworthy enough to inspire confidences from former top officials. They mostly felt that orders came from the precincts of Vice President Cheney, that Cheney's group disregarded advice from veteran American officials, and in at least one case, channeled a decision to avoid Bush's scrutiny. The president signed, but didn't read, and you can see the quizzical, betrayed looks in the eyes of the men and women in the film, who found that the more they knew about Iraq, the less they were heeded.

Although Bush and the war continue to sink in the polls, I know from some readers that they still support both. That is their right. And if they are so sure they are right, let more young men and women die or be maimed. I doubt if they will be willing to see this film, which further documents an administration playing its private war games. No, I am distinctly not comparing anyone to Hitler, but I cannot help being reminded of the stories of him in his Berlin bunker, moving nonexistent troops on a map, and issuing orders to dead generals.

...and Cindy at the "Ocean's 13" premiere.

Not like this, unfortunately.




With Sharon's money worries permeating myself as well, and with my complete failure to care about Jericho getting a mini-reprieve and Prison Break being poached by Sky (and by "poached" I mean "being willing to pay a higher price than Five was" - it's called business, people. Deal with it), I need something to cheer me up.

Mission accomplished. And not in the George W. Bush sense, the actual sense. Having detested the first movie and taken my leave of Sharon when she put on the secon, wild horses could not get me to see the third one. But Cindy could if she was in it.


The end.

I suck.

Yesterday was Dad's birthday. I forgot.

Shaz reminded me in time for me to call him, but it still sucks.

Forgive me, Dad.

Later, I was late to the 8:50 screening of Next and I never enter late, so I returned home. To steal a line from my girl Hayden's "Your New Girlfriend," I believe what goes around comes around.

Still longer than Jennifer's list.

Unlike Jen, I actually like seeing movies in an actual cinema. The trouble is with the big season coming up working out what exactly I want to take in... and this year isn't thrilling me that much, thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (enough already) and Shrek the Third (not interested in feeding Mike Myers' ego, thanks. And Justin Timberlake's involved). Turistas has gotten a name change to Paradise Lost, but American tourists getting savaged in Brazil is a turnoff (and on the subject, the cast includes Olivia Wilde and Melissa George). Underdog should have been animated, not live action with a CGI dog that looks like a real dog for eff's sake. And Ocean's Thirteen... no. No. No no no no no no no no NO.

So as I ask Jen from time to time, is there anything coming out that I do want to see? Yes... (British release dates courtesy IMDb).

May 4: Bridge to Terabithia and Spider-Man 3
May 18: Zodiac
June 1: Grindhouse
June 15: Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (even if it does give screenplay credit to my least favourite Simpsons writer, Don Payne) - UK premiere is on the 12th, and fingers crossed Jessica comes over like last time...
June 22: The Hitcher (if only to see if I can get on board the Sophia Bush thing)
July 6: Live Free or Die Hard (I've seen all three of the previous ones in cinemas, and I won't break the chain with this)
July 27: Transformers (even if it is directed by Michael Bay) and The Simpsons Movie (Shrek can go fuck himself, this is the cartoon I'm most eager for... especially since Ratatouille isn't opening in the UK till October)
August 3: Evan Almighty and Nancy Drew

I'm sure there's more, along with Surf's Up, Superbad and possibly SherryBaby (Maggie Gyllenhaal, people!). Now if this was a list of movies I'm not looking forward to...

El movie

C/O The Bilson freak, with cheers to Varese Sarabande for releasing the score CD to Snakes on a Plane next month, and jeers to YouTube for pulling certain Erica Campbell and Hayden Panettiere videos before I could see them. Blast their violations of use policies.

1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times.
Do Tom & Jerry cartoons count as movies? Seriously, I think Back to the Future might qualify.

2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater.
Well, I had to sit through Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo at the cinema by myself and at the drive-in when my dad took us to see it, but the only real example that counts is Beauty and the Beast (I went to see it at a special Saturday morning showing at the Globe, and then when it got a rare regular engagement there as a leading feature - rare for a cartoon in those dim days of the early 1990s in Barbados - I went to see it again).

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a movie.
Laetitia Casta.

4. Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a movie.
Er... Freddie Prinze Jr.?

5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from.
Die Hard ("Welcome to the party, pal!").

6. Name a movie musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
Beauty and the Beast probably comes closest.

7. Name a movie that you have been known to sing along with.
High School Musical. And the aforementioned Beauty and the Beast.

8. Name a movie that you would recommend everyone see.
Rock'N'Roll High School. The Ramones! The school being blown up!

9. Name a movie that you own.
Malena, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Into The Blue, Belleville Rendezvous, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Beauty and the Beast...

10. Name an actor that launched his/her entertainment career in another medium but who has surprised you with his/her acting chops.
Mos Def - excellent in 16 Blocks and Something The Lord Made.

11. Have you ever seen a movie in a drive-in?
Yep - On The Right Track (one of Gary Coleman's hiatus movies in the Diff'rent Strokes days), the 1976 King Kong, at least two of the Star Trek movies, Short Circuit, Back to the Future, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, Tron, Firefox, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial...

12. Ever made out in a movie?
No.

13. Name a movie that you keep meaning to see but just haven’t yet gotten around to it.
Pass.

14. Ever walked out of a movie?
I never walk out of a movie I haven't seen before.

15. Name a movie that made you cry in the theater.
Schindler's List came closest.

16. Popcorn?
I hate popcorn.

17. How often do you go to the movies (as opposed to renting them or watching them at home)?
Quite often. Unfortunately I haven't been this year because I've been ill...

18. What’s the last movie you saw in the theater?
The Holiday.

19. What’s your favorite/preferred genre of movie?
As Joe Bob Briggs put it, "A movie can be absolutely anything, except boring."

20. What’s the first movie you remember seeing in the theater?
Either Robin Hood or Island At The Top Of The World. As they were both Disney films it might have been on a double bill in 1974.