January 2011 February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011 August 2011 September 2011 October 2011 November 2011 December 2011 2011 Year in Review

January 2011 The Adventures of Robin Hood (DVD) The tale of Robin Hood, the Sherwood Forest thief who steals from the rich and gives to the poor, is timeless and classic, and this 1938 Technicolor film starring Errol Flynn as Robin, Olivia de Havilland as Maid Marian, and Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne, is one of the greatest versions of that tale ever brought to film. The performances are dashing, the colors are brilliant, there are tons of derring-do stunts and swordfights, and the fight scenes (though a bit toned down due to issues with violence in movies at the time) are exciting and well-played. For a guy running through trees in green tights, Robin sure comes across as a total badass. Take for instance, a scene where he grabs a rope and climbs over a closing drawbridge, or one where he nonchalantly walks up to Prince John and dumps an illegally-poached dead deer on his dinner table, or one where he makes an escape on horseback with his hands bound behind him. The story line is full of humor, romance, and poignancy, and I legitimately felt a chill when the true ruler of England, King Richard, returns in disguise and reveals his true identity. In short, I love this movie. Rating: 5/5 Citizen Kane (DVD) Citizen Kane, often cited by critics as being the greatest movie of all time, is also frequently the subject of parody, but it truly is an amazing and downright depressing film. A reporter sets out to discover the mystery of newspaper mogul Charles Foster Kane's final word before his death, "Rosebud". While seeking answers, the reporter learns the entire fascinating life story of Kane, but comes to the conclusion that a man's life cannot be summed up by one word... Or can it? Kane is, in many ways, a monster - domineering, controlling, manipulative, ruthless, and able to start a war with just his words. But on the other hand, I couldn't help but feel that he was doing what he truly believed was best for everyone (sure, you could say that about all tyrants, I suppose), but when you consider how everyone was behind him and he was almost elected president, and the only reason they ditched him like yesterday's souffle was because they found out he was having an affair, it can make you wonder what the hell life is really about. Kane's world spirals even further downward when his second marriage falls apart. His second wife was an opera singer (and not a very good one) who ends up being affected more personally and emotionally than anyone else by Kane's desires to treat people as he feels they want to be treated rather than the way they actually do want to be treated. I think there are times in everyone's lives when we have been in this situation, and sometimes we are Kane, and other times we are the opera singer... It's something to stop and think about. Rating: 5/5 Community, Season 1 (DVD) I wasn't able to watch Season 1 of this show when it originally aired because I worked Thursday nights back then, but I bought the DVD for Christmas and decided to catch up on it. While I still don't watch the show steadily, I was glad I did revisit Season 1 because it's actually a pretty decent show. Community is a comedy with a lovable cast of diverse and quirky characters that takes place in a realistic setting (a community college), but often finds itself in far-out situations (like a paintball contest that envelopes the whole school and makes movie references galore). Unfortunately, it does get off to a slow start. The first two episodes kind of drag, but then the third, "Abed's Film Class", is hilarious, and the fourth, where Abed ruins a psych experiment, is great, too. However, when the show focuses more on its main lead, Jeff Winger, it's not quite as funny. (I personally didn't care about his relationship with his statistics teacher.) But while it may not be a 5-star show, it's full of plenty of 5-star moments: Abed, as Batman, saving Pierce and Jeff from a stack of falling tables made me laugh hysterically, and the "Modern Warfare", aka, "Paintball" episode is one of the funniest single episodes of a comedy show I've seen since Arrested Development's "Mr. F." Rating: 4/5 Enter the Dragon (DVD) Enter the Dragon is the quintessential Chinese martial arts movie starring the legendary Bruce Lee, and it was the first movie of its kind to have been produced by a major Hollywood studio. In it, Bruce Lee, essentially playing himself, is hired by the government to infiltrate an island owned by the villainous Han, which is believed to be a front for a human trafficking racquet. Lee enters a tournament that Han holds every year to recruit new men into his personal army. For something that could so easily have come across as a cheesy kung fu flick, it has a lot of beautiful art direction, and some very poignant, powerful scenes, such as a certain major character's death and a scene where Lee finds an imprisoned woman who desperately wants to be rescued. The action scenes are very well-choreographed and treated with dead seriousness, from Roper's one-on-one fight against the hulking O'Hara, to an all-out brawl between Han's men and his island's original inhabitants, and the spectacularly iconic fight between Lee and Han at the movie's climax - in a room full of thousands of mirrors with Han wearing a bear claw. Incidentally, Mortal Kombat borrowed heavily from this film, both for the original game's plot and the movie. And the Double Dragon characters Roper and Williams, and no doubt the Lee brothers themselves, were all named after this movie's main heroes. Rating: 4.5/5 The Muppet Movie (DVD) It was the first ever Muppet movie and it's still my favorite. It was made shortly after the end of Season 1 of The Muppet Show and features many of the greatest muppets of the era in a tale that explains how they all met each other and got their own TV show. It also contains two of the most iconic songs associated with the Muppets, "The Rainbow Connection" and "Moving Right Along", a fun story, and many hilarious jokes and visual effects, including a giant Animal head rising out of a building, a car hiding in a billboard, and Kermit riding a bicycle. The movie is made all the more fun by the numerous celebrity cameos, and if you're familiar with the show, there's also the bonus of spotting cameos from the lesser-known muppet characters. I do have one gripe with it, and I had this issue with The Great Muppet Caper, too: The whole of Act 2 focuses a lot on Miss Piggy and the movie slows way down when that happens. I don't understand why it's always assumed that the audience has more interest in her than it probably actually does. While the Steve Martin cameo in that segment was amusing, I just kept wanting the show to get back on the road. Thankfully, eventually it does and the pace picks right back up again, thanks in part to some great scenes by my favorite muppet "band", The Electric Mayhem, and a certain "swiveling chair" surprise reveal of a major motion picture figurehead. Rating: 4/5 Superman II (DVD) I have a lot of fondness for this movie, and I would say it's one of my favorite comic book movies of all time, but I won't ignore the fact that it's got some really ridiculous moments of WTF. Cases in point: After Superman loses his powers, which is stressed as being irreversible, he somehow gets them back with no explanation. It has something to do with a green crystal that lights up and the fact that Marlon Brando's scenes couldn't be used, but geez. They could have come up with something. I also don't get why Superman losing his powers would be permanent anyway since exposure to Earth's yellow sun is what causes them. A temporary loss, I can believe, but you'd think prolonged exposure to the sun would eventually bring them back. Characters seem to conveniently go wherever they want in this movie. Superman's lair is at the North Pole, right? So, he loses his powers there, and then suddenly Lois and Clark are driving around in New York (Metropolis). How did they get from the North Pole to New York if he can no longer fly? And then, when he wants his powers back, he walks back to the North Pole? For that matter, where did Lex Luthor get that snowmobile/sled thing from when he was going there? Don't tell me it was in the hot air balloon's basket... So with all this goofiness, why do I still like it, you ask? Well, it's a comic book movie, so I can forgive some silliness. But it also has excellent fight scenes, courtesy of a trio of supervillains and special effects that have stood the test of time quite well. Yeah, this is the movie that has Zod, as in "Kneel before Zod", a role that Terence Stamp totally absorbs. And the plot, for what it's worth, is okay. PS. This was the original version of the movie I watched, not the Donner cut. Rating: 3.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

February 2011 Galaxy High (DVD) Galaxy High was a short-lived 80's cartoon that I only barely remembered from my youth, about a girl and boy from Earth who attend a high school in outer space, populated by many strange and diverse alien students and faculty. This is a 2-Disc, 13-episode set and most of the episodes on Disc 1 aren't that great. They follow a predictable pattern of a character running off somewhere, and the other characters having to go save him/her. These episodes often have "morals" and storylines that aren't easy for an adult to relate to, and nor do I feel the premise makes much sense - why was Doyle selected to attend Galaxy High when his grades were so poor? But things pick up on Disc 2 and the show finally starts taking advantage of its crazy character designs and personalities for more visual humor and jokes, and all-around better plots (aside from one horribly misguided episode with an anti-drug message). My two favorite episodes were the "Supernova" one, and the one where the show's resident villain, a school bully named Beef Bonk, does something completely out of the ordinary to help a class of children while still remaining true to his character. I tend to see a lot of hatred and vitriol spewed at 80's stuff these days, but one thing I can say about Galaxy High is that it's animated very well. When a six-armed character named Milo is making pizza, you get the feeling this scene exists to show off the animators' skill. Though you can tell what episodes the staff thought were written the best because generally the better the writing, the better the animation. Overall, I would have liked for this show to have been as good as the best episodes of Disc 2, but I can't really recommend it to anyone who isn't a complete 80's cartoon nut, or just wants it for nostalgia. Rating: 2.5/5 X-Men (DVD) I contend that, while not entirely bad, this is the weakest of the original X-Men movie trilogy. I feel like there's too strong of a dichotomy between the opening scenes and the general plot. The story begins with a young Magneto being taken to a concentration camp in WWII-era Germany, which is extremely rough and evocative considering the rest of the movie is this silly yarn about an inexplicable machine that can turn people into mutants, and has a character that jumps around and flicks out his tongue like a frog. It also tends to feel like there are too many characters in this movie and not enough time to develop them all. That and the whole thing comes across to me as an elaborate explanation for the white streak in Rogue's hair. Rating: 2.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

March 2011 Rango (Theater) Actors are better than normal people, or if you fake your way through life, things will work out just a-okay. One, or possibly both of those is the moral of Rango, and I have to say I didn't care for this movie all that much. Yes, I could cite how its action scenes are too fast and make little sense, but instead, I'll harp on what stood out to me the most: None of the supporting characters, aside from the female lizard/lemming thing who's really annoying, have any kind of personality. It's like they all just exist so Rango can be their savior. I'm gonna go off on a tangent and mention how lately the bashing of 80's cartoons around the internet has been ramped up a notch, but at least 80's cartoons generally understood that more than just the "main" character is important. And in fact, when they changed focus to only one character (Scrappy Doo, Slimer), that's when everyone agrees they screwed up. I had this same problem with Kung Fu Panda in that Jack Black was the only one who was important, the "Furious Five" weren't. Rango is an even bigger step backwards in that direction because Rango himself is not particularly interesting as a character since he mostly gets by on luck, or perhaps just the magic of being voiced by the most popular actor, instead of actually being clever or intelligent. I don't think we're supposed to side with the rattlesnake when he tells the townspeople the truth about Rango, but I felt it was a comeuppance he deserved. Finally, how many times have you seen characters in wheelchairs being portrayed as villains? Yes, I get the reference. No, it doesn't excuse it. Transformers, in the 80s, had a character in a wheelchair who was on the good guys' side. Was that show really that far ahead of its time? Rating: 2/5 Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 1 (DVD) When this show originally aired, one of the first episodes I caught was one that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me and thus gave me an initial bad impression of it. That, and after seeing Terminator 3, I was very apprehensive of the idea of anyone doing anything with the franchise after that, instead of just letting it end at T2. But after watching T:SCC from the beginning, I can say now that this show actually is a lot better than what I had given it credit for. It wastes no time in getting to the action and it's much more faithful to the characters and source material than T3 was. Heck, it even retcons T3, so thumbs up just for that. The basic premise is that yet another (reprogrammed) Terminator, a female named Cameron, is sent back in time to protect John Connor, the future savior of mankind, from Skynet, a rogue computer program that has declared war on humans in the future. Skynet sends its own Terminators back in time, but this time they're not only going after John Connor, but other targets that help him in the future world. To complicate things further, they are putting steps in place to make sure that Judgment Day happens. All the while, John, Cameron, and John's mother Sarah Connor, must stop Skynet's plans at every turn to not only save themselves, but alter the future. Season 1 is pretty darn good, but it does require a strong suspension of disbelief for some things. That Kyle Reese had a brother and he just so happens to end up with the Connors is a little silly, but you get used to it. There are also some plot threads started in this season that get completely dumped in the second season, mostly that strange girl at school that John was interested in, but I can't honestly say I cared too much about her, anyway. Overall, Season 2 might be better (I haven't finished it as of typing this yet), but it's still quite an explosive start. Rating: 4/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

April 2011 Rear Window (Theater) Rear Window is one of those types of movies that has a story so compelling, characters so likable, and dialogue so sharp that it's easy to forgive some of its less-believable plot elements. Jimmy Stewart plays a photographer/journalist named Jeff who is confined to his apartment due to a broken leg. He passes the time watching the neighbors in the adjacent apartments through his window. Eventually, his curiosity turns into (possibly) paranoia when he starts suspecting one of the neighbors, played by Raymond Burr, killed his wife and disposed of her body. What makes it interesting is that at first, it's quite easy to be skeptical of Jeff's suspicions, and in fact, the detective who flat-out disbelieves him has one of the most convincing arguments in the movie. But little things start to happen and start to add up that slowly draw other characters in the movie to his side until they become as wrapped up in it as he is. The viewer can remain skeptical, but can't help but feel he might be onto something there. I won't spoil how it ends, although I will say that certain elements of the ending (the way it kind of wraps up too easily), are amongst the weaker aspects of the film. Though it's not typically thought of as a "comedy", the movie does maintain a wry sense of humor that's really entertaining. Hands down, my favorite of the four Alfred Hitchcock movies I've seen. Rating: 4.5/5 Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Season 2 (DVD) T:TSCC is one of the most original, compelling, and intriguing TV shows I've seen in the last decade - which is why it greatly pains me that it was left unfinished. As you may already know, the show was canceled at the end of Season 2, leaving a lot of questions unanswered and some plot threads up in the air. Hindsight is 20/20, but it wouldn't have been impossible for these things to have been addressed before the show was axed. The problem is that Season 2 would often start a plot thread, then next have an episode that had nothing to do with that storyline. According to the special features, the network wanted them to have self-contained episodes in-between the ones that followed a story arch so that first-time viewers could watch an episode and not feel lost. Unforutnately, this sometimes does hurt the pacing, and I really would have liked for the series to have dealt more with the issue of rogue Terminators that may have been willing to join the humans' side without being reprogrammed. That's a concept this series introduced - it's frustrating that they only got a chance to barely scratch the surface of it. I'm not saying all the self-contained episodes were bad, or anything. Most of them are pretty good, too. I especially liked the one where they showed what happened to a Terminator who accidentally ended up in the 1920s. And when the show does hunker down and get on the rails, it's still an awesome thrill-ride that's not all just explosions and morphing T-1000's (though there's that, too, if that's your cup of tea). There's a lot of subtext and meaning behind much of it, and I especially liked the angle of Cameron's chip being damaged and the effects that had on her and how others deal with her. And while I would have liked to have known exactly what happened to John Henry, the benevolent "terminator" who would go on to be Skynet's rival, and to have actually seen him go up against Skynet in the future, better to have experienced at least part of that storyline than never at all. Rating: 4.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

May 2011 The Aviator (DVD) When I first saw The Aviator in a theater several years ago, I really enjoyed it because the whole Howard Hughes story was completely new to me. But I fear it doesn't hold up so well on a rewatch, mainly because it raises more questions than it answers. Since most of the movie is just showing Hughes doing things without explaining why they were important or what his motivations were, it may be one case in which "Show, Don't Tell" was taken far too literally. Hughes had OCD, and he's shown doing bizarre things because of it, but the movie doesn't really explore it. Nowhere is it explained that addiction to painkillers after a near-fatal plane crash may have worsened it. The crash does happen in the movie, but it's like the lines weren't connected between the dots. It's also never really explained just how important and influential Hughes's contributions were to modern aviation, especially since the climax of the film is him flying a giant plane (the "Spruce Goose") that, yes, flies, but doesn't do anything else. The movie is still entertaining to watch and is quite beautifully shot (although the lack of green in the first hour gets a little silly when they're playing golf on a blue golf course). The sequences near the beginning where he is shown making the movie "Hell's Angels" are breathtaking. But it just isn't enough to show Howard Hughes as a crazy guy who occasionally makes movies and crashes airplanes. His motivations need to be explored more. Am I the only one who kept getting confused as to who Cate Blanchett was portraying? She's supposed to be Katharine Hepburn, but everyone calls her "Kate", and her actor's name is "Cate", so I kept wondering... why do they keep calling her by her real name, and wait, who is she again? I seem to recall some controversy over Million Dollar Baby winning the 2005 Oscar instead of The Aviator. I haven't seen MDB in years, but I almost am thinking now that it was a better movie. Rating: 3/5 How to Train Your Dragon (Theater) My favorite real-life animals are cats and my favorite fantasy animals are dragons, so a movie that has dragons that act just like cats is probably going to be a winner in my book no matter what. Despite last month's ragging on modern cartoons in the "Rango" review, I liked this movie for more reasons than just the cat/dragon connections. I liked Hiccup better as a lead character than Rango because he was funnier and actually clever (as opposed to being just lucky). HTTYD is also a lot funnier and while the "racial/cultural tolerance/understanding" plot is fairly standard, I'll still take it over Hollywood backpatting "actors are great" morals. The only thing I noticed (but maybe this couldn't be helped since it's a kids' movie) is that (with one major exception) they went to such great pains to keep from showing anything get killed that after awhile, I stopped worrying that anything bad would happen to anyone no matter the situation. Yet it still manages to pull off a somewhat-gutsy ending despite that. And, oh yeah, the visuals are nice, too, even though I did not see it in 3D. Rating: 3.5/5 Seinfeld, Season 3 (DVD) I watched Seasons 6 and 8 of Seinfeld last year, and it's clear from watching Season 3 that at this point, the show hadn't quite hit its stride yet. It's still full of plenty of great and funny moments (Elaine screaming "Stella" while high on painkillers, the car refusing to start in the parking garage) and this season is the one that contains the infamous JFK parody, which also happens to be the same episode with the infamous "Say Vandelay Industries!" scene. That one alone makes the price of admission worth it, although it is far and away the best episode of the set. Rating: 4/5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (DVD) TMNT is one of those of things you either like or hate, and if you hate them, this movie isn't about to change your mind. But if you liked them at all, then it isn't a bad way to spend a couple of hours. For something that's essentially a kid's movie about giant talking reptiles, the action scenes and turtle costumes work surprisingly well. It's funny, too, although lacking some of the personality of the cartoon show. Donatello shows no signs of being a genius inventor, and Shredder is now 100% more like Darth Vader than the comical cartoon incarnation, and yet Casey Jones is taken far less seriously than what I remember of the hockey-masked cartoon counterpart. Generally, the movie doesn't take itself too seriously, which is what makes it a lot of fun. I had also forgotten how many pop culture references the movie makes, and some may have gone over my head when I was younger, like the one about the Great Gatsby. The inclusion of Casey Jones was definitely a huge plus. I remember how disappointed I was that he wasn't in the sequel, but that turned out to be the least of that movie's problems. (And yeah, I'm scoring this higher than The Aviator. I've seen both multiple times and this held up better and I enjoyed it more, so bite me.) Rating: 3.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

June 2011 Big Trouble in Little China (DVD) Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) is an average American joe truck driver who gets caught up in an underworld battle between Chinese warriors and sorcerers that dates back for centuries. Big Trouble is a fun, humorous martial arts flick that feels like a live action cartoon, despite a human trafficking subplot (this subplot was in Enter the Dragon, too. Why does that seem to happen so often in these types of movies?) The action scenes aren't as intense as those in Enter the Dragon, Kill Bill, or even (strangely enough) TMNT, as they look a bit obviously choreographed, and by the end of the film they become outright cartoonish with two guys flying at each other in mid-air and Kurt Russell accidentally shooting the ceiling down onto himself. The plot is a bit oddly-paced, too, with some things being over-explained, and others not explained enough (and even when they are explained, it doesn't necessarily make any sense). But there are a lot of memorable moments that make up for it, special effects, and set pieces, especially the weirdness of Lo Pan's hideout. The villains are great, too, although I have to question the usefulness of the guy who could make lightning bolts with his hands since he seemed completely unable to control it. If you don't enjoy cheesy kung fu movies, this probably won't blow your mind, but it's passable for anyone with even a vague interest. Rating: 3/5 The Hangover (DVD) I found The Hangover funnier than I may have guessed that I would, and in some ways, it works as a story, too, not just as the raunchy comedy that it is. Maybe this is how you know that you've truly made the transition into adulthood - kids' movies like Kung Fu Panda 2 and The Princess and the Frog don't really entertain me much anymore, but adult comedies still do. The Hangover's premise is that four friends go to Las Vegas for a bachelor's night out a few days before one of them is due to be married. The problem is that three of them wake up the next morning with the groom-to-be missing and with no memory of what happened to him, or themselves, the night before. The journey to piece together what happened is full of many laughs, surprise twists and turns, celebrity cameos, and even a tiger. One reason it works is that by having a mystery present, you can wonder and think about what may have happened during scenes when you aren't laughing. Ed Helms's character kind of goes through an arc, too, which is one reason I'm cautious about The Hangover Part 2 - I can buy this happening once, but I'm a little shaky on the idea of the exact same thing happening all over again. Rating: 3.5/5 Jaws (Theater) The amazing thing about seeing Jaws in a theater is that not only are you getting to see a great classic on the big screen, but that most people who attend are fans, so they really get into it. People screamed at the scary parts (even when they knew they were coming) and clapped and cheered at the movie's climax. I often don't see that kind of enthusiasm when I go to modern movies in theaters. Though its depiction of what sharks are really like is debated and not entirely factual, what makes Jaws work so well as a horror film is that it's not entirely fantasy, either: Quint's story about sharks attacking survivors of the USS Indianapolis during WWII was based on a real event, and the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916 are also referenced. The movie's realistic and brutal approach is what's made many people afraid to ever go in the ocean after seeing it. But whether or not it's accurate, it's beautiful filmmaking at its finest. The allusions to fiction as well as fact, most notably the third act that's in clear homage to Herman Melville's Moby Dick meshes perfectly with the well-structured story, sharp dialogue, and likable characters. Even if you can't see it in a theater like I did, see it on DVD. Rating: 5/5 Kung Fu Panda 2 (Theater) When a movie is almost 90% action scenes, it's important for those scenes to be coherent. As it is, KFP2 is like many modern movies where action scenes happen so fast, it's almost impossible to tell what's going on. Not only that, but this movie's action is ramped up so much that it made me physically ill. Seriously. I had to look away from the screen several times because it was making me feel really strange and later on... well, I can't really explain it because I don't remember it clearly, but my boyfriend said I was sick that night for some reason. Anyway, I had sympathy for the villain in the first KFP movie, and I couldn't help but sympathize with the villain this time around, too. The reason the peacock (Gary Oldman) was villainized and eventually banished was because he wanted to make more technologically advanced weapons. So, he's basically Honen Calzoun. One thing movies like this ("The Last Samurai") never even touch on, let alone explain, is what these countries are supposed to do when another country develops the same technology and plans to invade them. The movie is also riddled with celebrity voice actors, most of whom only have about 2-3 lines of dialogue. Blink, and you'll miss Jean Claude Van Damme. Let me say this: I like Jack Black, and I like his panda character. I really do. And the movie does have some funny parts, and I'm not adverse to a sequel (as the ending of KFP2 promises). All I'm asking is that next time, make it count! Rating: 2.5/5 The Princess and the Frog (DVD) Probably the easiest thing for me to say about this movie is that it just isn't my thing. The problem I have with movies where there's a lot of singing is that after about three songs, I start getting antsy for the movie to get back to the story. And in a jazz-themed movie with a LOT of singing, that means I'm spending almost half the movie feeling antsy. Some of the attempts at humor fell rather flat, mainly because they relied on age-old cartoon cliches. This movie actually has the "fat guy gets stuck in a tuba" joke and the gag where a guy is drinking, then sees something unusual (in this case, talking frogs running past him) and dumps his drink. Saying that the animation is excellent and that it's nice for Disney to have made another hand-drawn animated film after declaring they wouldn't would be a gross understatement. But I want to see great stories along with all the pretty pictures. The villain almost seemed interesting enough to have an entire story based around him, but of course, he isn't the main focus. Also, someone needs to inform Disney of firefly biology. Only males light up. Not females. If I had liked the movie more, maybe I wouldn't complain, but here it's just one more annoying distraction. Rating: 2.5/5 Resident Evil 4 (PS2) Warning: This is going to be quite a bit longer than a normal capsule review because I'm basically going to detail the differences between PS2 and Gamecube RE4. I beat the Gamecube version of RE4 last year, and in retrospect, probably underscored it a bit in my capsule review. So, now I've finished the PS2 version, which is basically identical aside from some changes that (for the most part) make it a easier. I've become extremely good at RE4 since I replayed it several times, so some of the decreased difficulty might be due to experience and knowing the game really well, but certainly not all of it. Either money was more plentiful on the PS2 version or stuff cost less because it seemed like I could always afford whatever weapons and upgrades I wanted and still had a budget surplus. I found many more spinels (gems you can sell for cash) on the PS2 version, which means either more were added or they were easier to find since the glow around them was brightened. Some changes to the difficulty almost seem more like AI fixes than actual dumbing down (even if it had that effect). For example, El Gigante is a lot easier to beat on the PS2 than the Gamecube. (The dog actually distracts it, for one.) Enemies in some areas seemed less aggressive. The chains on mace-wielding enemies make a loud rattling noise that doesn't stop until they're dead, so you'll always know how many there are and where they are. The helicopter does more to help take out enemies during that part, not just the towers that it bombs. Not AI-related, but a couple of extra save points were added before some really tough parts and Leon has a flashlight that either didn't exist on the Gamecube version or was certainly not that bright. Strangely enough, a few things were made harder. There are less chickens on the farm, so egg-harvesting isn't as convenient (though perhaps not necessary since money is more plentiful). But the most significant is the Salazar boss fight: On the Gamecube, you only have to ignore the serpent head and wait for Salazar himself to open up. On the PS2 version, Salazar will never open up unless you shoot the eyes of the serpent head several times first. PS2 RE4 also contains a new mini-game called "Separate Ways" in which you play as Ada and it shows what she was doing the whole time Leon was on his mission. It's not to be confused with "Assignment Ada" which (contrary to what some other sources claim) both versions of the game have. Separate Ways is much more complex than Assignment Ada, but not quite as complex as the main game. There are some graphical differences, but they're generally minor with the Gamecube being a bit superior in this area. The PS2's cutscenes look a little fuzzier, and some things have less detail (like the giant insects and the fiery dragon room). So, in the end, which version do I recommend the most? Well, one thing I can say is that you don't have to worry if you only have one or the other that you have some far inferior version. Both are good in their own right. If you really care about having the most challenging version and/or the one with the most tip-top graphics, then go with the Gamecube. If you would rather have Separate Ways and the unlockable movie gallery, get the PS2 version. Either way, you'll be playing a pretty damn good game. Rating: 4/5 The Simpsons: Season 3 (DVD) While it's safe to say that this show hadn't quite hit its comedic peak by Season 3, it certainly was starting to get there, showing more of its true colors than the first and second seasons did. It's certainly not a bad season to start with if you're unfamiliar with The Simpsons, or even just unfamiliar with earlier Simpsons, as opposed to the modern crap that's on now. One thing I couldn't help but notice about Season 3 is that it has a lot of, what I wouldn't say are "morals" per se, so much as "feel-good" endings. Some examples: Homer (eventually) helping Ned Flanders's left-handed store take off. Bart taking the rap for Lisa stealing the teachers' books. Bart and "Michael Jackson" writing the song for Lisa's birthday. The town coming together to save Bart from the well (hilarious episode, too). Homer's brother returning and getting back on his financial feet again after Homer ruined him back in Season 2. I can't help but wonder if this was a response of sorts to early criticism that The Simpsons was a negative influence on society for showing a dysfunctional family and the miscreant antics of Bart. One final note: The Indiana Jones parody at the beginning of the one where Milhouse has a girlfriend had me in hysterics. The 2001 parody in the one where Homer's half-brother returns was hilarious, too. Seems like movie parodies on older Simpsons episodes are a lot funnier than movie parodies are in many other things. Rating: 4/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

July 2011 Brother Bear (DVD) I may have liked this movie a little more than The Princess and the Frog, but it still felt like it was lacking something. The plot was rather predictable (I guessed the main twist not even halfway through it), and there wasn't much to the characters. It's another fairly standard tolerance/acceptance plot, but How to Train Your Dragon did it better. I liked the Moose characters played by Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis in full Hosers form, and the animation and artwork are pretty, but I really am beginning to wonder if part of the problem is that children's movies generally can't entertain me as much as they used to. Also, Disney sometimes tries too hard to have songs substitute for plot. Some of the scenes would have worked just fine with the visuals and dialogue, but then in comes Phil Collins to explain what's going on to me in song. Rating: 2.5/5 Cleopatra (Theater) I saw the 1934 Cecil B. DeMille Cleopatra in an Art Museum theater, and the first half of the viewing wasn't the greatest experience of my life. This is not the fault of the movie, but the acoustics in the room were terrible, making it hard to understand what anyone was saying. Add on top of that the fact that there were people in the audience talking throughout the whole thing, and not even whispering - at normal volume! Then, with a half an hour left to go, the Blu Ray player skipped and restarted the movie from the beginning. Someone called the usher and she came back to fix it, and they (thankfully!) turned on the subtitles. Plus, I think the talkative people left at that point because everyone was quiet for the last part. So, as a result of this fiasco, I'm not real sure what to rate this movie. I would have to say that it's probably a lot more fiction than fact, and it has some really bizarre moments, like when a bunch of women in leopard costumes are chasing each other around during a circus-like show put on by Cleopatra for Marc Antony. And despite all the trouble, I still felt entertained by it, so that must count for something. I also recently saw the 1945 Caesar and Cleopatra (which will be in August's reviews), and I will say that the 1934 film is a more complete story, even if it does leave out quite a few details of Cleopatra's life. One thing both films do is present the big "war" scene by showing a montage of people and horses running around, making it feel like this is not really part of the story. But I guess that's just the way things were in old movies. Rating: 3/5 Moon (DVD) Moon is a weird little mystery/sci-fi/thriller movie that's one part Alien, one part 2001: A Space Odyssey, and one part every movie ever that's had the moral that (spoiler!) cloning is a bad thing. Sam Bell runs a lunar harvesting station all by his lonesome and is nearing the end of a three-year contract. When he's done, he'll be able to return to Earth. The problem is that he has an accident in a lunar rover (that looks like the one from Irem's arcade classic, Moon Patrol), and when he wakes up back at the base, he discovers... another Sam Bell in the base with him. It doesn't take very long for the movie to spoil the mystery, so there's not a lot of wondering what could possibly be going on. It's more about, "How will they escape their situation?" than "What could the explanation for this be?" It can also easily make you wonder if this scenario really could be more economically advantageous for the "evil corporation" than the more traditional route. I guess I'm willing to accept it. The moonbase looks so much like the Nostromo from Alien that I wondered if they dug up the old sets from somewhere. However, Sam's helpful computer Gerty (voiced by the only really famous person in the film, Kevin Spacey), is more like HAL 9000 from 2001 and seems a little too sentient to be true. It's okay to watch once, but I don't think I'd want to see it again since I sometimes have issues with watching movies where you have to witness a character slowly dying. Rating: 3/5 National Lampoon's Animal House (DVD) While I did laugh at a few scenes in this movie, I generally think it's overrated. The scenes that I thought were funny were when John Belushi drank down the entire whiskey bottle at once, the "horse death" scene, and when that guy in the grocery store gets in line at the checkout just to say, "Nothing for me today!" The rest of the movie is rather low on plot and laughs, and that bar scene felt uncomfortably racist. The movie spends a lot of time in the beginning setting up Stephen Furst's character, only for him to go completely nowhere. And, c'mon, is it even possible to have any sympathy for them when they get expelled? It's not as though they're a bunch of good students who just happen to get themselves into a lot of trouble, they're not even trying to do well in school. I suppose the over-the-top manner in which they crash the parade at the end is a memorable ending, but it just makes it that more difficult to believe they'd ever be reinstated and graduate. I also had a hard time keeping the characters straight. I never, at any time, was 100% sure of what male character was dating what female character, and since their relationships are a big part of the plot, this made it confusing to follow. Rating: 2.5/5 Stripes (DVD) I watched the Extended Cut of Stripes on DVD, which adds some deleted scenes back into the film and the nice thing is that the DVD tells you when a bonus scene starts and ends so you always know what was added. The most significant addition is a scene that shows exactly what John and Russell did when they temporarily escaped from the base. (In the original theatrical release, Sgt. Hulka punishes them for leaving the base, but we never actually saw them leave.) As for the movie itself, I'd say it's held up pretty well since I still laughed hysterically at some parts, most notably when someone accidentally tossed their bayonet during training exercises and at the newspaper headline that read, "Local Boys Repel Yankee Horde". It also works as a story, thanks in part to Warren Oates completely playing the Sgt. Hulka character straight. There's also a great action climax near the end (can't have a military movie without an actual battle, right?), even though it's a little strange seeing Bill Murray running around with a machine gun (and even he admits it's weird to think back on that now). Rating: 3.5/5 The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Vol. 2 (DVD) You know what watching this show reminded me of? My review of The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. In both cases, you don't really like being too hard on it, but you can't deny that it doesn't really hold up that well, either. Both have their charms and good moments, but you can't help but feel the focus is not in the right spot. With the Super Show, the main focus is on the Mario cartoons, and there are moments I liked, but they tend to be more concerned with the whole, "Oh noes! What will we do to stop Koopa this time?" plots instead of on being funny, even when there isn't much of a plot to speak of. The cartoons also strike me as being aimed at preschoolers - a younger audience than the NES itself was intended for. The result is that many episodes kind of went in one ear and out the other. At least the cartoons have a nice visual style, and I greatly prefer Lou Albano and Danny Wells as Mario and Luigi to the Saturday Morning series's voice actors. The writers also knew that the big draw of this show is in seeing characters from the SMB games in a cartoon format, but thankfully realized the novelty of that would easily wear off after a few episodes, so they took it one step further in having each episode be a parody of something in pop culture (movies, folktales, etc.) So, you'd want to keep watching just to see what would get parodied next. My favorite was the Star Wars parody (which is odd, because they're so done to death that I almost always frown on them), but I hated the Christmas episode. I frequently laughed at the live action segments due to the complete absurdity of them. Things this show has taught me: You can have middle-aged actors portray 8-year-olds just by dressing them in lederhosen and propeller hats and having them eat popcorn like Cookie Monster. (It doesn't even matter that one of the actors has a real mustache underneath the fake one.) I only recognized four of the guest stars (Sgt. Slaughter, Roddy Piper, Gary Owens, and Vanna White), and I didn't realize who Andy Heyward was until I looked it up because he was credited under a pseudonym. Most of the others are unknown character/voice actors, but it doesn't really matter since they cast what they need for the part (you don't need to be famous to dress up like a Gorilla or Santa Claus). Like the SMB3 cartoon that I reviewed last year, The SMBSS has many moments of "WTF?!" and enough weird surrealness to make it worth watching for Mario/Nintendo fans or fans of goofy 80's cartoons. Everyone else, probably need not apply. Rating: 2.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

August 2011 Aladdin (DVD) Though I remembered liking Aladdin a lot when I was younger, even back then I was bothered by its more glaring logic and storytelling flaws. The entire plot hinges on Aladdin wishing to be a prince, and then trying to hide the fact that he's not really a prince from Princess Jasmine. The problem is... why is Aladdin not really a prince when that is what he wished for and it was not on the Genie's list of "quid pro quos"? Why, then, were Jafar's wishes to become a sultan, then a sorcerer, and then a genie granted in full if Aladdin's was not? (And why is it so much worse to become a prince through wishing for it then by being born to the right people?) The movie even has the audacity to suggest that Aladdin should make his third and final wish to be a prince again, when it didn't apparently work the first time. But here's a more alarming concern: In the beginning, Aladdin is homeless and we see the effects of poverty on the people of Agrabah when he hands over his hard-earned (stolen) bread to two hungry children rummaging through garbage. In the special features, the writers said they added this scene to put Aladdin's thieving antics into perspective so it wouldn't seem like they were glorifying that behavior. But it's too evocative. From that moment on, we're expected to believe that Aladdin's wish to date a princess and the (rich) princess's marriage troubles are somehow far more important than children facing poverty and starvation. We're also supposed to think Jafar would somehow make a worse ruler than the Sultan, even though there's not really any reason to. Sure, maybe he won't do anything to help the poor, either, but he wouldn't be doing anything less than Jasmine (who witnessed the marketplace firsthand and learned nothing from the experience) and her oblivious father already are. If you take the beginning of this movie, up to the part just after the Cave of Wonders collapses but before Aladdin wakes up and rubs the lamp, you have an amazingly excellent short. A short with a depressing ending, but still, a great short. Exquisite animation, beautiful coloring, a solid well-structured story, and since you've come to care about Aladdin a little as a character, a genuinely exciting sequence of him trying to escape the collapsing cavern on a flying carpet. But then the Genie appears and everything veers offcourse. Yes, the Genie is the perfect outlet for Robin Williams's eccentricities, but he's not enough to make me completely forget the first half of the story. According to the special features, the script went through an overhaul because the Disney execs hated the original draft. It seems like one more rewrite of the second half could have tightened up some of these issues. At least the movie's songs are iconic and memorable, and they showed some restraint in only having 5, which is more than I can say for some other animated musicals I've seen lately. Rating: 2.5/5 Caesar and Cleopatra (Theater) Of the three Cleopatra movies I saw in an art musuem theater, this one was the most different. It doesn't attempt to tell the complete story of Caesar and Cleopatra, as it doesn't get anywhere close to their deaths, and Marc Antony is only briefly mentioned but never shown. Instead, it's like a single chapter out of their lives played like a romantic comedy. Cleopatra herself is portrayed as a really comical goofball and Caesar is kind of goofy sometimes, too ("It's a Roman nose!") You would also probably easily guess this movie was based on a play (George Bernard Shaw's 1901 play, Caesar and Cleopatra, to be exact), even if you didn't know that it was before seeing it. In many ways, it feels much more like watching a chamber play than a movie, with characters often gathered into one set for large periods of time exchanging witty dialogue. It's enjoyable, but was a little hard to follow at times. Some things I wasn't entirely clear on, like why Caesar went to that island and why an army suddenly invaded it. All three movies depict the scene of Cleopatra being brought to Caesar rolled up in a rug, but it's the least effective in this film since in the others, it was how they met, but here they've already met by the time it happens, so it kind of feels like it was thrown in there just to have it happen rather than to advance the story. Rating: 3/5 Captain N and the New Super Mario World (DVD) Of all the video game-themed 80s/90s cartoons I've revisited lately (including the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, The Legend of Zelda, and Super Mario Bros. 3), this one has held up the worst. The artwork and animation is much sloppier on this show than any of the others. I thought the Super Show felt aimed at preschoolers, but the Super Mario World cartoon is even more blatant about it with its ludicrous "lessons" like "ice is frozen water", "fast food is bad for you", and "don't run away and join a gang". Not to mention its ridiculously overwrought "anti-technology" and "anti-progress" stance. Might I remind this show's writers that without technology, video games would not exist? At first, I thought I wouldn't be as bothered by the cavemen in the Super Mario World cartoon as a lot of other people are, and I actually laughed at the part where two of them didn't know what to do with the wheels Mario gave them. But then the show introduced Oogtar. Oogtar looks like Bill from the Bill & Ted cartoon and talks in surfer lingo. He's a classic example of the 1980's "mistake" character (Scrappy Doo, Wheelie & Daniel, Post-Season 1 Slimer), and it's not just that he's annoying, he's a really horrible character. In the Christmas episode and the episode where two of the Koopalings go to school, Oogtar's obnoxious behavior is ramped up so much, I was actually rooting for him to get eaten by a dinosaur. Plots and ideas are cannibalized from earlier shows big time, including a Captain N episode where someone is too short to play basketball and wishes to be taller. The wish goes awry and the characters must reverse it. Yes, Captain N Season 1 did this exact same plot! Almost every Captain N segment ends with a deus ex machina, and has villains that don't even come from any NES games. Other moments of stupidity and WTF?! include Pit shooting an arrow at Maid Marian to save her from a fall (don't ask), the infamous Surfer Dude Alucard (along with Oogtar, what is this show's obsession with that??), and Mother Brain being defeated by a giant cake (not making this up). Part of what made the Super Show work is that every episode was a parody of something in pop culture, so you'd want to watch to see what would be parodied next. Likewise, from what I remember of Captain N Seasons 1 & 2, you'd want to watch to see what game world would be featured next. But when every episode of Super Mario World is just Super Mario World, you start to feel like more than one or two of these isn't necessary. And when half the episodes of Captain N aren't based on any NES game that actually exists, and the other half fuck it up so badly you want to crawl under your seat and die, then this entire concept falls apart at the seams. The two stars I am giving this set is generous and is based almost entirely on the fact that I laughed for about three days straight over the giant cake incident. Rating: 2/5 Cleopatra (Theater) Of the three Cleopatra movies I saw lately, the 1963 version with Elizabeth Taylor was definitely the best. Some things that didn't make a whole lot of sense in the Cecil B. DeMille and Gabriel Pascal versions are explained much more clearly here. Here's the only problem I had, which is not really the fault of the movie itself: It's four hours long, and the art museum decides to show it on a Friday night. Yes, the end of a long work week, when I'm tired, and sitting for four hours is going to make me fall asleep no matter how good the entertainment in front of my eyes is. I doped myself up on caffeine before going in, and still felt myself nodding off by about the last 30-45 minutes. I'm going to blame this on not being able to see the movie under more convenient conditions, but after discussing it with my partner, Crawl, it is very well possible that the second half of the movie, after Caesar is assassinated, isn't quite as good as the first half. It's like the Marc Antony stuff needs to be there, even if it's not as interesting. But I would like to revisit this movie again sometime under more favorable conditions. It's epic, beautiful, and the lavish production values are wowing. Cleopatra's entrance parade when she visits Caesar in Rome is no doubt what inspired the Prince Ali Ababwa sequence in Disney's Aladdin. But it's even more amazing to see it done with real people and objects. Rating: 4/5 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (DVD) Along with "Rango", I'm beginning to think director Gore Verbinski is so in love with his main characters (or maybe just Johnny Depp in particular), that he forgets that he has to give the audience a reason to love them, too. I have a tendency to sympathize with villains in fiction as it is, but this is one case where I really can't find any reason not to. Why not just let the "bad" pirates become human again? Is that too much to ask? They don't even have to kill anyone for the "blood sacrifice", Will Turner could have just offered a few drops and had it be done with. Oh, but they mutinied Captain Jack Sparrow and left him stranded on an island. I guess that's why we're not supposed to like them. Except that Sparrow is such an ass that I wonder why it is that other characters are always willing to go to the depths of the earth to help him. Can someone also explain to me how they knew they needed Bootstrap's blood to break the curse? Or why they would just assume anyone with the last name of "Turner" would be related to him? Or why they all just quit fighting in the end when capture by the British meant death anyway? The movie is also so drawn out in parts (particularly the fighting scenes near the end), that my mind got dulled and I began missing important details. I somehow totally didn't notice Sparrow pocketing a coin near the end and thought the big "twist" was that he had been an undead pirate all along, too. Someone else had to tell to me what really happened. Rating: 2.5/5 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (DVD) It seemed to me that the entire point of this movie, along with having a squid-faced villain, was to figure out how many ways you can turn pirates into human hamsters. I'm not kidding. Early in the movie, there's a part where people are rolling around in a giant "hamster ball", and then later on, a scene where three of the main characters are fighting on top of, and running inside of, a giant hamster...I'm sorry...water wheel as it rolls across an island. The fight scenes in the first movie were drawn out. In this movie, they're about 200% more cartoony. Yeah, the hamster stuff, plus Johnny Depp running around and pole vaulting with a giant shish kabob on his back. The movie takes on a much more dramatically serious tone when Davey Jones finally appears, and speaking of which... How did Sparrow trick Will Turner into getting onto the Flying Dutchman? Okay, I understand what happened is that he tricked Will into thinking that wrecked ship was the Dutchman, and when the real one showed up so that Davey Jones could recruit its dying members into his crew, Will got captured. But how did Sparrow know that ship was there? And how did he know that Jones would show up to it at that particular moment? Oh, that's right, he has a magic compass that tells him how to find exactly what he wants. But, wait! The movie establishes that the compass is not working for him. So is it or isn't it? Who knows? (BTW, Qwipster's review of this movie is pretty freakin' great! His analogy to the giant wheel and the heart in the jar of sand are spot-on.) Rating: 2.5/5 Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell Volume 1 (DVD) I want to say that this set is more consistently funny than some of the "Best of SNL" DVDs I watched last year (Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Christopher Walken), but like all of them I've seen so far, it contains some gems and some duds. The gems: The Blue Oyster Cult "Cowbell" sketch (which is also on the Christopher Walken DVD), Robert Goulet crooning rap songs, The Harry Carey Show where he interviews a scientist played by Jeff Goldblum, and an "Inside the Actor's Studio" sketch where Alec Baldwin does a mean Charles Nelson Reilly impression. There is also one Celebrity Jeopardy segment (I'm a little disappointed there was only one, but I'll take what I can get), and a Night at the Roxbury segment with Jim Carrey (the best one I remember seeing). There is also a montage in the middle where short clips from various sketches are shown, including one where Ferrell pulls out a miniature cellphone that had me in hysterics. The only problem is that I wish that whole sketch could've been on here. The special features include two Will Ferrell interviews on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, one where he's in-character as Robert Goulet the whole time, and one where he's dressed in nothing but a speedo. The duds include one of those damn "lov-ah" sketches with Rachel Dratch that I detest, and I've never been a fan of the Spartan cheerleaders, but since they seemed to be somewhat popular, I guess I can't complain too much about their inclusion (at least there's only one of each). I also have to mention that about 25% of the sketches on here feature somebody breaking character and laughing when they're not supposed to. Rating: 3/5 South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (DVD) In retrospect, I don't know what made me purchase this movie since South Park has never really been my cup of tea, and even though I saw the movie before I bought it, I remember thinking it was okay, but not great. I also remembered thinking that the "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" and "Uncle Fucker" songs were really funny, but the movie had too much singing overall. The rewatch...pretty much just reconfirmed everything I had remembered. There is so much singing in this movie, that I'm tempted to think Matt Stone and Trey Parker were trying harder to show off their songwriting skills than to be funny. Was it even necessary for Big Gay Al and the Mole to have songs? Some of the jokes are the same things I remember from the cartoon. I can understand the fans wanting to see some of those standbys on the big screen, like Kenny getting killed, which is also worked into the plot, but having Stan vomit every time he tries to talk to Wendy gets kind of old. The Saddam Hussein stuff isn't quite as funny as it used to be, but I guess we can all blame George W. Bush for that one. Sometimes, other jokes don't make much sense: What did this movie have against Conan O'Brien, anyway? The funniest South Park I've ever seen was the Guitar Hero episode of the show, which was pure genius. The movie, though bigger and longer and uncensored as the subtitle promises, isn't quite on that same level. There is one part, however, that still makes me laugh hysterically to this day: When Satan threatens to ditch Saddam Hussein, Saddam attempts to convince Satan he can change with a song and a (really ridiculously) goofy little dance. When he's done dancing, he says something like, "Look at how mature I am now!" That reminds me so much of certain internet people, it's almost not funny. Rating: 2.5/5 What About Bob? (DVD) What surprised me most about this movie is the direction Richard Dreyfuss's character went. Early on, I could see the ending coming. You know, dad realizes he's too caught up in his work to spend proper time with his family, Bob's zany antics somehow make him own up to this, he learns his lesson, changes his ways, and everyone realizes they love dad the most and they don't need Bob so much anymore. The only catch is... the movie doesn't go this way at all. I guess it took a twisted mind like director Frank Oz's to finally do this sort of plot and have it turn out the way it does. The only problem is that sometimes Bob really does seem rather creepy or annoying. It's a price you have to be willing to pay for the hilarious double-whammy of an ending. Rating: 3.5/5 Zoolander (DVD) The first part of my review: Zoolander is a comedy about an aging (and totally clueless) fashion model superstar (Ben Stiller), and his rivalry with a hot new upstart (Owen Wilson) who has just displaced him as "Male Model of the Year". Derek Zoolander decides to leave the modeling business after losing to his rival, Hansel, and somehow ends up unwittingly involved in a plot to assassinate the new Malaysian Prime Minister. Like many goofball comedies of its type, it's not something you watch for the story, but it does have moments of hilarity and an abundance of celebrity cameos. Sometimes, what seems like a throwaway joke can end up coming back in a big way (such as Zoolander's inability to turn left). One rather strange decision was to reuse the "tiny cellphone" gag from Saturday Night Live, and if I hadn't by sheer coincidence rewatched The Best of Will Ferrell right before seeing Zoolander, I don't think I would have even known what was going on when characters started talking into little black rectangles on their thumbs. Somehow, the SNL sketch communicated more clearly what that object was and thus made it a lot funnier. The second part of my review: WTF, Ebert?! Okay, alright, I know a lot of that was reactionary to 9/11, and I can understand thinking that of all the things the Malaysian Prime Minister would do, it's a bit unrealistic that he attends a fashion show that supports the very industry he's fighting against (though I don't even think that's a point made in your review). While I can't think of any examples of a presidential assassination plot in any comedies before Zoolander (though I wouldn't be surprised if one exists), there has definitely been one since: the Get Smart movie with Steve Carell. And c'mon, if there really are (or were) sweatshops in Malaysia, then why is that something that should not be mentioned? If I didn't know better, I'd say it almost sounds like you're making excuses for the 9/11 terrorists. Perhaps if people talked about these issues more, rather than treat them as though they're taboo, there wouldn't be a need to slam airplanes into buildings. Rating: 3/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

September 2011 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (DVD) It's a good thing Stanley Kubrick realized while developing this movie that he needed to change it into a comedy because even though it's not exactly a laugh-a-minute riot, it's definitely so absurdly over-the-top that it would be hard to take seriously. The premise is that a rogue US general, believing the government putting flouride in the water is a Communist conspiracy, orders a bomber squadron to nuke Russia during the height of Cold War tension. While it sounds serious enough, the movie satirizes the paranoia and silliness of the era, with a strange sexual subtext. (The opening scenes could only be described as "airplane porn".) Despite its simplicity, the plot is riveting and Slim Pickens has some of the best lines I've ever heard in a movie, including: (In response to hearing "Wing Attack Plan R"): "Well, I've been to one world fair, a picnic, and a rodeo, and that's the stupidest thing I ever heard come over a set of earphones." "Stay on the bomb run, boys! I'm gonna get them doors open if it harelips ever'body on Bear Creek." Reportedly, Pickens was not told the movie was a comedy and took his role completely seriously...which only makes it even funnier. Peter Sellers is also great playing three different characters: the RAF Group Captain, the US President, and Dr. Strangelove himself, a sinister ex-Nazi presidential advisor who has a hard time controlling his right hand. In fact, Sellers does such a great job distinguishing these three that I sometimes found myself thinking of him as being Captain Mandrake and forgetting he was the other two. Rating: 4.5/5 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (DVD) After seeing the third Pirates movie, my acquaintance Crawl told me that he thought it was the worst of the three. Personally, I might have thought it was the funniest, or perhaps I'm just putting too much emphasis on Sparrow's "That makes you Chart Man!" line, which made me laugh harder than anything else in the rest of the series. To summarize, it's more of the same. If you loved or liked the first two, then chances are you'll probably like this one, too. If you hated or disliked the first two, then I'd be surprised if it blew you away. Only question: Why is Captain Barbossa considered a Pirate Lord? The only reason he was a captain was because Sparrow's crew mutinied and Barbossa happened to be the guy who took over. But this movie makes it sound like he's been a pirate captain for many, many years. Better question: Why do I keep complaining about logic in a series that pretty much throws reality to the wind, anyway? Rating: 2.5/5 Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (DVD) Geez, I've been watching a lot of things with Will Ferrell in them lately, and Talladega Nights is another typically good comedy featuring the former SNL alum. Ricky Bobby is a champion NASCAR driver whose skills, and ego, are eventually challenged by a gay Frenchman, Girard, who seems to be an even better driver than him. In trying to beat Girard, Ricky wipes out and the accident leaves him afraid to race anymore, which causes his wife to leave him and his career and life to hit rock bottom. One of the most famous scenes in this movie is the "Baby Jesus" sequence in which Ricky Bobby says grace at the dinner table by praying to "Lord Baby Jesus". You have probably, by now, heard people quote this scene. If not, here are some choice selections from this conversation: Ricky: "Dear Eight Pound, Six Ounce, Newborn Baby Jesus, in your golden, fleece diapers, with your curled-up, fat, balled-up little fists pawin' at the air..." Chip: "He was a man! He had a beard!" Ricky: "I like the baby version the best, do you hear me?! I win the races and I get the money! I work too hard for your bull, Chip." Cal: "I like to think of Jesus with, like, big eagle's wings, singin' lead vocals for Lynyrd Skynyrd with, like, an angel band, and I'm in the front row, and I'm hammered drunk." Anyway, the scenes with Ricky's deadbeat father, some of which parody the training montages in the Rocky films, are often hilarious, too, and the movie has one whopper of an ending that I won't spoil here (but a similar thing happened in real life with NASCAR driver Carl Edwards). Rating: 3.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

October 2011 Seinfeld, Season 9 (DVD) The 9th and final season of Seinfeld is one of the best seasons of the show that I've seen, and I might have even gone so far as to say it was the best one of all, but there is a catch. It starts off really strongly with an episode that ends with George being pursued by a bunch of elderly people in a lowspeed Rascal scooter chase, and from there, the hilarity snowballs. Kramer does more and more ridiculous things with his apartment, starting with the installation of a screen door that ultimately results in him getting gunned down with silly string, putting a garbage disposal in his shower, reversing the peephole on his door, and even turning his apartment into The Merv Griffin Show. This season also contains some very iconic and memorable plots and quotes, like George's "Serenity Now!" and his father's "Festivus for the rest of us" holiday. Other great Season 9 moments include George dating a woman who looks just like Jerry, Newman rolling down the street in an out-of-control rickshaw, and Jerry getting a purse stolen from him while dressed in a fur coat. There's also this one episode where Elaine is dating this guy who turns out to have once been in advertisements for used cars as a character called "The Wiz". At the end of the episode, there's this part that made me laugh hysterically: He gets a phone call telling him he can be The Wiz again, so he gets up and starts parading around the diner in a really over-the-top manner yelling "I'm the Wiz!" And hey, gamers, here's something for you: There's an episode where George tries to push a Frogger arcade machine across the street, shown from a bird's-eye view, and yes, it looks pretty much exactly like the game and even has the music playing. Heck, you don't even have to be a gamer to find this pretty damn funny! But here's the catch: Everything I've described so far happens on Discs 1-3. Disc 4 is almost a total dud. The first episode is The Puerto Rican Parade, which offended some people so badly that NBC pulled it. To me, it seemed rather mild compared to the stuff that modern cartoons like Family Guy and American Dad get away with, but it also felt like a random Season 1-style episode had been inserted amongst all the ongoing storylines, and it's weird for the last "normal" episode to be like that. Then after that, there's a clip show. Fine, I won't complain about a clip show since it's natural to do one so close to the end. But then the series finale is practically another clip show! I have seen numerous attempts on the internet to vindicate the series finale of Seinfeld from the criticism it originally received, and it's true that the first half of the episode isn't too bad. But let's face the music, the entire second half just isn't funny. The airplane scene would be hard to laugh at even before 9/11. In fact, it's not just the plane that nosedives, this is the exact point the episode starts going downhill. The part where they mock the overweight man while he's getting robbed is so crass, even for these characters, that it's hard to watch. Bringing back almost every character they ever wronged may seem like a great way to get "the whole gang" together for one last hurrah, but it ends up being a series of tedious "they did this and that" observations, which only succeed in pointing out the dark side of the show with no indication as to what made those situations funny or sympathetic. And the OJ trial? That's what they decided to parody for the final episode? Something that was several years old and had already been parodied by numerous sources, including this show, by then? Seinfeld had evolved a lot since Season 1. To write two episodes like we're back in Season 1 again and slam every ongoing plotline to a halt with the brick wall of a jail cell is not an acceptable conclusion to the great rollercoaster ride that Seasons 6-9 built up. So, okay, I was disappointed in the last few episodes, but it's only Disc 4 that's affected. Even 3 discs of great Seinfeld episodes is good enough for a recommendation and a high score. As far as I'm concerned, the series peaked and ended with the Frogger episode, but as long as I'm allowed to feel that way, I'm fine with it. Rating: 4/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

November 2011 Conan the Barbarian (DVD) Brutal, mesmerizing, and brimming with high adventure and uninhibited violence, Conan the Barbarian is one of the most awesome action/adventure/fantasy films that I've ever seen. Arnold Schwarzenegger is Conan, a nomadic warrior who, as a child, saw his family murdered by the sorcerer Thulsa Doom. After living as a slave for many years and growing into a fearsome fighter, Conan eventually decides to hunt down Thulsa Doom, whose snake-worshipping cult is quickly spreading across the lands, and take revenge for his family's killing. Along the way, he meets a fleet-footed archer, Subotai, a female warrior, Valeria, and a quirky old hermit of a wizard who is also the narrator. While it has some moments of weirdness that might make you think, "WTF?", it all adds to the surreal nature and gripping atmosphere. There are some truly powerful scenes in this film, as when Valeria fights off a horde of evil spirits as they attempt to make off with Conan's soul, Conan killing a vulture with only his bare teeth as he lay crucified to a tree, and the amazing three-against-hundreds battle at the end. This is a movie that is what is is, is not afraid to be what it is, and makes no apologies and no regrets. It's also worth mentioning how amazing the soundtrack is. Rating: 4.5/5 Conan the Destroyer (DVD) Um, wow. Even though I generally like to laugh, there are still certain things in this world I don't like seeing made into comedy, especially slapstick, and Conan the Barbarian is one of them. In the first movie, Conan was an unapologetic man of few words. Seeing him apologize to a camel in this dismal sequel just so that it can sneeze on him and the "hilarity" can ensue is a travesty. It's not just that this and other lame attempts at humor, such as Conan getting drunk and walking face-first into things, are inappropriate. It's also that they don't even fit my definition of "funny". There's a new character named Malak who replaces Subotai and feels like he doesn't belong in this movie at all (despite acting as though he was in the first one). Much of his dialogue is eye-rolling and he's practically useless. In place of the awesome female warrior Valeria, we have...an annoying screaming princess. Okay, thee's also Grace Jones as a tribal warrior, but she's just along for the ride and has no real connection to the plot. (Maybe that couldn't be helped, since there isn't much of a story to speak of). While I realize special effects technology was not very advanced back in the time this movie was made, the average Star Wars alien is far more convincing than the monsters that appear in Conan 2. They are far too obviously men wearing rubber masks. They roar and growl, but their faces don't articulate. The only appeal I can see this movie having is to RPG fans, because it does feel like an RPG in many ways. Unfortunately, it might be living proof that RPGs are far more fun to play than to watch. Rating: 1.5/5 Drakkhen (SNES) By now, you probably realize I sometimes have a soft spot for games that get the short end of the stick, especially since I'm in the process of making a devoted game shrine for Drakkhen. I will not at all pretend this is a great game. But it's not really as bad as people often make it out to be. The two biggest complaints I always see are that you can drown in the water and you can't control your characters during battle. But the former is easy to avoid and it's not like there aren't any other, more popular games that have the latter (*cough*OgreBattle*cough*). Nea, I'd say the biggest problem with Drakkhen is simply that there's not much depth to it. It's actually extremely easy, and from everything I've read, it sounds like the game was super-simplified from the PC versions because many people complained that they were too hard. So what was once a challenging hardcore PC title was reduced to yet another early Super NES tech demo. But as I said of HyperZone last year, it's at least a very colorful and nice-sounding tech demo. And it has some of the moodiest atmosphere and strangest enemies/characters I've ever seen. There's nothing else quite like it (even its sequel, Dragon View, is far more "normal" by RPG/Adventure game standards). Rating: 2.5/5 The Great Escape (DVD) The most amazing thing about The Great Escape is that it would be almost impossible to believe, if not for the fact that it was largely based on events that actually happened. Okay, so there was no motorcycle chase, that was made up to give Steve McQueen a big action scene and a chance to show off his riding skills, but WWII British POWs really did escape from the Stalag Lufft III German prison camp by tunneling out, using many of the same tactics and methods demonstrated here. I have a general fondness for stories that show characters finding small solutions that add up to resolving a much larger problem and The Great Escape could be the ultimate example, along with Apollo 13. The pacing works really well because there is plenty of time for character development while the escape tunnels are being dug, so when the big action scene occurs at the end, it's easy to root for everybody. While there is a lot of humor, there are some moments of extreme tension, and a real shocker of an ending. In short, one of the best films I've ever seen. Rating: 5/5 The Muppets (Theater) I admit I had my reservations about this movie before going in because I can be quite the Muppets fangirl/nerd/whatever, but I must say that this is the best Muppet movie since the first one. While the plot may have had more sentimentality than what I usually care for, there is so much self-aware humor and such great songs that I can easily forgive it. Jason Segel really did his homework in having appearances from more obscure muppets throughout the film (the Wayne and Wanda bit was definitely throwing a bone to longtime fans), and making references to things only fans of the older shows and movies would get. But even if you're not a Muppets super-nerd, don't worry. The familiar core cast is back, including Kermit, Fozzie, Rowlf, Animal, Beaker, the Swedish Chef, and Gonzo (which is especially good for anyone who was like me and hated the way they all got pushed to the wayside in favor of The Muppets Tonight cast in Muppets From Space), and there are tons of cameo appearances by actors from popular comedy shows and movies. There is one thing I need to address, though. You know what I thought the weakest part of The Muppets was? No, it wasn't that they introduced a new character, Walter, I grew to like him and his screaming bit at the beginning had me sold. No, it wasn't the humans. Without them, the hilariously disturbing "Man or Muppet" sequence wouldn't have existed. It wasn't the complaints from Muppet veterans Frank Oz and Bonnie Erickson about the characters not being loving enough to each other. (Seriously, WTF, people? You can't get through an entire episode of The Muppet Show without seeing examples of muppets beating each other up, eating each other, shooting each other, twisting each other into pretzels, dropping heavy objects on each other, making fun of each other, etc. If anything, they're far less mean to each other in this movie.) No, it's Miss Piggy. I can't be the only person who honestly couldn't care less when she said she wouldn't join with the other muppets at first. Look at how much of the marketing material for this movie features Piggy in glamour shots. Please, before another of these is made, drop this idea that people are interested in Piggy on this sort of level. In the show, Piggy gets comeuppance when it's needed and the jokes are often on her. In the movies, it's like everyone suddenly accepts that she's some huge superstar, deserving of their instant respect. At least her role isn't as big in this movie as it was in The Great Muppet Caper, which I do like, but drops to #3 on my list on account of its entire Act 2 focusing on her. Rating: 4/5 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (DVD) Star Trek IV was my favorite of the Star Trek movies when I was a kid because of the comedy. Viewing it again as an adult, it amazes me that not only does much of the humor still work, but it actually holds up well as a story, too. (Go ahead and balk at the "Save the Whales" moral, but I sometimes feel that giving sci-fi/fantasy stories a theme relevant to reality makes them better.) It's much like The Great Escape in the sense that the characters have to find all these small solutions to solving the massive problem of finding and transporting two humpback whales from (what was then) the present-day 80's to the 23rd Century. William Shatner gets a lot of flak for his (over)acting, but I actually was rather impressed with it here. He has to manipulate a marine biologist out of her whales, but wants to do it in such a way that she'd be happy with the results, and it seems like it could be difficult to pull that off without coming across as being creepy. The irony of the characters being presented with a world that seems completely normal to us, but is as foreign and strange to them as any alien planet they've explored not only presents many humorous opportunities, such Spock attempting to use foul language, Scotty trying to talk into a computer mouse, and a guy with a Russian accent asking people on the street where the "Nuclear Wessels" are, but it also keeps things interesting considering that a bunch of people exploring 1980's San Francisco in search of whales isn't exactly your typical sci-fi plot. Rating: 4.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

December 2011 The Muppet Show, Season 2 (DVD) When I first saw Season 1 and Season 2 of The Muppet Show, I may have thought Season 1 was a little stronger overall, despite having an obviously lower budget. The rewatch of Season 2 revealed both that I had forgotten quite a bit about it and also that it was better than I may have originally given it credit for. Musically, Season 1 may still have it topped, but there are several classic episodes featuring outstanding performances from Elton John, Lou Rawls, Julie Andrews, and a sketch where Petula Clark sings and dances with a muppet many times her size. For comedy, some of the best episodes were the Steven Martin one (which actually broke out of the normal format of the show), Dom DeLuise (the sketch where he loses control of the monsters at a "shelter" had me in stitches), Jaye P. Morgan (the confusion between her name and theater owner J.P. Grosse's name leads to an hilarious closing credits sequence), Peter Sellers (who reprises his Dr. Strangelove persona as a masseuse), John Cleese (as a pirate who mistakenly gets onboard the Swinetrek), Zero Mostel (great physical comedy in the "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" sketch), Nancy Walker (the Luncheon Counter Monster sketch is a classic), and Rudolf Nureyev (especially when he dances to Swan Lake with a person in a giant pig costume). Not to mention there are some major stars in this season, including Bob Hope and George Burns. There's also more Muppet Labs with Bunsen and Beaker (Beaker was absent from Season 1), more Swedish Chef sketches, more craziness with the Electric Mayhem, including my personal favorite - Dr. Teeth performing Louis Armstrong's "Cheesecake" that I figured had to be based on a real song because it was too looney, even for this show. In short, there's nothing here that a Muppets fan won't like, and it's an easy entry point for those unfamiliar with them. Rating: 4.5/5 BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX

2011 Year in Review I took the year off from playing games, and only finished Resident Evil 4 for PS2 and Drakkhen for SNES, so there isn't any "best of/worst of" game lists for 2011. Best Movies I Saw This Year That I Hadn't Seen Before: 1. The Muppets 2. Cleopatra (1963) 3. What About Bob? 4. The Hangover 5. How to Train Your Dragon Most Overrated Movie I Saw This Year: Rango When I got out of seeing Rango, I thought it was mostly forgettable and I hadn't really heard much about it neither before or after seeing it. But what qualifies it as the "Most Overrated" is the ridiculous amount of money it made. I can understand animated movies that are sequels to popular films or based on popular franchises making that kind of dough, but Rango? What the hell was so special about Rango that people turned out in droves to see it? Note: I don't have an underrated movie for this year because all the ones I liked pretty much get universal praise. Best TV Show I Hadn't Seen (Completely) Before: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Top 5 Movies Overall (Seen or Not Seen Before): 1. The Great Escape 2. Jaws 3. Citizen Kane 4. The Adventures of Robin Hood 5. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb Film buffs, go ahead and pop your monocles for me not putting Citizen Kane first, and yes, I do acknowledge that it's a great and historically important film, but I get more of a thrill out of The Great Escape and Jaws. Robin Hood and Dr. Strangelove are classics that I still thoroughly enjoy, too. Part of the problem is that I watched too many great movies this year. (I know, how can you watch too many great movies, right?) It was very hard to narrow down the list. Notable runner-ups include: Cleopatra (1963), Conan the Barbarian, Enter the Dragon, The Muppet Movie, The Muppets, Rear Window, and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. BACK TO THE REVIEW INDEX