Movies

In the past week, I saw some films -- in the theatre and on DVD.

The Big Lebowski -- I have no idea what this movie was about. Was it bowling? Did it have some deeper meaning? Or was it just a load of crap being passed off as something smart and cool? What the movie does have is great acting. The Cohen brothers brought out great performances from Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and John Turturro -- and Julianne Moore -- I've never seen her in such a role before, and probably never will again. Should you watch it? You've got to be in that meditative mood.

Pitch Black -- I've seen this cool, tough-guy, Vin Diesel movie before. Saw it again with my daughter last Friday night. It wasn't a bad movie again. It took some imagination to make it into Chronicles of Riddick however. As a standalone movie, it was typical of the action hero fare. Entertaining, somewhat original and a great pace. It's the movie that made Vin Diesel the action hero star.

Madagascar -- This is a date movie. I took my lovely wife with me to see this one -- it was a great laugh. It had the big names lending voices -- Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith and Cedric the Entertainer -- but the one that stole the movie was Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julian -- he of Ali G, Borat and the newly created Bruno. The other actors didn't bring anything special to the movie -- their voice acting was muted. Cohen's performance was the only one with energy. Don't go expecting a great animated movie like the Incredibles or Shrek -- this isn't that good. But it's entertaining.

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith -- There has been enough said about the movie. I found it entertaining. The action, the special effects -- all were great. The story was definitely better than episodes 1 & 2. The acting however, left something to be desired. It takes real strong actors to deliver what's really corny dialogue, but not make it sound corny -- Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen looked uncomfortable at times trying to deliver some of their dialogue. The other disappointment was the transformation of Anakin to Darth Vader. It just kinda happen. Oh well. Lucas has promised this is the end of his run on the movies. There will be TV series, etc., but no more movies. Wired magazine has a great article on him -- it's worth the read.