Physical Rentals

Well, well, well… looks like I’ve taken a very long hiatus…  I guess it’s expected since I don’t have much internet access when I head back home to Carson.  56k is so damn slow… especially after all of us here have been spoiled by our cable modem and ethernet connections.  Anyway… the holiday was great… it actually seemed really really short this year.  So many things I wanted to do… but so little time.  And freak… I totally forgot about doing some things.  So here I am back in Irvine the day before classes start… and I have no idea when any of my classes are… yay.  I did get some cool stuff for christmas though.  Not that I really care about the stuff, but it’s kinda cool.  I did finally get a radio/cd player in my car… woohoo!!!  I have no idea how I survived all those drives back home w/o a radio.  40 miles of singing to myself… not all that fun.  Wreaks havoc on the vocal cords.  Now, I can’t stop burning cd’s.  Heheh… I think it’s a good problem to have. And hmmm… got a shirt and stuff…. socks… that’s a good thing.  And I got to watch Lea Salonga over and over again on the Les Miserables DVD… yay.  “Don’t you fret, Monsieur Marius.”  Hehe… I’d like to play Marius someday.

Besides the Les Miz DVD, I also had the chance to watch a whole crapload of other movies on DVD.  So, maybe it would be a good idea to do a Siskel & Ebert thumbs up/down review thing.  Hehe… why you ask? Dunno… it’s not like anyone explores my dark little corner here. Anyway, I say Siskel & Ebert because I don’t like that Roeper guy all that much. Warning…there may be spoilers!

Ok… here goes!
Scary Movie 2: Thumbs down… suffered from sequel syndrome.  It had its points… but mmm… dunno, just isn’t as funny as numero uno.

Double Take: Thumbs up… just cuz I think Orlando Jones is hilarious as the 7up guy.

Knock Off: Thumbs up… at least relatively to the other van Damme flick I watched.

Replicant: Thumbs down. I still say van Damme’s kicks are a little too “pretty.” That and the whole tabula rasa learning thing didn’t work all that well… you’ll see what I mean if you ever watch it.

End of Days: Thumbs up.  Can’t really trust me on this one… I’m really biased when it comes to Schwarzenegger flicks.  I liked all of his movies… even the not so great ones…

Vertical Limit: Thumbs down. Hmmm… Dunno… alot of the stuff just wasn’t all that believable… I mean even w/ the really supernatural stuff like End of Days, there’s a level of believability.  Mmm… didn’t feel it w/ this one.  That, and I didn’t feel the urgency I think the director was trying to convey.

Dungeons & Dragons: Thumbs down.  Ok… I really really love this Fantasy kinda stuff, I mean, I grew up on Tolkien and I played RPGs way back when Dragon Warrior I came out.  I even played MTG and the D&D 2nd Edition pen & paper game all through high school.  But geez… I know TSR and WotC was trying to make this a big advertising thing for the game… but I didn’t think they sent out the message the were hoping for.  The only people (of cognitive age) that might really really like this flick are all the geeks that we all remember from high school and college..hehe.  Not that it’s a bad thing to be a geek… I liked the movie a little, so I guess I’ve got geek tendencies.  But ok come on… the CG wasn’t all that great… (I know the animators were rushed, so it’s expected).  The casting was kinda weird.  The screenplay kinda sucked. “I would have to cast a feeblemind spell on myself to take you home.” Ok, that’s a classic example of an inside nerd joke.  People get the gist of it… but you don’t really get the full deal unless you know what a feeblemind spell does exactly.  And yes I do know what it does so I thought it was kinda funny… but yeah.  I don’t think they should’ve created this new world…Izmer.  Zumdahl…that’s the name of a chemistry author.  They should’ve stuck w/ making a movie with one of the existing game worlds in D&D… like Dragonlance!  Well anyway… thumbs down.  Even though I think Zoe Mclellan looked really cute in this movie.

Angel Eyes: Thumbs down… I don’t think they made the conflict in the movie strong enough.  It didn’t feel like a conflict that necessarily HAD to be overcome… at least the way the plot moved didn’t lend creedence to the conflict.

13th Warrior: Thumbs up. Again… I like the whole medieval/fantasy/swords and sorcery thing… so liked this movie.  I like how Crichton attempted to explain the origin of the Beowulf epic.  I dunno if it’s what he meant to do… but almost all of the key names and places were similar Higlac, Hrothgar. And if you think about the major obstacles that Beowulf overcame in the epic poem: Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the Dragon… they all appear in the movie.  Thus, many of the events were similar.  The costumes and casting was cool… very period-looking.  I was a bit incredulous about the part where the Arab dude learned their language in a matter of hours… but then again, he could’ve been a real genius. Oh well.

Fast and the Furious: Thumbs up.  I like cars.  Hehe.  Some of the stuff was really unbelievable, but… it was really cool.  And I really liked it when he took out that Ferrari.

What Lies Beneath: Thumbs up.  This movie had some really good fright scenes, as well as a twist that caught me totally off guard.  Cool stuff.

Planet of the Apes: Thumbs up.  Not a groundbreakingly great movie, but cool stuff.  I know it’s hard to remake a classic like the original Planet of the Apes.  The bestiality thing was weird though.

Hmm… I know I saw more movies… but… shets… I don’t feel like writing anymore… hehe… besides… I think I’ve made this post horribly long already… great.

Times to tackle this new quarter.

I’m not falling though… good thing.