Zodiac

So this is a running joke in my house. I was late on a weekend night and I got the urge to get a movie to watch from my local video store. Usually I spend an extraordinary amount of time choosing a proper movie for the time.

(I do the two scan method. Once I scan the outer wall of the store (new releases) once from Z to A to see if anything jumps out at me - movies that they have a large quantity of on the wall. I then go back from A to Z to see if there is a new release I missed and they may only have one or two of sitting there. Like a grocery store they are usually closer to the bottom shelves.)

I digress - so this particular night I knew what I wanted. I had heard this movie had gone to video and I was dead set on getting it. Now, I don't know what happened. Maybe it was too late for a movie, maybe I was tired but I know I wanted "Zodiac". Well I came home with what I recall as "The Curse of the Zodiac" (or something similar). I was so frustrated when I figured it out ...it didn't take but the first 5 minutes. I was so mad that I didn't even watch the movie. I think I too it back and got something else because the real "Zodiac" didn't come out for another week....Ugh. One of those moments that I will never live down. For a long time this has been a monkey on my back and I just needed to rent it so I actually got to see the actual movie.

Anyways, the movie...Based on the serial killer that rampaged San Francisco in the late 60s to early 70s. The killer would send letters to the local papers with puzzles for them to print in the newspaper. A political cartoonist, with a love a puzzles, gets involved and over the years becomes an obsession until he thinks he actually has figured it out. Now all he has to do is get the police to believe him before the real killer finds out. (ooh spooky).

Going into it I knew it was based on a true story and I knew that they never caught the person. I knew that it wouldn't be wrapped up in a pretty little bow in the end. However, it did a good job of leading you down a path that when they got you to the end you pretty much figured out who it could of have been.

I really expected Robert Downey Jr. to play a bigger role as the newspaper reporter who gets strung out on drugs and alcohol (what a stretch). Jake Gyllenhaal does a good job as the cartoonist but I was really looking for more of the puzzle part of the movie. They advertised that it was a bigger part of the movie. That is what I get for getting sucked into advertisement.

Overall it was a good movie that was interesting to hear about from a history perspective. The video didn't have any behind the scenes action, which I would like to see but did have a preview for a new version to come out in 2008 (original came out in 2007). Well I can only hope I get the correct version when I go to the video store.

Bolt

Ok, so I am going to break my first rule of this blog and talk not only a recent movie but a movie that opened this weekend. I went to see 'Bolt', you see it was kind of strange circumstances where my wife and sister took half the kids to see "Twilight" - a movie that you will never be reviewed here - and my brother-in-law took the other half to Bolt. (our half was the younger half).

So I am one who enjoys a good Disney movie every once in a while and that is what I thought about Bolt. It was good but not great. I was actually got excited about the previews (never a good sign to be more excited about a preview instead of the movie you are going to see) for the new Pixar movie called "UP".

The premise about Bolt is that he is a Jamacian track star that runs for his home country in the Olympics and ends up not only the gold medal but breaks a world record in the process. Wait, no...my mistake....

This Bolt is a movie action hero dog but he doesn't know it. The movie industry has kept him secluded so his scenes appear real to him. It is kind of 'Lassie' meets 'The Truman Show'( Jim Carrey). Then this movie star breaks away from his captures and ends up across the country and has to not only get back to the wonderful place of Hollywood but has to deal with the real world in between.

The best part of the movie was the hamster named Rhino. Rhino is a hamster that gets involved on the way and he is a Bolt fan and imagines himself a superhero too. He had a lot of good lines and there is something funny about a hamster.

The voice of Bolt was John Travolta, which was fine but by the end I couldn't see Bolt without imaging John Travolta, that is a problem. Miley Cyrus was good as the little kid., Penny, I think her accent helped her with this voice over. Over all not bad but I could have waited until it hit DVD.

Sniper

OK so how I think I would like this to work is that I review some not so recent movies. What I mean by that is they are not the highly anticipated top grossing release movies. They are movies that looked cool when they came out but not enough to go see them and then forgot about them by the time they hit the video store. Not to say I will never talk about the latest new release but for the most part I will stick to those unsung hero movies.

Now when I say review, I don't mean thumbs up, thumbs down or 2 out of 5 stars or anything like that. I will just tell you what I think, like talking to someone when you ask what did they do over the weekend. Just honest feedback from my point of view and then you can make your own decision to go see it or not.

Lets start with "Shooter", I will start by saying that I thought it was called "Sniper" because I remember it had something to do with a sniper but all I found was Tom Berenger movies (Sniper 1, 2 & 3) which I mistakenly pronounced to the clerk as Tom Bergeron (America's Funniest Home Videos) which of course got me no where except for some strange looks.

This one has Mark Wahlberg (Boston Native) is an ex-USMC sniper and is asked to help the government prevent a presidential assassination. I won't go into more detail than that but let me say I was pleasantly surprised. Going into it I thought it would be a conspiracy movie that had a lot of twists and turns but to my surprise it was much more violent than I thought it would be and thus more enjoyable. It kept moving and it threw in some twists as expected but caught you off guard at times. The ending was not unexpected but it wasn't your good guy wins and bad guy goes to jail...lets leave it at that, which I appreciated. I enjoyed the whole cast the bad guy you really hated. You felt for the supporting cast. The female lead was someone that I had not heard of before, Kate Mara, in her Jessica Simpson, Dukes of Hazard accent (sorry that is who I thought of every time she spoke). Over all pleasantly surprised, but now reading this you may go watch it and hate it because I stole the innocence of it all.

PS you have to watch out for movies that reference another movie on the cover. i.e. Shooter -"from the director of Training Day". Who cares? You must also watch out for films that rank it up there with other films. "in the tradition of Bourne Identity", normally the kiss of death because you know it will never be as good as they movies that they mention.

1st blog

Here I go into the unknown. I place to talk and discuss movies, games, etc. and share my opinion along the way. I don't know how long this will last but going on the adventure is half the fun.

I invite you to join me to discuss and share all areas of entertainment.

Lets go...