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An avid movie collector reviews movies, games, and TV shows for the common man, among other things. Spoiler Free

Monday, April 26, 2004

Master and Commander



I had renewed vigor to see this after Dave gave it a glowing review in his blog. I was also excited by the features on the Ultra-Special edition of the movie so I really wanted to like it so I could buy it. But I was disappointed. The movie was well made and interesting but it wasn't thrilling, at all. The conflict of the movie just wasn't as significant as it should have been and when the ending came I wondered when the climax of the movie happened. I did watch the movie distracted and was unable to hear completely in the beginning so I will admit to a margin of error, but I wasn't excited by the movie. It was rather non-climactic and I would have liked it better if it had been developed more fully. Or actually less fully. The movie had more character development for its many crew than most movie's would have done and I think the time spent developing them took away from the development of the story and conflict. So as I came to appreciate the characters I grew less excited about the battle to befall them. I think this would have been a great TV show or mini-series but the movie format seemed to limit the movie's potential. Often books fall prey to this problem as you try to fit in the many elements that existed in the book that just can't be explored in 2 hours. It was a decent film with good acting and drama but the action was scarce and the thrills are weak. *Rent*

Interstate 60



A indie film that had a large cast of stars including James Marsters (Cyclops in X-Men), Gary Oldman, Chrisopher Lloyd, Amy Smart, Michael J. Fox, Kurt Russell, Chris Cooper, and Amy Jo Johnson. For those of you who recognized Amy Jo Johnson be ashamed because she was once the acrobatic Pink Ranger in the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It was written by the man who wrote the Back to the Future movies and with a cast like that I thought it might be worth my time, and it was. I guess I would compare it to Gulliver's Travels, but it is a rather unique movie. The story follows James Marsters who is about to head off to college and is unsire of what he wants to do with his life. He runs into Gary Oldman's character who is a deceptive wish granter and wishes for "Answers to his Life" this wish is better than the greed based wishes that he usually gets so he sends him on an adventure of sorts on a secret Interstate. The stops and people he meets along the way are all interesting and possibly satirical like Gulliver's Travels and it is a fun feel-good adventure. I liked the movie a lot, and would recommend it as a renter, maybe even a date movie because it has that whole True Love story in it. *Rent*

Kill Bill vol. 2



I was going to wait for Julie to write her mini-review but she is bogged down with her final papers before graduation so you can expect her reviews in a later update. I thought that Kill Bill vol.2 was excellent and I would even say it is better than Vol. 1. Although the action drops off significantly from the first one, which was wall-to-wall action, the story-line and characters were much better in this half. I talked to Dave about it and I felt that Kill Bill did work better as two half movies, and that it would have suffered if it had been cut down to fit within a one movie time frame. There were a few scenes that could have been shortened but there wasn't any scenes that I would have wanted to cut, and there would have been many scenes cut to make it shorter. The best part of the movie was the ending which was a better twist than I expected, I was prepared for the simple "Do I feel better after exacting revenge?" storyline but it was more clever than that. You'll enjoy it. I'm gonna *Buy* it but you all should at least watch it. Unless you don't like hardcore action, in which case avoid like the plague.
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