In a Twilight zone

For some reason there is a weird line down the right side of this thing. How annoying. I'm pretty sure that wasn't there the last time I was here two months ago.

So I went to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with some of my cousins. It was a good time. While I was there I was drugged, I mean dragged, to that crazy Twilight movie you've heard so much about. But I didn't do much complaining, because it only cost 5 dollars. That's right, $5.00! For a movie in a really nice theater! In New York I usually pay $12.50 for a small theater that doesn't even have stadium seating. Come on 86th Street Cinemas (if that is your real name) (and I'm pretty sure it isn't) (I think it's Loews or something) get with the program. You think just because you're in New York you can charge that much for a medium sized screen and "classic" style seating? I hate you. I'm going to Times Square next time. It costs the same, but the theaters are big and nice. Of course, they're filled with really noisy annoying people, but maybe on the way I can get accosted by someone trying to sell me tickets to a comedy show.

Anyway, I have no idea why this Twilight movie is so popular. It's not even that good. The story line is not interesting at all. In the first two thirds of the movie nothing even happens. The chick and the creepy guy fall in love. That's the only thing that happens. Then the last third gets a little interesting and entertaining.

Now I have never read the book, so I can't complain about inaccuracies and discrepancies. Also, maybe things I complain about were explained better in the book and what not, but I'm just going off the movie, so you can't complain to me for not understanding something.

I don't understand why the vampires have super powers. I've never heard that legend before. They can run really fast, see the future, read minds, have super strength, hearing and smelling, they're really good at baseball, have glowing skin, and six pack abs. It was almost like an episode of Smallville, but less interesting. And that's pretty bad.

It also bugged me how the vampire family was so accepting of the guy dating a human when they knew it would only cause problems. He's been around for hundreds of years. When will he learn? Why doesn't he just find another vampire to date? Why doesn't he just date that one vampire lady. I think her name was Victoria or something. She seems nice.

Anyway, I think I might have to agree with my 12 year old first cousin once removed when he said the scariest part of the movie was when they were kissing.

Yes, I know this is stupid.

Jerry, you've done it again.

After receiving a number of complaints due to the lack of updates on this crazy blog, I've decided to write another post. To tell you the truth, I got kind of bored with it. Well maybe not bored, because I enjoy writing these things, but it just takes a long time. Did you see that hilarious King Kong picture on the last post? That took forever to find!

Ever since I saw the old man taking a dump outside the laundry room window... hey that sounds like the beginnings of a country song! Or a blues ditty. It definitely gave me the blues. Anyway, ever since I saw that I've been thinking it would be fun to write an actual life blog, because interesting crap (pun intended) happens to me sometimes. But it probably won't happen (the blog, not the crap). I just don't like people knowing that much about me. So I'll just write movie reviews instead.

The Dark Knight:
This was a really great movie. You all probably already know that. Everybody likes this movie. It was great in so many ways, but also annoying in just a couple ways. The most annoying thing... Why in the world does a guard need to be inside the detention cell with The Joker? Why does that guard have a weapon on him? If the room is sealed and the door is locked, then The Joker should be fine in there all by himself! I wonder how surprised those idiots were when he escaped. "Wait just a gosh darn minute," they thought. "How in the world did that crazy pale face man escape? Wasn't Jerry in there with him? Jerry seems like a trustworthy guy. That's why we gave him the key, and the knife."

Also, I really don't think people are as good as the people on those boats. In real life both groups would have blown up each other. There would have been riots. I wonder why they didn't look on the lower level of the boat before they left. They could have fit a lot more people in there, and also maybe, just maybe, they would have seen the entire place filled with explosives, and they could have done something about it before they left dock. Fools.

Also I think they should have killed Joker at the end and kept Two Face alive, because if they try to make a sequel with someone else playing Joker then it will be genuinely stupid.

Ding Dong, I mean King Kong

I watched King Kong a few days ago.  Wow.  That thing was bad.  The special effects were so unrealistic.  What were they thinking?  I could totally tell they were using stop-motion animation, and it was really bad animation for that matter.  You could tell King Kong and the dinosaurs weren't actually there with the actors, but added later.  And the New York City buildings were so obviously models.  And what's the deal with the movie being entirely in black and white. Come on Peter Jackson, get with it.

Oh, wait...  nevermind.  I think I saw the wrong movie.  I saw the one made in 1933.  Well, I guess I can excuse the special effects then.  I can't excuse the bad acting though.  Holy crap. There were a couple times I thought I was watching a high school play.  They might not have had computer animation back then, but I'm pretty sure they had acting.  That was invented in the 20s.

Like the free email service

Hey there.  I had a request to review Juno next.  I saw this movie in the theater, and just watched it again on DVD.  I'm having a hard time thinking of something to write.  There wasn't really anything major in this movie that bugged me.  It bothered me that Mark left his woman to go live in a loft, but I guess it was important to the story, so it's fine. 

This is a really good movie with a lot of funny stuff.  My favorite line is when Juno's dad is talking about his wife buying a Tony Little Gazelle, and he says, "that guy just doesn't look right to me."  I don't know if that line is meant to be as funny as I think it is, and I don't think other people think it's as funny as I think it is, but I laughed about it for about five minutes in the theater, and again at home.  I had to rewind it a couple times.  It's funny because it's true.  Take a look!

I'm back baby... and everyone else.

I didn't realize I had not written on this thing until people started complaining to me about it.  I guess I just wasn't motivated for a while, and then I was lazy for a while, and then I forgot about it for a while.  But, now I'm back.  I wonder how long I'll last this time!  Writing a blog regularly is a difficult task, at least for me.  I just spent like 10 minutes looking up the difference between "a while" and "awhile" to make sure I had it right.  So here's the deal... both would work in my sentence, but the way I wrote it conveys the meaning I wanted for the sentence better.  You see "awhile" means "for a short time," and "a while" means "for an indefinite period of time."  Here's an example sentence:  After eating chimichangas for awhile, I had to stop and use the crapper for a while.

I took a bus ride this last weekend from New York City to Washington DC.  It was actually a pretty nice bus with plenty of legroom, no weird smells, a driver who spoke English, wifi access, and they showed a movie.  And I think that's what this blog is supposed to be about.  The movie was Sahara.  It's a pretty good movie.  I had seen it before, but this time noticed something very troubling.  Towards the beginning of the movie Dirk Pitt and his crew are on a boat searching for a lost ancient item on the bottom of the sea.  They find what they are looking for and bring it up to the surface.  It was some sort of box or sarcophagus thingy that had been under water for a really long time, and was covered in moss and barnacles and other crap. Right after they

bring it to the surface, the admiral shouts out that they need to have it ready to be presented at the museum in 5 hours.  In the next scene they are all dressed up at the museum, and this object is completely cleaned and beautiful. 

There is no way they could have done that in five hours!  First of all, they were in the middle of the ocean, and second, the thing had been underwater for hundreds of years.  It's going to take more than five hours to present the thing at a museum.

There were some other dumb things in the movie, but it was still pretty entertaining.

Strange Friction

The movie Stranger Than Fiction was okay, but not really that impressive.  I was expecting it to be better, because the idea is so clever.  It's about a guy who can hear a woman's voice narrating his life.  It turns out the woman is writing a book, and the guy is the main character of the book, but he is actually a real guy.

The thing that bugged me is that it never explained how this phenomenon was possible.  Sure it's a fictional movie, and they think they don't need to explain why, but I need to know these things.  Did the woman actually create this guy's existence, or did she just happen to come up with a character who happened to be real already?  And what made it possible for the man to hear the lady narrating?

When the guy, played by Will Ferrill, showed up to the author's office to tell her he was real, she was in shock.  This was expected, but the assistant, played by Queen Latifah, was not at all shocked.  She acted like this was a normal everyday occurrence.  Well I have just one thing to tell you lady... It's not.  

The Beatles Musical

I just saw Across The Universe.  I had to use a really big telescope.  Ha!  No just kidding.  It was the movie, Across The Universe.  Quite a strange movie this one was.  It's a musical that takes place in the 60's, and all the songs are Beatles songs.  I love The Beatles, and was excited to see this film.  The music in it was really well done.  They used many different styles and people to sing the songs.  The plot of the movie was interesting, but dumb in some parts.  I guess that's the way musicals are though.  I think I've mentioned that before.  When the characters are singing all the time, the story will likely suffer a bit.

I think probably the strangest part, and also the part that bugged me the most, was when they went on their LSD trip with Dr Robert (played by Bono).  If you saw this movie, then you know what I'm talking about.  It was all weird and psychedelic, and didn't really have anything to do with the movie.  Then they met Mr Kite, and he sang his song, and I think the whole thing was just an excuse to put more songs in the movie.  I could never figure out if that whole part of the movie was just a big drug hallucination or if it really happened.  It bugs me when I don't know if things are real or not.  But I guess that's how LSD trips work!  Am I right people?  Huh?  No, really, I have no idea.  I went on an LDS trip once, but I think that's something different.

Strange movie, great music.

Hey Hey We're The Apes

During my ventures across this vast web that spans the wide world, I saw something about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.  I was instantly reminded of how annoyed I was with that stupid movie when I saw it.  Yes, I know it's a classic, and maybe I should watch it again in order to understand it better, but man that show just didn't make any sense.

Why do we need to watch monkeys running around a futuristic black thing for 40 minutes?  They could have gotten the point across in 2 minutes.  Okay, there's a black "monolith" (whatever that is) and there 

are a bunch of monkeys (or apes, whatever, they're all the same to me). The monolith inspires them or something.  One finds a bone and pounds it on things for 10 minutes, then kills another monkey with it.  Then Davy Jones comes out and starts singing "Daydream Believer."  At least that's how I remember it.  And all that lasted 90 minutes! Yes, I know I said 40 before, but it seemed more like 90.

Fast forward millions of years later, and we come to the only real entertaining part of this movie.  Hal, the spaceship, starts killing the astronauts.  That's it.  The only entertaining part. Then the only surviving astronaut goes to Jupiter, a lot of weird psychedelic things happen, and he turns into a fetus.  The End.  

Weird.  That's all I have to say about that.  

Wait, no it isn't.  I just wrote 3 paragraphs about it!  Like I said, I'm sure this movie has some deep meaning that I didn't understand, and maybe I need to watch it again and have someone explain it to me.  I just don't understand why he turned into a fetus!  That's so weird!

The music was great, by the way.

Greetings Starfighter

I just realized it has been two weeks since my last post.  It probably doesn't matter that much, because I don't think I have many readers anyway.  But I know I have a least one, and that's what really matters.  So to you my faithful reader, I apologize.  I do have a good excuse though.  I was in the process of moving from Utah to New York, and now I'm in desperate search for employment.  Also, I haven't seen any movies lately that bugged me.  I did see the movie Juno, and I really liked it.  Maybe I'll have to watch it again to find something about it that bugs me.  I know there's something there.

I did actually watch a movie a couple days ago that would be a good one to write about today.  Remember the great '80s movie The Last Star

fighter?  Well neither did I!  Apparently this was was one of those science fiction "cult classics" as they say.  But, I don't remember ever watching it as a youngen.

They say this was the first movie to do all special effects entirely with computer animation, as opposed to using models.  That's pretty cool, so I won't be complaining about some of the bad special effects.  Actually now that I think about it, they weren't bad special effects at all.  They just looked a little dated and too computery.  But, in a way it makes total sense.  The movie is about a kid who plays a video game that ends up training him for real outer space combat.  So I guess the outer space combat should look computery.

Anyway, to the things that bug me.  When Alex arrived on Rilos he couldn't understand anybody.  They attached a chip to his collar that allowed him to understand the alien language.  Later when he goes back to Earth with the alien Grig, everyone can understand Grig.  It's a miracle.

When the evil KO-DAN finds out that there is one starfighter still alive they send an assassin to Earth to kill him.  How did they know he was on Earth?  Earth wasn't even part of the Star League.  There wasn't even supposed to be an earthling on the Starfighter squad.  And I don't understand why they sent such a horrible assassin.  He is hidden directly above Alex, and he has a laser gun, but for some reason he decides to grab Alex by the jacket instead of shooting him.  Of course Alex gets away and runs to hide somewhere else.  The alien again finds himself directly above Alex with a perfect opportunity to kill him with the laser gun.  For some reason before shooting Alex, he decides to poo on him, like he did the first time.  This time Alex recognized the Alien droppings and was able to get out of the way before he was grabbed again.  (note: it doesn't actually say that the strange little droppings are poo, but there is no other explanation that I can think of.)

Even though the plot of this movie was kind of weak, I really liked it.  I wish I would have seen it years ago.  You know what makes a good movie for me?  If after watching it I can't stop thinking about it, and I have to go online and look up information about it.  This movie did that for me.  I even put a post on IMDB.com.  I never do that, because I think most of those people are losers, and the things they post are usually dumb.  Well my post wasn't dumb.  My post was awesome.  Just like this blog post.  Maybe someday I'll be a Starfighter.  I'd show Xur and the KO-DAN armada who's boss.

One can only dream.

Isn't this the creepiest thing you've ever seen?

More Than Meets The Eye

Transformers was one of my favorite cartoons as a child.  They were also really cool toys.   The Transformers movie was a pretty good and entertaining movie in my opinion.  I was waiting the whole time to hear the theme song, and it wasn't there.  That disappointed me. They could have at least put it in the credits.  They didn't even do a new hip hop version of the theme song like they usually do in these situations.  I was happy though when they used the line "more than meets the eye."  It was cheesy, but worth it.

Now I really don't remember enough about the cartoons to complain about how the movie got it wrong, or what they should have done to make it more like the cartoons.  There are other things I can complain about though.  Why do the Autobots transform into dumb cars and semis, but the Decepticons transform into cool fighter jets and helicopters?  Just because they're evil they get to transform into cool and powerful vehicles?  I guess that's not really a movie problem, because the cartoons were like that too.  Ok, here's a movie problem...  

I don't understand why Shia Lebeouf's character was so worried about letting his parents know the transformers were outside.  He kept stalling and making excuses, and the giant transformers outside kept their patience.  Why did they care if the kids parents saw them? They were in a life or death situation.  They were also miraculously not seen or heard by any neighbors.  Not even the serial killer who lived next door.  Wait, I'm thinking of Disturbia.

I know there are nerds out there who will think I'm dumb for some of the things I say in this post, but that's OK.  I was just reading the wikipedia article about transformers, and I was so confused by all the names and terminology and different incarnations of the story, that I thought I was being decepticonned.   Hmm, that sounded funnier in my head.

When the government had Megatron in custody, did they consider him a decepticonvict? 

"You Sing Bad," says Paula. Wait, no she didn't.

I couldn't think of any movie to write about that bugged me, so I thought I would write about a TV show.  It's my blog, and I make the rules!

Today was the season premiere of American Idol.  I like to watch this show at the beginning of the season, but don't usually follow it.  I don't get crazy about it towards the end like most people do. 

 I like the first part of the season because you get to see all the weirdos and horrible singers.

One thing that bugs me is that Paula Abdul has such a hard time telling the people that they are bad.  Now, I'm not saying she needs to be a jerk like Simon, but she needs to get some courage.  She is supposed to be a judge, but she can't judge people.  After one really bad singer tonight she kept stalling with "uh, umm, eh,"  and she never would say anything.  Why can't she just say "no, you're not good enough"?  She doesn't have to be rude to be honest.

There is another thing that has always bugged me about the show, but it wasn't as bad this time.  Usually you always know which singers will make it and which ones won't because they show you a nice little back story about the person and their family before their audition.  They wouldn't do this if the person lost.  This time it seemed like they didn't do that as much, and they even showed some back stories for some that lost.  That pleased me.  At the same time, there were some who won, and they only showed us the person coming out of the room holding up the paper and cheering.  We didn't even get to hear them sing or hear what their names were.  That bugged me.

Beans, Beans, The Musical Fruit

Mr. Bean is one of the funniest characters ever created.  In my mind Rowan Atkinson is a genius.  A few months ago a new Bean movie, entitled Mr. Bean's Holiday was released.  It didn't get very good ratings.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I'm a Bean fan.  Black, red, kidney, refried, they're all good.  Except for green.  Those are gross.  Oh, wait, we're not talking about food.

The movie I actually want to complain about today is the original Bean movie that came out in 1997.  It was bad for so many reasons.  First of all they brought Bean to the United States.  It felt weird the whole time, like he was transplanted into a movie he didn't belong in.  In the new movie he travels to France instead.  It actually helps the movie, because he can't understand or speak the language.  That's good, because he isn't supposed to speak much. Keeping him in Europe made it feel more like the show.  He was also able to drive a Mini.

Another annoying thing about the old movie is that they reused so many of the same gags done in the TV show.  Did they think we wouldn't notice?  In the new movie he did some of the same types of weird things, which showed us that he is the same character with the same personality, but none of the same gags were recycled.   Thank goodness no turkeys got stuck on Bean's head.

There actually were a couple things from the new movie that bugged me a bit.  It always bugs me when people are trying to accomplish a task and things constantly go wrong to impede them.  This is kind of what the whole movie was about, but the part where he kept missing the train, and he lost his wallet, bothered me.  I just don't like when bad things happen to good people.  I also would have liked to see the "girlfriend" from the TV show.  She's funny.

p.s.  I couldn't remember if the song was "beans, beans, the musical fruit" or "magical fruit."  I looked it up, and both versions exist!  Here is a link to the wikipedia article.

Let The Cheese Drip

High School Musical is the biggest thing these days it seems.  No, I am not a fourteen year old girl, but yes, I have seen both of the High School Musical movies.  As far as cheesy Disney musicals go, they weren't that bad.  Possibly the most annoying thing about these movies is all the hype they get.  Of course there are a couple things about the actual show that bugged me as well.

Now I understand the way musicals work.  People go about their everyday business, and then suddenly break out into song.  Music begins to play with no musicians around.  Strangers begin singing and dancing, and everybody for some reason already knows the words to the song and the steps to the dance.  That's how all musicals are, but for some reason it seems weird when the musical is actually about a musical.  It just doesn't seem right when the girl who wrote the song hands the music to Troy and Gabriella and tells them it's a new song for them to learn, and when they begin singing it, they already know how it goes.  The girl clearly said it was a new song she just wrote!  I also find it kind of odd that the lyrics to some of the songs they sing are actually about not being able to or liking to sing and dance.

Something else that makes me wonder when I watch High School Musical is why there are only juniors in the school.  The entire basketball team is made up of juniors, and the entire cast of the play are juniors.  Sharpay and Ryan say that they have always been the stars of the school plays.  Well it seems like there is only one play a year.  That only leaves one or possibly two plays they could have starred in, depending on if the high school has freshmen in it or starts with sophomores.  Many new schools will not have seniors their first year, which could explain the lack of seniors in the movie, but there is no indication in the movie that this is the first year the school is in existence.  Maybe most of the students drop out before their senior year because they are sick of people singing and dancing willy nilly in the hallways.

Where Was Dwight?

The movie License To Wed should have been called The Office Movie.  It doesn't have Steve Carell, and Jim is dating Mandy Moore instead of Pam, but other than that it's The Office movie.  There were 4, count them 4, actors from The Office in this movie!  I love The Office, but it was really annoying to me that they used so many of the same actors for this movie.  John Krasinski was good for the lead, but I'm sure they could have found other people to play those minor roles.

Didn't the lady who played Mandy Moore's sister play the exact same role in The Wedding Singer?  It doesn't really bug me.  I just thought I would mention it.

Just a couple other annoyances with this movie... When Ben was in the Reverend's house, he found the divorce papers way too easily.  I don't think something like that would be so easy to find in a strangers house.  Then Robin William's explanation for why he married the Guatemalan lady was dumb.  Isn't it illegal to marry someone just so they can get a green card, then get divorced.  It should be if it isn't.  I really don't think she would have been killed if

 she went back to Guatemala.  I've been there, and they don't just kill people willy nilly.  Ha! Willy nilly! What a great term.  I'll have to use that more often.

To Be or Not To Be Witched

In case you haven't noticed, this blog is not about only new and recently released movies. It's about any movie ever made that has something in it that bugs me. Today is about Bewitched. It's not that old, but I just thought I needed to say something so people don't wonder why I'm not talking about Alvin and The Chipmunks. I'm sure when I see it, I'll have something to say about it.
Most remakes have problems. Sure, it was kind of a clever idea to make the movie about people making a remake of the original show, but it would have been better if they just made a straightforward remake. Does that make sense? It does to me.

The biggest thing in this movie that bothered me was Uncle Arthur. Steve Carell did a great job playing the character, but he just didn't belong. Was he a dream or was he real? At first it seems like Jack (Will Ferrell ) is just dreaming, but then he wakes up and Uncle Arthur is still there. So he was real. But that doesn't make sense. How could he be real? Uncle Arthur was a fictional character from the original TV show. Even in this movie Bewitched is a fictional TV show. Nicole Kidman's character was a witch, but she wasn't the real Samantha. And what was the deal with the Endora lady? Apparently she was a real witch too, although they never confirmed it really. Was she the real Endora, or just an actress playing Endora on a show about a show, on a movie? I'm so confused. Isn't Endora the planet where the Ewoks live?

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang We Love You!

I was chatting with my family today about people's accents in various movies. We came up with a number of movies that had accent discrepancies. In Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, everybody has a English accent except for Kevin Costner. No wonder the Sheriff of Nottingham hated him so much. He thought he was American. That confused him, because America didn't exist back then, and it filled him with hatred. And why does Maid Marian hang out with a giant hen all the time? Oh wait, that was a different movie.

In The Hunt For Red October, Sean Connery plays a Russian submarine captain, but he has a Scottish accent. Strange.

The one that bugs me the most for some reason is Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. The movie takes place in England, and Dick Van Dyke plays the lead character. For some weird reason he does not have an English accent! Yet his kids and his father in the film do. We know he can do an English accent. This movie was made just a few years after Mary Poppins. Maybe his accent was copyrighted by Disney, and this movie wasn't made by Disney. Hmm, It's a mystery. This looks like a job for Dr. Mark Sloan! (if you get that reference, congratulations)

Seat's taken

Recently while watching TV I came across the great movie Forrest Gump, so I watched the last half of it. I've seen it many times of course. It's such a great movie. It's so well written, and acted, and everything else. It really bothers me though how big of a jerk Jenny is. She treats Forrest like crap, and he continues to love her. It reminds me of this weird girl who is infatuated with me even though I ignore her. People tell me I should be rude to her, so she would get the point, but I just can't. I'm not a rude guy. Can't she tell that I'm not interested by my ignoring? She really is weird too. Anyway, back to the real subject. That situation doesn't really relate to the movie anyway.

Jenny was just using Forrest to have a child. She didn't even tell him about the child until he was like 5 years old. And I don't want to hear the excuse was because he was busy running. All she had to do was go out to the highway and wait for him to pass by. Then she only married him because she was dying and she wanted someone to take care of her and the child. Which is not necessarily a bad reason for marrying, but it just proves that she never really loved him. She was also a jerk.

Happy New Year!

Well, I guess the Christmas season is officially over, but I'm going to write about a Christmas movie anyway. Or am I? No I'm not. Because in my opinion White Christmas is not a Christmas movie at all. I saw this old classic for the first time all the way through just a couple weeks ago. I was sorely disappointed with the lack of Christmas cheer in it. Sure, it's a good movie. The acting and singing is good. In fact, I think Danny Kaye is always great. He's so funny. But for a movie with Christmas in the title, I think they needed more than just one Christmas song. There's only one at the very end!

Now most musicals are cheesy and lame, it's just in their nature, but some of the songs in this show were a little too cheesy and lame. The one they sing at the beginning and also at the end about how much they love the general was just dumb. Now I've never been in the military, but it doesn't seem normal to love your commanding officer so much that you will actually join in song singing, "because we love him, we love him."