Ananas

Pride & Prejudice - 7.5/10 It's a badge of honour when a film based on one of the most commonly adapted books of all time can run over 2 hours and feel fresh throughout. Such is the case for Pride & Prejudice, one of the best adaptations of Jane Austen's novel to date. Benefitting from free-form direction and a strong cast, the film captures the opposites-attract love story of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet with poise and splendor. Director Joe Wright truly surprised me here; I had not expected to see so many fantastic visuals in a period-romance. The screenplay is very sharp, undoubtedly due in no small part to Emma Thompson's uncredited re-write. Keira Knightley is superb in the starring role, and with her recent Golden Globe nomination this might officially move her into the ranks of Hollywood's top performers. Although it slows down towards the middle (as pretty much every adaptation of the novel does), this film is so fabulously made that it's hard to not recommend enthusiastically. Thumbs up.

I swear the whole time I was watching this I thought it was exactly like the "trailer" for the "Trogdor the Burninator" movie on the Homestar site a couple years ago. This is the first Uwe Boll movie I've seen, and I was almost convinced that he's making these movies to be self-satirical, but then why would he market the films as serious? Who knows maybe he's just pulling the world's largest practical joke, because I can't understand why someone can have to straight films ripped apart and not get the slightest bit better.

BloodRayne - 2/10 Oh cruel month of January, why must you continue to torture us with uneventful TV, cold weather and movies like this? Uwe Boll is back (somehow) from the critical ravaging given to him for his last effort "Alone In the Dark", and if this is any indication, he hasn't learnt a thing. To be honest, this is my first Boll-stravaganza (it's something I consider myself lucky for), and unless something changes, probably my last. You would think that someone who has been so viciously criticized over the last 3 years or so might learn a thing or two just for ego's sake, but this director seems completely content to make God awful films which tank at the box office, at least, so long as people keep funding him. Seriously, stop already. It's getting ridiculous. In spite of all logic, Mr Boll somehow attracted a greatly talented cast, and thrown them into what will most likely go down as the worst acting experience of their careers. Even these talented few are lost in the ludicrious material; Michael Madsen and Ben Kingsley must have been downright embarassed at the lines they so poorly deliver. The script is written by the sincerely talented Guinevere Turner, and I sincerely hope this is no more than a misstep in her career. This entire production seems so haphazardly put together that I must wonder if the director had any help at all. Even at 80 minutes, the film is full of excess scenes, probably thrown in to flesh out what is most likely, in it's condensed "logical" format, a 30 minute movie. TV dramas accomplish more in an episode than this $25,000,000 "production". Thumbs way down, a horrible start (and probably eventually worst film) to 2006.

Where The Truth Lies - 6/10 "Where The Truth Lies" explores alienation and dysfunction in a sexually adventurous way; so who better to direct than Atom Egoyan? And this film wears Egoyan's trademarks throughout. You get the slow reveal of major plot points, the storytelling is non-linear and the emotional climax is profound and rewarding. That's not to say that this will stand out among the director's considerable filmography. One might go so far as to say this is one of his weakest efforts to date. It suffers in some ways that so many film noirs have: its characters are bleak to the point of unrelatability. It is only through the character of Karen O'Connor (and the considerable job of bringing the performance to life by Alison Lohman) that the film really succeeds. A marginal thumbs up; not the best introduction to the work of Atom Egoyan but worthwhile for an evening mystery.

The trailer's decent. If nothing this movie will be a hell of a lot better than Jersey Girl.

I hear JP wants to go after Bengie Molina. With all of the high priced risks they've taken this off-season and with the solid season Gregg Zaun had (at less than half the price), I see no reason why they'd do this. The Jays ought to save their cash for someone more worth his salary. Let's see if the gambles we've taken already pay off, and if they don't, we might have some cash for next off-season.

Bad News Bears - 5/10 I never thought I'd see the day where I'd be giving a negative review to a Richard Linklater film, but here we are. The Bad News Bears is yet another by the numbers sports comedy in a year that had a few too many of them to stay fresh. It's also the second of two sports comedy remakes, proving that Hollywood's sacreligious rehashing of old movies does indeed extend to America's favorite pasttimes. With The Longest Yard it was football; in Bad News Bears director Richard Linklater retells the story of a baseball team of miscreants who are coached by an equally depraved ex-Major Leager turned alcoholic Morris Buttermaker. No need to go over the plot points with you; if you've seen one little league movie you've seen them all. Surprisingly, the film's critically praised filmmaker offers little new to an old concept. That's not to say that this modern retelling of Bad News Bears is without its strengths. The cast is stellar here; Billy Bob Thornton is a perfect PG-13 version of his "Bad Santa" character, and Greg Kinnear plays the perfect uptight, (literally) plum smuggling antagonist. The youth cast, like "School of Rock", is also stellar, and the screenplay is faithful to the vocabulary of 12 year olds, albeit in that same PG-13 way. The film also seems to have a great deal of heart, although that may just be in contrast to the last film I watched (see above). However at nearly two hours, this film has too many montages, too many cliches, and in the end the material is spread out too thin. Thumbs down.

Pretty Persuasion - 5/10 When watching a film from one of the industry's most MTV friendly music video directors (Marcos Siega), one has to approach with expectations in check. Certainly there have been great directors who have gotten their start in music videos (Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze come to mind), but one must account for the film work of Joseph Kahn and McG, among others. And in fairness to Mr. Siega, this film is in fact well above the level of Kahn and McG fair. In the music video to full length transition scale, this film probably fits right in the middle. Pretty Persuasion isn't lacking in spirited performances, biting satire or even savvy direction. What it is lacking however is a concrete moral centre, and without it this film simply can't identify with its audience. Evan Rachel Wood completely captures the film's morally bankrupt lead Kimberly Joyce, a 15 year old girl who causes an uproar at her private hight school when she accuses her teacher of sexual harrassment. The problem is the lack of a character to be adaquetely repelled by her actions; most are either involved in them or are their cause. In fact, the one message this film clearly gets across is that we are all very much the product of our environment. An overabundance of mean spiritedness and too little redemption make this promising film sadly fall by the wayside. Thumbs down.

Obviously, but I was saying, when comparing a backup to a starter, you need to give the games played and wins to contrast. I see "telly" and "eddie" as equal. Also, no matter how I punched those records into a calculator I never got beatnik's numbers... is there a special way to calculate hockey stats?

All the old suspects have come back, so I'm looking forward to it. I haven't seen the Mallrats X special features yet, but I know that the Clerks re-issue was fantastic. And if Kevin really wanted money, he would have done Clerks 2 for an R-rating, whereas he doesn't even plan to submit this one to the MPAA, who would likely give it an NC-17 rating.

"The Great Escape" never gets old.

Ed Belfour GAA - 3.14 SV% 89.8 Mikael Tellqvist GAA - 2.47 SV% 91.9 Yep, all Eddie.

What the fuck is a skein?

What the FUCK are you talking about?

I love how the shoe's suddenly on the other foot. Why then, when the Leafs were blown out by the Sens 2 years ago with more salary sitting in the press box than on the ice, was the injury excuse not valid? Why have the anti-Leaf contingent, err I'm sorry, all Canadian hockey fans not from Toronto, taken to insulting the Leafs for their injury troubles because they're so fucking "old"? Such a sweet smell of hypocrisy in this thread.

I didn't see the show because I generally avoid stuff like that, but isn't it pretty much accepted that Rock sucked as a host?

I forgot to include The Shins new album, which will hopefully come out this summer and either be titled "Wincing The Night Away" or "Sleeping Lessons".