What Did You Watch Today?

[ROC]

Pulp Fiction - 9.5/10 or (****) With Pulp Fiction, Tarantino created buzz in the indy world for his amazing direction, screenplay, and even a some decent acting on top of that. However, he easily made his career peak in Fiction. His direction in the film is easily the best in his career as well as his screenplay, which mixes great dialogue, dry humor, surprising plot twists, satire, and violence, all in one film. Credit for making the dialogue great should also go to the amazing cast. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, and Ving Rhames all have great performances in the film. However, the best of all went to Sam Jackson, who perfectly performs Jules and instantly makes the role classic.

In all cases, Pulp Fiction deserves all of its praise. Is it better than the Shawshank Redemption? I still don't know, I still don't know.

[Ananas]

Raise Your Voice - *1/2

After "A Cinderella Story", "Cheaper By The Dozen", "The Lizzy McGuire Movie" and "Agent Cody Banks" all within the past 2 years, Hilary Duff serves up her latest steaming pile of crap with director Sean McNamara and generic male lead Oliver James. Having seen both this movie and "First Daughter" in the past day, and having seen a load of horrible teen movies before, it's getting to the point where you can predict the entire plot of the movie before even starting to watch. I can't even begin to count the number of times a misunderstanding has caused a temporary rift between a male and female lead, or the number of misunderstanding fathers who finally come to their senses at the end. The brother dying at the start thing was a nice touch, although Jason Ritter is getting in far too many car crashes. They should really think of something new for the guy. Hilary Duff isn't necessarily the problem in the movie, but she never really is. She's a qualified teen actress with a reasonable palette of emotions, but the scripts she chooses are manufactured and templatic. The music in this movie is every bit as bland; not what you'd expect ouf of a school that is supposed to produce such original and bright musicians. There are several subplots I could have done without. In fact, if you removed all those subplots the movie would have been about 10 minutes long. There are a couple of people in this movie who deserve better, and hopefully they'll find it, because the last thing we need is more nonsense like this. Thumbs down.

[Numbahs]

Yesterday...

Ocean's Twelve - 6/10

[punky]

Blade: Trinity - 6.5/10

Good movie no more, no less. It combined pretty good action with some great comedy from Ryan Reynolds, who is THE MAN.

[Hellfire]

Blade: Trinity - 7.5/10

Lots of Action and Funny too. Blade is too one dementional, so the inclusion of both Biel and Reynolds is a welcome addition. I really hope that they do that spinoff with them that I had been hearing about.

[ROC]

Serving Sara - 5/10 or (**) A mixed bag with Bruce Campbell and Cedric The Entertainer being funny, but Matthew Perry and Liz Hurley falling flat.

Scary Movie 2 - 5.5/10 or (**) I really should stop overrating movies with a few funny scenes...

Broken Lizard's Club Dread - 5/10 or (**) While the guys at Broken Lizard try to make this funny, it seems to also fall flat at its slasher film jokes. Then again, it also could be a subtle satire on the dumbness of clubs and teens in them...

Nah.

[Ananas]

Mr. 3000 - *** (6/10)

Mr 3000 is a sports comedy from director Charles Stone III (Drumlime, Paid in Full) and more importantly starring Bernie Mac, an actor who has never really been given a chance to shine as a star before this. In it, Mac plays Stan Ross, a self centred hitsmith who upon reaching the coveted mark of 3000 hits abruptly quits baseball. He is certain that this will ensure him a spot in the hall of fame, although his lack of a relationship with the press repeatedly keeps him out. However, after a statistician reveals that he is in fact 3 hits short of the mark, Ross must come back to the game after nine years of retirement to get back his beloved title of "Mr 3000". Along the way he learns a lesson about selflessness, in both love and baseball. Now while my major source of disenchantment towards Wimbledon is the overemphasis on romance, the opposite could be argued for this film. Mr 3000 is clearly a baseball movie. While the trailers make no ellusion to anything different, it has to tread a line between straightforward and one dimensional. The movie certainly isn't perfect either. We see plenty of "same old, same old" with regards to the plot, and the characters are a bit jaded. However, the performances are strong, the direction is really good, and the overriding message is well presented. Plenty of good laughs and great looking shots here. Thumbs up.

[public enemy]

Bringing Out The Dead - 8/10

[Rage]

Super Size Me: 8/10

Really opens your eyes to the damages of fast food. I wanted to go to McDonalds for a Big Mac afterwards though.

[Ananas]

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie - **1/2 (5/10)

Written and directed by the creator of the original TV series Stephen Hillenburg, The Spongebob Squarepants Movie takes a step back from most Pixar animations, which often market themselves on the basis of being entirely enjoyable for parents. It's clear here that the indended audience is perfectly satisfied, that audience being children 10 or under and stoned college students. In fact, it reminded me of a less vulgar version of another film, "Freddy Got Fingered". I suppose I'm biased by not actually being a fan myself, but it seemed like there was not nearly enough material to fill 90 minutes with. If you like a bit of subtle humour mixed in with huge doses of juvenile slapstick that is watered down for the PG rating, this film is for you. If not, I'd recommend you avoid. Thumbs down.

[ROC]

Slackers - 5.5/10 or (**) Meh teen comedy but you gotta love that Jason Schwartzman. He is the show stealer in this and shows his potential in film (which is better shown in Rushmore and I <3 Huckabees).

Rollerball - 2/10 or (1/2*) Yeah, I watched this turd again.

[Guest John Kerry's Evil Twin]

Super Troopers: (8.5/10) I LOVED this movie! After seeing it, I asked my dad(an Indiana state policeman) if he ever punched out a kid who spit in his burger.

[zero]

Scary Movie 3 - 6.5/10

Pretty damn funny... some stuff that could have been a lot funnier falls flat on its face, especially the Matrix spoof with Queen Latifah. Like the first two Scary Movies, it's mostly hit or miss. Unlike the first two Scary Movies, this one is a lot more hit than miss making it the best of the series and one you can actually watch twice. Leslie Nielson is brilliant as always, delivering some fantastic lines in his trademark tone. Charlie Sheen is pretty damn funny as well, which I didn't know he could be... but that's probably because of Spin City. Always fun to see Tim Stack too since Nightstand with Dick Dietrick was always one of my guilty pleasures, and he delivers the funniest joke in the movie. Stupid movie, but it's stupid fun like all Zucker movies.

Pulp Fiction - 9.5/10

I can watch this movie every day and not get tired of it. I can watch it twice in a row I love it that much. That said, and I know I'm gonna get some serious backlash for this, it's not my favorite Tarantino movie. That crown goes to the Kill Bill saga, which I gave both films a very rare 10/10. Don't get me wrong though, Pulp Fiction is still absolutely fantastic with brilliant performances from the entire cast, those with top billing all the way down to those with no billing at all. Well, Tarantino's performance may be a bit below fantastic, but I won't hold that against him for changing the way movies can be made with this one. Interesting sidenote, this is also the movie that started my love affair with Uma Thurman. Just a shame Travolta couldn't have got some better roles after this one launched his comeback.

[ROC]

Joe Dirt - 7/10 or (**1/2) Sometimes there are times when I like movies I should really hate. Times like Not Another Teen Movie, The Rules of Attraction, and Eight Crazy Nights...and this.

It's cliched David Spade comedy, but I found it quite funny. That reason is probably for Chris Walken's HIGH-larious cameo. Joe Don Baker and Dennis Miller (who is in half the movie, which I found a plus) are also hilarious. Overall, it's MUCH better I found than Lost & Found, one of David Spade's other writer/actor project.

Edited December 13, 2004 by TheROC-Revolt

[Gabriel]

Blade: Trinity

7/10

-Good film. Not as good as the original, but better than the second (Which was overloaded with CGI suckness).

Reynolds was a welcomed addition to the cast, as he manages to be humorous, but still believable as an ass-kicking vampire hunter.

Didn't much care for Biel, but hopefully if they do the Nightstalkers spin-offs, she takes what she did here and improves it...even just a little bit.

[Numbahs]

Get Shorty - 6/10

In prep for the very unfunny looking PG-13 sequel.

[Ananas]

Get Shorty - 6/10

In prep for the very unfunny looking PG-13 sequel.

←

[BlackFlagg]

Spider-Man 2 - 9/10

[punky]

Training Day - 8/10

Third time I've seen it, still just as good as the first. Denzel deserved his Oscar nod for the performance because he was amazing as a corrupt cop. I found myself wishing that the 'good guy' was someone other than Ethan Hawke but he still did a good job.

Edited December 13, 2004 by CM Punk

[Guest John Kerry's Evil Twin]

The Sandlot: 10/10. I watched this movie for the first time in four years, and I now think that this is one of the greatest movies of all time. None of the characters seem superfluous, and every scene is good. The only fault I could find with it is that a black kid would not be hanging out with eight white kids in the early 60's, but besides that, it's an excellent movie. Your life is incomplete unless you have seen the movie.