Sunday, May 21, 2006

Fast Food Nation, Da Vinci, Hedge



Fast Food Nation looks terrific, check out the teaser trailer over at Youtube.com. Greg Kinnear looks great, maybe they'll give him another nomination for this one, I got a feeling.

Saw 2 movies this weekend, Over the Hedge & Da Vinci. Over the Hedge was better. Actually, it was damn funny, and the kids liked it. Bruce Willis was good as the hero, RJ, but my favorites were Garry Shandling as the turtle and Steve Carrell blew me away as the squirrel - There is a scene with the squirrel toward the end of the movie that will make you piss yourself with laughter. An all-around well done, great-looking movie.

Da Vinci was good. Not amazing, But good. MI:3 was much better. My problem wasn't the story, it's actually a great idea for a movie/book, although the "revelations" in it are nothing new to me having taken Art History classes in college. Could it be true? Sure can. Will it change the foundation of religion? Nope, Catholics are too damn thick headed to believe anything else than what they want to believe. I should know, I was raised Catholic. My point is - at least open yourself up to the possiblity that maybe the history of Christianity isn't all true. Could there be a God? Sure there could. Might there not be anything at all like God? Also possible.

Oh, the movie. Well, a lot of movies that are 2+ hours really fly by. This didn't. I really felt ever minute of it. The pacing was off which I thought hurt it the most. The acting was fine (Bettany a stand-out) but at the end of the day it's not something I'd go see again. Would I buy the DVD? Eh, maybe, on sale. But I'd never be excited to throw it in and watch it.

Saw the full Lady In The Water preview. Didn't give it much thought when I first saw the teaser & poster, but this trailer showed a lot more promise.

7 comments:

taZ said...

Actually the DaVinci stand-out was McKellen...

Anonymous said...

I just read a Variety article saying Lady In The Water is being pushed as a tentpole pic?..whoa, Nellie, me don't think so

Systemaddict said...

Gotta be down with animated critters...as for Da Vinci...i was less than enticed by the book...the movie even more so...I'll wait till rental...

Anonymous said...

Da Vinci...FEH.

Read book, saw movie, all in the past month. I'm not one of those snobs who say "but it's a potboiler, just melodrama"...or I wouldn't say that if it were even a GOOD potboiler melodrama. On this whole treasure hunt thing...National Treasure was better and Raiders way better before that (all 3 Raiders movies).

Thomas Crymes said...

I'll have to disagree with you on the pacing. I went to see it expecting a hum drum affair.

I felt like I couldn't take my eyes off the screen for a second. The story had me hook, line, and sinker all the way to the end.

I didn't think I could even risk a pee break because I would miss something important. I was really surprised how much I liked it.

Never read the book. And Pat, seems like you are ready to take a lot of what the movie presented as fact. It is a testament to the movie that it all seems very convincing, but, as with any movie, I would have to treat it strictly as fiction until I actually did some fact checking on my own.

Patrick J. Rodio said...

Tom, I'm just going by those pesky well-researched HISTORY BOOKS & art history classes, not the Da Vinci book.

And I'm no dipshit, I didn't say anything about taking it as fact. I didn't sit there thinking, "Yes! It must be true because they said so!!!"

No, I didn't say that at all. I said exactly this: My point is - at least open yourself up to the possiblity that maybe the history of Christianity isn't all true. Could there be a God? Sure there could. Might there not be anything at all like God? Also possible."

See? That's what I said, so you've gone and mis-quoted or misunderstood me.

All I said was basically to keep an open mind about it.

Alicia said...

Thanks for the reviews... I think we are going to see Over The Hedge pretty soon. We were pumped about DaVinci Code but have lost our vim and vigor for that one, as well. I agree with my hubby - the two blockbuster films of the summer will be Superman and Snakes on a Plane.