Go Iceland!

Check this band out, Sigur Ros. Especially check out two videos on their site - Hoppipola and Glosoli. Both are amazing videos for simply beautiful songs. Inspiring. Wow. The videos for these songs are incredible.

Surf their whole site for more info on the band.

Icelandic rock!

Update

On Friday, a producer requested one of my scripts, Shuttlecock!. He found my listing on Inktip.com and liked the synopsis. I gave it a polish over the weekend and off it went (in the mail today).

I'm waiting to hear about my Cricket Hill script, this was the one where the development dude LOVED it so now I'm just waiting to hear if everyone else did too. He requested 2 additional scripts (A Couple Of Joes (Family Comedy) and The Flight Of Barnaby (Romantic Drama) so I sent those off as well.

I've got a couple things out to some competitions that I'm waiting to hear back on, a few will announce quarter-finalists, etc in March & April. I'm hoping to still be included in Fade In when they announce the Semi-finalists in March.

I kicked ass with my new script, Zucker, all last week. I took a break from it to give Shuttlecock! a nice polish, which ended up being more involved than I had planned, but now it's in great shape so I'm happy. Then I moved over to The Rave At Danny Carter's House which I'm finishing a polish on now, then I'll go back to Zucker.

For any of you out there looking for good competitions to send something in to, check out The BlueCat Screenplay Competition (deadline is 3/1)which is run by Gordy Hoffman (yeah, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's bro) and Scriptapalooza (deadline is 3/3). Also, Austin is accepting entries.

Eye Candy

Note - this post is inspired by Scriptweaver.

Ah, Charlize & Rachel. Does it get any better?

Music That Rocks Us

I was driving today and Purple Rain popped on the ol' radio, so, as one should when they hear such an epic, I blasted it. Amazing song. Chills. And it was back when Prince made good music, as opposed to now when he seems to be writing all his lyrics using his penis.

It got me thinking (no, not about Prince's meatstick) but to those amazing, epic songs that stick with us. Like Purple Rain. Or........

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Our House
Jackson Browne's Running On Empty.
Van Morrison - Into The Mystic
U2 - I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, With Or Without You, Exit, Bad, Where The Streets Have No Name, One
James (excellent UK bad, broke up a few years back) - Sit Down, Seven, Sometimes
Warren Zevon - Lawyers Guns & Money
New Order - Bizarre Love Triangle, Your Silent Face, Temptation
Rolling Stones - Ruby Tuesday
The Monkees - Daydream Believer
The Who - Baba O'Riley
Depeche Mode - Never Let Me Down
The Beatles - In My Life, Yesterday, Hey Jude
REM - Fall On Me, Cuyahoga, Superman
The Innocence Mission (from Lancaster PA) - Now In This Hush
10,000 Maniacs - Verdi Cries, My How You've Grown

And Yellow, by Coldplay. Here's the scene - It was a few years ago, my son (then around 2 years old) and his cousin were bickering as they normally do, getting out of hand. My wife & sister-in-law were chattering on about something, and then, on MTV2 comes this pretty neat video from this new band, Coldplay, called Yellow. The sound of those guitars, the haunting lyrics, and that amazing one-long-shot video along the beach floored us and we stood there (even the little ones) hypnotized by the song/video. Of course the next day I bought the CD, but anyway, it just goes to show how transending, crippling, beautiful, astounding, and just plain awesome music can be when it gets to you.

2005 - Best & Worst - UPDATED

Long overdue, here's my best & worse of 2005. There's a ton of movies missing, but hey, I've got 2 kids and I miss a lot of movies at the theater. I'm sure if I had seen some of the top contenders they'd be on here, too. I HAVE NOT seen Brokeback, Good Night/Luck, Syriana, History of Violence, and a bunch more. But, based on what I have seen.........

The Best:
1. Jarhead - This movie rocked me.
2. King Kong - Too long? Yep, but still - Wow.
3. The Constant Gardener - Powerful stuff here.
4. Crash - Wonderful.
5. Thumbsucker - Great cast, really well done.
6. Munich - It's no Empire Of the Sun, but still a great film.
7. Batman Begins - Great jumpstart, can't wait to see more.
8. Layer Cake - Daniel Craig owns this!
9. Zathura - See previous post. Terrific movie.
10. Serenity - This is what the Star Wars prequels should have been - Good story & acting, actual chemistry between the actors, etc, etc.
11. Chumscrubber - Great script & direction, and I like where the story goes.
12. Wedding Crashers - Vince Vaughn always makes me laugh. He killed me here.
13. Lord Of War - Excellent direction, eye-opening.
14. Just Friends - I laughed like every 10 seconds. Seriously.
15. 40 Year Old Virgin - Funny as hell.

Honorable Mentions - Sky High - Fun family movie. The teachers deserve their own spin-off.
Also, The Weatherman - What a gem of a movie, directed by Gore Verbinski. Cage scores, and I really liked the script on this one.
The Worst -

**A Lot Like Love - A Lot Like Shit
**Son Of the Mask - I looked up diarrhea in the dictionary and a picture of this movie was next to it. The movie would have been saved, however, if the Tripod Aliens from War Of The Worlds made a cameo and started vaporizing.
**Elizabethtown - Ugh. I love Cameron Crowe. Orlando can be really good. Kirsten Dunst is yummy. But this movie sucked balls. A nice enough concept, but it fails all over the place. Liked the name of the band in the movie though - Ruckus!
**Sith - Yeah, it had some good scenes, but the more I think on it, the better ideas & F/X in the Star Wars prequels are likely thought up by ILM and not Lucas himself. It was the best of the prequels, but that's like saying I'd rather have Cancer than AIDS.
**Kingdom Of Heaven - Kingdom Of Boredom. They took an amazing, fascinating topic and completely drained it of all passion. Orlando Boom's knight was in mourning - so was I, for my 2+ hours back.
**Broken Flowers - I wanted to LOVE this movie. I love Bill Murray, and I thought this was a cool concept. What a waste of a movie. Jesus Christ. Filled with pointless scenes, unrealistic, boring dialogue. And that ending? I thought it might at least pay off at the end. Did I need some Hollywood happy ending? No, but SOMETHING, man. I like Jeffrey Wright as the neighbor, but besides him, this was a complete waste of time. Pointless.

Overlooked, award-worthy performances - Peter Sarsgaard - Jarhead
Also Joan Allen in the Upside Of Anger (Costner was great in that, too).

Movies that were fun/good - War Of the Worlds (yeah, it ended with a fart but there was some excellent stuff before it), Mr. & Mrs. Smith - Brainless? Sure, but a good popcorn movie.

Zathura

I'm late on the bus for this, just bought the DVD for the kids, but DAMN what a terrific, SMART movie. Wow. Great on all levels, but the real stand-outs are the kids (THESE kids are PERFECT) and the script. It feels like it was written by these kids (in the way they speak to each other).

"Go get me a juice box, beeyotch." My six year old's favorite line. The movie is filled with great, real dialogue by these kids.

The F/X are good and all, and the story is neat, but the kids rock. The older sister is spot-on in her role, the middle kid certainly gets it right, and the youngest boy is also perfect (yeah, he's cute as a button and all, but not annoyingly so).

Dax Shepard is also terrific as The Astronaut, and Tim Robbins is fun as the Dad (a small, but well-written part for him). It's really cool that the movie rests on these five shoulders (no other cast) - and most of it is on the two brothers.

It's a shame when a movie like this gets practically ignored and stuff like Harry Potter & Chicken Little rule the box office. Not that they are bad, but Zathura is a real stand-out, and among my favorites of 2005.

You can't quit Bert & Ernie

I thought this poster made a better poster for Brokeback. Short post tonight. I've finished tweaking my script White Gold and I think it's ready to go out for some critique. I'm happy with it, it's fun and could be shot ultra-low budget if desired. I was going to work on a drama next, but when I came up with a newer idea (It's called ZUCKER) everything just sorta fell into place (story, characters, the outline, etc) so I had to jump on it and strike while the inspiration was there! I thought of huge chunks of dialogue and scenes while listening to Weezer's latest, Perfect Situation. Great song, it'd be perfect for the end credits.

F'n Snow!

I used to love snow. Loved it! now that I have to shovel it, I despise it. Despise it! Especially THIS MUCH! 12+ Inches!? C'mon!

On the brighter side, the development guy at the company I sent Cricket Hill off to LOVED the script. I like when people LOVE my stuff. So, he's going to send it forward and see what his peeps think about it. My fingers are violently crossed. He also wanted loglines of my other scripts so I sent him 13 of my best.

We'll see what happens. The guy was super nice, smart, and what the hell, he loved my script! Of course we know how these things can go, his other guys might not like what he sees in it or something like that. It's happened before, not with Cricket Hill but my script The Money Shot. If you scan back a month or two of postings you'll see my posts on that. Basically, the guy who read it loved it but the other guys wanted a lot of changes, which I would have done, but there was no $$ offered, and they wanted a page 1 re-write.

Anyway, hopefully this won't go down that road. At the very least, it'll be a good contact to have - They've produced a slew of projects and have some amazing ones coming up in the future that are actually going to see theater-time!

I'll keep y'all posted.

Titles

What comes first? The title or the story? For me, most times, it’s the story, I‘d say 80% of the time (or I‘ll think of a plot and the title comes seconds later). But there have been times when I came up with a cool title, then the plot came later. This happened with my scripts Under Indiana (currently writing, it’s a crime drama) as well as Headshot (horror/comedy) and The Sex Scene. With The Sex Scene, however, I realized that title was a bit lame (although it IS about a film crew attempting to shoot a sex scene) and came up with another one - White Gold. It’s just catchier.

Also, a script I wrote a while back, Food Fight, happened that way. Actually, it came together when myself and a buddy of mine noticed our local supermarket kept changing its name. We pictured an internal struggle, a "food fight" of sorts. My script’s plot is a bit different (it’s about 2 supermarkets in the same shopping center that go at it).

But the one title I’m super proud of comes from a script I wrote (It’s one of my quarter-finalists at Fade In).

Here’s the logline: “Desperate for money after his financial aid is discontinued, Kenny and his fellow college buddies decide to secretly make an adult film and sell it for a quick buck.” And my title?

The Money Shot. C’mon, it’s perfect!

How about you guys/gals out there? Ever come up with a kick-ass title that you just HAD to write?

Hoo-ray

Quickie update - No love from AAA competition, not even a consider. Nothing from Zoetrope. Still waiting on Script Magazine/Benderspink contest.

BUT! I'm a quarter-finalist for Fade In Magazine's contest. I'm pretty happy about that - I sent a script there last year and got nowhere, I sent 3 in this year (Jablasco, The Money Shot & The Rave At Danny Carter's House) and all 3 are quarter-finalists.

Now, it's still early, so I'll hold off on the parade down my street, the scripts have to get through 2 more rounds (semi's & finalist rounds). And I'm certainly not the only multiple quarter-finalist (I think 2 people had 4 scripts listed!) and I'm in with about 400 other scripts, but considering they got around 2000 scripts, I do feel pretty damn good today about it. I mean, it's a big contest and they've had a lot of success with past finalists/winners getting their scripts made, etc.

Anyway, we'll see. I should know if any of the 3 will move on in March. That would blow me away. Fingers and toes will be crossed.

Also today, a producer found me on inktip.com and requested 2 of my listed screenplays (The Money Shot (comedy) & Headshot (horror comedy)) so I'll send them off to him and see what he thinks.

Now only if the Seahawks won this week would be perfect!

Script Update

The poster's got nothing to do with my post, it's just funny.

Here's my update, a mixture of good news/bad news......

Putting the finishing touches on my new comedy, WHITE GOLD. It's done, I'm just going through it, removing typos, punching up the funny, etc.

Got word from the AAA competition, and it's a bust. No quarterfinalist for me. Waiting to hear if I'm a "consider" which bascially is like saying I was almost a quarterfinalist, so it's better than nothing, but not much better. We'll see.

Also got word from Zoetrope. Nada. They told me to pound sand. I'm not to surprised by this one though, I sent an older script that I liked, but the more I thought about it after I sent it, it needed work and I should have sent something else.

My Rave At Danny Carter's House screenplay ain't setting the world on fire, but based on some terrific notes by Scott The Reader, I'm gonna fix her up a bit and she'll be ready to go. It did place as an honorable Mention in December's Comedy Screenplay Competition, which isn't too shabby. But not a win, darnit. I'll be sure it's ready for Scriptapalooza, Austin, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's brother's screenplay contest, Bluecat.

I did have request for a script, however, thanks to a listing on WinningScripts.com. they requested Cricket Hill, so I sent that baby out this morning.

Now I'm waiting to hear from Fade In (I heard they'll announce on 2/6) and Script Magazine's last contest (Benderspink) - they said it'll be within the 1st week of February.

Over the next week I'm gonna go fiddle with The Nine Lives Of Dalt Stickle and my new epic, The Battle Of Thunder Hill. When I'm not in the mood for funny, however, I'll be working on Under Indiana, a new crime drama that is coming along nicely.

Now go write somethin' dammit.

Copycats?

Okay, now, I can't be the 1st to notice this, but somebody is copying from somebody here, and it's between Pixar/Disney and Dreamworks Animation. Listen up.

I'm not going to go into release dates or anything, just the movies:

Pixar - A Bug's Life (adventure with ants)
Dreamworks - Antz (adventure with ants)

Pixar - Monster's Inc (loveable monster guys)
Dreamworks - Shrek (loveable monster guy)

Dreamworks - Madagascar (animals get loose, etc)
Disney - The Wild (animals get loose, etc) See poster above.

Pixar - Cars
Dreamworks - I swear I read they were working on a Route 66 movie.

Over the Hedge - Dreamworks
Open Season, Barnyard, ah fuck it.

See my point though? It just seems like somebody is swiping these ideas, sure this happens all the time in Hollywood, but most of the general plots for these movies are pretty much exactly the same.

Nominations, yo!

Not many surprises with the big nominations, a few that I like, I hope Clooney takes a statue for Good night/luck and he deserves one for Syriana. Then again I'd love to see Matt Dillon win for Crash. Giamatti should already have one for Sideways.

Brokeback will still win best pic and director (oh, and adapted screenplay), but the Crash victory at the SAG awards says that it's not 100% of a win for the Brokebackers. Wish history of Violence got a little more love, Jarhead, too. The Constant Gardener as well, but Weisz should get her Oscar. As good as she is, I'd love Michelle Williams to swoop in and steal it, James Van Der Beek would be all like, Whoa! Even better would be an Amy Adams win.

Hoffman will win for Capote, but it'd be nice to see Heath surprise, or Terrence Howard.

Revenge of the Sith got all the nominations it deserved, although the FX were good so it should have gotten a visual effects bone thrown at it. The Konger should win for the FX.

Wallace and Gromit will and should win. I wonder if next year if they'll still only have 3 slots open for Animation, since there's like 10000 animated movies coming out (including Flushed Away, Cars (one of these will be the likely winner next year), Open Season, Ant Bully, Barnyard, Meet The Robertson's (Disney), Ice Age 2, etc, etc).

Reese will win and that's okay by me.

Managed!

Just landed me a manager, so I'm happy about that. He's a good guy with good connections, so we'll see where it goes. I still have my agent, I like the idea of having both and certainly don't mind getting a lesser percentage if I sell something. Because if I sell something, well, I'll be a happy dude out here in NJ, plus it'll mean that I sold something!

I've put the finishing touches on my latest script, WHITE GOLD. It's a comedy about the last day of shooting an independent movie, when things that have been going smoothly start to fall apart, people are bailing, etc. And one of its main focuses is the filming of the most important scene in the movie - the sex scene. It'd be Rated R in its current form, it's filled with profanity, sexual situations (could be shot tastefully of course, or not), and more profanity.

I love Living In Oblivion, The Big Picture, movies like that. It's got nothing to do with them plot-wise, only in that the main characters are trying to get the thing done, and shit goes wrong.

It's a fun script, and can be shot VERY CHEAPLY (1 location, just a handful of characters). I'll comb through it a bit next, weeding out typos, etc, and throw it up on Inktip.com and see what happens. Some decent script competitions are coming up so I'll throw it at a few of them.

I also finished a re-write that I'm very happy with, my script called THE MONEY SHOT, another comedy. This is the one that was almost bought a few months ago by wacky Canadian producers but they never bit (basically everything they loved about it they wanted to change. Odd, those Candians). It was optioned back in 2002 by an independent producer (he was working with Barbara Streisand's company at the time (Barwood) but optioned it on his own. Never went anywhere, the option ran out and I NEVER EVER heard from him again. New Manager guys loves it so he's gonna try to package it somewhere.

This upcoming week I should find out about my Zoetrope competition entries (sent them 2 scripts) as well as my Fade In entries (I sent 3 there). Fingers crossed!

Still Good

Titanic is still a good movie. I caught the "good parts" on HBO in the middle of last night (boat sinking). Amazing stuff. Sure, some of it looks a bit dated F/X wise, but it holds up mostly.

You know why this movie still works? Cameron knew what the hell he was doing. Now, is this a perfect flick? No, it's got its awkward moments, silly moments, etc, but I'll tell you one thing - I'd buy the love story of Jack and Rose WAY BEFORE the bullshit we had to sit through in the Star Wars prequels.

It just goes to show that Lucas should have sat back and produced the Prequels instead of doing them himself. He can't write, and he sure as hell can't direct anymore. How do you cast such fine actors (Neeson, Sammy Jackson, etc) as they did and breath absoultely NO LIFE into them???? "Hold me like you did by the lake on Naboo." Fuck Naboo!

Back to Titanic. The best parts? The sinking is awesome in how Cameron did it, but my favorite moments are much quieter.

I want to break down and cry like a little bitch when that band continues to play that old, sad melody while Cameron expertly cuts to some goings-on of the ship, namely a beautiful old couple cuddling in fear in a bed, their last moments of a likely long, amazing life together Then the next shot is of a mother reading a story to her two wonderful children. I know these are all just actors but it was one of those instances where I FELT for them on-screen, I pictured the fear and agony that would follow for these characters.

Just a look back at a still-good movie. It gets slammed since it's the biggest movie of all time and all, that can happen when you gross over 2 BILLION dollars worldwide, but you know what, it's still pretty damn good.

Flickmaking 2

Had a good response from my last post about making a movie. Since a bunch of y'all are out there about to do so, I thought I'd throw some info your way.

We made Better Days in 2001, and although the movie wasn't all that, most of it went very smoothly.

I'll just cover two things today. One is:

Your Screenplay.

1st, go re-write it. I'm sure it needs another pass or 12. Then read it again. give it to a friend to rear (preferrably someone who knows SOMETHING about story, characters, etc. NOT your mother). Gather your cast or at least some friends who won't piss all over the dialogue and do a reading. Have someone read the descriptions, it should NOT be you. Your job is to sit on your ass and listen.

Polish/Re-write.

Also, send it to another writer. Or a coverage service. Or Christ, I'll even read it. Just don't take your script into production before it's ready. I've done it more than once. Never again.

Better Days should have had another draft or two before we put it into production, that much I know.

Actors
You probably can't afford to pay them so you'll have them sign a deferred payment contract which basically says when the movie starts making $$, they might see something. Most actors understand these contracts, and they understand they probably will never see a nickel. But you'll give them food, screen credit of course, and a copy of the finished film for their reel. I've had some actors ask me for their unedited footage. This is an insane request.

There are zillions of actors out there and a zillion places to list your movie to request headshots. I get them by the boxfull every time I put out a search for actors/crew.

Break the script down and get your actors to inform you on the days they can't make, etc. Then make your schedule of shooting days and get it to them ASAP.

Try not to have your actors come back for every shooting day. I'd try to lump some of the actors' scenes together so I can get them in and off the project. One less actor to worry about, plus if they are there for free, their time may be valuable.

This depends on a lot of things though and might not always be possible, it's also a good idea to do the same thing around a location. You only have that diner location for a limited time? then take all those scenes and shoot them all at the same time if you can. this is where a script supervisor excells, make sure they are taking pictures of the actors so you know how people looked, what they are wearing, etc.

The actors will not likely remember.

Always have food nearby. The actors & crew need to be fed. If not, they WILL talk about you, your production company, your shitty movie, etc, and word will spread about you.

At the audition, have some donuts or bagels. On set, I ALWAYS have a nice cooler with plenty of waters and fruit (apples & bananas work best) for people to munch as we go about the shooting day. When everyone gets on-set in the AM I'll have donuts, bagels, muffins. And coffee. Dunkin Donuts sells a box of coffee. My gang loved that.

For lunch it's nice to have sandwiches, or hoagies. Pizza is okay, but not for every shooting day. Try to mix it up a bit. Another thing I like to do is take the cast and crew to a decent place (not too expensive, but a nice joint or someplace with a lot of variety on the menu) and just let them order whatever they want. This should be done when you have your core group together, at least all your leads and crew. Usually (if they're polite) they won't order the lobster but at least by taking them out once or twice, you're showing them that you give a shit. And in return, they'll give a shit.

That's it for now. My main points for today? Feed your cast & crew, and go do another re-write.

FILM, BABY

So, digital or film, what's it gonna be?

Scott the Reader recently posted about the release of Bubble, to be released simultaneaously on DVD, in theaters, etc. This is supposed to be some revolutionized release and they are trying it with this art-film. So, when it bombs, will they say this type of strategy won't work?

Well, roll the dice a little, people. This movie wouldn't make 9 cents anyway (combined DVD & theater gross) so how is this a good test of this strategy? Why not try it on a movie like this Summer's Superman. Then we'll see. Oh, they won't? Why? Oh, because the theatrical release won't make as money. I think it's a neat idea, and might be good for these smaller releases, but it's not gonna change anything with how studios release movies unless they up the ante and send something like a Superman or X3 out like this. And if I was them, I simply wouldn't.

His comments then veered into what's better - Film or Digital.

What do you guys think? Is digital the wave of the future? Will it bury film? I hope not. Film is a beautiful thing. I think they can co-exist, but can you picture a movie like Glory or Lawrence Of Arabia or Saving Private Ryan shot on digital? People that love digital swear up and down about it, saying how CLEAR the picture is. Well, to me, that's its problem. Give me a nice grainy film anyday. Although I am for digital projection and love digital sound.

How about you guys? Thoughts on this? Film? Digital?

Revenge is a dish best served cold.......

Finish that quote and I'll give you a dollar.

Screenwriting Update:

I'm almost finished WHITE GOLD, a comedy about the last day of filming on a low-budget movie. This will likely be the next thing I complete. I'm at the home stretch! I love the home stretch!

Been tinkering with a few ideas and beginnings of screenplays, but I haven't "committed" to a particular one yet. Usually, after I hit page 30+ I consider that committed. One such script I'm committing to is UNDER INDIANA, my first drama in over a year. For 2005, it was comedy all the way. I'm also working on a new comedy called THE HEIST OF THE CENTURY.

How are the contests going? Shitty, thus far. I heard back from So You Wanna Be A Screewriter. They might as well have sent back a tape with laughter on it.

Just heard from AAA competition. I sent 2 there. I went 0 for 2. How did I place 2nd out of 3000+ scripts in the Austin Film Festival in 2003? Fluke? Maybe. Seems so long ago now. Who knows. But I still have confidence in the other screenplays I have out to other festivals & contests, as well as the newer scripts I'm working on. Only a matter of time, right?

The Overrated

Garden State - Zach Braff is a super-talent, and I think he's got a great movie inside of him. This is not it. I liked this a lot when I first saw it, but I've seen it since and I cringe at a lot of the "moments." Love the details about the suburbs and all that, and Peter Saarsgard is awesome as usual. Natalie Portman is great, really showing her talents, but she's one of those movie roles that simply don't exist in real life but in the eager, hopeful minds of us screenwriters. Overall, the movie now ranks as pretty good with moments (still a good soundtrack). Zach's character needs to get a grip.

I Heart Huckabees - This movie thinks it's so damn smart. Ugh. I feel like choking every character here. Wahlberg is a stand-out, I liked him a lot in this (he and Schwartzman had the best scenes). Anyway, it's not really as smart as it thinks. Pretentious bullshit. David Russell is another super-talented guy, like he was with Three Kings.

Shakespeare in Love - Good movie. Fun, cute. It beat Saving Private Ryan. HUH?

Gangs Of New York & The Aviator - Scorcese is amazing, no doubt. Here, he's pretty good. So glad these didn't win Best Picture Oscars. But I have to say Scorcese certainly should already have like 3-4 Oscars. But not for these. Both movies have great moments, but for me, don't hold together. Blanchett winning for this? C'mon. Anyway, I'm hoping The Departed kicks major ass.

The Hours - Somebody slap these characters. Actually, slap Julianne Moore's character twice. I understand her internal struggles, but you don't just leave your kid SCREAMING for you on the street. Internal struggle? Get the fuck over it, you're a bad mother. SLAP! SLAP!

A Beautiful Mind - Man, the schizo was hot! Oh, it's just Russell Crowe. I love Ron Howard, but again, he's been much better elsewhere.

Chicago - I don't mind musicals. But I despise this one. Didn't do a thing for me. While I'm on the topic, the Phantom Of the Opera sucked, too, although I wouldn't count it as "overrated" since the critics weren't too kind anyway. But it sucked.

Sin City - Cool visuals, wonderful cast. But it's really a SNOOZE as in ZZzzzzzzzzzz. What a bore. (Taz reminded me of this one, thanks Taz.)

Revenge Of The Sith - God I love Star Wars. Wonderful Trilogy....Before Greedo started shooting first and then the prequels happened. I've already posted thoughts on this mess of a trilogy in recent months' posts, but had to revisit my hatred for it again. Now, each movie has moments: the Darth Maul character & the lightsaber duel of the 1st; pretty neat although very videogame-esque climax in the arena of the 2nd movie, and pieces of the 3rd. Actually, also a stand-out of Clones was the Jango/Obi-Wan brawl in the rain. That was nice. But the rest? Not so much. Mostly boring, uneventful, disappointing, and wretchingly-bad writing. "Bang me like you did by the lake on Naboo." Give me a break.

Oh, and Padme didn't die of being choked by Anakin, no that would have actually made sense. She died of a broken heart. That damn robot actually said that basically she's doing great but she's going to die of a broken heart. She's lost the will to live. Oh, and those 2 beautiful babies you just gave birth to aren't worth it you dramatic, selfish beeyotch? Slap!

Additional thought about A New Hope - Why didn't the Death Star blow through that planet that was "blocking" the moon that the rebel base was on????? It's laser death ray was good enough to smoke Alderaan, not that one?

Thoughts? Reflections? More overrated movies?

The Underrated

I hate it when movies I love fall off the radar, and it seems nobody else got to see them or experience them. Or maybe when it was released it just disappeared. I'm listing some of my favorites that didn't get much reception when first released. What are some of yours? Mine include:

Joe Vs. The Volcano: John Patrick Shanley directed, with Tom Hanks & Meg Ryan. Also check out The 'Burbs for another smaller (but excellent) Hanks flick.

Fearless - from my all-time favorite director, Peter Weir. Starring Jeff Bridges, and has just about the best ending of any movie. Ever.

Jacob's Ladder - 1991 Tim Robbins, Ving Rhames. Directed by Adrian Lyne.

Fandango - Kevin Costner, Judd Nelson.

State Of Grace (1990) - Sean Penn, Gary Oldman, Ed Harris, Robin Wright Penn

Grand Canyon (1991) - Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Steve Martin, Jeremy Sisto - Directed by Lawrence Kasdan

Bodies, Rest & Motion - Tim Roth, Bridget Fonda, Eric Stoltz

Hamburger Hill - Don Cheadle, Steven Weber. A gem of a Vietnam film.

Barton Fink - Coen Brothers.

King Of the Hill - Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Adrien Brody, Kathryn Heigl, and Jesse Bradford. Depression-era coming-of-age story.

The Edge - Alec Baldwin, Anthony Hopkins. Writen by David Mamet, directed by Lee Tamahori. Good story, tense adventure.

The Iron Giant - Animated. Wow, what a beautiful movie. Great for kids & adults! Vin Diesel voices the Iron Giant. Directed by Brad "The Incredibles" Bird.

Closet Land - Starring Alan Rickman & Madeline Stowe - And NOBODY else.

Kicking & Screaming - Directed by Noah "The Squid & The Whale" Baumbach.

Fly Away Home - Another nice kids movie, but beautifully shot & directed, with a great score.

Your turn!