So many movies lately

Well its been a very busy month and I have watched many movies. So in a short list

Halloweentown : great disney classic, 7/10
a cute movie with a family theme about accepting strange things

Halloweentown II : cute sequel, really enjoyed it 7/10
learning that sometimes others know hats best


Halloweentown High : newest movie in this series : 7/10
even different people are people

Pooh's Heffalump Movie : cute new pooh movie, but too much separation of story : 4/10
Halloween cute, story line weak

Heidi : 200X disney movie : a real classic, lovely movie 8/10
I love movies about older times

Sex Lives of the potato Men : truly a British movie. Is the brit in me disappearing, I found it to much to the point. But at the same time I loved it. 9/10

Blade Trinity : Loved this new vampire installment with best effects yet 10/10

Pom Poko : new Japan-animation from Disney : I now know the true story of the raccoons and their special magical powers. My conjecture: the boat load of raccoons landed in north America and hence our raccoons don't have the power of transformation. 11/10

Lilo & Stitch II : Stitch has a Glitch: a nice new installment with a full story 7/10

Cube, HyperCube and Cube 0 : this is an amazing trilogy of what could go bad with the entire idealogoy of today's "not me, so I don't care" attitude 11/10 11/10 11/10

Skeleton Key: one of the best new "scary" movies I have seen in years, scared me with a chill, the way we all should be scared. 10/10

Diary of a Mad Black Woman : an interesting story with cute sub plots, but just not enough of the star in his lady role : 6/10

The adventures of SharkBoy and Lavagirl" cute , nice family tones. too bad the kids could not have been better actors. 6.5/10

and that's all I can remember for now since there is too much good TV on, survivor, prison break, alias, charmed, etc

Red Eye - 8 / 10

Last night I had the pleasure (and I actually mean pleasure) of watching the new movie Red Eye. The basic advertised premise is a terrorist type guy has gotten a girls father, and reveals to her on a plane that he has him and she had better do what he says (without giving away what that is).

Over all I enjoyed this movie a lot. Its actual plot is different enough from the trailer that I loved watching it. The story line was completely believable and the characterizations were real. Rachel McAdams as Lisa really kept me interested in the mental fight her character was having (the one you love, or one you know : who would you choose), and Cillian Murphy was amazing in his role as the crazy (but not crazy) bad guy who just shows that he believes in what he does. This character really makes a business of his life and de-pesonalises it in a very believable "monologue" speech. Even Brian Cox as Lisas father was nice to see in this movie.

I don't know if I would buy this one as Its kinda a one shot story, but I did love watching it, and well at least its not the tenant

Miracles (Disney) - 9/10

I have been wanting to see this Disney movie for quite a while. It stars Kurt Russell as Herb Brooks, who in 1980 had the distinction of having been the last player cut from the U.S. hockey team. That team turned out to be the last team to win the Gold at the Olympics (in 1960). For a twenty year period until he led the U.S. hockey team to victory over the Soviets (who had won the medal the last four times: 1976, 1972, 1968, and 1964 since that 1960 U.S. win) at the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid despite overwhelming odds.

Overall I loved this movie. It does not so much focus on the game of hockey as it does the overwhelming mental and emotional game played between the coach, the team, patriotism and winning. Herb Brooks believed 100% his team would win, and this movie shows very well the steps and sacrifices he had to make to convince his team of it. The pace of the movie was very good and even the at home family scenes helped show the coaches determination. The play on the cold war was accurately portrayed with a real sense of how life was influenced by it back then, and how the coach tried to keep it out of hockey.

its a great movie that I can not wait to buy on DVD now so I can watch it again, and well at least its not the tenant.

Tarzan II 9 / 10

Finally a Disney sequel that's not just a collection of three 25 minute cartoons. Tarzan II lets us explore tarzans childhood quest to determine what he is. I mean if he is not an ape he must be something right.

This movie was cute and cuddly and a lot better than most of the Disney sequels that have been coming out lately. I will say right of the bat, however, that it suffered without Rosie O'Donnell as terk. I often wonder why a star would not be willing to do a sound-over on a sequel when the original really helped her name. Tarzan is well remembered for Rosie's voice and the new voice was just too different.

I loved the concept of this movie in exploring our "nightmares" in so far as what things make us scared. Its all too easy to see in life things people are afraid of that are jus un-reasonable, like in my opinion people who drive cars too fast, but are scared of flying "(check stats on deaths people). The Zugor is a great primes for this movie and I really enjoyed the bad family (of course in Disney fashion they become good). Over all I think I would watch this new classic quite a few times, and well at least its not the tenant.

Stealth 6 / 10

Last week I watched Stealth with my wife. This movie about an artificially intelligent plane with a personality was very enjoyable. The characters were ok with Josh Lucas, Jessica Biel, and Jamie Foxx playing the three normal pilots.

I did find the military chain of command a little hard to believe. I mean if its this easy for a single simple minded person who happens to have envious stars (or stripes, whatever) on his shoulder to take command of a new technology, its scary. Also if i crashed, I would expect my doctor to give me a shot or two no matter how much I protested. The technology was a common sci-fi thme made to be a non-sci fi movie, but it did have a good story line with your typical love, action and even traditional "cold-war" military enemies.

Overall this movie was a cute watch. I'll probably only watch the movie once, being glad I saw it, but i'm sure I will forget it quite fast.


Well at least its not the tenant.

The Island 8 / 10

Well last night my wife, my brother, my two best friends and I made the drive to New Glasgow to have dinner and a movie. The movie we choose was THE ISLAND starring Lincoln (Ewan McGregor) and Jordan(Scarlett Johansson).

Story: People are getting cloned so that when they want\need kids or transplants their clones can do the work for them or provide the body parts. Downside: Although the clones are oblivious to what's really going on, believing in a nicely contrived story involving a lottery, in actual fact they are treated as disposable chunks of meat. Not the best possible life. But what happens is one person decided to question the lottery and their way of life, i.e. Lincoln.

First Impressions: not to bad, actually quite good. Love the recognizable spot actors in the crowds of clones. I thought the premise was one of those concepts that's just horrifying to think any humans could organize, but at the same time, we all know people who would do such an option if given a chance. The special effects were great (although my wife still wants to know why they used train wheels if none of the trains in the movie had wheels). The plot and character interaction was enjoyable, and although the lead characters show very low emotions, its definitely part of the story line that causes this, so its fits perfectly.

Ewan McGregor was quite good in his role as Lincoln and we get some nice insight into rational thinking that too many of us don't bother with anymore. The concept of clones trying to survive (using catch phrase the company uses to sell cloning to the public) was a good plot line and defintely a story you want to keep watching. Without killing any plot, there were two scenes that intrigued\bothered me. One is actions of his sponsor. I agree the sponsor would take those actions, but I think he would actually take much harsher actions. Two is the air-bike chase. This screamed EWOKS and having Ewan McGregor run around on an air driven bike through a city was too much like Star Wars for me.

Overall I really enjoyed the story and found it to be one which spawned a lot of conversation on the drive home. I thought the "bounty hunter" was a great role and would have prefered to see more interaction between him and the clones. Perhaps even a segment showing the branding discussed near the end. I'm glad I watched it, and will watch it again when it hits ppv or dvd. Well at least its not the tenant.

Foolproof 6.5 / 10

I love when nothing is on TV. Last night I was flipping through the channels after RockStar: INXS and Canadian Idol ended and there was really only one movie about to start, so it won.

I'm so glad it did.

Foolproof is a very cute story about 3 friends who occupy their time by planning the perfect crimes (ie foolproof crimes). Mind you they never commit them, they just plan them until they are foolproof. Quite a interesting concept in its own, that is until a mob boss catches on to them, steals there fingerprint covered plans, pulls off a big score crime and then blackmails them into committing a large real score for him.

I loved this movie, and its not just because I my opinion both Ryan Reynolds and (unknown to me) Kristin Booth had nice chemistry without letting it actually lead to any wasted on screen romance time. . I actually learned not to like the third member of the team Joris Jarsky but that actually played right into the movies willing suspension of disbelief. I guess what I loved about this movie is two things

1) The story/plot seemed fast enough with just enough information to keep you intrigued, but not enough to bore you.

2) I love a movie that has the people in the room shouting out guesses as to what's going to happen. I like it more when my guesses are right :), but i won't ruin the movie for you.

Overall : great movie to watch with friends at home. I actually think one worth buying. Well lets face it, it was a foolproof hit for the cast and crew in my opinion.

Well at least its not the tenant.

Million Dollar Baby 7 / 10

Last night I went to watch Bewitched, but unexpectedly ended up watching Million Dollar Baby. First of all this is a highly acclaimed movie with what looked to me to be a strong sports drama feel to it, so I was not that interested in watching it.

First Impressions (besides this is not Bewitched) : Interesting story, better than expected. I felt like it should have had a lot more information at the beginning to clear up questions about the family of the trainer (Clint Eastwood) and his history, but Hollywood never gives a movie the time to tell an entire story (well except Titanic and Postman, of which I preferred postman). Overall a recommender.

The acting in this movie was quite good, but it was Morgan Freeman that made the movie for me. Clint was ok, but I felt it was the same personality we always see him play, so where is the acting in that. Morgan made me so interested in the movie that I kept watching hoping he would take over the role of Clint in the training. Maggie (Hilary Swank) was very good in this movie, but I felt more insight and emotion from her character were needed. People who have grown up that bad are emotional about it, and she did not reach the level of emotion I wanted to see. Not even at the end. The narration bit was cool, but probably did not add the effect they hoped and could have been left off and the movie would not really have suffered if they moved some of it just into basic dialog.

Not a boxing fan, I did get excited about the boxing. The cockiness of Swank really came through and you wanted to see more of it. The big fight she had was amazing, but lets be real. Ramifications would have happened and as a watcher, I wanted to know what they would have been. In the room at the end, she should have the belt (is that the belt in the gym at the end? If so, make it clearer to us... If not, explain why not).

The story had a few side stories as all do, but I felt they were weak with not enough follow through. 110 was good, but needed more about it afterwards.

Overall a great movie. One I probably would not buy as its not that re-watchable for me, but one I definitely will tell people I know to go watch.

Well at least its not the tenant.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory 10 / 10

Well this book adaptation (I'm not a book reader) is quite interesting. First I have seen the older Hollywood Version (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) a lot of times. So I was really looking forward to seeing this new version.

First impressions: if this movie is like the book, then obviously the old one had really been Hollywood-ized, but that's ok, I loved it anyway.

This movie is quite interesting. Johnny Depp is so good as Wonka, but he definitely portrays a different type of Wonka than did Gene Wilder. I got the impression watching this movie that it was very ARTSY. I felt strongly that although I loved it and will definitely buy this movie on DVD, had I not been such a fan of the older version, I might not have liked it as much. I loved the glass elevator scenes and actually cracked up in the theater when Wonka walks into it.

The candy was great looking, and the boat idea was much better than before. Overall I can not wait to watch this movie again and again.

I have to say that I did not like the decision to make the ommpa loompas all the same actor. I felt this was another example of using technology to replace live actors which weakened the movie. I also did not think the songs (with the exception of Wonkas theme) were memorable. They could have kept more commonality between the kids songs. Also if this is such a blockbuster, and the ommpa loompa is digitally fixed, why not get a famous actor to play the role, like Jim Carey or Robin Williams. This one (or a million) character(s) was in my opinion the weakest part of the film.

Overall, however, I loved the kids, the grandfather and even Charlie. Depp was amazing, and for playing a role which made me believe he was Wonka, I would give him the Oscar (although I feel Hollywood does not reward rolls like this, never mind how good the actor plays it).

Well at least its not the tenant.

First Post

So my name is Jeffrey McNally and I am a Doctor of Computer Science and Mathematics at STFX University in Antigonish NS. I have a beef....

My beef is movies. I love them. Seriously for some strange reason I have an amazing ability to go into complete "willing suspension if disbelief" and really believe anything that happens in a movie. I mean accept it for the length of the movie with 100% confidence. This being told, I find that many times I do not agree at all with the reviews of so called "movie critics", so I thought this blog could be me talking about movies I have seen (spoiler warning, I might spill a movies secret).

So I'm gonna watch movies and let you know my opinion. Feel free to comment back on it, just keep it nice. I'll rank each movie from 0-10 with 10 being the best and 0 being a movie i absolutely hated (The Tenant). So read, enjoy and have fun.

and while reading this, remember, at least its not the tenant.