Perfect Stranger - 2 paws up

Suspenseful, awesome acting, and leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

The movie held us captive from the beginning to the very closing scene. Without using too many cliched techniques like loud music overtures or sudden scene cut ways, the movie was suspenseful through its entirety. There was absolutely nowhere where we said, "Oh, I knew that was going to happen." The end is a shocking surprise, one that leaves you going back through the movie, dissecting scenes and dialogues to understand where you might have missed a clue.

Acting by everyone was awesome. Bruce Willis, my all time favorite, is in a never before done by him (as far as I know), role of the rich, arrogant man who takes what he wants and discards it when he's done with it. Halle Berry plays a newspaper columnist looking for that big break. She portrays the emotions of a friend who's friend's been murdered, an honest journalist who's story has been killed by powerful politicians, undercover spy at a firm to find out what really happened, all with poise and perfection. Giovanni Ribisi, who's Halle's friend and is trying to help her in her endeavor to find the truth, gives you the creeps throughout the movie till at one point, you find out, he is a creep. 

The story line is perfect, kept us captivated till the end. And, at the end, we walked away hating every character in the movie. Not one person in the movie is to be pitied, instead they are despicable, dishonest and downright just dirty.

Watch it for yourself, it's a must see.

An Inconvenient Truth ... I am freaked

Yes, we liked it.

I came away part incredulous at what was rpesented and part in fear that I was going to wake up tomorrow to find half the world submerged under melted ice from the poles.

As you watch the movie, you keep thinking to yourself over and over again, how a rational human being, after seeing all this proof laid out in front of them, still can't seem to care.

The documentary provides sceintific basis for why CO2 emissions and rising temperatures are corelated and how this raise in temperature os nowhere within the normal temperature changes the earth usually goes through. How this increase is actually causing a change in the natural ecological balance and causing species to go extinct. And, this is the saddest thing I heard, how polar bears are drowning because they are swimming further and further without finding ice to be able to live on.

I am not sure if these changes will occur in the next 20 yrs, or 50 or even a 100. Why are we arguing that? The fact that these changes will occur as a result of our actions should be enough to make us sit up, take notice and change our actions. Why are we driving Hummers that are so inefficient it blows my mind? Why are the developed nations not looking at alternate sources of energy more energetically? Why are we ignoring this? Is it because we won't be alive for it? Maybe our kids won't be either. But just imagine if that's what our parents' grandparents had thought. We might not be alive today if that had happened.

"I'm having an old friend for dinner ..."

We recently watched Hannibal Rising and finding out that Jeff had not seen any of the Hannibal movies, I had to get them from the start. So, we watched Silence of the Lambs and then Hannibal.

I am amazed by the acting of Sir Anthony Hopkins. He is impeccable as Dr. Hannibal Lecter. You almost feel sad for him, knowing his background. You cannot help but feel that his victims' fates were well deserved. I mean, in Hannibal, both Ranaldo Pazzi and Paul Krendler are characters that you almost want to cheer the deaths of; one for greediness and stupidity; the other for just being a downright sexist jerk.

I will also never in my life forget the last scene of that movie where Dr. Lecter very carefully lifts Krendler's crown (his physical crown, not something he wore as a King). He then slices a piece of his brain carefully off, sautes it and then feeds it to Krendler. I do remember I had no trouble watching the scene when I saw the movie 5 years ago. I had to avert my eyes this time when the knife neared Krendler's frontal lobes.

Just as a sidenote, I like Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling. Julianne Moore just doesn't play a poor white girl growing up in Virginia as well as Foster did.

The small portion menu at TGI Friday's

We loves it!

The smaller portions are perfectly sized. In fact, we had an appetizer and we couldn't finish our meals. Try them out. They're even decently priced at 7.99

This was my Firecracker chicken over fried rice with Broccoli. The broccoli was supposed to be seasoned with something but it was just steamed. It was still really good.

Jeff got the Jack Daniels chicken alfredo. This was rEALLY good. I didn't finish my plate but I cleaned his off.

Spiderman 3: 2 paws up

Oh man did I love it!

Please be aware that this might contain spoilers.

I think I enjoyed the 3rd Spiderman movie better than the previous 2. The characters were finally blown out to their full potential, except for maybe Mary Jane's. Peter Parker gets to be a little nasty, a lot mean and somewhat hateful after he gets the black suit. There was an element of humor still with Tobey trying to act like the big bad wolf. He just doesn't look the part.

On the other, Harry Osburn actually becomes a likeable character by the end of the movie. I also liked that this movie flushed out Peter and Harry's friendship, showed the downs and then the up towards the end, here Harry realises his father was wrong and decides to help Peter save MJ. I think killing him at the end was an unwanted meloncholy.

The Sandman, played byThomas Haden Church, was another villain that you could not completely hate. Especially after you find out he loves his little daughter who's dying and everythign he's done, he's done it for her. It doesn't condone his actions but it still brings a tear to your eye, especially at the end when he just flies away in a gentle swirl of sand.

Topher Grace, in my humble opinion, did an entirely too good job of being the true villain, Venom. You could feel the anger and hatred emanating from him as you watched him on screen. Gone was the sweet natured kid from That 70's Show. In his place, was a nasty, cheating man who you just couldn't find any reason to like.

Overall, a definite must-see movie of this summer.

Blades of Glory - 1 paw up

Eh, Ferrell deserved at least 1 paw

Blades of Glory had its moments, some funny, some dirty. Good thing was not all the funny things had been shown in trailers.

Really not much to say about it; wait till it come out on DVD; it'll make a good drinking movie.

Stuffed Crust Pizza - 0 paws up

No, didn't like it at all!

The crust was too thin.

The pizza cheese was too greasy.

The cheese in the crust was too salty.

Nothing spectacular.

Maybe that's why they are offering it at $5 off.

300 - 2 paws up

That's 2 paws up from me, meow!

Last night, I watched Jon Stewart talk about how Iran has taken offense to the movie 300 and it intrigued me. With so many Hollywood movies that portray other countries and cultures in many demeaning and insulting ways, I wanted to see what about this movie is so bad that a whole country is up in arms against America. So, we went and saw it today.

Iran, step down and step back. There is nothing in the movie that's culturally insulting. It portrays how a very proud, very few fought very bravely and died very much in honor to protect their way of life. The invaders were of course portrayed as evil, heartless butchers who wanted to kill the men and enslave everybody else. How is that different from other movies where brave countrymen fight against bloodthirsty marauders? The weirdly shaped men in the Persian army aren't even Persians. They are portrayed as slave armymen from countries the Persians had taken over.

I didn't recognize any of the actors' names but almost everyone was wonderful. Gerald Butler was commanding as King Leonidas and Lena Headey perfect as the beautiful and headstrong Queen Gorgo. The King's Captain, played by Vincent Regan, was loyal, brave and ready to sacrifice his oldest son because "he had others to replace him."

David Wenham plays a soldier, Delios, who's forced to leave the battlefield at the end so he can tell the story of the rest to the council back in Sparta. He portrays a brave and very eloquent storyteller, whose voice plays the background narrater. Dominic West who plays Theron, a traitorous Councilman, who sells to the Persians for money. He plays the unlikable character so perfectly you want to applaud when Queen Gorgo kills him for insulting her and the King in front of the Council.

If there was 1 character that could have been portrayed better, it was the Persian invading king, Xerxes, played by Rodrigo Santoro. There was something missing; he came across as effeminate; he had bunches of jewelry all over him, including his bald head. He just wasn't the strong, evil, plundering bastard he needed to be.

The musical score through all the fight scenes was beautiful and invoked thoughts of bravery and honor. The imagery was very old-photo like in sepia colors and graphic novel like in how the bloodspill was shown.