Steve Carell, a comedic genius; Anne Hathaway, a pretty girl; Together, a stunning pair. The movie Get Smart pairs the two together as agents working for the company CONTROL. That is all you really need to know about the movie before seeing it. It’s a simple, easy to follow, fun movie. In the end however, I left the movie feeling as if I had just seen a movie produced by Nickelodeon, a very good Nickelodeon movie though. The humor was either a hit or a miss and then it fluctuated too much, too many times I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to take a scene seriously or not while at some points I was dreadfully expecting a “pull-my-finger” joke to arise.
The whole movie felt like a satire of another movie, like James Bond and Austin Powers…Austin Powers:James Bond::Get Smart:Mission Impossible for those of you who know what an analogy is …I felt that Get Smart was trying to be a satire of Mission Impossible, but I don’t think the producers want me to feel that way. The intellectual property just didn’t seem to deviate enough for me to really consider it individualistic. And that really hampered the overall feel of the movie… it was like I was watching an episode of Home Improvement that I have never seen, I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but since all the other episodes essentially follow the same formula, I can accurately guess the ending.
I recently started watching The Office and almost instantly became a fan of Steve Carell. He’s got the most unique acting that just draws me into whatever character he plays. Not in a Tom Hanks kind of way…Tom Hanks can make me cry…but Steve Carell can take a completely stereotyped-to-death character and breathe life into him. A good and funny breath of life. And so is the case with Maxwell Smart, a blundering buffoon of an agent that we have all seen tens of times, yet created anew by Carell. While the trailer of course spoiled some of his best one-liners, Carell kept me laughing. HOWEVER, there is a scene in the trailer that involves Maxwell becoming stuck in a phone booth, this phone booth appears a handful of times in the film, yet that specific scene was never in the final cut of Get Smart…could this be trailer exclusive material? Could this be a step in the right direction for the way movie trailers are made? I don’t like rhetorical questions.
Get Smart is just funny enough where I recommend it. 7/10
It’s late, but I am not tired, I was up untill 3am last night. Talking on AIM of course. And WoW, but AIM def. had the attention of me more. Apparently I cant spell the full word of “def.” because I just tried about 20 times to spell it out and I was apparently far enough off from the right spelling that the spell checker was asking me if i meant “fantastically.” So “def.” will have to do because I guess I have no clue as to how to spell the entire word…idc.
Some things happened today that I wanted to blog about, so i figured since I can’t sleep and AIM is as dormant as roadkill, now would be a good time to address these things.
First, on the way to work today an SUV sped past me on the highway. Now the speed limit is 45 and i was going at least that fast, probably faster though. Well this fellow sped past me, he had to be going at least 65, easy. And as the speed demon shot by me a string of profanity spewed forth out of my mouth, all cleaned and summed up it amounted to: “Holy Moly Mister! If I were to ever go as fast as that, with my fantastic luck there would be a fantastic police officer sitting around the corner and I would get a gosh-darn ticket! But that’s never going to happen to you because your a lucky guy and fantastic cops are never around to see you pull a fantastic stunt like that! Golly Gee, your mother must be proud, god bless you!” I swear I thought that. This is my favorite part of the story…as I came up over a hill I was able to see just far enough ahead to see that there was a police car on the opposite side of the road heading in the opposite direction. Watching this SUV I was surprised when the two red brake lights never flashed on as the driver flew right by the police car. But I was even more surprised, and highly delighted, to see the two red lights over the police cruiser flash on and as my mouth dropped open and into a grin I watched the cop car pull a Dukes of Hazzard turn across the median and pull that SUV over. I lol’d for about 5 minutes straight, I was so happy.
It’s nice to see that happen, it really is, because how many times have you seen someone obviously breaking some rule of the road and wanted to see them get pulled over? It does not happen a lot, some people may never see it, but I have, and that is one less thing I have seen that I wanted to see before i die.
So once I got to work I was ready for it, I was in a good mood and I was early…earlier then I usually am. Well the store was dead and the day took forever to go by, but it did and towards the end of my shift my friend David and I decided it would be a good idea to go chill in the freezer since we had just cleared the parking-lot of shopping carts and were both drenched in sweat. So we walked back there and I went to go use the restroom that is near the freezer and when I walked up to the door I noticed a foul stench in the air. I dismissed it as something in the garbage can that is right by the bathroom door. So I walked into the bathroom and I was three feet into it when I realized the smell had intensified incredibly and I was about to go blind from it. So I quickly scanned the small room for any signs of a smell and found…wait for it…nothing. But I wasn’t about to carry on a full scale investigation, I needed to peace out of that room ASAP or my lunch was going to peace outta me.
Now just so you know I’ve got a horrible sense of smell and am able to tolerate scents that other people lose their balance over. But let me tell you, I could smell it through the door even with it being shut. I walked away took a nice big breath of fresh air, and walked back towards the door…I didn’t make it 4 feet close to the door. That was it, i wasn’t going back in there , I decided I was just going to hold it.
The way the freezer door opens, it gave David a perfect view of the entire ordeal, so when I dared him to go walk into the bathroom he absolutely refused. A few moments and a bit of peer-pressure later he was leaping back from the door cupping his hand over his nose and mouth and jumping around. He didn’t even touch the door. We both agreed that since we were the only two bag-boys there at the time that it was in both of our best interests to not mention to anyone what we discovered. So we didn’t, and my shift ended, I went home.
On my way home i get a text message from Danger Dave…”Dude i just had to clean that bathroom” it turns out someone brought their pet elephant that was cursed with Montezuma’s Revenge into that bathroom and let it relieve itself all over the floor in one of the stalls. Poor poor Danger Dave.
Maybe that guy in the SUV was speeding for a reason…
The Incredible Hulk is the epitome of summer blockbuster movies. Its fun, action packed, and most importantly consuming. The Hulk is such a great character for a summer blockbuster…he’s this average guy for the necessary scenes of character development that drive the story (which I found to my relief to be miraculously well acted out) but then three seconds later he’s flipping tanks and destroying everything, creating some of the best actions scenes I’ve seen this summer. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who needs something to do and has about $8 to spend. It’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s the best summer movie I’ve seen yet.
The Incredible Hulk is Marvel’s second movie this summer, and I believe it’s the last Marvel movie for ’08; the first being the ridiculously publicized and over-hyped Iron Man that came out earlier this year. The Hulk and Iron Man share a lot of similarities into as how they were shot: they were both origin stories, telling the creation of two unique Marvel superheroes; both Hulk and Iron Man were played by well-known (but not scene-stealing) actors, Edward Norton and Robert Downey Jr. respectively…both putting on a perfect performance for their individual comic-book hero; and most importantly they both alluded to upcoming marvel movie The Avengers.
Ang Lee’s 2003 Hulk failed in that it delved too deep into the psychology of the situation and tried to make the Hulk a believable being. Louis Leterrier succeeded in making his version of the Hulk a tolerable, and good, movie. Liv Tyler, like always, was the weakest role. I really can’t think of a role she has played where she is anything more then a crybaby. Edward Norton as I mentioned before was great as Bruce Banner, Tom Roth and William Hurt provided to be interesting protagonists and kept creating enough twists and turns to keep the audience on their toes. And for a comic book movie to be nearly unpredictable that is something you don’t see much.
There was just something about The Hulk that had me enjoying it more then Iron Man. Oh wait, I know what it is…it’s the fact that The Hulk’s trailer was not forced into my eyesight every possible chance it got thus ruining the coolest parts of the movie. 8/10
I saw The Happening, and I can honestly say that I not only enjoyed it a little, but I believe I have come to a logical conclusion as to what was going on.
I think that M. Night Shyamalan just likes to write scripts for movies that are able to make good movie trailers so the people that see them are drawn like a fly to a bug zapper to the movie, and for a little more then half his movies that metaphor works better then I intended it to because you leave the theater dazed, confused, and those of us who are not very intelligent, nearly dead.
If you watched The Happening expecting to see aliens come down from outer space and have everything explained to you in the end, you are seeing the wrong movie…go see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Dollar General Halloween Decoration (and I say that with the utmost scorn.) Shyamalan takes no effort to explain this movie to his audience, a few theories are presented, but none are circled as being correct. And because of that many of the audience members left the movie believing that The Happening was rightfully named because that is what they were thinking throughout the entire movie…”What is happening?”
I found that lack of an answer fun. As I watched the movie I was able to create my own theory, and because there was no definite answer my theory is just as unique, and correct, as anyone else’s, making the experience of watching it really cool. That is to say that you are creative, attentive, and individual enough to supply your own ideas. It creates the base for an intelligent after movie discussion. It’s the book club book for movies I suppose you could say.
Now talking about the actual movie itself, I wasn’t incredibly impressed. I probably will not watch The Happening again, unless I edit it. There was a horrible tone issue at the beginning: the uncontrollable suicide concept was introduced as people flung themselves off of rooftops while what I can describe as Vaudeville music was playing in the background. It just didn’t fit right.
Mark Wahlburg was great, it was good to see him acting out as a teacher, really broadened his scope and made me respect him more as an actor. However his girlfriend/wife-thing in the movie, I am not going to even take the time to look her name up, was dreadful. I understand her character was a bit crazy, but I would have rather tried to swallow a whole pineapple then watch her performance. Also the Mrs.Jones (the old lady) character was a bit too extreme for me to take seriously. It was a stretch in itself to believe that there was a little old lady living by herself who was able to maintain a log cabin and garden without help, let alone believe her as a character.
The Happening could have been a lot more serious then it was. Signs was not nearly as awkwardly funny as The Happening but nearly twice as better. If it wasn’t for the whole choose-your-own-ending thing, The Happening would hardly deserve more then a 5, but I am going to give it 1 ½ more…6.5/10.
Killswitch Engage is a metalcore band that was birthed from Mike D’Antonio and Adam Dutkiewicz’s individual failed bands. The two began playing (being a bassist and drummer respectively) together and soon guitarist Joel Stroetzel, one of Adam’s old band mates joined in. The trio formed up the name Killswitch Engage, meaning to cease at once and to begin again.
The current band lineup is as follows:
* Joel Stroetzel - guitars
* Adam Dutkiewicz - drums, percussion
* Mike D’Antonio - bass
* Howard Jones - lead vocals
* Justin Foley - drums, percussion
Killswitch Engage has produced four albums, and a fifth is expected in 2009.
Below is a live performance of their song The End of Heartache
I’m going to kill two birds with one stone here, though one bird is an ugly vulture while the other is a nice looking mockingbird. (The Strangers and Kung-Fu Panda respectively.)
My rock is going to hit the vulture first, and with the most force. The Strangers was a HORRIBLE-with as much emphasis as full capital wording can bring- movie. The only thing I found a little good about the movie was how pretty Liv Tyler is. I wish she acted as good as she looked. She always plays the weak female roles…this movie, Lord of the Rings, Armageddon…I hope she might drop that stereotype tonight when I see her in The Incredible Hulk because her acting is pretty annoying. (Note: she didn’t.)
The Strangers failed to even slightly disturb me and just relied on tense moments and loud conclusions to those tense moments to keep the drooling masses of teenage girls and fagmos satisfied. It was just another run-of-the-mill story: two people secluded in a cabin getting spooked by some strangers. If you were verbally telling a person the contents of the story you could fill them in with about 5 sentences, Readers Digest could make it 3 sentences. But what really bothered me is besides a very short attempt to escape via an obviously too-damaged-to-work car, the couple never made a second attempt on foot to escape. I watched the movie and thought to myself numerous times…there are two of them and three of them, and most of the time the three are not even armed, so hey guys why don’t you just try to run? Thus Tommy finds the plot-hole in The Strangers and the rest of the movie is ruined, not to say it wasn’t already ruined. However I must say, if there was any other kind of scenario going on it might have been interesting, since the two protagonists had an interesting setup, the whole botched engagement attempt would have really made the characters interactions different and fresh, but that was never used and a interesting back-story/setup was lost. 0/10
Now Kung-Fu Panda was a completely different movie, in pretty much every way imaginable. I went to see it because I was bored and wanted to get out of my house, so I really wasn’t expecting much out of this movie. I could really not have been more impressed. Within the first few scenes I was already a fan of the animation style, and it did not stale at all throughout the remainder of the film. The voice acting was very well done, and it turns out that there was quite the celebrity lineup. I knew Jack Black was Panda, but Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane (of Deadwood, which I highly recommend everyone go rent), Jackie Chan, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, and Michael Clark Duncan, were all part of this animal cracker box of characters. The storyline was trite and predictable, but after all it was a kids movie. If there weren’t so many other computer-generated movies where the entire cast is animals (Madagascar, Surfs Up, etc.) I believe this movie would stand out among other kids movies this year, but because of all the other animal movies this mocking bird don’t sing as loud as it should, so momma is going to have to sell the farm to get you that diamond ring. You spoiled brat. 7/10
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not only one of the longest movie titles in recent memory, but it is the most anticipated movie of the summer, more so then two other explosive summer blockbusters: Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
I went into seeing Indiana Jones with the mindset that I was either going to be really disappointed or be extremely content with IJATKOTCS (that’s even a long acronym so I’ll refer to it simply as IJ from here on out). I left the theater with confusingly mixed emotions about the movie…ones that I’m still trying to sort out as I type this. Though I promise you you’ll have my opinion by the end of this entry.
Indiana Jones is a character-type of the 80’s; I truly believe that Steven Spielberg should have left it that way. Unlike James Bond where many actors have donned the name, Indiana Jones rolls synonymous with the name Harrison Ford. Nobody can ever be Indiana Jones except Ford, it just would not be right. And so, bringing a series made in the 80’s to today required a much older Ford to grab the signature whip and hat to play Indy again. This worried me when I first learned about Spielberg putting together the fourth IJ film, how are they going to get me to believe that a guy in his early 60’s is Indiana Jones without making it completely CGI or stunt-doubled? Well what they did worked. Instead of keeping the era of the film in the late 1930’s they bumped it forward 20ish years, to a time plagued no more by hissing Nazis, but by snarling Communists. This made the much older Ford more believable in his role. I’m certain they used stunt-doubles and some CGI, but not to the extent of what I dreaded, no more then any of the other characters.
Speaking of special effects, the people at ILM did a fantastic job. Spielberg decided to not film this movie digitally, a format that his good friend George Lucas had long ago adopted, so the movie itself looks like it was filmed shortly after The Last Crusade which is pretty cool. Regardless of what the special effects were portraying (which I’m about to complain about in the next paragraph) there really wasn’t any scene where I felt the effects were too much, or not enough, as I thought about some scenes in Iron Man. But that’s not surprising considering which two men worked together to create this movie: Spielberg and Lucas, pretty much the fathers of modern special effects (Jurassic Park and Star Wars respectively.)
But let me tell you about what I thought of what I saw. It seemed to me that I was watching a real life cartoon. Indiana Jones being tossed across the desert in a refrigerator? Shia LeBeouf swinging through the jungle with monkeys? A pack of prairie dogs that get more camera time then the antagonists (the aliens)? What is this? Looney Tunes? I was very, VERY disappointed with what I was seeing. It was just too weird for me. I felt the same way watching some scenes that I did when I watched parts of the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, like that scene with the multiple Jacks, it was weird and unnecessary, adding nothing to the overall quality of the film. I was almost embarrassed to have even been looking forward to this movie. And I was about to cry when I realized that aliens were the focal point of the plot. Seriously Spielberg, aliens? There was nothing better to relate to the communists then aliens? And the whole El Dorado thing, I thought Nicholas Cage found that place inside Mt.Rushmore? I can flat out tell you that the aliens ruined Indy 4 for me; Indiana Jones chases villains and runs from curses, he doesn’t chase little green men and run from flying saucers.
But, Harrison Ford still managed to entertain me. Whether it be a clever escape, or his iconic “I’ve got a bad feeling about this / This isn’t going to be easy” look on his face, Ford was fortunately still the Indiana Jones I remembered him to be. I swear you could make a three-hour movie of Harrison Ford doing anything with Indiana Jones music playing in the background and it would be awesome. He could be coloring in a coloring book for all I care, but it would be the most badass coloring book movie ever.
6.5/10
Tomorrow is my last day of High School. I really cannot put myself in the shoes I will wear tomorrow. I can still remember my first day of Kindergarten, though really only about the first 10 minutes. I remember walking down that hallway at Floral City Elementary and following the alphabet that was painted on the wall, my class was the door right after Z. It’s funny how it all started at the end, and now how it ends at the beginning. I walked into the classroom and the only familiar face was that of the teacher who had been a family friend since I was born. I sat down amongst the strangers that would evolve with me to become my friends, foes and pains in my butt. At this point I had no perception of race, or handicap; In fact there was a man there who was taking a picture for the newspaper [A picture my grandmother still has magneted to her refrigerator] of the first day of school who didn’t have an arm. I remember watching him do everything with one hand and thinking what it would be like to only have one hand. Any memories of kindergarten I still have are from other points throughout that first year. The day Alex threw a plastic building block at Bari’s head and cut it open I remember because it scared me, she screamed so loud and there was a lot of blood on her face. I’d never seen so much blood before, and I wouldn’t again until in first grade when i watched my best friend race another boy across the asphalt basket ball court and see them both wipe out at the end; my friend’s head dragging about a foot on the court ripping it open at the forehead. I could list a billion things that I remember from elementary school, but now isn’t the time. It’s 12:30 and i should be asleep. But i know I wont be able to sleep, because I’ll do just that and think of all my old schools and the memories I still can remember from them.
Everybody said it would go by fast, and I don’t think thats necessarily true. The longer it’s been the less you remember, so it just seems like it was yesterday because you lack all the memories of those times. But, I must say, if I had the time, I think I would sit down and watch the past 13 years of my life on youtube, just to see how much, or little, I’ve changed since I sat down and made friends with a kid that had a rattail haircut as the one armed photographer took my picture.
I should be sleeping. But I’m not tired. Idk why I am not tired, but I am not. I even worked tonight, and there was a truck, a small truck, but still, a truck.
I graduate soon, I could care less really. Everyone makes such a big deal about it, but most of us will still have school for a few more years. So there isn’t really a point to such a ceremony. Just to make ma and pa happy i guess, idk. Idc.
I’ve worked at the same place for two years now. I don’t know many, if any, 18 year olds who can say they’ve kept the same job for 2 years. I’m more proud of that then the stupid stool-whatever thing that hangs around my robe’s neck that says “Cum Lade.” I don’t speak Latin.
Yearbooks are floating around. I don’t like the idea of signing a yearbook unless it’s for a person I know i probably wont ever see again, or am hoping I wont see again. It just seems like I’m signing my existence off when i write in someones book. Like ending a deal with a car, the last thing you do is sign the paper and then the car leaves the lot forever. I make it a point to throw in my AIM screenname, I’ll never change that. [cymmot101].
Two minutes until tomorrow.
mouth.
My gums are really swollen and tender. It really hurts to eat. I’m going to see a doctor later today, hopefully i’ll get some answers there. It’s Wednesday and on Sunday I started feeling fatigued and sore in my muscles. I just passed it off as lack of sleep and sore from work. Then the next day I was still sore, and had a slight sore throat and some pressure in my head. I started taking Tylenol at that point. I became really tired in the afternoon so i just laid around and watched a movie, and i went to be an hour earlier then I usually would.
Then Tuesday comes, i feel a bit groggy in the morning, and my gums hurt a bit when i ate my cereal, but I felt fine as the day went by, just whenever I’d go to eat something it would be unpleasant because my gums were so sore. Towards the end of the afternoon I started to feel bad again. But I think that might be because I didn’t take more Tylenol when I came home from school. I had a bit of a problem going to sleep an hour early last night, just because i was not tired.
This morning I wake up and I just decided I didn’t want to go to school, my gums were still very tender, and had swelled a bit so when I smiled I looked like something crazy as the gums were about halfway up my teeth on the bottoms row.
I really wish i could just go to the doctor right now and have him give me stuff that’ll fix it overnight because this is really annoying. Or, better yet have him tell me it’s just a virus and it’s on its way out the door.
My dad thinks it’s mono but he thinks I have mono every time i say “I don’t feel good.” Plus, aside from the first two days, I’m not really tired or anything, just what one would expect to feel when suffering a cold.
