Oldboy

Chan-wook Park's Oldboy has been getting so much praise over the past two years that I thought it would be impossible for it to meet my expectations. Getting "Best Movie of the Year" awards by many movie fans worldwide seemed crazy back in 2003 when we had Lord of the Rings in competition but now that I've seen it, and it met my expectations, I agree on many of those comments, except Best Movie of the Year, as LotR was still the best that year for me. But since Oldboy is being released just now here in the United States, maybe it'll end up in top list of this year, because it is indeed an excellent movie, a marvelous masterpiece with some of the best storytelling I've ever seen.

It's all about revenge, as one night Dae-su Oh (played wonderfully by Min-sik Choi), after getting out of jail for being drunk, and out of nowhere, gets kidnapped and imprisoned in a room. His imprisoner gives him all the commodities like a bathroom, TV, food, a bed, whatever, except answers. He doesn't know who did it or why, so when he's released after 15 years (with money, a phone and new clothes), he must find answers to those questions knowing nothing at all. He soon learns that his wife was murdered, and that everyone thinks (thanks to his imprisoner) that he did it, and so he's been a fugitive of the law all this time. When he finally finds out who did it (or maybe his imprisoner reveals himself), he realizes he can't kill him without knowing the reason of his imprisonment, and as he learns more and more about his enemy, he realizes the real question is not why was he imprisoned, but why was he released after 15 years. Despite the story working with the use of hypnotism (which I don't believe at all but in this case accept it), and the ending is mind-blowingly awesome and like nothing I've seen before.

Oldboy keeps you knowing just what the character knows, and when you try to bet on what's happening or going to happen, you'll find yourself always being way off, and when you finally get to those final scenes, the result is something you wont believe someone had the balls to write. Intense and brutal, Korea's Oldboy was one of the best movies of 2003, and is one of the best movies of this year too.

High Tension

A good horror movie has to keep me at the edge of my seat, if it does, I can forgive pretty much everything else be it bad acting or a bad ending or no gore, nudity or adult language. These last 3 points are very important for me, because if the movie's story is not that good, I can still end up liking it if it has any of those. So what happened with Haute Tension? I hate it. Why? Yes, it has all of those 3 points I want, but I wasn't at the edge of my seat, instead I was fucking angry with Lions Gate or whoever the fuck dubbed the movie. Yes, dubbed, and not even totally dubbed, it's half English and half French, with only the two main actresses being dubbed (by them I guess since the English had a French accent) but only in scenes when they are talking to each other or talking by themselves. Really painful to watch.

But ok, I understand that the language is not the director's fault, and so I did try to focus on the story, without positive results.
Marie and Alex go to study to Alex's parents' farm in the middle of nowhere, somewhere in France. They get there in the middle of the night, Alex's father and little brother are waiting for them and they go to bed after welcoming them to the farm. Alex's mom is sleeping. Now out of nowhere, Marie watches Alex taking a shower (brief nudity, kind of ugly girl though) and then goes to her room and starts masturbating. She's stopped by a truck that stops in front of the farm and starts knocking the door, waking everybody up, and the action starts. The big fat trucker kills the father, kills the mother, kills the kid and then beats Alex and ties her up with chains and puts her in his truck. Marie is a guest, so the guy doesn't know she's there, and so she manages to hide in the truck just before the trucker leaves the farm so she can try and help Alex.
What happens next are stupid situations and then the ending which is so stupid and cliched in horror movies lately that it made the whole movie suck even more. And what's worse, the ending doesn't even work, and makes the whole more not make any sense at all.

Cecile de France is perfect as Marie. Scared, frightened and a character with some very good ideas at times but terrible bad ideas at other times, like trying call the police when you're being attacked while in a farm in the middle of nowhere. Like there was a chance that police would've get there in time.
Alex is played by an actress credited only as Maiwenn and she's terrible. Horrible acting, and a pretty ugly girl too. The trucker is the classic fat guy that looks scary. Nothing demanding of that role.

That the movie was dubbed was a big problem for me, and made the movie sound really bad, specially at one time at the beginning when they talk about some "redneck neighbors", and we're in France!. Also the music, which started good with an Italian song at the beginning, but then it transformed into a rock 'n roll all English soundtrack that I don't think is part of the original movie.
My other problem, the ending, it's a bigger one, because I think that even if the movie would've been all in French with subtitles, those final 15 minutes still make the movie suck.
Cecile was good, the kills and gore were great and extreme, but the movie is only getting all this hype just because it's French. If it were American, it would've been between the worse horror movies of the year, still better than Boogeyman though, but that's it.

The Longest Yard

Adam Sandler teams up with Chris Rock to remake Burt Reynolds' The Longest Yard, a movie about prison football between inmates and guards. Reynolds is also in the movie, as is James Cromwell and a bunch of football, wrestling and music superstars, including Nelly who somehow got his name in the poster "...and Nelly".
The cast looks laughable for a movie, but the end result is a very fun and funny movie with excellent music, that doesn't take itself too seriously and so ends up forgettable but entertaining.

Sandler plays Paul Crewe, a former football superstar back in the day who ends up in jail after a hilarious drunk driving episode. It turns out Warden Hazen (Cromwell) actually made Paul go to his jail in Texas so he could use him. How? By making Paul assemble a group of inmates to play in a big game against the guards' team of the Warden, led by William Fichtner's Captain Knauer.
After a messy start in the jail, Paul gets the help of the Caretaker (Rock), who can't play, but knows everything about everybody, how to access everything, and he can even get them anything they want. A running joke about the inmates eating McDonald's whenever they want comes to mind and is just one of many product placements that work very good in the movie.
Paul then enlists former football legend Nate Scarborough (Reynolds), and together they train everyone who wants to play, but with no so good results, so they have the brilliant idea of asking the basketball players, and after some work they draft fast man Earl Megget (Nelly) and a couple more guys.
The guards also have good and big players, and so between both teams we get characters player by big guys like NFL Superstars Michael Irvin from the Cowboys and Bill Romanowski from the Raiders, Bob Sapp (Elektra's Stone), Terry Crews and WWF/WWE Superstars Goldberg and Steve "Stone Cold" Austin to name a few.
Cloris Leachman has a funny little role as the Warden's secretary and Tracy Morgan steals the show as Ms. Tucker the lead cheerleader (yes, he's the lead and there are more, many more).

Sandler hatters don't need t worry, his baby cry is only there in just one scene, and then he talks like a normal human being for the rest of the movie. And he's actually really good here, being in almost all the scenes. Chris Rock got his name up in there with Sandler, but he plays a very supporting and only for laughs character in Caretaker. He's very necessary for the story to work though.

Like I mentioned before, just like the original, this movie is not destined to become any kind of classic, nobody will remember it in a year or anything, but for now, The Longest Yard is one of the most entertaining and funniest movies of the year.

The Devil's Rejects

The first time I watched Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses it kind of shocked me. I thought it was too disturbing and gory, but at the same time it was terrific fun and innovating, at least for me who hadn't seen every horror movie ever made but would really like to. Captain Spaulding is a genius character, as are Baby and Otis, but the movie was not entirely about them, it was more about the killing these teenagers, which made the movie a really great and gory kind of slasher movie, like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, where we have these teens trying to survive a family of killer freaks. So when Rob announced The Devil's Rejects I got really excited, as it was going to be a movie focused on these awesome killer freaks, and it just made my top list of movies to see this summer. Having seen it, I have to say that the movie highly surpassed my expectations, as Rob has made huge improvements in his direction. But more on that later.

So instead being a movie about teens getting killed, we have a movie about the Rejects having to leave the House of 1000 Corpses, after the police, lead by the terrible Sheriff Wydell, raids the house and force them to escape. And so Capt. Spaulding, Otis and Baby go on a road trip, killing everybody on their way, trying to find a way to revenge the attack and capture of Mother Firefly.

Sid Haig is just perfect as Capt. Spaulding, looking scary and at the same time making jokes at any possible time. The beautiful Sheri Moon (Rob Zombie's wife) plays a very playful Baby and she's just a delight to watch. And then the most serious and horrifying of them is Otis played terrific by Bill Moseley.
But the scene stealer is William Forsythe as sheriff Wydell. A great character perfectly played and he makes a great run for best horror movie sheriff against R. Lee Ermey's Sheriff Hoyt from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

But what makes this movie so great is Rob Zombie's work. The screenplay is excellent and it really makes you feel for these characters. The Rejects of course. And so when they get hurt or something happens to them you just want them to stand back up and kick the living shit out of the cops or whoever it is that hurt them.
I wont spoil it of course, but I have to comment on it, because the ending is just perfect. And it's been done before a lot of times, but still, I just loved that it makes the movie end in such a poetic way. Just perfect.
There's also some very cool little scenes in the middle of the movie that have little to do with the story, but work to expand the Rejects universe, like a conversation between Sheriff Wydell and a movie critic about the names of the Rejects (taken after Groucho Marx characters) that then turns into a discussion about Elvis Presley.

And while I hated House of 1000 Corpses' scene when the cop gets a shot in the head and the camera zooms out for like a minute, I do acknowledge that Rob got a cool original cinematic idea, that for me didn't work but for others probably did. There's nothing like that here, but there are a few other new techniques he uses, like having the motion pause in the middle of an action scene, the music starts playing really loud and then he cuts back where it was and the action continues.

The music plays a huge role in the movie, full of southern rock classic from Allman Brothers and Skynyrd to name a few. I've read that Rob calls the movie a Horror-Western, and it's just a perfect description, and the music contributes a lot in making it sound like a western road trip movie. This is really a soundtrack I'll own and listen all the time.

If I had to complain about something, it would be about the horror factor. Rob changed the darkness of the first movie for comedy, which is a lot here, even in the most horrific scenes, but still plays great, as this is a very different movie.

So I loved the movie. Rob Zombie has made great improvements and he has a few impressive new techniques that I haven't seen done before, and they worked perfect here. The Devil's Rejects is a lot more than I was expecting, a disturbingly cool movie that is one of my favorites of the year.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Despite being a pretty big fan, I have not been super excited about Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, mostly because the other 2 prequels don't come even close to the classic and perfect originals. Between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, I prefer Episode I, just because I had more fun with it, while Episode II was way too political, and the love story between Anakin Skywalker and Senator Padme Amidala just sucked big time, and the fact the Anakin is (or was in Episode I) like 10 years younger than her was just wrong.
Now compared with this third and presumably last Star Wars movie, I'm still not decided which one is better: Episode I is still the most fun and Liam Neeson's Qui-Gon Jinn ruled, while Episode III has way too much stuff going on, which works at times but doesn't at others, and I just have too many complaints about it, beginning and ending with mastermind creator, writer and director George Lucas' script and the way he portrayed some of the characters in this movie.

I'll start with what I liked so this doesn't turn into a complete Star Wars bashing. First and center Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Just freaking cool all the way around. And he truly looks like he'll be the great old Obi-Wan in the years to come. He gets some really great scenes and McGregor delivers perfectly.
Also excellent was Yoda, but he's one of my favorite characters ever so I'm biased, but still, I really liked him all the time, and specially during the final scenes when he comes to the decision that the remaining Jedi's should hide and at the same time hide and protect Luke and Leia (more on them later).
And I say remaining Jedis because as we all know, they all had to die (except Yoda and Obi-Wan which were the only ones in the originals) and they die gloriously, but the movie's rating and lack true violence made the scene, a series of scenes where the Jedis are being killed one by one (even the little children), less satisfying than it should have been have Lucas had the balls to just come out with a Rated R version of the movie.
The much expected fight beetween Obi-Wan and Anakin at the end of the movie is really a classic. Great choreography and just brutal. And again, Obi-Wan is just perfect when showing his feelings telling him how he was supposed to be the one.
Ian McDiarmid's Chancellor Palpatine was a real surprise. Great acting and just a great character which basically is in charge of everything that happens in this and the next movies. The way he manipulates Anakin to kill Count Dooku is just awesome and then when he turns the dying Anakin into Darth Vader is another classic moment.
Something else I really liked despite being just a few sentences, was Obi-Wan and Yoda's conversation at the end of the movie about how the Jedis can still still be present after death, explaining the ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda and Anakin at the end of the saga in Return of the Jedi.
Baby Luke's fate at the end of the movie is handled really well and makes for a poetic ending.

I then have mixed feelings towards the other great characters of the classics, C-3PO, R2D2 and for the first in the prequels, Wookie warrior Chewbacca. The droids are separated most of the time, and C-3PO has way too little screen time, and he's just useless delivering a few lines that don't matter at all. On the other hand, R2D2 does way too much including getting into a fight, which looked good but at the same time was kind of lame the way it happens. Also, the way it's explained why they don't remember in the originals about what happens in these prequels is just lazy writing, and it seems as if Lucas remembered about it the last day of filming and just put it there at the end and as a one line for a secondary character, when it should've been Yoda or Obi-Wan the ones deciding that.
Chewbacca and the Wookie Warriors' appearance is cool but completely unnecessary, only there to get disappointed fans of the previous prequels excited about this one. Despite that, Chewbacca has a great scene with Yoda at the end of the movie.
Samuel L. Jackson's Mace Windu was also a disappointing character and his death was not near as cool as Jackson said it would be.
And I mentioned Baby Luke before as something I liked, but Baby Leia is a different story, because she ends up with Jimmy Smiths' Senator Organa and his wife, which doesn't explain at all why is she a Princess in the originals.

What I didn't like? Lots of things, starting by Natalie Portman as Senator Padme Amidala. Another useless character with almost nothing to do but cry and complain and copy Leia's hair. And the character is really different from the previous prequels, so I'm blaming Lucas and his writing for this.
Also his fault is the existence of the Clone Wars series and the Star Wars books, because he put some things in this movie that make sense only having seen and read those, and so in the movie they end up being stupid. One of these things is General Grievous's sickness and coughing, apparently because of a heart attack during the Clone Wars. And then Padme's out of nothing decision of the names Luke and Leia for the babies. She gives birth to one, Obi-Wan hands it to her and she cries the name, and then the other comes out and the same happens. How did she come up with the names? Well, apparently there's a whole chapter in the book about Anakin and Padme picking names for their future children, but not even a mention of that in the movie. And how did Chancellor Palpatine came up with Darth Vader's name is also a mystery which should've been explained.
Other thing that bothered me was Christopher Lee's Count Dooku only-beaten-by-BobbaFett's death. In Episode II he beat Yoda, and almost killed Obi-Wan and Anakin, but here Anakin kills him in less than 3 minutes. Yes, I understand that Anakin is more powerful now but still, it was too quick and easy. And the lightsaber fights kind of got old after so many times.
Finally, Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker. These prequels have been all about this character, and I am not happy with Christensen work. Maybe it's the way the character is writen but I just didn't care for him at all.
And Vader's final scream when he lears that he'd killed Padme is just a horrible scene that really ruins the movie's poetic final moments.

I've also found out why is it that I can't get myself to love these prequels, and the reason is that Han Solo is not on them, nor is anybody even close to his coolness and real person behavior. Because I found myself bored at many times during this movie, and it was because of the protocolar dialogue delivered by the completely protocolar cast of characters. Han Solo would never talk like this, and his dialogue is what is missing from these prequels.

And so I am disappointed with Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, maybe I was looking for perfection, which I knew I wasn't going to get, but still, I just have too many complaints compared to what I liked and so the result for me is negative. Still, I know repeted viewings will make me like it better and probably convince me that it's the 4th best Star Wars movie after the originals. Should the prequels never have been made? Sometimes I think so, but no, they're necessary because of the magnitude of the originals and the greatness of Darth Vader. Should Lucas make sequels to the originals now? Let's hope he keeps his word and never makes them. May the Force be with him on that, and with us, as we try to continue our lives knowing that there wont be new Star Wars movies anymore.

Kicking and Screaming

Will Ferrell is probably the funniest man in movies right now, there's no doubt about that, so when someone pitches a movie idea with him in mind, it just sounds funny, it should be funny, and it usually ends up funny, but him, not the entire movie, and that's the problem with Kicking and Screaming, which also suffers extra with young adults like myself for being a children's movie. A shame, but I'm declaring this Will's worst movie since he gained superstar status after little but hillarious parts in hit comedies like the Austin Powers movies, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Zoolander, to his super break out in the classic and arguable the best comedy ever, Old School, where he played Frank "The Tank" Ricard.

Elf proved a few years ago that Will could also do children's movies, and I really liked it, but the ridiculousness of the character was what made it funny, and so I left liking it but it just wasn't for me. Now the same happens with Kicking and Screaming, with Will Ferrell as a kid's team soccer coach being funny, but the movie, full of cliches and a done a million times story with little to nothing to add to the genre, dissapoints.

Will plays Phil Weston, a vitamine salesman who's been beaten and beaten once again by his father Buck (Robert Duvall) in everything he's done all his life, and in every aspect too, not only sports (Buck's younger son [and Phil's little brother] Bucky was born the same day, but a few minutes before, than Phil's son Sam). Always brought down by his father, Phil starts coaching his son's soccer team The Tigers, the worst team in the league, as a way to help at first, but then competition gets to him and he'll do anything he can to beat his dad's team (the best in the league) The Gladiator, thanks in part to Mike Ditka and coffee.

Since Phil's team is a disaster, of course the kids are a big part of that, and so we have some of the most pathetic looking kids ever ranging for a funny kid that has down syndrome, to a very small asian kid with glasses (whose parents are lesbians) to the big fat kid that's going to be worthless until the ending when he gets to kick some kid's butts. The only good players in the team are two Italian brothers that Mike Ditka recruits.
Oh yeah, Mike Ditka, he's the funniest character in the movie after Will's. Ditka plays himself, living next to Buck's house and always messing with him, and so when Phil asks him to be his assistant coach, Mike laughs and shows him his Superbowl ring but then accepts after learning that he would be messing with Buck.

And so I didn't like it, maybe because the soccer scenes suck, though I guess that's something that never works in movies, they don't come out believable on screen, and it's way worse when it's done with children (the only believable soccer movie ever was Victory), or maybe because Phil's addiction to coffee felt a way too disconnected from the movie subplot (despite featuring Freaks & Geeks' Martin Starr delivering a few lines), but I just couldn't get myself to like it. I don't know, maybe it was just too cute for me after watching Unleashed a few days before.

It's All Gone Pete Tong

It's All Gone Pete Tong is the story of Frankie Wilde who, for all those not familiar with the electronic dance world, was the biggest and most famous DJ, traveling the world with his music, and spending his summers in his tropical mansion, with his beautiful wife, DJing in the best place in the world, Ibiza. He had it all, until he went deaf.
Frankie had a birth problem with his hearing, has been always losing throughout the years. Of course, working a techno DJ didn't help at all.

And all the drugs he was taking didn't help either, so when he finally goes deaf, he can't DJ, his wife leaves him and he goes crazy to the point where he hallucinates about a Coke Badger, a great character that made me remember Donnie Darko's Frank, only this one was funny and stuffed with coke. Just awesome.
And so Frankie disappears for a year, locking himself in the house, never coming out, and only seeing those who were delivering him drugs.

After that time, he decides to go out and try life once again, so he takes hand signals classes, and this is when he discovered a new way to make music. By putting his feet over the buffers, Frankie can feel the vibrations of his music, and mix and create new music by watching the wavelengths in the monitor. And so he makes a CD, gives it to his old manager who had left him, and soon the city is full of "Frankie Wilde The Deaf DJ" posters and he's on the top of the world again.

A fantastic story, backed by interviews with real superstar DJs from around the world, with a very strong performance by Paul Kaye as Frankie and a visual style very reminiscent of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, this small biopic, written and directed by Michael Dowse, is a work of art.

Unleashed

Luc Besson is an great storyteller, though is really a shame that he doesn't direct his movies anymore (his latest was The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, and before that he gave us the masterpieces Nikita, Leon and The Fifth Element). But I'm happy with him just writing anyway, because he's given us The Transporter a few years ago, and now Unleashed. Besson also did the first draft of the American version of Taxi (he had already made 3 Taxi movies in France) that came out last year but I'm going to forget about that one for now.

Directed by Louis Leterrier (who directed The Transporter), Unleashed is the story of Danny the Dog (which was the original title of the movie), a man raised to be an animal, and also a lethal weapon, so when his owner, boss and uncle Bart takes of his collar, Danny goes to battle for money and we get some of the most brutal fights ever put on screen. But something happens to Bart one day, and Danny runs off free when he meets Sam, an old man that fixes pianos (Danny is in love with them) who takes Danny to his house and with the help of his daughter Victoria, teach him to be a normal person which includes learning how to eat, dress and just be around people. Danny soon becomes that normal person, but then Bart comes back and he wants his dog back.

The entire cast makes for some powerful acting, expected of course from the now Oscar Winner Morgan Freeman as Sam, who is a paternal figure for Danny, the voice of reason, plus he's blind. A total class act from Morgan Freeman here.
But then Bob Hoskins, who was the title character in the totally awesome Super Mario Bros. movie twelve years ago, and is now making a come back with a big role in last year's Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea and also (sadly) in this year's horrible Son of the Mask. Despite that last one, he's great here as Danny's owner Bart. A horrible human being who just wants money and whores, and so he raised Danny to be an attack dog who could kill and only kill so he could make money.
Victoria is played by almost newcomer (at least to the US) Kerry Condon. Sam's daughter, and a real sweet girl who just wants to help Danny. She's innocent and pretty, and during her first minutes in the movie she was delightful and kind of reminded me to Besson's other muse, Natalie Portman.
And finally Danny himself and the star of the movie, Jet Li in a truly Award worthy performance. He's done mostly martial arts films ever since he started his Hollywood career years ago with a fantastic supporting role as the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 4, and he showed a lot of acting range in Hero, but I still had no idea he could act like this. Portraying a man who has to be taught about life and human beings is certainly a challenge, and Jet Li pulls it off effortlessly giving perhaps the best acting performance of his career.
He still does martial arts of course, and is bone breaking, flesh tearing and just brutal. Plus he fights like an animal, so his moves are not clean and choreographed, they are raw and all crazy.

The cheering will come with the incredible fights, which are a lot by the way, but Jet Li's excellent chemistry with Morgan Freeman and Kerry Condon makes for some of the best scenes in the movie. And despite the movie being marketed as an action film, this is mostly a human drama, but both combine perfectly and with a style very similar Leon (aka The Professional) the result is a perfect masterpiece.

Kingdom of Heaven

Kingdom of Heaven is the latest epic war masterpiece from the now knighted Sir Ridley Scott who also gave us Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and 1492: Conquest of Paradise. Those three movies are huge in story, full of talented actors doing great work and with a dark style with massive battles and amounts of blood, and Kingdom of Heaven fits that group perfectly, being a better movie that 1942 and also more likeable than the very violent Black Hawk Down. Compared to Oscar winner Gladiator, is right up there with it, though since it's being released early in the year and focusing more on the story (the Crusades of the 12th Century) than its hero (Balian of Ibelin) will probably hurt the movie's award chances. Very unfortunate, because if it were released in December, It would be fighting for the top spots.

As mentioned before, the story of the Crusades and he fights for Jerusalem is the center of the movie, balancing the Christians and Muslims sides very well, to the point were the are no big villains, only those inside each side that want war instead of peace. But war is (sadly even these days) inevitable anyways, so this particular battle starts off as the result of bad guys in the Christians side, led by Guy de Lusignan, attacking a traveling group of Muslims. This prompts the Muslims to send legendary warrior Saladin to attack Jerusalem, also because they want to control the city which was taken from them by the Christians a hundred years ago.

But before all that, the movie starts with our hero Balian, a young blacksmith mourning the recent death of his wife who killed herself, and according to God will go to Hell, so when a noble crusader knight named Godfrey comes claiming to be his father, wanting to take him with him Jerusalem, he goes with him to seek the forgiveness of God, so his wife can go to Heaven. Along the way, Balian perfects his swordmanship, gets knighted, makes a noble act towards a Muslim lord and makes an impression on Sibylla, sister to reigning King Baldwin, whose condition of leprous will kill him soon and so Sibylla's husband, the war thirsty Guy de Lusignan, will be king.

The acting is superb, starting with Orlando Bloom as Balian. The beard makes him looks older than he normally looks, and once again he gives a great performance, this time in his first starring role. And though he does it perfectly, I think it's time he changes styles and make a different kind of movie, a romantic comedy even. Godfrey is played by Liam Neeson who gives a great performance once again as Balian's mentor and father. He's got some very nice scenes with him. Neeson repeats himself with the same kind of character as his Qui-Gon Jinn in Star Wars: Episode I, Gangs of New York and the upcoming Batman Begins. Still, no complain here because Neeson is perfect for these roles but he can also play the lead and carry a movie like with Kinsey where he gave an Oscar worthy performance. The first fight in the movie comes after officer's come to take Balian away for committing murder, and Godfrey and his warriors protect and fight with Balian against them. The first battle was excellent and I loved Godfrey's warriors and would've loved for the movie to be about them crusading and battling their way to Jerusalem, but sadly not all of them make it past the fight.
Then in Jerusalem, Eva Green plays Sibylla. She does a very good job though to compare her to somebody, Connie Nielsen was better in Gladiator playing a similar character. Her husband and bad guy Guy de Lusignan is played by Marton Csokas, and his right hand and violent warrior Reynald is played by Brendan Gleeson. Csokas does great work but Gleeson is kind of wasted in an very underdeveloped character. King Baldwin is played by the magnificent Edward Norton, or voiced should I say because as a result of his illness, the King wears a mask all the time and we never see his face. Finally, two of the best performances in the movie come from Ghassan Massoud as Saladin who is just a great character, and by Jeremy Irons as the King's steward Tiberias.

Despite the love story being kind of rushed and underwriten (which would be the weakest and only criticizeable aspect of the movie) and Balian's suddenly becoming a master estrategist during battles, the movie has great visuals, a very well paced story (at 145 minutes it was just right), spectacular battles and great performances. With Kingdom of Heaven, Ridley Scott gives us his third masterpiece in the last five years.

Monster-in-Law

Jane Fonda is back after 15 years of not making any movies and she gives a very good performance as the titular character in Monster-in-Law. A romantic comedy directed by Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde and Win a Date with Tad Hamilton) and written by first timer Anya Kochoff, the movie gets very good to ok performances by the actors, and there are some funny parts, but overall it fails and is only being talked about because Miss Barbarella is back on the big screen.

Jennifer Lopez plays Charlie, a dog-walker (among several other jobs) and super nice girl who falls for Michael Vartan's Kevin Fields, a super nice guy who happens to be a very rich surgeon. After their first date, the movie jumps 2 months in the future and their moving in together, and right away Kevin takes Charlie to meet his mom, a super crazy TV show host who got fired for a younger girl and had to go to a psychiatric facility for a while but is now back home. Jane Fonda plays Viola Fields perfectly, getting all crazy for nothing or sometimes justified like when Kevin proposes to Charlie in front of her on their first meeting.
From there on is up to Viola to stop the wedding at any cost and turn Charlie crazy so they don't get married because she doesn't deserves him since she's way down in the class system.
Fonda is good though annoying at times, Jennifer Lopez is ok though not as good as in her previous comedies, probably because the story is kind of split between her and Fonda so they both got lots of screen time. Michael Vartan is only there to smile and tell them he loves them.

The rest of the supporting characters are better than the leads, with Wanda Sykes stealing the show as Ruby, Viola's personal assistant. And yes, she steals the show, but I feel that she's still wasted in the movie. We all know Wanda is one of the funniest comedians these days but all she does here is deliver one liners every ten minutes or say "shit" whenever something over the top happened. It's sad, but she reminded me of the black guy explaining why was he in there in Not Another Teen Movie. Same here, Wanda was the token black woman.
Also supporting and kind of funny were Adam Scott and Annie Parisse as Charlie's gay friend Remi and best girlfriend Morgan, respectively, and totally wasted and with only 2 or 3 lines was Will Arnet as Kevin's best friend Kit.

Jane Fonda is back and I couldn't care less, specially if she's going to keep doing movies like this that are funny because of its supporting players, but that overall have nothing memorable about them and are impossible to recommend. Still, props to the producers for not going into a lower level getting Jennifer Lopez's hubby Marc Anthony a part which would've make this the biggest piece of crap ever.

House of Wax

Yet another of many classic horror movies being remade lately. Some have succeed, some have failed, and some have come out just ok, and if they all have something in common, is that the actors are always young and hot, and I have to admit that as a young person who watches TV a lot, that is really important to me, the cast. House of Wax follows those rules (and every other horror movie rule too) and even though having Paris Hilton in her first big role in a movie screams "this is gonna suck!", it doesn't, and I'm going to leave Miss Hilton for later cause she rules here, and the movie is freaking great too.

A group of college students are on a road trip on their way to a football game when they have car trouble, so they need to stop by the closest town to find a way to fix it. The town is of course run by a group of crazy people who wants to kill them.
Yes, it's a slasher movie, and yes, it sounds just like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only this time the crazy people are a group of brothers who like to wax things, including people, and have created a museum called the House of Wax that is all made of wax, except the statues of the people inside, that look so real because as the trailer tells us, they're real people covered by wax.

Forgive me for having not seen the original once again, and so I can't compare them, but instead I'll compare it to the aforementioned TCM remake, just because they both have the same vibe. Also comparable are the movies' atmospheres, which are both very well done with TCM's coming on top by just a little bit. Which one is better, TCM, no doubt in my mind, but there's a lot to love about House of Wax, and that's its characters.

Elisha Cuthbert and Chad Michael Murray are the leads, playing twin brothers Carly and Nick. Jared Padalecki plays Carly's boyfriend Wade, with Jon Abrahams playing Nick's friend Dalton. Robert Ri'chard and Paris Hilton are Blake and Paige, who's best friends with Carly.
Carly and Nick are on screen most of the movie's time, almost an %80 I'd say, with the rest of the characters having little to do though necessary stuff.

Elisha and Chad are really great in the movie, as is Brian Van Holt who plays the bad guys.
And then Paris Hilton, she of The Simple Life and of One Night in Paris, her other great performance in a movie, and yes, note I said 'other' there.
Is she a great actress? Not because of this movie, she has little to act but her performance is effective and sure to please everybody who loves her and even more those who hate her. And no, she doesn't get naked here, no need for that since any person in the world with internet access has already seen her in the nude, but she's in her underwear most of the time (striptease included) so that's good. But she doesn't rule here because of that, she rules for having the guts to take this role and I'm going to explain why.
It's her first big role and she dies in the movie, of course she does. I think "I die in this movie" were the first words she said on MTV's Movie Life, a behind the scenes series about the filming of House of Wax. And that's perfect, because we want her to die, and she has a great death scene by the way that will have the entire theatre cheering. But more props goes to her because this Robert Ri'chard guy is a black guy, and though that shouldn't be a problem at all, I'm sure not every actor or actress would take a role that has them in a relationship with a black person, but like it should be she didn't care at all and she took the part. Also props for letting the filmmakers use her real life and make a joke out of it in the movie. One of the characters has a camcorder in the movie, and Paris has more than one scene being on camera, even with the nightvision like the first shows of her private movie. And it's funny, and you have to give it to her for allowing that kind of stuff that is only funny because it is done to her. Also, her character is not stupid, knows how to hide, and she's the only supporting character who actually gets to hurt the bad guy a little bit even though she ends up not surviving. So good for Paris.

Director Jaume Serra has made a really great job making the movie very atmospheric, gory, and scary (fingers being cut are always welcome), and the production team has made a really good job with the wax stuff, which made the movie feel real because the everything was actually made of real wax. Add the great cast and once again you have a horror movie that would be an instant classic if it weren't a remake of a classic, but we'll see in 30 years which movies comes out on top as the classic after Paris wins an Oscar. Ok, that last line came out a little bit crazy, but not what is before that, because the movie is really great.