3DD!3

When I was small and I saw Tron for the first time, I used to wake up from nightmares where a computer had just disintegrated me, which shows clearly that this movie definitely isn’t for kids. Now, years later, I can appreciate how clever, well-thought out and mainly original the idea was. By the way, yesterday I saw an excerpt from the next part and it looks really fascinating. I look forward to it.

A super comedy with impressive action scenes. Sandler rocks again. The whole gang of criminal footballers is simply excellent. And, surprisingly, that applies to Chris Rock too, who isn’t at all annoying, but in any case here he is treated as he usually deserves to be in other movies.

I hate people. I’d like to help the Decepticons destroy that gang of worms that call themselves human kind. Movie theaters always used to be a place to escape from niggling reality, an oasis of peace and quiet where nobody spoke and let themselves be carried off to fantastic places with the help of a projector and a silver screen. But to conclude, so we can get on to the movie. If I meet that jerk who was spitting in my hair and talking about what was going to happen in the next scene once again, I’ll rip out his eyes and tongue. But, let’s get to the important things. Revenge is a full-blooded action popcorn movie which is slightly brought down by the unnecessarily intricate mythology (which is full of holes anyway). It would have helped if it had been a little briefer. In any case, the action is excellent and mainly it’s less confused that in the first part. The fight in the forest is unbeatable. The finale is nice and completely over the top with loads of robots, where the only downside it that the movie pays too little attention to them. Bay simply wanted to do everything at once, but it wasn’t really worth it (well, in money terms it was actually worth it, but I didn’t mean that). It’s still effective, but it isn’t how it should be. As for the actors, Shia is cool, his character is split between two images of Sam - a poor student with typical problems and a veteran who has some experience behind him - and he pulled it off with flying colors. Moreover, both he and John Turturro were the only ones with really good snappy lines and their scenes together are the best parts of the movie (apart from the FIGHTS). And Megan Fox is foxier than ever. I just hope that in part three they manage to balance the ingredients so that it could rock like it did before. P.S.: Optimus is awesome.

The first Crank second time around and so maybe a little lamer in my opinion. It’s missing the initial surprise that Taylor and Neveldine stuffed into something that I thought would be a traditional action movie. High Voltage takes the same concept and drives it to the edge of a cliff. And often beyond that. There’s no shortage of original ideas and even though they are completely twisted, I bet you that you’ve never seen the like anywhere else. P.S.: I’m quite intrigued what your average Linkin Park fan (or groupie) would say to seeing Chester Bennington in a movie like this. I can see their long faces right now. Hee, hee.

Man, that Amanda Peet is foxy... but back to the movie, it’s a fairly original idea to tell a story about a neighbour who’s a serial killer. It’s also nicely thought-through and the actors enjoy their roles. Perry of course is standard Chandler, but Bruce really savors it. Natasha Henstridge is nice to look at and I’ve already talked about Amanda. A pleasant surprise.

A good fairy tale where The Rock does more yapping than punching people. The visual effects are mediocre, but the kids will love this film. 60%

When the X-Files were running on TV, I missed more episodes than I saw and so I decided to right the situation. After season one I am utterly thrilled and I will definitely continue watching. The alien episodes are simply delicious. Now I understand why such a cult has built up around it. Season two continues in the footsteps of season one and the first few episodes are the high points of the series so far. A bit of a shame that Mulder wasn’t left without Scully for a little longer. The episodes with the little green men are still my favorites. Season three is already a little creaky. Here and there a lame episode, one is a parody of itself, but there are many that are jam packed with really nice snappy lines (the phone calls in the episode with the cockroaches were priceless). But the mythology is still very strong and the important episodes are always worth watching. THE SURGEON GENERAL WARNS: SMOKING CAUSES LUNG CANCER. Season four offers a couple of fascinating answers, including one episode about a smoker. Otherwise it retains its quality overall, but the “we’ve been here already" syndrome is beginning to set in unpleasantly. But I am still enjoying myself immensely. Season five has several key mythological episodes that are really good to watch, on the other hand there are more lame episodes than I would like. But I was pleased with the episode that Stephen King was involved with and the episode with several viewpoints of the same case. The ending prepared the ground nicely for the movie that I completely missed in the day and that I am very intrigued about now. So we’ll see... Season six is about the same as the one before in terms of quality. I gave myself a good rest between the movie and the first episode of season six, because the movie made for a nice ending, but hunger for more cases with Mulder and Scully won in the end. What’s with these move-along episodes that are crowned by the final episode. The other episodes are there just to fill space, sometimes they’re entertaining, sometimes scary, sometimes superbly surprising. And the reference to Homer Simpson was also nice to hear. Season seven is one big ending of a chapter. Although the episodes have less and less substance to them, the last episode is superb. A classic example of creators having ideas, but not many, so they have to be frugal with them. I wonder if I’ll ever get round to watching another season. I want to leave this “ending" to mature inside me.

I wonder if anybody will understand this without reading the book. Kubrick created something really weird from Clarke’s pure-blooded sci-fi. OK, it starts more or less the same, then it sort of jumps chapters and the ending of the book that I had considered important is somehow missing in this movie. The movie lacks the purpose that is quite well described in the book. The journey through space is presented differently. Instead of Saturn’s moons, we fly toward Jupiter instead. There are lots of differences that annoy me, but lots of things that exceeded my expectations. The black monolith and the nice-guy computer HAL 9000 remained the same. I have more or less arrived at the conclusion that it’s almost impossible to compare them due to certain characteristics that each media has. I think that what bothered me in places was the unnecessary drawn-outness, probably due to Kubrick’s fascination with the emptiness of space. It loses a star for a certain vividness in the first half that is due to the fact that the “future" occasionally comes across like the 1970s, on the other hand the movie is incredibly advanced and well-thought out. This is my purely subjective view of the movie and oldsters probably won’t share my view, but I’m just rather particular about this sort of thing. This is because the movie was years before its time. But this then meant that it set certain standards for the genre, so there you go... hrmph.

Quite unusual to see Jackie in a movie like this. You’ll find no jokes nor stunts and not even one-to-one fights. Xin Su shi jian is a thoroughbred drama about a Chinese immigrant in Japan. Similar movies (or games; GTA IV) of the same genre have been made in the US or the UK, but it’s the Asian environment that in places changes the familiar clichés. Moreover, Jackie gives a full-on performance but in a completely different way than usual. Just because of his transformation and the brilliantly escalated ending this movie is worth watching.

The first episode really set the bar very high. Great atmosphere, mystery and even a little bit more intricate solution of the case. Excellent.