Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie Review

I really don't know what to say, as this was one of the oddest and dumbest movies I've seen in a long, but I can't really call it a stupid movie and say I didn't like it. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie for Theaters (yes, that's the title) is entertaining and consistently funny, even if it doesn't make any sense most of the time.

You can read my full Aqua Teen Hungerforce movie review here, and I'll just say a few things about the show real quick... I've never really watched it much before, except for when I catch a scene here or there when my roommate (who watches every episode) is watching. I laugh and find the scenes pretty funny, but nonetheless, what a waste of half an hour on a weekly basis! I mean this in the most positive way, but even if the show is funny, there has got to be better entertainment out there. I normally try to avoid saying "I could do something just as good" as really, with sports or movies or whatever, even the worst have or require talent, but if I were paid to make poorly animated scenes of random items of litter do random things, I think I could do something just as good.

Anyway, that's my two seconds on Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Thank you, and goodnight.

Disturbia Movie Review: Who cares when the girl is hot?

Disturbia made $23 million over the weekend, which surprised just about everyone, except me. The previews looked pretty slick, and a lot of people I knew were looking forward to seeing this one. And, apparently, a lot of other people wanted to see Disturbia, too.

While Disturbia is a rip-off of Rear Window, that's okay, because formulaic thriller done right can still be good, if not at least entertaining. Disturbia stars Shia LaBeouf on the verge of his major breakout, and also features super steamy Sarah Roemer, who helps get us through the slow parts.

The movie is good, but not as good as I was hoping. It falls into teeny bopper mode a few times, and even when it doesn't, the screenplay isn't quite sophisticated enough to take it to the next level. Still, overall, Disturbia is an effective and entertaining movie.

Read my full Disturbia movie review here.

Mariners clobber the Texas Rangers!

I just went to my first Seattle Mariners game of the year at wonderful Safeco Field, and in addition to beautiful, warm weather (for April), the Mariners made a laughing stock of the Rangers, going 14-6. The Rangers took an early 2-0 lead off Ramirez, who looked shaky in his first start (which didn't count due to snow) and looked shaky here. However, Ichiro hit a homer to lead off for the Mariners, and Vidro followed up with his first of two home runs of the day. Beltre rocketed a homer off the left field foul pole later in the day.

Ramirez escaped with only one earned run, but five runs were scored while he was on the mound. His command wasn't great, but he got the job done, I suppose. What really won it for the Mariners, other than some timely hitting, was the God-awful fielding and defense from the Rangers. The MLB is very lenient on handing out errors these days, so the Rangers only had three errors on the day, but there were three or four other misplays that ended up costing the team big. Some of the plays were harder than others, but at the pro level they should have made them, not botched them.

Anyway, I'm not complaining, but I almost - note, almost - felt sorry for the Rangers' defense. Their mamas must be so ashamed.

Freedom Writers Movie Review

I've posted a movie review for Freedom Writers over at Movie-Source.com - basically, the movie is surprisingly good, even if it is a re-hash as all other inner city teacher films such as Dangerous Minds, etc. Still, Hilary Swank is good and the movie is even better. Freedom Writers comes to DVD on Tuesday.

Friday Box Office Analysis - Disturbia Conquers

According to the Friday Box Office Analysis from BoxOfficeProphets, Disturbia took in much more than anticipated with $8.7 million on Friday, which should lead to around $24 million over the weekend, easily putting it in the top spot. Halle Berry and Bruce Willis star power will only drive Perfect Stranger to around $11 million, while films like Pathfinder and Redline thankfully flopped, Aqua Teen Hungerforce will be lucky to make the Top Ten, and other new releases/expansions such as The Hoax and Slow Burn decided to not show up to the fight in the first place.

Here are the estimates for the April 13th - April 15th, 2007 weekend, based on Friday numbers only:

1. Disturbia ($24.3 million)
2. Blades of Glory ($15.1 million)
3. Perfect Stranger ($11.4 million)
4. Meet the Robinsons ($11.1 million
5. Are We Done Yet? ($7.8 million)
6. Wild Hogs ($4.7 million)
7. The Reaping ($4.5 million)
8. Pathfinder ($4.3 million)
9. Redline ($4.0 million)
10. Aqua Teen Hunger Force ($3.5 million)

Lots of movie casting news

I have a few casting tidbits I thought I'd post today. I'm in the process of watching Dreamgirls right now, and will have a DVD review out next week (same with Freedom Writers, The Queen and Deja Vu). Anyway, onto the casting news...

From Variety, it sounds like Leelee Sobieski has signed on to star in the indie comedy, Walk All Over Me. She'll play Alberta, a small-town Canadian cashier who gets caught up in the misadventures involving gangsters, masochists and mistaken identities

Ioan Gruffudd (Fantastic Four) will voice the lead role in the adventure toon, Agent Crush. He will join the voices of Neve Campbell, Brian Cox and Roger Moore. This news also comes from Variety.

And once again from Variety, Bill Smitrovich has been cast in Iron Man. Production begins later this month in Los Angeles.

Variety also says Toby Jones and Lena Headey have joined the cast of the comedy, St. Trinian's, where they'll both play staff members at the infamous girls' boarding school; Rupert Everett and Colin Firth are also in the movie.

Richard Dreyfuss, Henry Simmons and rapper/actor Romeo will star in the basketball drama, Sweetwater, says Variety. The film is based on Nat 'Sweetwater' Clifton, the first African-American basketball player to play for an NBA team. Simmons is going to play the title role, while Dreyfuss will portray Abe Saperstein, the owner and founder of the Harlem Globetrotters; Saperstein coached Clifton and sold his contract to the NBA's New York Knicks in 1950. Romeo will play the young Clifton.

Oh yeah, and Paramount confirmed what I had reported weeks ago, that Shia LaBeouf will indeed star in Indiana Jones 4.

Christina Ricci joins Speed Racer

Christina Ricci is joining Larry and Andy Wachowski's live-action adaptation of the 1960s cartoon Speed Racer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Emile Hirsch, Susan Sarandon and John Goodman already have boarded the high-octane project, which is based on the anime series created by Tatsuo Yoshida for Japanese audiences and later imported to the U.S. Speed Racer centers on a young race car driver, Speed (Hirsch), and his quest for glory in his thundering, gadget-laden vehicle Mach 5. Ricci will star as Speed's girlfriend Trixie, his formidable ally on and off the track. The show revolved around Speed's family. In the big-screen adaptation, Goodman will play Pops, a race car owner and builder. Sarandon is on board as Pops' wife, the backbone of the family as well as the Mach 5 Go Racing Team. Speed Racer hits theaters Summer 2008.

Angels and Demons: Tom Hanks and Ron Howard

The Hollywood Reporter is saying Tom Hanks and Ron Howard are in the final stages of joining the production of The Da Vinci Code prequel, Angels and Demons.

Hanks is about to receive one of the biggest paydays ever to reprise his role as Harvard professor Robert Langdon; Sony declined comment about the status of the highly anticipated project, which also derives from a Dan Brown best-seller.

An early January start date has been scheduled for production on Angels and Demons; another A-list cast is being hired in supporting roles. Personally, while I found Angels and Demons a little over the top at the end, the book overall was truly entertaining and just as exciting, if not more exciting, than The Da Vinci Code.

At the same time, I felt Ron Howard completely botched The Da Vinci Code, but hopefully bad reviews will allow him to learn from his mistakes. It would have been cool had Columbia sought a different, more dynamic director for this prequel, but who's to argue with $750 million in global box office receipts? (Of course, if The Da Vinci Code the movie had been good enough to warm over critics in the U.S., it probably would have made a lot more money than a piddling three-quarter billion)

Lindsay Lohan is a Hippy?

According to Entertainment Weekly, drunk hottie Lindsay Lohan has just finished filming director Chris Siverston's I Know Who Killed Me and apparently the actress wants to have a part in Silverston's next film, Hippy.

"I have so much faith in [Siverston], just as a person, and I just love working with him," Lohan told EW. "I love him [so much] as a person, that while we were on set, I was like, 'Let's make a deal right now.'"

The plot of Hippy hasn't been officially released, but Lohan described it as being about a group of kids taking a cross-country trip when one of them drops acid, goes crazy, ''and starts, like, killing people.'' Wow, now I know why she would want to be in it! Wait... no, I don't.

Marc Senter has been cast in Hippy, which if Lohan lands a role in the film, would reunite the duo, as they both appeared in Siverston's 2005 horror drama, The Lost.

The Host Movie Review

Read my review for The Host, the Korean monster movie now out in theaters in the U.S. The movie is a rather original take on the monster genre, as it is presented in a very serious and plausible way - there just happens to be a monster running loose through Seoul.

Funny, dramatic and at times exciting, The Host only suffers from being a little too long for its own good, but is still a highly recommended film for those who have lost faith in the genre.

Read my full The Host movie review here.

Year of the Dog Movie Review

Several months ago, one of the people who writes movie reviews from time to time caught a screening of the Year of the Dog, a movie that is coming to theaters this Friday. Basically, he didn't like it. He found it unrealistic, un-fulfilling and not very funny.

The Year of the Dog movie review can be read here.

Grindhouse Movie Review

A few days late, but I finally found my way into Grindhouse, and I must say it wasn't quite what I was expected. Not bad by any means and actually quite good, but not that good, if you know what I am saying (since I'm writing it right here, you better know what I'm saying). I was expecting a little more action, sex and B-grade camp, and while the fake movie trailers are truly entertaining, Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror is certainly B-grade but not consistently captivating, while Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof is more captivating but not necessarily as entertaining.

All in all, Grindhouse is a concept that probably sounded cooler on paper than it actually is. You can read my full Grindhouse movie review here.

By the way, normally I would pick a cooler picture than the one to the right, but Rosario Dawson is hot in this movie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is even hotter (the cheerleader).

Felix Hernandez... Almost a no-hitter

After getting their asses kicked by the Boston Red Sox yesterday (am I the only one, but do you despise the Red Sox as much as I do now that they've won a World Series? The pity trip is over, and unless they're playing the Yankees, I do not want to see them win), the Seattle Mariners and Felix Hernandez decided to show the Sox hitting what true pitching really is...

Felix Hernandez pitched a no-hitter into the eighth inning, when finally his streak was snapped. Personally, I would trade Hernandez for blowing it like that. I mean, how can you have only a few more outs to go and blow it like that? This guy really doesn't have winning spirit.

Anyway, Felix thus far has pitched seventeen scoreless innings and has proven that he can be the ace of the Mariners. Too bad that the rest of the Mariners' pitching staff ranges from off-and-on (Washburn) to downright awful (everyone else), and our hitters aren't exactly blazing up a storm.

Still, props to Felix - at least we'll win one fifth of our games this year.

Green Arrow coming to the big screen?

Now here's an interest story. It is about the long talked about Green Arrow movie, but not like you'd expect...

Accordingly to The Hollywood Reporter, David Goyer, who said in February that he was no longer involved in Warner Bros. Pictures' upcoming The Flash, is jumping back into the DC Comics universe for Warners with a new project titled Super Max.

The film, which Goyer revealed Saturday on the WizardUniverse.com site, will be built around the Green Arrow, who is tossed into a maximum security prison for super-villains when he is wrongly convicted of a crime.

The project is based on an original idea by Justin Marks, who is writing the screenplay.

Within 10 minutes of entering the prison, the Green Arrow will be stripped of his identity, Goyer told the site. "They shave his goatee and they take his costume and send him to prison for life, and he has to escape. It's like 'Alcatraz,' and he has to team up with, in some cases, some of the very same villains he is responsible for incarcerating in order to get out and clear his name. Of course, tons of people try to kill him while he's in there. We've populated the prison with all sorts of B and C villains from the DC Universe."

Goyer, who co-wrote Warners' Batman Begins, has directed The Invisible.

Olivia Thirlby is in Juno

Variety reports Olivia Thirlby has been cast in the drama-comedy Juno for Fox Searchlight Pictures.

The film is about a 16-year-old girl's unplanned pregnancy; Thirlby will play the girl's best friend.

Juno also stars Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman and Ellen Page, in the lead role; shooting is under way in Vancouver. Not a bad looking cast, if I must say so myself...

Thirlby had a role in United 93 and has six movies slated for a 2007 release. Looks like she found the right agent...