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So I saw Get Smart this past week starring the awesome Steve Carell and the lovely Anne Hathaway. I was kind of excited about this movie simply because I was a casual fan of the old TV show.  Would you believe this new version “missed it by that much?

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Maxwell Smart (Carell) is a top analyst at CONTROL, a secret American intelligence agency.  His goal is to be a field agent but the Chief finds him too valuable at a desk to allow him to leave his current post. An attack by KAOS exposes all the agents except for Smart and Agent 99 (who recently had plastic surgery to protect her identity).  Smart and 99 go to Russia to uncover this nuclear weapons plot expose the bad guys and then come back to LA and stop a nuclear bomb.

OVERALL: I really wanted to like this film.  Wow that’s kind of a giveaway on how I feel, huh?  Here’s another bad sign. The boys and I started watching it on Tuesday, got about half way through it and stopped to go to bed.  We didn’t finish watching it until Thursday.  I think one of the things that bothered me was that I had a hard time figuring out Steve Carell’s take on this character. I mean, in one scene he’s a bumbling fool shooting miniature blow darts through his nose and in the next, he an ace shot escaping from the bad guy without a scratch.  No problem with Anne Hathaway, btw. Wow. Seriously wow. Beautiful and funny. I saw her on SNL earlier this year and I thought she was great.

One more thing, the film does have a few knowing nods to the TV show including some funny cameos that I enjoyed.

RENT IT? If the movie you really want is not available and you’re looking for a comedy then yeah.. go ahead. But this is not a strong recommendation. Sorry Anne. I still love you.  No really, please call me.

UPDATE: This thing has made over $230 million bucks so it should come as no surprise that on October 7, 2008, it was reported that Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures are producing a sequel. Steve Carell is set to return, but the status of other cast members has not yet been announced. Let’s just hope that Anne plays it “smart” and returns for another go round.

Rock me.

Watched National Treasure: Book of Secrets in one sitting on Saturday.  I missed this flick in the theaters and I remember it getting surprisingly good reviews and so I wanted to check it out. In fact it was on at the doctor’s office when I went to take a blood test as part of the hiring process for my new job. (I was clean by the way) I saw about 10 minutes of the middle of this film and looked halfway decent and so I finally stuck into rotation on the Netflix.  And Diane Kruger is fiiiine.

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates looks to discover the truth behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, by uncovering the mystery within the 18 pages missing from assassin John Wilkes Booth’s diary.

Cage's hair is most unbelievable thing in this movie.

OVERALL: I wanted a fun ridiculous movie with high production values and great location scenes. That’s what I got.  It’ s like when you eat DiGorno’s pizza. It’s tastes pretty good at the time but then you can’t believe you finished the whole thing at one sitting and you feel a little guilty.  One thing kept nagging at me about this film.  If you remember the first one, Gates (Cage) discovered all this fantastic treasure and made millions of dollars and is presumably very famous and has developed this reputation as being a treasure hunter, etc.  (SPOILER) So when he wants to investigate a desk in Buckingham Palace, for example, I kept wondering why doesn’t he just ask. Why break in? “Hi, I’m Ben Gates, the famous treasure hunter, would you mind if I looked at your desk?” But then I guess we wouldn’t have a movie.

RENT IT? You bet. It’s harmless popcorn eating fun. And I actually looked up some of the references in the movie and the producers did their homework on the history so you might learn something.

UPDATE: The director, Jon Turteltaub has this recent quote about National Treasure 3: “I’m guessing that we’re a few years away. By the time we come up with a decent idea and develop it into a complicated and intelligent puzzle it’s going to be at least 2009. Then to prep it and cast it… it should be three years away.” That’d put it in 2011.  By the way, DIsney has already reserved the website National Treasure 3D Movie.  So I would assume that the next version will be filmed in IMAX 3D.

So this weekend, I rented Southland Tales solely on the basis that it was directed by the same guy-Richard Kelly- that directed Donnie Darko which I thoroughly enjoyed and still kind of freaks me out. I even remember the website kind of freaking me out a little bit. (holy crap, it still does!) Anyway, Southland Tales stars The Rock, excuse me, Dwayne Johnson, Stifler, I mean Sean William Scott, and Buffy, dang it, I mean Sarah Michelle Gellar who looks fantastic in this movie.  Actually, the entire movie “looks” great in terms of the lighting and cinematography. Now that I am THE media guy at my office, I have really started to notice camera angles and lighting and color design, blah blah blah.  There is quite a large ensemble cast of recognizable people from John Larroqette to Nora Dunn, even Jon Lovitz, oh and this guy:

Bring it on down to Omletville! Hey, this scene with the blonde girls dancing was absolutely hypnotic as Justin lip syncs to “All These Things I’ve Done” by the Killers. (I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier) Here’s a youtube clip of the scene.

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Ummm, okay. It’s set in the near future (kind of weird because the movie was made in 2006 and so it’s set in 2008) and El Paso and Abilene have been nuked which causes WWIII and there’s this whole US I-Dent internet Big Brother thing which monitors everybody and there’s a revolution and a space time rift and it’s really really weird and kind of hard to follow.

OVERALL: Here is a comment that someone made from that youtube clip…

“The movie had good visuals and good actors/actresses in it, but the storyline….what the???? I had no idea what was going on…Justin Timberlake quoting the bible and narrating the movie….didn’t make any sense to me.”

It’s visually very interesting but the whole time I am watching this I’m thinking, “Wow, that really cost a lot of money to make that and the producers are probably upset that this thing didn’t make any money…

Southland Tales grossed USD $275,380 in limited release at the North American box office, and $81,028 elsewhere, making a worldwide total of $356,408,^[27] falling far short of the film’s $15-17 million budget.

Yeah, I’d say they were upset.  That doesn’t even include marketing costs… Ouch.

RENT IT? Nope. Unless you are a huge huge fan of Donny Darko or like to be confused by pretty colors.  Sorry, I can’t recommend it.

UPDATE:: Turns out there’s a whole backstory in graphic novel form that was created to lead up to the movie. That would probably help with understanding the story line. Richard Kelly’s next movie is a horror film called the Box starrying Cameron Diaz. I shall refrain from making the obvious dirty joke.

Okay, last week I mentioned an actor named Chiwetel Ejiofor (actually I misspelled it, sorry about that) from the movie Inside Man. Go ahead. I dare you to say it.  Cuz I sure as heck can’t.  Wait, I found a pronunciation guide. (Ch(ew-it-tell Edge-e-o-four))

Anyway, he’s quite talented and has been in a bunch of  movies.  But the first one that I saw him in was Serenity. And since I just let a co-worker borrow my DVD and it’s now sitting on the floor next to my desk, I thought I would make it this week’s pick.

Okay, I was a little late to the whole Browncoat thing but once I watched my first episode on DVD I was hooked. If you have no idea what I am talking about… Long story short: Sci-fi western TV show called FIRELFLYfrom Buffy creator Joss Whedon gets canceled by FOX TV after a few episodes. Fans grow in number and a movie is released with okay box office results.

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: Wow. It would help if you went out and rented the TV show but don’t let that stop you from watching the film.  About 500 years in the future, a young psychic girl with a secret is on the run with her brother and the crew of Serenity.  A deadly assassin (Ejiofor) is hired by the govt to track down the girl.

OVERALL: I’m not a big collector of DVDs because Iam not the kind of person that likes to watch a movie over and over and over again.

I own this movie. And I’ve watched it over and over and over again.  In fact, this past summer, I paid to watch this movie yet again for charity with a theater full of Serenity fans.  And I will give you an example of why I love this movie. There is a scene where the captain of the ship is deliberately going into a trap. He is taking the shuttle down to the planet by himself and he turns to his first mate and says this:

Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I’ll take the shuttle in closer. Zoe, ship is yours. Remember, if anything happens to me, or you don’t hear from me within the hour… you take this ship and you come and you rescue me.
Zoë: What? And risk my ship?
Capt. Malcolm Reynolds: I mean it. It’s cold out there. I don’t wanna get left.

Now just reading it doesn’t do it justice but I love the misdirection in this short excerpt.  I know it’s simple but for a split second you think that the Captain is going to tell them to hightail it out of there if they don’t hear from him.  But instead we get the comfortable back and forth banter between real people. That sort of stuff is in the entire film (and TV Series) That’s why I love this movie.

RENT IT? Yes, please. By all means.  Or you can borrow mine. In fact, come on over and I’ll watch it with you. I just bought some popcorn.

UPDATE: No Serenity 2 on the horizon at this point.  Creator Wedon is working on the show, Dollhouse, to begin airing on Fox in January 2009.

This past weekend, I saw Inside Man directed by Spike Lee and starring Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen. It also has Chiwetel Ejoiofor and I have no idea how to say his name but he’s in the great Serenity movie and so “bonus!”  Bonus number 2,  the Asian guy from LOST is one of the hostages! (not Jin, the other one….you know, Miles)

SHORT PLOT SYNOPSIS: An elaborate bank robbery sets off a series of events involving a back up police hostage negotiator and a high-powered fixer.

OVERALL: I am a fan of Spike Lee.  His movies almost always challenge the viewer and he has a knack for keeping a film at least visually interesting.  Denzel Washington’s performance was, as usual, enjoyable and the film moved briskly and intelligently and keeps you guessing throughout the story.  Try to figure out what the bank’s big cheese has hiding in his safe deposit box that he’s so worried about- I guessed right at about the 1 hour mark.

RENT IT?: Big yes on this one. Watch out for the kids though. Probably about 20 F-bombs scattered through-out the flick. Everybody duck!

UPDATE: Reportedly their is an Inside Man 2 in the works that will include all of the major players from the original. Ahh , Hollywood, you are so original!