Equilibrium (2002) - Movie Review

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Batman: The Dark Knight Movie Review

W

ell, I finally broke down and bought Batman: The Dark Knight because they don't seem to have it at the lieberry and the price isn't going down at Wal-Mart. Lately, it seems like they sell the movies at full price for a couple of weeks, then it goes down to $13.

I got tired of waiting, didn't want to pay to rent it when I knew I was going to buy it, so I paid $19.96. It hurt me to do that. Because Circuit City was selling it for $13 ONCE and, of course, Wal-Mart had no copies and wouldn't issue a rain check.

Bastids.

Whatevuh.

The Dark Knight
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman
Director: Christopher Nolan
Genre: Action Crime Thriller
Plot:from IMDb: Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as it drives each of them to their limits.
Should you see it? Hell to the YES!!!
Rating (out of 5 hearts): ♥♥♥♥♥♥ (Yes, I know that's 6 hearts. I can count.)
My Comments: I really didn't have any expectations for this movie. I usually take a long time to see a movie if everyone and their brother has seen it and raved about it. All the hype makes me think the movie is going to be wonderful and I end up being disappointed. It took me until this summer to start watching Lost and now I love it.

This movie? This movie right here? This is THE SHIZNIT, BEEYOTCH!

"This movie? This movie right here? This is THE SHIZNIT, BEEYOTCH!"Heath Ledger was awesome as The Joker. I have always been partial to the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson and the Prince Soundtrack :-). But Heath Ledger took this role OVER. O.V.E.R. Now I understand why people (the general public) were so sad about his death. Because it would have been awesome if we could have had another Batman vs. The Joker movie.

But maybe it's best that we can't. We will not be disappointed with a sub-par script or Ledger doing an impersonation of himself playing The Joker, nodamene?

What surprised me was how funny The Joker was in this. The fact that I really can't remember if Nicholson was this funny as The Joker is saying a lot (to me).

If you've already seen it, see it again. If you haven't seen it, buy it. It was awesome.

I had planned to go to sleep during the movie, but Evan is the one who got sleepy and went to bed. I stayed up for the whole movie. It felt a lot longer than 152 minutes, but not in a bad way. Then I came to write a review while it's still fresh on my mind.

Love it, Love it, Love it.

It seemed like a lot of familiar faces were in the movie like Michael Jai White (Spawn), Anthony Michael Hall, Eric Roberts and Aaron Eckhart as Two Face. Don't even get me started on the special effects for that. So much creepier than Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal.

Ok, I'm going to bed before I replay the whole movie.
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Now playing: Prince - Partyman

The Family that Preys

T

yler Perry has a new movie opening on September 12. It's called "The Family that Preys". I just WATCHED THE TRAILER. It looks interesting!

Kathy Bates, Alfre Woodard, Sanaa Latham, KaDee Strickland,Robin Givens, and Rockmond Dunbar (to name a few) are in it!

This looks completely different from the other stuff he's done. I don't expect a recycling of old jokes in this. It looks like a DRAMA! (Yay!!!)

I'm so excited for this. :-) Go Tyler!

The Cleaner

I

just finished watching "The Cleaner", a new TV show on the A&E network. (Tuesdays at 10 pm EST)

I only heard about it last week or something when Benjamin Bratt was on The View. He's a beautiful man, so I watched the interview, LOL.

Bratt plays William Banks. Banks was a heroin addict. When his youngest child was being born, he was in the hospital shooting up. He made a bargain with God that if he could live through the night, he would become God's "Avenging Angel" and help other addicts to get clean. He is still living with his wife and 2 children, although he sleeps in a separate bedroom. His family realize that he's doing important work, but they still haven't forgiven him for all the times he was in jail or rehab.

Gil Bellows (One of the dudes from Ally McBeal) does a guest appearance as one of Banks' team members. He ends up killing himself at the end of the episode because his wife won't take him back, even though he's been clean for quite a while. Sorry for blowing the secret. But I thought it was odd that Bellows was not listed as a cast member when he was all up in the premier episode...

Other cast members include:

Grace Park as Akani Cuesta. She's the daughter of a wealthy businessman. She has slept with Banks at some point. She's very sexual (I don't know if that's the right word.) Stereotypical "Bad Girl", IMO. I'm sure we'll find out more about why she doesn't want her father's money in later episodes.

Kevin Michael Richardson as Darnell McDowell. We don't know much about him except that he works as a car salesman and he wants to work for Banks. By the end of the episode (after Bellows kills himself) he gets the job.

Esteban Powell as Arnie Swenton. His character still seems like he might be using, LOL. All I know is that he got arrested by a new police officer in the first episode, made some crack about Banks sleeping with Cuesta, got fired & got re-hired by the end of the episode.

The show is okay... It's no Saving Grace. But it was only the first episode. They had to introduce all of the characters and give a little hint about the back story. I think it should have at least been a 2 hour premier. Maybe it would have gotten more in depth with the characters?

Anyway, I'll give it a few more episodes. Well, at least one, to see if it gets any better. Benjamin Bratt is cute. But not cute enough for me to take up space on my DVR just to look at him for 45 minutes... (The show is an hour, but minus commercials it's about 40-45 minutes.)

I wouldn't re-arrange my DVR schedule to record it at this point.

We shall see. *shrugs*

All About Eve

F

riday night Evan and I stayed up until at least 5 am. We were watching "The Others" with Nicole Kidman. I was falling asleep but the effing commercials were so loud and bright that I woke up every time there was a commercial break.

I saw "All About Eve" on the schedule (on TCM) & ended up taping it because of Bette Davis and it had 3½ stars. IMDb gives the plot as:

"An ingenue insinuates herself in to the company of an established but aging stage actress and her circle of theater friends."

The version I taped was black & white. But, thankfully, no commercials.

Oh.My.God.

If you can get past the overly dramatic acting in it (it was the '50s, after all) this is a really good story.

Image via WikipediaBette Davis plays Margo, a very successful Broadway actress. One day, her close friend Karen (played by Celeste Holm) sees a young woman standing outside the theater waiting for Margo. The girl, Eve (played by Anne Baxter), adores Margo. She comes to see every single performance of the play in which Margo is currently starring.

THE SAME NIGHT that Eve is introduced to Margo, she tells a sad story about the difficult life she's lead. Margo takes pity on her & lets Eve move INTO HER HOUSE.

Eve makes herself very helpful, almost indispensable. Margo's real "assistant" is very suspicious of Eve from the beginning. *insert ominous music here*

Not long after she starts managing Margo's affairs (business & personal) she sets up a midnight (4 am in NY) long distance call to Margo's boyfriend in California for his birthday. She "forgets" to tell Margo about it. She also sends the BF a telegram from herself & plans a birthday/welcome home party for the BF (I can't remember his name.) inviting people that Margo does not like. Margo finds out about the party during the midnight phone call.

Margo gets drunk at the party. She says some unpleasant things about "Sweet, innocent Eve" and BF & Karen stand up for Eve. At the party, Margo tries to get Eve a job working for someone else.

After the party, Karen sets it up so that Margo will miss her next performance and Eve can go on as her understudy.

'Somehow', the press and all kinds of people find out about Eve's performance.

One of the main "society" reporters in NY gives Eve a glowing review & basically accuses Margo, "the mature actress" of trying to hold the "fresh new talent" back. But he also asks her some trick questions about her background to be used for the purposes of blackmail later in the movie.

I think this movie could have been made today. It was great. In spite of the acting. In spite of the fact that Eve got slapped and reacted 2 seconds after the slap. In spite of being black & white. It is a little like a soap opera, but it's Bette Davis!

There's a cameo from Marilyn Monroe in the movie. A lot of the faces looked familiar to me, but when I looked at their resumes on imdb, I can't remember seeing anything else they might have been in with the exception of "The Twilight Zone" (wasn't everybody on that show at some point in their career back then???)

If you happen to see it on your DVR guide, check it out. It wasn't a Bette Davis movie the way that 'Baby Jane' was a Bette Davis movie. It is, after all, "All About Eve". But you will LOVE the ending. I certainly did. :-)