What I Learned @ The Movies

Well then, in the last few weeks, I've seen more movies than I did in all of calendar 2006 (and perhaps 2005), rather than write cohesive reviews (go here for those), here's some things I learned:

• Batman commands respect: During the previews before The Bourne Ultimatum began last night, all of the teenagers in the audience were chatting amongst themselves, but as soon as Michael Caine's dialogue started during the trailer (when you realize it's Batman) everyone became silent. It was awesome. The trailer's kinda "meh" on youtube, but in the theatre, it rocks. I guess it figures, since the guy will throw a car battery at you if you mess with him.


• As for The Bourne Ultimatum itself, it f---ing rocks. A solid continuation of the previous movie (it literally begins 5 minutes after the other one let off) it really doesn't feel like the movie stops to let you breathe throughout the entire running time.


• Also, I highly recommend seeing it in the theatre, since a lot of it is filmed hand-held and with very little to no set-ups or blocking (ie. there's a lot of times where people are standing in front of the camera and very little of the shot is revealed) so I think it'll lose something on the small screen.


• Took my 4-year-old to see Underdog earlier the same day and it was actually pretty good. Not a lot of poop or fart jokes, some good effects and nothing too-scary for the little one. A good time and recommended if you have kids. If you don't, skip it and go see Ratatouille.


• Speaking of Ratatouille, definitely go see that movie. It's love letter to the power that good food has to transport you to another place. Indeed, in that way, it really speaks to all art, be it music, books, what have you, it really shows how you can take many disparate ingredients and use them to trigger not only a specific feeling, but transport someone to a time and place in their history that it's just beautiful.


• Oh yeah, and there's a ton of fun slap-stick moments and perfectly timed jokes that'll keep you laughing at the same time.


• But lest you forget, there still are insipid kids-movies getting foisted upon us, we watched the trailer for the Alvin & the Chipmunks movie and even Jack thought it looked awful.


• The fact that no one is taking a close look at how Pixar is achieving their success and trying to emulate them says a lot of sad things about the state of movie-making in America today.


• Saw Die Hard 4 (the real title sucks, let's face it) and enjoyed it. It's as good as the last two and really, for all of the people bitching about it being rated PG-13, there's a shocking level of violence. Well, there weren't any boobs, good thing we just limited the kids to seeing many, many brutal murders instead of a boob, THAT could warp them.

That's about it for thatrical movies, I was going to get into my recent Netflix travails, but I'll hold onto that for a couple of days. Have a good week.