MOVIE MADNESS

After seeing no movies in the theater the first four months of the year, I've now seen 4 in the last month-and-a-half. We also have designs to see several upcoming movies as well, so my average should soon climb to one a month. I've also watched a number of movies on DVD over the last several months as well, so here's a quick recap of all of them...

Iron Man - I had hopes for this movie but it exceeded all my expectations. The opening was a textbook example of how to hook people and the rest of it just kept up the momentum. It's such a 21st century movie and I thought Robert Downey Jr. was fantastic. Of course, my geek heart was thrilled, especially with the after-credits bit.

Indiana Jones - We showed Grant the first three movies in prepartion for the new movie and it was fun going back and watching them again. Jill and I had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Temple of Doom when that DVD set first came out a couple years ago but had never gotten around to The Last Crusade until now. I had completely forgotten that movie opened with young Indiana Jones...played by River Phoenix! Anyway, I had fun with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is certainly of a piece with the rest of the movies, even if it isn't my favorite of the bunch (which is still Raiders - that first love is deep).

Kung Fu Panda - Speaking of exceeding expectations, how about this movie? The animation was amazing. Amazing. I actually sat and watched all of the credits just for the drawings that accompanied them and therefore was the only person in the theater to see the little coda at the end. The story was a fun one and the action was awesome and I love Jack Black, what can I say? I highly recommend this movie.

The Incredible Hulk - We just saw this today and it was a solid movie. It doesn't reach the heights of Iron Man but it was entertaining. Lots of nods to the old TV show and a very solid performance from Edward Norton. At the end, you also see the Marvel movie masterplan coming together and it makes me a bit giddy. I hope they can keep up the quality.

No Country For Old Men - It's been over two months since we finally watched last year's Oscar winner. I'm a fan of the Coens and I really liked this movie. Heck, I didn't mind the ending either. I got where they were going with it and everything up to that point was great, so why quibble.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - I was very disappointed in this one. It seemed set for greatness - a cool idea, John C. Reilly, Judd Apatow, cameos from all sorts of cool people - but it just fell flat. I didn't laugh very much at all. At least we got a lot of the gorgeous Jenna Fischer, so that redeemed it a little.

Juno - This one was pretty much all it was advertised to be - great writing, great performances, and an awesome little movie. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. Soon.

Cloverfield - I was prepared to be disappointed. I wasn't. They took a monster movie and made it into something really cool with the way they approached it. The handheld style didn't bother me at all. At all. Maybe it was worse on the big screen, I don't know. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, it looked like all sorts of awesome. And it was.

Into the Wild - I'm still not sure what I think about this movie. I liked how it was shot and how it was told via flashback and Emile Hirsch had a great charisma as Chris McCandless. I guess my biggest problem was with McCandless himself. Just so stupid and selfish and blind. Which was part of the point, I know. I'm not sorry I saw it, that's for sure.

MORE SHORTS/PROJECTS

I actually wore shorts on Thursday, which was nice. Of course, I spend my days in a bathing suit so I guess it's not the biggest deal in the world. Yesterday it was in the low 80s and we sweltered in Chicago while seeing a show at Comedy Sportz (drama club field trip); today it's cooler with tomorrow and the next few days set to be even worse. There's even talk of snow. Not unprecedented around here (it snowed the day of my senior prom, which was early May) but still rare.

To completely change the subject, you can now hear two songs of Aimee Mann's upcoming album, @#%&*! Smilers, here. It comes out June 10 and I can't wait.

The season finale of Torchwood was fantastic and completely heartbreaking on a variety of levels. I'm curious as to where they'll go from here. I bet Martha Jones will be back.

Thanks to this week's return of Lost (hello again, smoke monster), Thursday night now features 2 great hours of TV, preceeded by a solid hour (My Name Is Earl is definitely the weakest link, even though Scrubs isn't as strong as it used to be). Oh, the 2 hours is The Office and 30 Rock and Lost. All had really really good episodes this week. And then to get new eps of Battlestar Galactica the next night? I love you, TV.

I was reading through the Summer Movie Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly and realized I had another project to undertake. We are about 3 1/2 weeks away from the opening of the new Indiana Jones movie and I still need to show the first three to my son. Got to get on that.