Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Movies

Open Season
We have seen a couple of movies while on vacation.  The first was "Open Season".  It was a fun movie with many voices from the "Emperor's New Groove".  It wasn't as good a movie as "Emperor" but it was, as I said fun.  Not great fun, but fun.  There is one scene as the bear is in back of a curtain ready to perform before an audience.  The one antlered dear pops in and a struggle occurs.   What the audience thinks it is seeing as a silhouette and what is actually happening behind the curtain - is hilarious!

   Wait to Rent


One Night With The King
We haven't read the book yet so this is just a review of the movie itself.  We enjoyed the story for the most part.  It was very choppy and hard to follow.  We kept asking each other "what's going on now" or "why did they do that" or "what's that got to do with the plot".  Some accents where hard to understand especially King Xerxes.  I kept asking Colleen, "what did he say"?  She didn't know either. 

The special effects were spectacular at times (shots of Babylon), and silly at others.  The silly shots included one scene where she is dancing by herself in a courtyard among falling soap flakes.  I guess it was supposed to be snow but it sure didn't look like it.  Snow usually melts on your face, not stick to it like... soap flakes.  Another bad sf was the pendant-flame effect.  A good special effect does not draw attention to it's faults.  These did. 

Peter O'toole fans rejoice.  He gets top billing (along with Omar Sharif and Tiffany Dupont) for 30 seconds worth of acting.. (ok maybe 45 seconds).  So why bother.

We were impressed with
actors John Noble (Stargate SG-1 episode Camelot), Omar Sharif, John Rhys-Davies (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sliders), Tommy 'Tiny' Lister (the first Klingon humans encountered on Star Trek Enterprise), and of course James Callis (Battlestar Galactica's Dr. Gaius Baltar).

It took a while to jump the belief factor with Tiffany Dupont as Esther.  Mostly at the beginning it seemed as if a 21st century southern California girl was transported back in time.  But as the movie progressed, she improved so much that you actually started to believe that she was indeed Queen Esther.

1/2  Wait to Rent


Flicka
A very enjoyable family movie.  It kept our interest all the way through.  A visually appealing movie with many shots featuring the grandeur of the Wyoming territory.  This movie has all the elements that make seeing a family movie worth seeing.  Humor, emotional hooks, and character development where we see growth and lessons learned from the suffering and tension of family life.  Alison Lohman will capture your heart as she plays Katy the daughter of a ranch owner and who befriends a wild horse named Flicka. 

Pay Full Price to See





Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Opening This Friday...