Rental: Two for the Money 4: I like Al Pachino, and I like Mathew McConaughey. Neither disappoint in this film. (Rene Russo ain't bad either.) The movie does a good job of capturing the rush and excitement of the subject ("professional" betting) and delivers a few emotional "wow"s. The film suffers from a classic imbalance though, which can usually be attributed to the timing-sense of a poor editor. The plot goes through the familiar "climb to unbelievable success; suffer adversity; recovery/redemption" stages of stories like this. The problem is they do such a good job of illustrating the fall, that when the redemption comes around, it just isn't enough. It's not enough to provide a "feel good," and at best you're left with a "whew, you're lucky to be out of that alive." While that may have been the point of the movie (I just can't tell), it doesn't leave a very good taste in a viewer's mouth once the credits start. There's also a pervasive air of superficiality throughout the movie that I think should have discipated once you got deeper into the plot. There are families involved... children involved... and the lead characters never elevate enough above a self-absorbed mentality to make you care about them. You end up feeling bad for their families. My family would be ashamed to have people like this in it. I think that does a movie like this a deep injustice.  ¶ 5:17 PM 0 comments

  Rental: Redeye 1: I thought they stopped making movies that were this short back in the 80s. 1 hour & 15 minutes? Good lord. At an hour into it, I started thinking, "wow, they must really be going to bring a twist into this." No. They didn't. Yaknow, if Keiffer Sutherland had been in this, it would have run for a full TV season. So anyway.....
Rachel McAdams is awfully cute... That kind of cuteness that can't be fully appreciated in still photos. Cillian Murphy looks like Clark Kent's (ala, Smallville) ugly twin. And while he comes across as all sinister during most of the plane flight, he really loses the image once Rachel really starts kicking his ass. Repeatedly. No, really. Four or five times at least. Which, after a couple times, begins to get kind of amusing. And you have to admire this loser's resilience.... He keeps getting back up. At least you won't lose much of your life watching this one.  ¶ 3:25 AM 0 comments

  Rental: Into the Blue 3. Jessica Alba in a bikini!!!! ok, now that I've gotten that out of the way....
I was really afraid this was going to be an awful excuse to show off a bunch of sex symbol skin [COUGHCabinByTheLakeCOUGH], but it was much better than that. Take a moment and let that perspective sink in. So, it's not Citizen Kane, but it wasn't bad. It had some plot... some decent plot, actually.... Nothing too deep, but there were a couple twists. And I gotta tell ya, the deleted scenes were the most impressive I've ever seen... Actual series of whole deleted scenes. And I think a couple of them would have done the movie good and tied up a couple loose comments that were left in. This is certainly no Fishtar.  ¶ 2:40 AM 0 comments