If You Like This You Should Watch:  The Italian Job, In the Line of Fire
Better Than:  The Sentinel, The Kingdom
Worse Than:  The Bourne Ultimatum, Reservoir Dogs

Starring: Dennis Quaid, Matthew Fox, Forest Whitaker

Another Presidential assassination film from a few different points of view, Vantage Point is a deep, complicated story with characters that intertwine in a way that they reveal the full story as we move through the film. It provided The Movie Mind equal parts of frustration, suspense, and intrigue, while avoiding an overt political statement in a genre ripe with them. Whether you decide you love or hate this film, it is undoubtedly worth your time. Just be sure your attention is not diverted elsewhere or you will miss much of the depth that makes the film an entertaining journey at the very basis of the argument.

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There are probably about three fighters left in the UFC that I would pay to watch: Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson, and Brock Lesnar. Lesnar was in danger of falling off that list until Saturday night’s performance. While there may be a lot more fighters I am interested in, I have decided that $45 simply isn’t worth it unless the event features one of those three. Maybe that then makes me a fraud as a fan of the UFC, but I need fighters with some star-power and hype…and I don’t mean the kind of undeserved over-hype ala Kimbo Slice, but instead a well-deserved hype resulting in a buzz or aura around them. Lesnar has that, and he didn’t disappoint at UFC 87.

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This short, 7-minute film, was created as an official entry to The 48 Hour Film Project in the Miami division. The task began at 7pm Friday night and needed to be completed by 7pm on Sunday. All we had to do was write, shoot, and edit the entire thing during that time period. Oh yeah, and we didn’t know what genre our film needed to be until 7pm on Friday. We had a very small cast and crew but they were amazing.  

There were 45 teams that submitted a film to the Miami contest. So please check out the first original Movie Mind production. There will certainly be many more to come. I hope you enjoy.

If You Like This You Should Watch:  Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Better Than:  The Hot Chick
Worse Than:  Anchorman, Blades of Glory

Starring: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly

The Will Ferrell Era has ended. The days of scene-stealing roles like in Zoolander and Wedding Crashers are merely a fading memory. Even more the case, the cult classic comedies such as Elf and Anchorman delivered with ease under a PG and PG-13 label are a distant image in the rearview mirror. The new Will Ferrell has arrived. Unfortunately, that means the old one will live only in our minds. After this film, The Movie Mind had to hark back to the days of old.

I guess Ferrell gave up on what made his style of comedy so appealing. Instead of relying on his comedic timing, absurd delivery, and over the top characters, he decided to jump into the fray with the brand of comedies that are being delivered today: crude, anything-goes, in your face, and delivered by a bunch of obnoxious young punks. Sometimes those ones actually work. The only problem is Ferrell is a 40-year old man. So he said to hell with it. I’ll just play a character who is a grown-up but acts like he is one of those young punks. That’s about as lazy an excuse as you can get.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Batman Begins, Iron Man
Better Than:  Spiderman, Superman, X-Men, Blade, Indiana Jones…
Worse Than:  No movie from 2008

Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine

It’s been a very long time since The Movie Mind has left a movie theater giddy like a little kid and grinning ear to ear. It has been even longer since I left a theater and wanted to go right back in and watch the movie again. That is exactly how I felt after happily playing a part in making The Dark Knight the fastest movie ever to gross over $300 million (10 days, to be exact). This was one of the best films I have seen in a long, long time, and should be a shoe-in for Best Picture at the Oscars. I simply can’t imagine what a better film would look like, and how it could possibly surpass what The Dark Knight was able to accomplish.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Get Carter
Better Than:  Collateral
Worse Than:  Trainspotting, Snatch

Starring: Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes

You probably asked the same thing as The Movie Mind when you saw this title…where the hell is Bruges? That is exactly the question you are supposed to ask since part of the allure of this film relies on the anonymity of Bruges. In fact, I still don’t think I know what country it is in. It’s probably a safe bet to just assume it’s somewhere over the “pond” anyway. If I could only understand half the things they were saying I’m sure it would have been that much more entertaining. Nonetheless, it was a nice surprise for someone who doesn’t usually get British wit or anything with Colin Farrell (aka the king of the flop).

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Jumper
Better Than:  My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Worse Than:  Iron Man

Starring: Will Smith, Jason Bateman, Charlize Theron

Hancock is a tale of two-halves, starting out as light-hearted, funny, and entertaining, only to cross over into more of a sci-fi thriller focusing on more than just a flawed superhero. I personally preferred the latter, where for the first time since The Man of Steel turned evil in Superman III, we saw inside a much conflicted hero and what life in our world is like. I feel that the story took a turn into the realm of what is typically produced from the genre instead of keeping to this in-depth character portrait it began as. Will Smith is somewhat handcuffed in the role but still manages to be someone I can’t stop watching. He kept the film from completely derailing, since this film could have been the “only one of its kind” instead of your run of the mill superhero flick.

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The longest All-Star Game in MLB history came in a shade under 5 hours, and anyone dumb enough to stay up and watch it (ie. me) had to have been disappointed in the ending. Not in that it was ultimately decided by another exciting and close play at the plate, but in a sadistic way we wanted to see what happened if it had to go another inning or two. Part of me thought someone from the Tampa Bay Rays would have come running onto the field like an angry parent and taken their staff ace (Scott Kazmir) off the mound themselves, and the other part of me thought that the game would have been called off altogether as Yankee Stadium patrons pelted Big Bird Selig with debris and insults the like he never heard before. After watching a single meaningless game for over 1/5 of an entire day, it was the only result that would have made me happy.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Garden State, The Ex (aka Fast Track)
Better Than:  Smart People
Worse Than:  American Beauty

Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner

After a long string of testosterone-laden films I finally gave my wife the pick of rentals for a day. Much to my dismay, she came up with Juno. I had avoided it for a long time, but its viewing was inevitable, especially after all the awards and buzz. I knew there would be a day where it and I would cross paths. Obviously I lived to tell about it, but I am still trying to wrap my head around how I feel overall. An easy summation would be to call this film Knocked Up for girls. Unfortunately, I think that may only be half the truth.

Ellen Page certainly earned all the praise she received playing Juno MacGuff, a high school junior who gets knocked-u…excuse me, impregnated, by her slacker band-friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). The film takes us through what it’s like being a high school girl who thought she had everything figured out about life, but realizes there is far more to learn.

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If You Like This You Should Watch:  Sahara, Without a Paddle
Better Than:  Very few movies ever created
Worse Than:  Weekend at Bernie’s II, National Treasure

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson, Donald Sutherland

I want my money back. No…I want my life back. I lost a very precious near-two hours of my life trudging through this slop. I should have just assumed it would be this bad, although it’s hard to assume anything could be this bad. In what amounted to a “Matthew McConaughey takes his shirt off for two-hours” flick, also known as Sahara-on-a-boat, this stink-bomb is devoid of any single redeeming quality and I am now dumber for having watched it. May God have mercy on my soul.

It’s hard to decide where to start when something this poor actually hits the big screen. I wanted to declare that the last shred of dignity in Hollywood has been lost, but we all know that happened a long time ago.

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