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Bringing Down the House

Why, there’s nothing more terrific than watching a Steve Martin movie on a Saturday night. Unless of course you are watching Steve Martin playing an old-shriveled-up lawyer and learn how to “get jiggy with it”-- from a curvaceous urban black woman played by Queen Latifah! Yesssiree nothing more terrific than this!

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Underworld

Whoops I almost typed underwear instead of Underworld-- again! I hate when that happens. So why is it that whenever I think about this movie my thoughts immediately turns to underwear? Is it because I have not changed mine in a couple of days? Umm (checking). No, I think maybe it’s because this movie just stinks, like soiled underwear!
Those with busy lives will appreciate this one sentence review:
You can only truly appreciate this movie if you're pissed drunk.
Maybe having your beer goggles on will help you to appreciate the good parts of this movie and disregard the horrible parts in particular the plot. Or what I would call-- UnderPlot. It means the lack of plot, devoid of plot, plotlessnesses. Some of you may say it can’t be all that bad! Why that hot babe Kate Beckinsale is in this flick! True enough she does strut her cute tushy on the screen in a temping (Trinity ripoff) catsuit. But her character Saline is oh so damn boring. She’s such a square that she leaves no opportunity to have a casual frolicking in the nude scene. A terrific underutilization of Kate Beckinsale’s assets in my opinion and what I consider a major mistake by the filmmaker. Having a gratuitous nude scene would have probably earned this movie an extra star and more tickets. Getting back to Saline, she’s so serious all the time it’s hard (no pun intended) to get a rise out of such a tightly wound up chick. I guess that’s a good thing because I would have avoided a potentially uncomfortable exchange with my girlfriend. Her: “Honey why are you sporting a woody while watching this horrid movie?” Me: “Uh, never you mind that. Just go back to sleep.”

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The Princess Blade

This movie is based on a Manga. That's a Japanese comic book for those who are not familiar. True to genre, the violence and the characters are quite stylized. Contemplative glances followed by brutal graphical violence are there also. The fight scenes are quite interesting but the plot is not. It's rather thin, and I think the characters in this movie take themselves way to seriously. That's the big difference between this movie and say Versus. The middle was a bust. There was this whole love thing with this gas station attendant that just went on and on and on. Not to mention I can hardly follow the subplot with him. Over all it's neatly shot so it's good to look at but it lacks something to make it a good film. Manga and Anime are difficult genres to translate to film.

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Merry Christmas From Miccah.COM!!


HEY! Miccah says "MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU HEATHENS!!"

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Monster's Ball

I'm having a Billy Bob week.

This is the first time I've seen Halle Berry in a dramatic role where she's not made up as a supermodel. I was impressed by her talents. Great cast. Subtle, dramatic acting. A good movie.

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The Man on the Train

Otherwise known as Homme du train, L'. This is a French art movie. Yeah, I enjoyed the bonding between the seemingly two different personalities but the ending left me somewhat puzzled. Not much action (unless you can count the ending) so that may turn a lot of people off.

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Bad Santa

Bad Santa stars Billy Bob Thornton as a pathetic, drunk loser who lives to drink himself into a stupor. His main sin is the three B's. Booze, Boobs and Buttfucking--- Billy Bob goes through the movie being a drunk mean to everyone he meets and somehow through meeting child (who insanely belives in Santa) he starts to redeem himself. Sure he's filthy and foul mouthed yet we feel sorry for him and want him to get on the road to sobriety. He tries hard to resist and in fact gets worse and worse throughout the whole movie. It's fun to watch such a pathetic character. I think it's enjoyable because no matter how much our lives suck, his is ten times worse.

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Robot Technology Applied to bartending

Check out this article about a robot designed specially to open beer bottles. What a marvelous use of technology. Wow, robots have really improved our lives!

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Looney Tunes: Back In Action

Well I saw Looney Tunes: back In Action and it's prompted this deep sentement in me that I want to share. It may turn into less of a review than an argument, but here goes. I have always been a fan of animation. I think if anyone was a canidate for too much tv syndrome, I would certainly be a frontrunner. I literally grew up in front of a television, and it's not something I'm ashamed of. I'll readily admit to watching 25-30+ hours of Television during the work week growing up and then another 20+ on the weekends. Many people may find this horribly wrong for some reason, but I also played sports and was very active in the youth group growing up. I wouldn't say that I was a vampire, but I certainly watched more than my share of TV. A good 30% of this was cartoons, Saturday mornings to begin with, but then the cartoon heavy networks like Nickelodeon and then the end all great Cartoon Network. Throughout the years I've probably seen more cartoons than most of the people I know, combined, just simply because a facet of my personality is information absorbtion. I'm a Pop culture glutton and it's a large part of who I am today.

All that said, I love Looney Tunes. I love the sophistication and the slapstick humor. As the years went by and my understanding of Classical Hollywood grew the Merrie Melodies took a whole new level of entertainment for me. They're windows into that WWII era, the past and I find it amazing to watch. I'm also in love with the characters, that are each so distinct and so perfectly shaped into my consciousness that I feel like I know them personally. I respect these characters and I revere them, that on top of it all they are representitive of an artform that creatively expresses genius of the like of Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng just astounds me.

It is something I feel incredibly honored to have.

So when a Studio brings these gems back out I immediately approach it as the honor it is and I jump at the chance to see the film. I can overlook the blatant product placement, the forced dialogue and the contrived plot as long as the film stays true to the original art. Looney Tunes: BIA has done this, and I respect it immensly for doing so. There are brilliant moments of warmth and depth in the movie that shead a whole new perspective on these characters I love. There's homages to the Geniuses and the geniunely funny gags that have me gaping from the audacity. While there's much room for improvement the film works in the end, and I like it.

But when I walk out of the theater I'm sad, because with the declining numbers of tradition 2D animators across the globe, it seems people are forgetting. With the news of a less than stellar box office, it actually hurts, because I know the studio will be wary of bringing these characters out again any time soon. Visionarys like Joe Dante can't bring modern kids the brilliance of these characters without Studio backing. And in the end it's another coffin nail for history and art.

If I were in the position to put my career on the line for these characters I would, in a second. As it is, no one knows my name yet, and there's not much more that I can do than see the film twice this weekend and drag my friends along. So I'm going to do what I can and suggest that everyone else out there do the same. Bugs, Daffy, Porky, Pepe, Foghorn, Sam, Elmer, Tweety and Slyvester, Granny, Marvin, Wile, The Roadrunner, Taz, Michigan, heck Petunia even... They're national treasures folks and it's about time we started acting like it.

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Glasses to Help Improve Memory

According to this article: Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will present a new invention Monday that helps people improve their memory without doing anything. This technology can help people with memory disorders. Made by a company called MicroOptical. Website is pretty interesting. Pictures are very star trekie.

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