girardi_is_god

The last two Batman movies were a tremendous disapointmen. So, when I heard that Christopher Nolan (MEMENTO, THE FOLLOWING) was signed on to direct the new Batman movie, I thought things might change. Then I saw a cast list that included Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Ken Watanabe, and Christian Bale as Batman, I felt like we could finally have a good Batman movie.

This was a terrific movie. It had an interesting take on the Batman saga, showing you not only his rebirth as Batman, but how he learned all his fighting skill. It portrays Bruce Wayne as a man who was lost, never able to shake his responsibility for his parent's death. He finds redemption in his training, and an image to strike fear into those who would hurt the innocent. Katie Holmes is unimpressive in her performance, but everyone else is fantastic.Worth the price of admission. In fact, I'd see it again.

The first two movies were poorly written, poorly acted, and it was entirely obvious that all of the two years it took to make them both went into it's irritating and unnecessary special effects. I was told that this one was different. I was told that this was the film that redeemed all of that nonsense. By the end of watching that crime of a film, I felt as though George Lucas had reached into my pocket and stolen my eight dollars, not to mentioned reached into my soul and taken a big piece.

Christiansen and Portman are again awful. Samuel L. Jackson was equally bad, but neither of them were as irritating as the CGI bad guy. Wookies make an unexplainable appearance, perhaps because of the loyalty that the "true fans" (the wierdos who stood in line next to you dressed as Obi Wan Kinobi) just like C3Po and R2D2. R2D2, by the way, is able to move around and fight a bit, which is stomach turning. In the original movies, he was little more than a walking file cabinet. Yoda's backwards manner of speech (which I guess Lucas forgot did not always manifest itself in the original movies) is much more irritating when he speaks in long sentences as opposed to "Your father, he is."

Darth Vader becomes evil because he is afraid of Natalie Portman dying? What!! Stupid. He is evil because he is jealous. He is evil because he has a cold black heart. For Christ sake, he slaughters children in this movie. You don't do that to protect your girlfriend. The birth scene is crappy, especially when she just casually throws out names for them with no thought, even as she was dying from "losing the will to live" (I'm not making this up) because of Anikan's turning to the Dark Side.They did a few little things half-assed just to say they explained something that needed explaining. The Emperor was mangled by Samuel Jackson (presumably on Marcellus Wallace's order) just so they can explain why he looks so much more decrepit in what I will now refer to as the three Star Wars movies. Jimmy Smits tells the captain to whom the droids are entrusted to "have the interpretor's memory wiped" explaining why he doesn't remember Kinobi, which still doesn't explain why Kinobi doesn't remember them.

The battle scenes are gain populated by somersaults and unreasonable leaping ability. The three or four fight scenes in the Star Wars movies mostly just have two guys sword fighting realistically.

The Hell with This Movie and ALL Who Like It George Lucas should burn in hell forever I now know that Indiana Jones 4 with the late Harrison Ford will suck beyond words just as I suspected.

CARNIVALE is another great show from the people at HBO. First, there was OZ, then there was THE WIRE, now there is this visually stunning piece of art.

You have the world of the traveling carnival, and the world of a preacher who feels he has been touched and chosen to lead. The two world are connected, as we come to find out, not just by Nick Stahl and his seemingly God-given gifts, but by the bloodlines of some of it's key players. The story is one of good and evil set in the wastelands of the Midwest during the Great Depression. It can be emotionally uplifting and spirit crushing at the same time. It's still up in the air whether or not HBO will pick it up for another season, and I hope they ignore the rating and concentrate on the worth of the material. Ten out of Ten. If you haven't seen it, rent the first season on DVD. You'll love it.