Brave Sir Robin

Kanji Watanabi is a quiet, melancholy man who has spent all his life behind his office desk doing sweet eff-all. When he is diagnosed with stomach cancer he realizes that he has been petty much dead his whole life, and searches desperately for away to live again.

This is Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece, yes, even better than Rashomon and The Seven Samauri. It is a perfect true story of everybody's life- how we don't even realize we have it until we know it will be over in a short while. Watanabi's quest for self-discovery is one of the greatest from any motion picture ever made. The all-too-true paradox is one to end all paradoxes- that Watanabi is dead, and had been all his life, until he realized he was sick, which is when he began living for the first time. Takashi Shimura, the actor best known for his role as the wise, bald-headed Samauri in The Seven Samauri, and the professor out of the early Godzilla films, plays Watanabi perfectly- in my mind, it's one of the greatest film performances of all time.

Not everyone will love this movie. It was made a long time ago, the main character is an old fogey, it has subtitles, and it's pretty long. Many people today, especially young kids, would find it boring. Well, let 'em. There's no need to worry about them, they'll always have Pirates of the Carribbean, they'll always have The Matrix. Leave Ikiru and films like it to the true lovers of cinema.

A group of Star Wars fans conceive of the perfect plot to steal "The Phantom Menace" and watch it two weeks before the film opens.They pose as real-life Jedi Knights, and convince a die-hard Star Wars nerd that the beloved movies are in fact propaganda created by the Rebellion to generate sympathy on other planets. "The Phantom Menace", double-ended light sabers, droid armies, and Jar Jar Binks, are part of an Imperial plot to generate sympathy for the Galactic Empire, and he must steal the movie from the local cinema in order to bring peace and justice to the galaxy. The plot turns sour, however, when a double-agent emerges from the group with his own agenda.

Very funny, well-written, both poking fun at and showing affection towards die-hard Star Wars dorks. Up there with Hardware Wars as one of the best Star Wars parodies ever.

I An overly-dramatic civil war love story that really, really wants to be Gone With the Wind but just ain't. Nicole Kidman plays the young Southern belle Ada Monroe. Kidman is usually excellent in everything she's in, but this role is really weak, unbelievable, full of forced sympathy that just doesn't work, topped with a truly horrible fake Southern accent. Jude Law is alright as the deserting soldier Inman who makes his way back to his true love. There is virtually no chemistry between the two, and I didn't really care that much about either of them. As Inman makes his way back to Cold Mountain, the locals are all harassed by the overly-evil, cruel heartless bastards of the North Carolina Home Guard (these are essentially the same guys who were the villainous Redcoats in The Patriot) Renee Zellwegger, in the role that earned her a Best Supporting Actress award, plays Jar Jar Binks in the form of the obnoxious tomboy Ruby Thewes. A few of the supporting cast is very good, Brendan Gleeson, Donald Sutherland, and Kathy Baker give fairly good though sadly short performances. Jack White from the White Stripes sings a song, which is kinda cool. Natalie Portman is the standout of the whole film as a desperate young widow and mother who Jude Law encounters on his journey, her scene is the only truly great bit in this whole film. The whole thing is just too long and unengaging, the storyline is completely pradictable, OF COURSE Jude Law is gotta get a cap in his ass so that Nicole Kidman can pout and wimper some more. If you want a beautiful, romantic masterpiece of an epic set in the Civil War, watch Gone With the Wind. If you want a movie with real facts, watch Ken Burns' PBS documentary series about the Civil War. If you want two ours of overdone Hollywood re- written history a la The Patriot, then watch this.