Body of Lies by the DVD Man

The DVD Man really enjoyed Body of Lies. I probably should have seen it in the theater, but it was excellent on BluRay DVD. Very distinct and interesting characters. Both DiCaprio & Crowe were fun to watch. Since I started writing this blog, Body of Lies, is the best movie that I hadn't seen before.

Plenty of action, twists and some 'splosions, which I always like. Even a little romance thrown in between DiCaprio and a very cute and sweet Iranian actress, Golshifteh Farahani.

Body of Lies keeps you on the edge of your seat.

Zero Franks, but there is a first in this movie. Flagrant Fake Chickens!!!! Yes, I said fake chickens. I guess their goat budget was OK, but where there should have been chickens in a couple of middle eastern villages, all we got were chicken sound effects - a rooster one time and some squawking later. It cracked me up major league big time. Be sure to listen for them. You can hear them chickens, but you can't see them...

The 2009 Oscars Show by the DVD Man

The DVD Man watches the whole Oscar show every year and 2009 is no exception, although I do love the TiVo and the ability to jump past people who've I've never heard of thanking their mother and accountant, etc. I've got nothing against mothers or accountants, since both are very close to my heart, but I don't need to hear someone who's won best musical score talking about theirs.

My main comment about the 2009 version of the Oscars was way, way too much dancing and not enough movie. We didn't see clips of the 5 best pictures or the best actor/actress or supporting categories. I haven't yet seen any of the nominated movies: Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Reader. I did put the first 4 movies on my Netflix list. Kate Winslet might have done a brilliant acting job in The Reader, but I don't usually watch Holocaust movies. I like seeing clips that aren't trailer clips that got them nominated.

I did kind of like the 5 previous winners giving some praise to the nominees, but they could have been shorter and then shown a clip. Like for Viola Davis, nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Doubt, another movie I'm unlikely to see because it's about abusive priests. They made a big deal about how she dominated the screen in her one scene, but why not show it?

The best part of the show was Ben Stiller doing his Joaquin Phoenix on Letterman imitation with Natalie Portman trying to keep to the script.

I also liked the Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman and the Japanese guy who won for the Best Foreign Language Film, Okuribito (Departures), when he said he: "Was berry, berry happy and would be back". He was fun!

The worst part of the show was when they honored the people who'd passed away in 2008 and they kept zooming in and out, so you were getting seasick and couldn't see some of the names.

One last comment... I don't usually hold myself as much of a fashion expert, but what the hell was Jennifer Beal, one of the most beautiful women in the world, thinking when she put on this garbage bag of a dress? She's there with Beyonce wearing something from a Star Trek beauty contest and I don't know what's wrong with Miley Cyrus' dress, but they lumped her in as one of the 3 worst dressed.

Appaloosa (2008) by the DVD Man

Appaloosa (2008) is different than The Appaloosa (1966) which starred Marlon Brando. The new Appaloosa stars Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen as traveling lawmen for hire. It's also directed by Ed Harris. It's a throwback old style Western.

Not a lot of mysteries in this movie. Jeremy Irons as the bad guy blasts the Sheriff and Ed & Viggo go after him with some gratuitous Rene Zellweger thrown in as a multi-partner love interest.

Because the BluRay (it's funny, the spell checker wants to make BluRay into blurry - how ironic!) makes everything so clear, when they are patrolling the main street of the town, I was enjoying reading all the signage - Fire Insurance, Clothing for Ladies and Gents, Mining Assay office, etc. I've never noticed those kinds of signs in a movie before.

Appaloosa is a very laconic and laid back movie, but the story moves along and I enjoyed it. No Franks and there should have been chickens, but all I saw were lots of goats, so that's disappointing.

The Fifth Element by the DVD Man

The Fifth Element is one of DVD Man's all time favorite movies of all time. I'm sure I've watched it at least 15 times and now that it's on BluRay and the Dreamland Theater has been upgraded with a Samsung BluRay DVD player and a Sony Bravia HiDef projector, it's even better.

It's got an amazing range of characters and with the general plot being that Good has to save the world from Evil, it puts many twists on it. Plus it's got Leeloo and Bruce Willis.

When I was first setting up the Dreamland Theater, I read that the Diva Scene was the ultimate reference scene for action, color and sound that would test your complete theater system. Every time I watch this scene, I get goosebumps and now with the super detail of BluRay, I was looking at different things, while still enjoying the experience.

It's hard for me to just review this movie because I love it so much. It's got love, blasting, explosions, screaming, singing, lots of humor, flagrant Tiny Lister as the President, Gary Oldman wearing a ridiculous costume as the villain, robot cockroaches, flying cars and the always satisfying Ian Holm.

What else do you need in a movie? 10 Stars out of 5.

Lakeview Terrace by the DVD Man

I thought that Lakeview Terrace, starring the inimitable Samuel L. Jackson, was going to be on the level of Pacific Heights with Michael Keaton or Unlawful Entry with Ray Liotta, so when it wasn't up to that level of realistic scariness, I was disappointed. Those two examples are movies that actually scared me because they had situations that could actually happen in real life as opposed to weird ass horror movies that aren't scary at all.

Samuel L. Jackson is just too tempered in this movie. Where was his famous big speech? Where was the tension? Why did they have the slowest moving, most obvious plot point in the history of movie making, a giant SoCal wildfire, taking it's sweet time? Why was the so-called hero smoking clove cigarettes and driving a Prius? Why was there a gratuitous white hip hopper? Who wrote this movie?

Zero Franks, chickens, etc. I give this movie a C-...

The International by the DVD Man

When I woke up this morning, I looked out beyond the back yard and I saw 17 turkeys. I should have known that was a clue, but NO!! I went and saw The International anyway.

It was the 18th turkey I saw today. It's supposed to be a thriller, but it was so confusing in the beginning that I dozed off several times, which of course made it even more confusing.

There were no "Franks" in the movie, but there was a rare Tom character who of course, projectile vomits and dies in the first 10 minutes.

I like Clive Owen & Naomi Watts, but Naomi was a zero in the movie and wasn't believable and Clive was just angry about something they kept alluding to, but never explained.

By the end, I just didn't care much and then some Italian hit man showed up and blew away the bad guy, which didn't matter because then they showed a bunch of newspaper clips under the credits that showed the bad guys keep winning anyway.

I recommend: Don't bother and if you watch it on DVD, have some coffee first and replay the first 30 minutes over a few times, maybe with the commentary, so you know what is actually happening.

Death Race (2008) by the DVD Man

Obviously the best thing about Death Race (2008) was that the first character named was: Frank (Frankenstein) and that he dies in the first scene and then Jason Statham takes his place and so then we have a dead Frank and a fake Frank for double your Frank fun.

Death Race is a good movie for people like the DVD Man who like stuff blowing up and lots of blasting and flagrant Jason Statham kicking ass and not taking any names. I watched this on BluRay DVD and it has some fun extras that were worth watching.

Not much of a plot (but this kind of movie doesn't need much) - Jason is framed because evil Joan Allen has to replace dead Frank to keep her Death Race money machine rolling because he's the big favorite. Ian McShane is good as a lifer who helps fake Frank fake out Joan Allen and escape along to finish off the small plot of him getting back his daughter. It's a very black and white movie in color with sharp lines between good and evil.

I give it a 3.5 Frank rating for blasting, explosions and 2 Franks. This was my Valentine's Day movie.

100 Million BC by the DVD Man

100 Million BC is one horrible movie and I don't mean it's a horror movie. Some army guys go back to 67-74 Million BC (they don't even have the movie title correct) to go find some losers that went back earlier and guess what? They accidentally bring back a giant dinosaur.

When they are back in whatever BC, the soundtrack has massive amounts of bird singing in the background. What's up with that? I know birds are descendant from dinosaurs, but I'm sorry, but they didn't exist back then. Even if you are making a lame ass movie, at least you can't keep it a little bit real.

The only good thing is that the main character is named Frank Reno. I watched it on the SciFi channel by mistake. I thought it was it was a different bad movie.