22 years of love.

Veer-Zaara

Shahrukh Khan stars as Veer – a man imprisoned for 22 years. Why? – well this isn’t imdb, go look it up! Ok fine, ill give you a hint, he met a girl named Zaara (ah, now you get the title) and they fall in love. Problem, she is arranged to marry this other guy and Veer didn’t know that – what happens next? A lot of stuff you wouldn’t figure on.

This film isn’t so much about the plot – it’s a love story for sure, and simple in its meaning, but not simple in the questions it asks of its characters and ultimately its audience.

Would you die for the person you love? If the answer is yes, then the next question is, would you spend 22 years in jail for them? You see dying implies you don’t have to live with pain, or hunger, or sorrow, but being imprisoned for 22 years means you have to deal with a lot more, it’s not an easy escape – so that sacrifice is worse than death, now how much do you love your wife?

Watch this film for the answers and you may find that you are asking yourself these questions, and you may be shocked by your answers.

3.5/5

J-Man.

Look up, it's ok!

Skyline

Skyline is what Cloverfield should have been. A simple monster movie with good effects and a fun story. I am not sure why people love Cloverfield and hate this movie.

It stars the guy from Clueless and Scrubs and Britney Daniel (from Sweet Valley High), as they try to survive while alien monsters attack Earth.

It starts a bit slow 10-20 minutes – depending on who you talk to, but then it never stops. Monsters attack in DAYLIGHT and you can see them CLEARLY. I loved the gore in the movie and the no-nonsense approach.

There is no happy ending, and this movie has real balls. The aliens are not simply destroyed by some cheap method and you get to see what happens to the humans that are sucked into the ship.

This was a fun, old school 80’s monster flick and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

Ill bet getting this one on DVD.

3.5/5

J-Man.

More Avatar.

Avatar Extended.

I liked Avatar, and don’t think it was over-hyped. Sure the story was simple, but the visual effects were wicked. No magazine article, internet blog or website hyped Avatar as the Citizen Kane of plot or anything, they hyped it as a visual experience that will blow you away, and it did.

Anyway, I held out buying this until the extended edition came out and it’s kinda pointless. In fact, I prefer the theatrical one.

Look the story is not improved in the extra 16 minutes and it’s actually worse. The opening of Avatar was Jake Sully opening his eyes, and it ended with him opening his eyes in his Avatar body, but now there is this 6 minute intro about his life before the Avatar program. Well that’s a big chunk of who gives a crap.

You lost the bookend opening/ending by adding stuff NO ONE cares about.

The good thing about this release though is that it’s only 20 bucks and you get all versions in it, so it’s worth the money for sure, cause you get 3 versions of the film anyway for a good price.

J-Man.

It's been 30 years since they struck.

The Empire Strikes Back.

I watched empire on the weekend - no reason I was just getting the figures for the 30th anniversary. Star wars is the only toyline I never stopped collecting - BUT I only get classic guys that I like.

Anyway, I made a Chewbacca and Lando cubee to celebrate the event and am working on some of the bounty hunters.

Anyway, I thought I would comment on the only Special Edition Star Wars movie I like.

What I like in the SE:

I like having the real emperor do the holographic thingie – it was a different actor in the original one.

I like the re-mastered look and sound.

Hoth looks great, and so does Bespin.

So basically this is the ONLY good Special Edition Star Wars movie. The others, A New Hope – has Greedo shooting first – the worst thing to happen in film, and that crappy Jabba the Hutt sequence in which Jabba is cgi – hello – he’s a puppet 2 movies later??? Actually the puppet looks better!

Take Yoda – when watching Empire you NEVER think – oh, Luke is talking to a puppet. Yoda is super believable and even better than ET!

And the whole Greedo thing, just to get back to that for a second – if it had been filmed that Greedo shot first then I wouldn’t care, but the edit they did for the SE was terrible – they chop-cut Han’s head so that it jerks like some rusty bobble head or something, plus Greedo is now the worst shot in the universe!

Anyway, Greedo and Jabba suck in Star Wars SE.

Jedi – the WORST. That stupid Hayden Christiansoninsison – whatever his stupid name is, is the ghost at the end replacing that old guy who was Vader. TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that dumbass new song that replaced the Ewok song with. Hello – they were on the forest moon of Endor, why is the song super advanced now???????

Anyway, this is the dream.

Star Wars – Empire – Jedi – re-mastered, anamorphic, 5.1 (or better) with improved effects (what I mean is taking out the white clouds around the ships when they move in the first one) – maybe add some new backgrounds – MAYBE – very sparingly.

Take out ALL REFERENCES to the prequels, and even take out the “episode” numbering too.

I would even settle for re-mastered, anamorphic, 5.1 of the old movies and that’s it. Don’t add anything, just make them the same – clean up the clouding effect – and that’s it.

Is it so bloody hard to do?

PS - the poster above is the ONLY Star Wars poster I own.

J-Man.

American Bean.

Bean.

Mr. Bean’s first American movie and it’s what you think. Bean shines as he is funny, but the American style of comedy is to make fun of people and they do. Bean to me was just a funny eccentric man who was the victim of bizarre circumstances, and coincidental accidents (say that 3 times fast – that that that). But this movie is more about showing how utterly stupid Bean is. The plot focuses on Bean coming to America and everyone confusing him with a Doctor (of art, not medical – although he does become a surgeon at one point).

He moves in with an American family, they hate him, but will soon learn to like him, he screws up, he destroys stuff but makes it good in the end – although the famous painting of Whistler’s Mother is totally destroyed and never recovered???? Oh well, so much for art and so much for Bean having a good Bean movie – this was more for people who have heard of Bean but never saw any of the skits. In fact, most of the famous skits were redone here – the typical Hollywood style.

This movie had its moments for sure, and would’ve gotten a higher rating if I hadn’t seen Mr. Bean’s Holiday right after – more that below.

As it stands, the rating of 3/5 is the pure result of Rowan Atkinson’s talents to entertain. Otherwise as a movie on its own its about 2.5. Everything was predictable and very basic.

3/5

J-Man.

Disaster gets a passport.

Mr. Bean’s Holiday.

This is the Mr. Bean movie I have been waiting for. It is basically an extended skit with Bean running amok in Paris and at the Cannes Film Fest. He doesn’t speak – he normally doesn’t, but he did in the previous movie (????), he is just a guy, who is clumsy, but not a totally idiot or ass or anything. He doesn’t destroy priceless artefacts either.

This is a fun, NICE, good spirited movie with a lot of adventuring. Bean really gets around in this film and its fun to watch and I just had a good feeling after seeing it.

One other point of reference is Willem Dafoe. He plays a film maker named Carson Clay and he makes this really artsy fartsy picture that is so bad and so funny I would actually purchase that movie on dvd! Its basically like THE ROOM (imdb it if you never heard of it) with that style of acting and the entire film consists of Dafoe’s face and a voice over about how he lost his love.

Other shots include Dafoe running in slow-mo to the camera and all the credits of the film have his name on them. A Carson Clay film, a Carson Clay production, Starring Carson Clay etc.
Hahahahaha

So funny!!!!!!!!!!

This movie has heart and a lot great comedy. I didn’t laugh out loud at everything, but I felt good while watching it and I always had a smile on my face.

Good work.

4/5

J-Man.

English 86

Johnny English.

Rowan Atkinson plays a character other than Mr. Bean. A nice change as he is a talented comedian and this material really suits his talents.

It’s really just Get Smart - British edition, but it was a better Get Smart than the new Get Smart movie – which I also liked.

This was just a fun comedy with Rowan doing what he does best.

He plays Johnny English – an agent – but currently just handing out assignments, when all the other agents are killed, he is put into action. The one agent he admired would always enter a room and throw his jacket across it and it would hit the hanger perfectly. So when English enters the room he throws his jacket and it goes out the window! Classic!

This film is filled with moments like these and they are pretty funny. It is what you expect and it didn’t disappoint.

Fun movie.

3.5/5

J-Man.