Movie Review #4: Collateral, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, and Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius, The Day After Tomorrow, and Mean Creek

More movies to review!

Collateral
Max (Jamie Foxx) is a cab driver who hopes to some day open his own limo company; one night behind the wheel he picks up Annie (Jada Pinkett Smith), an attorney working with the federal government who is attractive, friendly, and gives him her business card after paying her fare. Max thinks his luck is getting even better when his next fare, Vincent (Tom Cruise), offers him several hundred dollars in cash if he'll be willing to drop him off, wait, and pick him up at five different spots over the course of the evening. Max agrees, but he soon realizes Vincent isn't just another guy with errands to run — Vincent is an assassin who has been paid to murder five people who could put the leaders of a drug trafficking ring behind bars in an upcoming trial. As circumstances force Max to do Vincent's bidding, the cabbie has to find a way to prevent Vincent from killing again and save his own skin, a task that becomes especially crucial when he discovers Annie is one of the names on Vincent's hit list.

This movie is shot well and keeps you on the edge of your seat from about 10 minutes into the movie till the end. I enjoyed this movie a lot and even liked Tom Cruise as a bad guy. Did Jamie Foxx deserve an Oscar nomination for his performance? Not really, but it was a good movie none the less.

Final Verdict: Suspenseful, with action and a good plot. Not the best movie ever made, but well worth watching. 4 out of 5.


Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Anchorman is set during the 1970s and stars Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy, San Diego's top-rated news anchorman, that and the fact that before I watched this movie my brother Adam told me he and some of his friends from high school could have made a better movie is all you need to know.

Final Verdict: Not funny, I would rather see what Adam, Chris and Chris could come up with.
1 out of 5.



Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius
How do you tell a compelling story of someone that never really faced adversity in his life? I don’t know the answer either.

Based on the real-life story of golf legend Bobby Jones, Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius features Jim Caviezel as the highly talented amateur who threw a wrench in the golf world of the mid-'20s. The movie is long, not very captivating and after the first 30 minutes I could see why this movie spent a whole 30 seconds at the theatre before going to DVD.

Final Verdict: If you are having trouble sleeping, put a copy of this in your DVD player. 1 out of 5


The Day After Tomorrow
This mega-budget, special-effects-laden epic revolves around the onset of an international series of crises brought on by the long-term results of the greenhouse effect. At the eye of the storm is paleoclimatologist (huh?) Professor Adrian Hall (Dennis Quaid), who voluntarily takes on the preservation of the world in the dawn of the next ice age and all the disaster that comes along with it -- violent hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, massive floods, etc. Hall must also contact his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was in the middle of an academic competition in New York City when the chaos begun. In addition to facing the largest-scale onslaught of natural catastrophes in the history of humankind, Professor Hall, in his journey north, must contend with the masses fleeing south in an attempt to resettle in a warmer climate.

This movie was ok until we got to the part where these computer generated (poorly generated) wolves were attacking Gyllenhaal. It seems like movies like these keep pushing and pushing the limit of believability until they inevitably cross the line.

Final Verdict: Has some good action, some good sequences, I am just glad I didn’t pay $7.50 at the theatre to see this one. If you want to just be a potato and watch some cool special effects (besides the wolves) then give this a try. Not a must see, but not horrible like the 2 above. 2.5 out of 5.


Mean Creek
Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Josh Peck, Trevor Morgan, and Carly Schroeder are teenagers living in small-town Oregon. Some of the boys take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.

This is one of those small independent films that has a good story, but has you shouting at the screen as some of the choices that the characters make. The characters come off as pretty smart and intelligent, but then act out of character and dumb at the pivotal moment of the film.

Final Verdict: I found this to be good up until the “unexpected consequence” where the characters suddenly act out of character. Once again, not horrible, but not the best either. 2.5 out of 5.

Coming up next reviews of Saved!, Hellboy and the Hulk

My Favorite Time of the Year

Ever since I was a kid I would look forward to the NCAA tournament. I remember taking the bracket that came with my Sports Illustrated and filling it out as teams advanced through the tournament, and when there was an eventual winner I would design a mini banner with that team’s name and colors.

In high school and college I started to pick the winners and play in different pools, but no matter if there was money involved, win or lose I still loved the tournament.

Now I run an Office Pool, that has grown into something rather large, and since I started working here at the college I have taken the afternoons of the first two days of the tournament and gone to Damon’s and surrounded myself with buzzer beaters and Cinderellas, beer and wings, and friends and family.

I have always watched the tournament with an outsiders’ view. Just enjoying the tournament and the games for what they were, just great games.

Things have changed a little for me this year. The Mountaineers are in the tournament and doing well. I was just happy with one win for my team, but last Saturday I witnessed one of the greatest games I have ever seen in the NCAA tournament (and believe me I have seen a ton of games).

So this year brings a unique combination that I would love to get used to. Having the tournament and all of the games and the drama that comes with it, and also having a team that I can honestly root for and get behind for more than one game.

I have enjoyed so many tournaments over the years. I have enjoyed rooting for the underdogs in the NC State team in 1983 and the Villanova team in 1985, probably the last real underdogs to win the tournament. Could this be another year for the underdog? I don’t know, but I would love the chance to not only root for the underdog, but it to also be the Mountaineers.