Update: Jenny has a much more succinct review on her site.

Christian: [takes film off the projector] You desecrated a classic film. This is worse than “Godfather III.”
Gibson: Whoa, whoa, hey, whoa! Let’s not say things we can’t take back.
–The Simpsons

Now, I would not like to say I’m completely disappointed by Ultraviolet. To say I was disappointed would imply that I got absolutely nothing out of the movie. That’s not true. I got two things from it:

• The song 24 by Jem, which they play during the trailer for the movie. It’s pretty good, and I liked it enough that I will keep an eye out for the complete album at the record store.
• The knowledge that I had just spent 90 minutes watching what is easily the worst. film. of the decade.

Okay, I know that phrase gets used a lot. And I realize we’re just barely past half-way mark of this particular decade. But I feel confident that my proclamation will stand the test of time.

(Dare I say it? Could this be the worst movie of this nascent century? It’s entirely possible, but I have faith in Hollywood that they’ll come up with something, or somethings, worse than Ultraviolet. For Ultraviolet’s producers’ sake, one can only hope they come up with this bad movie soon, so people will forget about UV.)

I won’t bother going into any real detail about the movie. If you’re a fan of Milla, you’ll most likely go and see it. In fact, you probably went and saw it today, much like Jenny and myself. (See Jenny’s earlier thoughts on the movie here.) All I can say is: Milla, you’re incredibly hot, and you do have your moments at acting. Sure, not Oscar-worthy moments, but you have them. But mostly, we like watching you in movies where you kick ass and take names. (And hopefully, get full-frontal, even if only for a few, brief seconds. Ahhhhhh. That helps erase the pain of the movie from my mind.)

So, to sum up: There is no escaping the black hole of suckitude that this movie has created, once you have gone past the Suckass Event Horizon that it creates.

Comic Book Guy: Last night’s “Itchy & Scratchy” was, without a doubt, the worst episode ever. Rest assured that I was on the Internet within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world.
–The Simpsons

Okay, okay. Try to keep this spoiler free. Let’s see…

Just got back from a screening of Serenity, and HOLY SHIT YOU’RE JUST SITTING THERE AND NEXT THING YOU KNOW…

No, no. Calm. You’re blowing it. Gonna ruin the whole movie for everybody else.

*breathe*

Anyways, to keep this short and simple: Serenity, good. Beer, foamy. Go, see it. It does a wonderful job of expanding on the existing storylines from the television series, but also stands on its own for those who have never watched an episode. (Well, hopefully…I’m fully immersed in the series, so I can’t really offer an objective opinion on that last part.)

And yes, some huge things happen. Really big. So big that if I were to even leak a hint of them, you would curse me. You’ll be sitting there in the theatre, your mouth agape, realising “yes, James is right…that’s some major shit…I’m glad he didn’t spoil it for me”, like so many other people might callously do.

Movie: High Tension
Directed by: Alexandre Aja
Starring: Cécile de France, Maïwenn le Besco, and a whole bunch of other French people you’ve never heard of
Rating: 3 out of 5

Synopsis: Marie (de France) goes to the French countryside to visit her friend Alex’s (Maïwenn) famiy, who are recent transplants to the area. Then, someone has to come and start killing everyone.

There’s more. I could go on about bad Freudian imagery. Or anti-empowerment message that seems to come through. But that’s a lot of words, and I’ve got pictures of a ferret I need to post.

My thoughts on The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

• Mos Def made a great Ford Prefect.
• The Vogons were dead on. Fat, bloated sacks wearing pin-stripes and monacles, requesting “Permission to Persue” forms, does a great job of capturing the overly-bureaucratic and officious nature of the species.
• Marvin needed more screen time. And why no complaints about the pain running down the diodes on his left side?
• Nice cameo by the original Marvin. Might have been interesting to see both Marvins talking to each other, although I suspect that would do wonders to depress the entire audience.
• I want my next computer to look like Deep Thought. Only smaller.
• All in all, I thought the writing was pretty good. (I’d hope so, since Adams did the early drafts of the screenplay.) Yes, many of the jokes were eviscerated from their form in the original series. I didn’t kill my enjoyment of the movie, though.

Honestly, I think they did a pretty good job with this particular adaptation. Is it perfect? Was I sitting in wide-eyed fan-boy fascination during the whole thing? Did it make me want a cup of some beverage that tastes similar too, but wholely unlike, tea? Well, no. But still, I give it a B. I enjoyed watching it, I thought the new material was good

Just got back from watching House of Wax, and let me just say, worth every penny…of my free screening. Ha!

Best part of the movie: Paris Hilton’s death. Worst part: It doesn’t happen in the first fifteen minutes. So it goes.

As horror movies go, it wasn’t too terrible. It didn’t rely on bad special effects, and it definitely tried to build some suspense. Sadly, the lack of decent dialogue, or maybe just the bad delivery, really kept the movie down. Well, that and the Tiger Beat generation a few rows over screaming for that dreamy Chad Michael Murray.

Final grade: C-. Wait for the video, and put it in your Netflix queue.

I certainly hope you appreciate the life that you’re given.

Wow. Saw. What is it? Horror. Yeah. Psychological thriller? Definitely. Disney-style musical? Nope. Buddy-cop actionfest? Well, a tiny bit.

The hard part about reviewing a movie like this is that you don’t want to give anything away. Most of the time, you see a trailer for a movie, and you’ve got the gist of the movie. Usually, you’ve also seen the best parts summed up in two-three minutes.

When I saw the trailer for Saw in front of Resident Evil: Apocalypse, I got none of that. In fact, I wasn’t especially drawn into the movie from what I saw. “Yeah, it looks interesting, but I can’t imagine paying full price to see it.” Matinee material, definitely. (And seeing it for free was just gravy.)

All I knew going into the movie was that Cary Elwes and some other guy (Leigh Whannell) are trapped in a room, each with shackles around one of their ankles. And then something to do with the eponymous saw. So you can see my doubts. “How can they pull of 90+ minutes of that?”

Extremely well, it turns out. 100 minutes after the start of the movie, I was in awe. A scary movie that actually scared me. It didn’t rely on gore. It didn’t rely on cheesy clichés. It got into my head. It felt oppressive. Most of the film is focused on this tiny room, and after awhile, I could feel the four walls around me. That mildly claustrophobic feeling I got when I watched Cube.

Some of the influences I noticed: Mad Max (the saw bit, naturally); Poltergeist; Chucky; Cube; Se7en; Blue Velvet; and some of the earlier Nine Inch Nails videos. Particularly Closer (with it’s sepia-toned, mysteries of the trans-mundane action), but also the single-room aspect of Help Me I’m In Hell and Happiness in Slavery. Probably other stuff I’m not cultured enough to notice.

All in all, I give it 4 out of 5 objects of your choice.

(Please note: definitely not for children, or the faint of heart.)

Michael Moore’s new film, Fahrenheit 9/11, opened over the weekend to be the biggest box-office draw, at least for a documentary. It brought up some tough questions, and really shed some light into what has been going on in the upper-echelons of political society in the last four years.

Of course, I went and saw Dodgeball, instead. And I don’t regret my decision one bit.