• Changed out of my pajamas into real clothes
• Went to get a chest x-ray
• Read about half of the items that are on my google reader.  So far, I have gone back to May - although I am skipping anything that has to do with babies.
• Listened to a whole lot of Bach this morning...I believe the musician playing it was Rostropovich
• I have washed many many dishes, and cleaned all the counters in my kitchen.  Only because my back hurt from coughing, and laying in bed.  
• Wrote this blog post.

• Read some of the book A Walk in the Woods-by Bill Bryson
• A nap -although I am pretty sure its not going to help
• Watch the movie Dark City, on my computer
• Remake my bed
• Look at some freelancing opportunities
• Try to find something to make for dinner, that isn't going to cause me more pain
• Having yet another shower

• Playing wii
• Watching anything that has to do with the current events or politics
• Talking on the phone
• Cleaning the floors in my apartment.

Batman: Gotham Knight is really six animated Batman shorts done by different directors with each having a different look.  Have I Got a Story for You, Crossfire, Field Test, In Darkness Dwells, Working Through Pain and Deadshot are the six chapters and there isn’t a weak spot in the bunch.  Read the entire review here.

So, imagine my glee when I clicked on the first page of Google Images!

If I start writing "Mrs. Dr. Schreber" in big curly letters on the front of my binder, send help.

Now, this movie isn't buried that deep underground, but it has gone relatively unrecognized, for as good as it is. Alex Proyas has now definitely caught my attention with first The Crow and now Dark City.

The movie is about a guy who wakes up without his memory in a apartment with a dead woman with strange knife wounds on her body. He's informed that there are people looking for him and he has to leave immediately. It's based in a city where there is no day, and at midnight, everything stops and everyone falls asleep. He then tries to figure out who he is and... well, I'd usually tell a little more about the synopsis, but half the fun of watching the movie for me was not knowing anything at all about what it was about and slowly being introduced to the basic synopsis of the movie. It has a mystery feel to it at first, but then it ends up feeling a lot more sci-fictional and cyber punk than anything else. I highly recommend this movie.

Dark City, for those who haven't seen it, is a film which follows the story of John Murdock who is dropped into a city where he has no memories and is being framed for murders he did not commit, as well as being chased by trench coat wearing individuals with supernatural powers. The watcher is thrown into the middle of the story and finds out, along with the characters, exactly what is going on, giving the film an existential tone.  While still holding onto other elements of film noir, psychological thriller, sci fi, and every other label that could be thrown at it, the film keeps the watcher excited and wondering just what will happen next.  Jump the break for full review of Dark City: The Director's Cut.

First off, if you already own this movie on DVD, i would only rent this if you can. The differences between the theatrical release and the director's cut are fairly minimal. Several scenes are extended by seconds, and one or two scenes are put in. Also, the opening monologue, which explains the story, instead of allowing the viewer to figure out the story for him or herself, has been cut. Other than that you get the full 1080p resolution, and for those lucky few with receivers that can handle it, TrueHD sound in 7.1.

The reason this gets just a rental instead of a purchase is the underwhelming special features. Unless you're a diehard fan of the movie, you probably won't watch or enjoy the commentary tracks. The commentary by the director, Alex Proyas, is boring as hell. It gives very little insight into anything about the film, even though he wrote the original, fragmented script. Oddly, there is a commentary with Roger Ebert which is more interesting because he brings up very many interesting analytical questions about the movie and characters. The most interesting of the three tracks was with David S. Goyer and Lem Dobbs, who were the writers who solidified the story and allowed the viewer to actually follow and care about what happens in the story. They actually give insight into the story and the symbolism seen throughout the movie.

The fact track would be interesting if you've seen/own the theatrical release as it tells you exactly what was changed, in real time, from the theatrical to the director's cut. Other than that, there's a stills gallery, and a forty minute making of, which is a little on the boring side. So, again, this is a great movie and worth a purchase for those who haven't seen it, but those of you that already own, do yourself a favor and just rent or borrow it.

]]> http://thingsiloveandhate.wordpress.com/?p=150 Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:55:07 +0000 rdjahn http://thingsiloveandhate.it.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/review-dark-city-directors-cut/ Before I put the Dark City Director's Cut into my DVD player last night I thought that I may have to watch the original version directly afterwards just so I would know what was changed. You know how it is: a new edition of a movie gets released -- extended, uncut, unrated! -- and it's exactly the same fucking movie only it lingers on the one shot of a woman's breasts just a little bit longer (how naughty!), or it's exactly the same only they've replaced the good ending of the theatrical release with the lame-duck alternate ending that, until now, had wisely been left on the cutting room floor.

In other words, you've been had.

What. A. Sucker.

Well, the recently-released director's cut of Dark City is absolutely not the same movie released in 1998. It contains a lot of the same scenes, almost all of the same scenes, but reordered and restructured, and there is also an additional eleven minutes of movie -- but what they didn't do was simply throw back in some of the scenes they'd cut out originally and call it a day.

As I said, the movie's been restructured.

As you may recall, the original movie began with some lame-ass Thomas the Explainer voice over narration that laid the entire world of the story out before you, that turned it into, basically a sci-fi* action movie with a noir feel about it. A fucking weird sci-fi action movie with a noir feel, to be sure, but that's what it was all the same. That's how it was structured. You were shown the world, Thomas the Explainer explained the whole thing to you, and then an action movie in this world followed.

I liked the movie as it was in 1998 -- let me say that right now -- but the director's cut is six kinds of better.

Co-written with Lem Dobbs, with a helping hand by David Goyer, Dark City 1998 was, until the release of the director's cut, Alex Proyas' best film, which is why, despite the fact that its theatrical release was sort of a non-event, it has gained a large cult following on DVD (which is one of the great things about DVD, isn't it? I mean, over the long haul, DVD popularity tends to be pretty democratic: a few people see a movie, they love it, they rave about it to their friends, their friends see it and rave about it to their friends, and pretty soon -- in universal time, anyway -- it's more popular than that shiny shitfest the studio originally shipped sixty million copies of, knowing it would clean up on DVD because it was a tentpole picture, for Christ's sake, and that's what they're there for).

Proyas is also responsible for The Crow and I, Robot.

Lem Dobbs is also responsible for Kafka and, a favorite of mine, The Limey.

David Goyer is responsible for The Dark Knight, among others.

And the good version -- the better version, anyway; I think the 1998 cut is still a good movie -- of Dark City they've put together is now available.

As I said earlier, Dark City 1998 is basically a weird action movie -- a thinking person's action movie, to be sure -- gussied up in equal parts noir and sci-fi clothing. The director's cut is not that at all. The director's cut of Dark City is a mystery in which the audience is left in the dark with the protagonist, John Murdoch (in my favorite performance by Rufus Sewell), and only makes discoveries, piecing the world and the story together as Murdoch does. In other words, the director's cut trusts its audience.

For those who don't know, Dark City is the story of John Murdoch who wakes in a murky bath tub in a hotel room with a dead, cut up hooker, by his bed. The phone in the hotel room rings. A man on the other end says he has to run, and now, people are coming for him. Men in black coats arrive; he does run. He has no memory. He doesn't know who he is, or even who he was. He's just a man who may or may not have killed a hooker. He lives in a city the sun never seems to shine on -- it's always dark. And the low men in black coats don't seem to be human. Who are they? What are they? What do they want with him? Who was the man who called him? And did he kill that dead hooker?

These are the questions the movie spends the next hour and a half answering, and the story, in the director's cut, is pieced together slowly, carefully, and the audience gets the information as Murdoch does. It makes it a more interesting, more rewarding film than the 1998 version was, in which everything was explained -- apparently at the request of New Line -- right up front, with a voice over.

My only real complaint about the director's cut is that it's got a bit of sag at around the seventy minute mark; it drags a little right there, whereas the 1998 version just moved, from beat to beat to beat. But it's a minor complaint for a movie that is, in every other way, a better film.

____

*I generally hate the term sci-fi and I never use it when referring to science fiction literature (that is, books), but occasionally, when referring to movies it's a good term to use, to differentiate between actual science fiction films -- Gattaca -- and action or adventure or western films gussied up in science fiction clothes, such as that little space western, Star Wars. Maybe you've heard of it.

Dark City is the pick this week for a few simple reasons. The main one is that this movie has hit the bargain bin with no fanfare and it's a simply fantastic sci-fi adventure. Rufus Sewell and Kiefer Sutherland have never had better performances than they did in this movie.

From the IMDB: A man struggles with memories of his past, including a wife he cannot remember, in a nightmarish world with no sun and run by beings with telekinetic powers who seek the souls of humans.

Sounds cheezy, for the most part, it reminded me more of Blade Runner than any movie to date; it's a good thing.

2. Gary Oldman- he looks different in every movie hes ever been in. His characters are so unique you can barely recognize the actor

3. Rufus Sewell- brilliant villain, brilliant actor. watch Dark City (not a well known film. includes a cast of Keifer Sutherland, William Hurt,and Jennifer Connely)

4. Daniel Day Lewis- its impossible to see how one can act this well

5. Morgan Freeman- for lifetime achievement, never disappointing, my favorite movie(The Shawshank Redemption), and for being a chill guy in real life

BTW, Morgan Freeman's favorite drink is a Guinness. Awesome.

is it weird three of these actors are in the Christopher Nolan Batman movies?

"The Matrix" (1999) nunca ha negado sus influencias. Literatura fantástica, manga, un estilo ciberpunk, etc... Los directores lo admitieron en algunas de las pocas entrevistas que concedieron en su primera entrega (luego se volvieron totalmente herméticos. ¿Será porque realmente no sabían explicar muy bien sus secuelas? :P). Así que tampoco se puede criticar a Matrix en cuanto a las inspiraciones de las que bebía. Pero hay algo que me hizo mucha gracia cuando lo ví. A lo mejor muchos de vosotros ya lo conociais pero nunca esta de más recordarlo.

La influencia notable en no pocos aspectos de "Dark City" (1998) -recomendable al cien por cien-. Una película de Alex Proyas ("El Cuervo") dirigida un año antes y ¿descarada?. Si se ve una y después la otra hay cosas que sí podemos decir que pueden ser fuente de inspiración para la realizada por los hermanos Watchowski. Pero claro, ambas van por derroteros diferentes. Mientras que en la primera la acción no es primordial en la segunda sí. Los villanos de la función tambien cambian (si hubiesen sido iguales seguro que habría habido demanda de por medio por lo evidente) por supuesto. En lineas generales se podría decir que el público puede preferir una u otra dependiendo de como las valore, no de si Matrix es un "plagio" a tenor de lo que se puede ver a continuación se podrían tener sospechas fundadas. Sin embargo, el tema central es demasiado parecido. Una realidad que esta siendo manipulada. Ahí estaría realmente el quid de la cuestión. Si a eso sumamos los innumerables detalles que Matrix coge "prestado" a Dark City... todo puede llevar a una conclusión. ¿Habría sido igual la aventura de Neo y compañía sin la que protagonizó Rufus Sewel?

Jorge Morales nos obsequió con 30 fotogramas comparativos en esta página (aquí sólo veréis una muestra). Comentaba que Matrix destilaba un tufillo de plagio que podía corroborarse simplemente viendo las imágenes de ambas películas. Y no voy a ser yo quien lo discuta. Sólo tenéis que verlas para haceros una idea de que algunas cosas no se pueden negar de ninguna manera. ¿Fue un éxito la película de Keanu Reeves por sus efectos especiales? ¿la inclusión del bullet-time? ¿los saltos imposibles? ¿qué determinó que Dark City no tuviese la repercusión que tuvo Matrix? ¿que tuviese menos acción? ¿su estilo en cuanto a vestir con ropa negra y ajustada :P?

Seguro que cuando echeis un vistazo a las imágenes, más de una os hará preguntaros como no os disteis cuenta de tanta similitud.

ESTANCIAS CON MUCHO REFINAMIENTO

AMBOS PUEDEN VOLAR

ME GUSTA SALTAR POR LAS AZOTEAS

CALLEJONES SOLITARIOS

INSTRUMENTOS DE INYECCIÓN Y EXTRACCIÓN MARCHANDO!

QUE SE HAGA LA LUZ... ALGÚN DÍA VAMOS!!!

NUNCA QUEDAN MAL UNAS CORTINAS CON FLECOS ROJOS

ESTAS ESCALERAS ME SUENAN...

¿ME PERMITE? QUISIERA ENTRAR EN SU MENTE

MARCHANDO UNA DE PIN-UPS!!!

¿A que es curiosa tanta similitud?

Fdo: Snake

I'm excited to see Jennifer Connelly take a turn down sci-fi street. I haven't seen Dark City or Labrynth but they're certainly on my To Do List. I will overlook The Hulk based on the lackluster bits and pieces of it I have seen. I guess I've only ever watched Jennifer in Requiem For A Dream, A Beautiful Mind, and Blood Diamond. All very potent dramatic roles. She strikes me as a very cerebral performer and I find her choice of roles intriguing.

Influence Meter: ++++++++++

With the release of M. Night’s “The Happening,” most people are counting on his “one-trick pony” movie twist that is usually found at the end of the movie. In “Sixth Sense,” Bruce Willis was dead. “Untraceable” showed that Bruce Willis really was a superhero, and Samuel L. Jackson was his nemesis. And “Signs?” Well, apparently interstellar space travelers don’t hold up so well against Louisville Sluggers.

In honor more for the “movie twist” than Shamma-lamma-ding-dong (had to get that one in), here are five of my favorite movie twists:

“North by Northwest” (1959) – Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, a New York ad exec who has a case of mistaken identity. It seems James Mason and Company think that he’s a spy named George Kaplan, which necessitates the need to kidnap, drug, and try to kill him. Throw in the mix a murder that Kaplan was credited with, the femme fatale Eva Marie Saint, and the fact that Grant goes from one side of the country to the other, eventually scaling down Mount Rushmore, and you’ve got one of the greatest spy (and Alfred Hitchcock) movies ever made. THE TWIST: George Kaplan is a fake CIA identity that does not exist.

“Session 9” (2001) – David Caruso plays Phil, a member of a HazMat clean-up crew. When the crew (led by Peter Mullan) get the contract to clean the abandoned Danvers State Mental Hospital, things are going okay. For about a day. When Hank (Josh Lucas) disappears one night, things go to hell quickly. When Hank returns with a knife stuck inside his eye socket and repeating words, “What are you doing here?” you know that it could only get worse. However, the major star of the movie was the hospital itself. It’s something you have to see to believe… THE TWIST: Gordon (Mullan) kills everyone, supposedly being “possessed” by Simon.

“Dark City” (1998) – Rufus Sewell wakes up and remembers… nothing. He doesn’t know his name and he receives a mysterious phone call from Dr. Schreber (Keifer Sutherland) saying that he’s in danger and has got to leave his apartment. Sewell eventually finds that his name is John and he’s on the run from cops who think he murdered some prostitutes, his girlfriend who cheated on him, and a group of alien beings that control the city by making everyone sleep while they make “adjustments,” led by Richard O’Brien. And it’s nighttime. All the time. THE TWIST: The entire city is floating out in space.

“The Usual Suspects” (1995) – Verbal Kint (Kevin Spacey) is the only criminal left after a boat heist that went wrong. Verbal was one of five criminals hired to payback their dues. As he narrates the tale to Dave Kujan (Chazz Palminteri), he mentions the name Keyser Soze. The tale weaves and wraps around this mysterious figure, who is all but a myth. “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn’t exist.” THE TWIST: Kevin Spacey IS Keyser Soze.

“Cube” (1997) – Independent sci-fi fare about a group of people who wake in a room. They’re trapped in a gigantic object that rotates around, opening new rooms and closing others, as well as opening to room that have wire that can cut through you, fire, poison gas, etc. No one knows who built it, no one knows who runs it, but everyone is trying to find a way out. One of the best mystery/sci-fi movies of the Nineties. THE TWIST: The only person to make it out is the person who can’t say anything (he’s mentally handicapped).

Dark City -- Hey, kids! Remember The Matrix? It came out in 1999 and completely blanketed critics' praise of what might arguably have been a better movie in the same mind-blowing existential genre. Dark City starred Jack Bauer Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt. It also had Rufus Sewell, who -- as opposed to Keanu Reeves -- could actually act.

Instead of an attack by machines, Dark City features ghastly, skeletal masters of mind-over-matter, who experiment on humans by rewriting their memories. They toy with people like rats in a lab, and Jack Bauer Kiefer Sutherland is the Faust who sells his soul to help them. Just like The Matrix -- and much less popcorn-y -- the protagonist discovers he's lived his life in an imposed reality and has to follow the rabbit to escape.

There is no kung fu.

Cube -- Andrew tuned me in to this 1997 Canadian sci-fi-thriller last year, and I couldn't believe I hadn't seen it. Seven people awake in a labyrinth of stacked, cubic rooms, nearly all laced with deadly booby traps. There are filament wire traps, flame throwers, gas, spears, acid... and the prisoners have to reason their ways through to escape.

The first, blaringly obvious thing about Cube is the set design. It takes place all in cubic rooms (duh), but the walls are elaborately patterned with geometric shapes and backlighting. The secret is that it was all filmed on one set and the crew rotated the cube and changed out the lighting for each "new" room.

Some characters crack under the pressure -- I lost my bet with Andrew about who would become the raving baddy -- and most meet grisly ends. The endearing thing (which the sequels ruined) about Cube is that you never find out why the prisoners (all named after actual, real-life prisons, by the way) are there or who are their captors. There is no grand reveal.

Dracula 2000 -- I never said all the films on this list were good. This one is great for its cheese, it's slick action, its cavalcade of not-quite-stars, and its heart-pounding (see what I did there?) revelation that DRACULA IS JUDAS ISCARIOT.

Oh, yes. I'm not kidding. The reason ol' Drac hates silver is because of the 30 pieces of silver he was given by the pharasees to betray Jesus. That's also why he hates crosses. Judas tried to hang himself, but God cursed him to wander the night eternally as punishment. I'm serious. That's the big twist.

Did I mention that Dracula is played by none other than Gerard "Leonidas" Butler from 300? Madness? THIS! IS! DRACULAAAAA! The film also stars Jeri Ryan, Jennifer Esposito and Vitamin C (the casting director must have been undead) as Dracula's brides; Christopher Plummer as Van Helsing and Jonny Lee Miller as his protege; and Omar Epps and Danny Masters (Hyde from That 70s Show) as short-lived vamps.

I can also sum up the best (read "funniest") part of the movie in six words: Vampire sex scene on the ceiling.

Lucky Number Slevin -- My friends all turned their nose up at this slick revenge flick, and I have no idea why. Maybe it looked too hipster, too cool. Maybe it was their natural fear of all thing Josh Hartnett. Maybe it was Bruce Willis' handlebar mustache. I don't know. But Slevin, from 2006, is one of the smartest movies I've seen and is laced with lots of twists. Toward the middle of the movie, you'll discover it's not the movie you thought you were watching. The directors pulled a Kansas City Shuffle on you.

Slevin is a fast-talking smartass caught in the wrong place and the wrong time (or just maybe the perfect place and the perfect time) between two rival gangs. He's kidnapped alternately by The Boss (Morgan Freeman) and The Rabbi (Sir Ben Kingsley), each who want to use him to kill the other. But Slevin's got his own plan, and his own reasons for playing both sides against the middle.

There's also Lucy Liu, playing adorable instead of cold and bitchy. The only weakness in the film, for me, is very the end, which is too Hollywood-happy to work. One of the characters should have stayed dead. The strength, though, is the fastest, sharpest dialog this side of Pulp Fiction.

Batman -- Everybody lately has been sitting around circle-jerking about Batman Begins, but they just don't get it. The best Batman will always be Tim Burton's masterpiece from 1989. Everything else about the Dark Knight is just imitating.

Burton did everything right. He gave us Batman as a shadowy hero from the start, kicking ass without weighing us down with an hour-long origin story. We get one villain -- that's one, not three -- and he's a scary son of a bitch. Jack Nicholson is a deadly and psycho version of the Joker, not a Cesar Romero clown. The sets were straight out of the comics and had the same eerie nouveau feel as Batman: The Animated Series.

Look, I like Christian Bale, OK? He's good. And I like Batman Begins. But Michael Keaton will always be the coolest Bat, in my opinion. He was quiet, hard, enigmatic. You could feel his pain without having painful exposition drilled into your brain. Burton's Batman was just plain the best-executed, artful version of the Dark Knight's story. But who knows -- maybe this summer's same-titled sequel will flap to the forefront of cannon.

"Dark city" este un film science fiction dark, cu o poveste originala, cu efecte speciale WOW chiar si pentru anul de gratie 2008 si in general un film care te face sa gandesti, desi iti da toate raspunsurile pe tava mai devreme sau mai tarziu. Are si elemente thriller, dar si foarte putine elemente horror. Atmosfera creata de film este una dintre cele mai puternice pe care le-am experimentat, iar actorul principal, Rufus Swell - pe care sigur il veti recunoaste cand il veti vedea - joaca absolut superb. Filmul este predecesorul de drept al faimosului Matrix si veti observa cate elemente din mega-hitul box-office sunt preluate din "Dark city" si adaptate pentru a se potrivi mai bine publicului larg.

"Dark city" nu este apreciat doar de mine, ci si de multele fan-siteuri care au aparut si care cer o continuare. De asemenea, are o lista de premii prestigioase.

Va las mai jos trailerul filmului, realizat intr-o maniera neobisnuita in aceea ca nu dezvaluie aproape nimic din povestea filmului. Ceea ce este FOARTE bine.

Vizionare placuta!

Stop laughing . . .

Anyway, after the Magnum opus that was my last post, I thought I'd come back today with something a bit on the sunnier, fresh-air side of life.

I love movies. Always have. The peaceful moments of my existence are embodied best in a quite evening at home with a DVD in the Pioneer and the lights out. And while there's nothing wrong with the occasional lighthearted romantic comedy or a mindless blockbuster action movie, what I really enjoy are movies about interesting characters. Often called dramas, these presentations of honest people living real, complex lives in the midst of both the magnificent and the mundane turn my crank and drag me through the entire spectrum of emotions. I laugh. I cry. I escape for a couple hours and then slide reluctantly back into the real world, often having learned a thing or two about myself along the way. And making good character-driven movies take incredibly talented and versatile actors.

I got to thinking about all this last night while watching one such movie with my son, and our chat was still jogging upon the dewy grass track of my mind as I awoke this morning. So I decided to run with it and solidify a list of my favorite character actors to share with you, starting with the ladies. When I see any of these gals cast in a movie, it's almost always a must-see. So here they are, my leading ladies, in no particular order:

Patricia Clarkson

She oozes talent from every pore. While most may not consider her a leading lady, I find that she brightens nearly every movie I've had the pleasure of seeing her in. I fell for her in The Green Mile. To watch her transform from a diseased and bedridden bag of bones into a beacon of light and redemption moved me. She stole the show, even if only for a brief few minutes. She did almost the same thing in The Station Agent. And then she melted my heart completely in Lars and the Real Girl.

Joan Allen

She never plays a weak character, every one a strong woman with poise and intelligence. Consider her as Bonnie Waitzkin, the protective yet compassionate mother to a chess prodigy in Searching for Bobby Fischer, or as the no-nonsense senator in The Contender. And who really wants to mess with Pamela Landy, the hard-as-nails agent with a heart of gold in the last two installments of the Bourne trilogy? She's been in too many good movies to list here. As a leading lady, she's not had much success. But she steals every scene she gets with her wit and charm. She's spot on every time and a pleasure to watch.

Helen Hunt

I've loved her since Mad About You. She was the perfect foil for Paul Reiser, counterbalancing is stupidity with her spunk and grace. She manages to save Twister, and then burst onto the big screen with class in As Good As It Gets, providing the shaky yet determined voice of reason to Jack Nicholson's insanity and earning and Oscar in the process. Her eyes speak volumes and her silence screams. It all just simmers underneath and then bursts out with such precision and poise. She's been sort of underground for a while but has a new movie out, Then She Found Me, which she wrote, produced, directed and starred in. I can't wait to see it.

Charlize Theron

She could have been a bimbo actress. Her first big screen role was in Children of the Corn III. What?! Then came The Devil's Advocate. I was a bit worried. Then she started taking on some real meaty roles and came out shining. Most people missed The Legend of Bagger Vance, which is a shame. And . . . my God . . . the awesomeness that is her performance in Monster. Rent it today if you haven't seen this Oscar-winning performance. She sparkled in The Cider House Rules and showed her tough side in The Italian Job. She's gorgeous, talented and hasn't disappointed me in quite some time. Of course, I haven't seen Æon Flux yet . . .

Cate Blanchett

My favorite elf. I'd enter a spooky, ancient forest any day for an audience with this extremely talented former Queen of England . . . er . . . I mean actress. Cate has portrayed almost everyone imaginable, including Bob Dylan, and done so with her own unique style. Her smile can lift your spirits or rip out your heart. Consider her role in Notes on a Scandal opposite the always-good Judi Dench. She fell apart on screen, deconstructing the stereotypical image of a successful woman with secrets in the closet. And she managed to steal Babel right out from under Brad Pitt. Then there's all that red hair. My oh my, what a beautiful woman.

Toni Collette

She quietly slipped on the scene in 1994's Muriel's Wedding in a performance lauded by critics but missed by most moviegoers. Then came The Sixth Sense, in which her startling and sympathetic turn as struggling single mother Lynn Sear earned her an Academy Award nomination. I watched this movie again last night with my son and I'm still touched by her transparent performance. Simply riveting. Almost as good as her role in the funny yet touching Little Miss Sunshine. Her pout isn't . . . pouty, if you catch my drift. She's honest with her emotions and never fails to make me smile.

Kate Winslet

Face it. Anyone who could make Titanic a joy to watch has to be good. Kate is fearless when it comes to the roles she chooses. She can play the classics, as she did as Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, embody such eccentric personalities as Iris Murdoch in Iris, and then bring boring to life with an easy dramatic flair as she did in Little Children. She even managed to breathe life into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind opposite Jim Carrey. That was no small feat, for that movie would have been dead without her knack for sincere laughter atop a smile that speaks a thousand words. She's a rare and elegant beauty, and I just adore her.

Jennifer Connelly

I just realized that Jennifer Connelly is the first brunette on my list. I'll let you decide what that means. Meanwhile, I'll watch her again and again. I loved her in the thinking person's sci-fi noir flick Dark City. She looked just so darn poised and otherworldly standing on the dock at the end of the film, her dark hair blowing in the breeze. But her other roles have taken her deeper, as a drug addict in Requiem for a Dream, as Jackson Pollock's impressionable lover in Pollock, as a single mother with supernatural water stains on her apartment ceiling in Dark Water. But watching her shatter a glass of water in anger and frustration in A Beautiful Mind is a study in excellence of expression and personification. And those baby blue eyes . . .

Hilary Swank

Russell Crowe once encouraged anyone who came from "the downside of advantage" to pursue their dreams whatever they may be. Such is the case with Hilary Swank. She got her first big break in The Next Karate Kid after she and her mother moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. Then came Boys Don't Cry, and astonishingly compassionate and realistic performance as Brandon Teena, a transsexual who was brutally raped and murdered in Nebraska in 1993. Few people saw this movie, which is a shame. She earned an Oscar for her performance, and then earned a second Oscar for her portrayal as boxing phenom Maggie Fitzgerald in Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby. She's had some duds (The Reaping) but the good far outweigh the bad.

Laura Linney

If I were pressed to name my favorite actress, I wouldn't hesitate a second in picking Laura Linney. Honestly, I've never seen her in a bad movie. She has that rare ability to rescue even the shallowest of screenplays and bring her performance to life. I first fell for her in The Truman Show. Her over-the-top performance matched Carrey's step for step. And consider her opposite Mark Ruffalo in You Can Count on Me. The quiver in her voice sounds genuine and unforced and adds a sympathetic touch that dives deep but never drowns. I especially enjoyed her in The Savages with Philip Seymour Hoffman. Interestingly, she always seems to be cast opposite some of my favorite actors. She holds her own and brings out the best in everyone.

Julianne Moore

Ever see Magnolia? No, not Steel Magnolias. That one sucked. Magnolia is the three-hour ensemble drama directed my Paul Thomas Anderson, the wunderkind behind last years best movie, There Will Be Blood. He has a way of bringing out the best in his actors, and he got way more than even he could have imagined from Julianne Moore in Magnolia. She walks the tightrope of madness and never slips. She's done sensitive and sweet in Far From Heaven, sexy, dirty and nasty in Boogie Nights, and strong and proud in Children of Men. Not all of her movies have been masterpieces, but that's no fault of hers. Heck, I even liked her as Clarice Starling in Hannibal, not an easy role to take on after Jodie Foster's Oscar-winning turn.

So there you have 'em, my leading ladies of cinema. Were I an actor in need of someone to work with who could make my star shine, I'd choose any one of these gals any day of the week. Feel free to add your favorites to the comments, or simply add your praise for these actors if you feel so led. I love talking movies, so fire away . . .

The film is a reboot, not a sequel. I'm sure you all know this much. My major problem comes from the fact that the whole paternal conflict, the whole storyline was shelved. And the movie has no script. It's simply, the comic story told as simply as possible. Nolte and Bana's scenes in the first film was the only saving grave of the whole movie and I like the conflict

Louis Leterrier (Transporter 2, Danny the Dog) directs so I already expected some great action sequences and sharp visuals. The movie impressed me a lot in that department and I'm sure fans who were looking for a more action-oriented Hulk the last time around, will be pleased. However the weak script was problematic for me. Sure, I enjoyed it and it was definitely worth the ticket price but I would've preferred a more complicated script or even just the inclusion of Nolte's storyline from the last film (without the weird poodles). The movie was fun, enteretaing and had some great climax moments. But at almost two hours, I would've preferred more action sequences (there are only 3), especially since the dialogue and the storyline they were focusing on was nothing special.

Cast-wise, Norton was nothing special and physically unfit for the role while Tyler was just not the Betty Jennifer Connelly was. Hurt's Ross was a complete asshole in this movie and there was no measure of salvation possible for him while Tim Roth was surprisingly pleasant and actually looked better in the action sequences than the Hulk did. I think Leterrier did a great job and I would love for him to do the followup, as long as someone other than Zack Penn is writing the screenplay (which doesn't seem likely).

On to the marvel Projects (in chronological order).

2008 - Punisher Warzone: Ray Stevenson (Rome) stars as the lead while Dominic West is Jigsaw. The plot seems good as Castle end up in the middle of organized crime in New York, bad blood and crime families. Julie Benz (Angel, Dexter, Rambo) in the mix as well as (hopefully as the baron of the Italian family or maybe the daughter). The plot seems perfect for the Punisher (reminiscence of Ennis' dark script of the comics) but the trailer didn't impress and I'm not sure Stevenson is well suited for the role. Lexi Alexander (Green Street Hooligans) directs.

2009 - X-Men Origins: Magneto: This movie which could be quite enjoyable focuses on magneto's life in prison camp and how he came to be the fearful mutant the X-Men fight in almost all three movies. Unfortunately, David S. Goyer (Blade Trinity) directs.

2009 - Ghost Rider 2: After the horrid first film, there might be doubt over bringing Cage and Steven-Johnson back but currently there are no details except this release date.

2009 - Silver Surfer: Spin-off from the Fantastic Four movies, the movie will be directed by Alex Proyas (the excellent Dark City and the average I, Robot) which seems like a perfect fit for the punk sci-fi this film could be. Doug Jones might star as the surfer. Color me extremely interested.

2009 - The Hands of Shang-Chi: IMDB states the plot line as "Based on the Marvel Comics hero, a young Kung-Fu master learns his father is the world's worst criminal". Never heard of the comic and the director hasn't done anything I'm interested in.

2009 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Gavin Hood (Rendition) seems an odd choice to direct but Jackman is back as Wolverine and brings with him a bunch of mutants I was dying to see (Reynold's Deadpool, Beak and finally Gambit). I'm a huge fan of X-Men and am looking forward to this one.

2010 - Nick Fury: No director attached and the plot seems to be an origin story but unless Samuel L. Jackson is cast as Fury, I don't care much for this project. I doubt it's going to come out anytime soon anyway.

2010 - Iron Man 2: Jon Favreau might not return. Robert Downey might not return. And while, Maguire was Spider-Man and Cage was Ghost-Rider, Iron-Man was Robert Downey. The movie will not work without him and probably should'nt even be.

2010 - Ant-Man: Seriously? Aren't they getting a little carried away with the movies just so they can do a complete Avengers lineup? Edgar Wright (the unbelievably good Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead) directs and although he's a perfect choice to direct the Scott Pilgrim movie (slated to be out the same time), I'm not so sure about him doing a serious superhero film. No actors attached.

2010 - Thor: Mathew Vaughan (Stardust) seems like a very bad choice since Stardust was a horrible "fantasy" movie. I like the idea of a fantasy epic but why not do a God of War movie? Thor is they gayest marvel character, not to mention in need of a serious language and wardrobe update. Any choices for the lead?

2011 - Spider-Man 4: No director and no actors attached. No script out yet either.

2011 - Captain America: Nick Cassavetes (John Q, The Notebook) directs and the choice to make this a period peice seems like a good one. Rumors of Gerard Butler in the lead are hopeful. Unfortunately Zack Penn is writing the script.

2011 - The Avengers: With a date like July 2011, we all know we're in for a long wait. I like the concept of introducing all the heroes in individual movies and then making the Avengers one. Seemingly Hulk might be one of them and Iron Man is definately on board. Thor, Cap and Ant-Man and if they play their cards right and follow the New Avengers path, Wolverine might join as well. But the concept of all these actors coming together seems too good to be true not to mention extremely expensive. Again the horribly simple Zack Penn writes.
Well, there you have it. All projects marvel has in production. I'll be back in a day or two with the entry I've been working on for over a month. See you then.