Anyway, that segue aside, it was a pretty good movie. It was clever in the pacing and direction, but the plot was predictable (the title was a big hint) and the ending expected. The girl I am loved the happy ending, but I really felt sorry for the man that was the “bad guy” — the Crown Prince of Austria. He was basically set up — and suffered so that the protagonist, Edward (aka Isenheim the Illusionist) could be with his true love. Now, if it was really true love it would have found a way to let everyone be happy in a fair and just way.

Another movie is coming out this fall that also involves magicians (flavor of the month?) — The Prestige. We’ll see about that one when the time comes.

Ricky grew up idolizing the parting words from his father (“if you’re not first, you’re last”), and is constantly yearning to be close to him, even though he’s basically a deadbeat who’s never around.  Of course, he bumbles his way into fame, fortune, and golddiggers while sacrificing the “nice girl”, his children, and his best friend.  Ah, but he’s so lovable that he eventually get all of them back (substitute golddigger with the hot nice girl) with lots of gags in between.

If you’re in the mood for no-think-summertime-splashed laughs, this is a good movie.  I had a lot of fun because I saw it with a good audience that did plenty of groaning and laughing.  That is always neat.

So, yeah, I saw Clerks II without seeing the original, which is quite good, according to an extremely informal survey conducted by me on my friends. Although Clerks II was funny enough (and bizarrely awkward at some points) it was quite “Hollywood.” You know, guy falls in love, guy gets the girl, and the main character(s) learn its best to loosen up and live life the way you want to, not the way society tells you to.

That being said, I’m sure this movie is missing a lot of the indie charm of Clerks. Acting was fine, there were some good lines and nerd-tastic scenes (debate on which is the “real” trilogy, Star Wars or Lord of the Rings), but overall, pretty generic storyline.

Oh, well. Now I guess I’ll have to see Clerks to get all of the inside jokes.

Well, that was wasted. Ok, I admit that my first mistake was seeing it on opening weekend … without preordering tickets … and at a movie theatre that is attached to a mall that is rampant with teenagers. Conclusion: I got a really crappy seat. Somewhere along the lines of second row, two seats from the far right side.

That being aside, the plot was so very meh. Probably because (like Lord of the Rings) the second and third Pirates of the Caribbean movies were filmed at the same time. This sort of filmmaking always leaves the second part of a three part saga disappointing because of the cliffhanger (think Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back). Anyway, long story short, this movie had a shaky plot because a lot of the story remained unsaid. For instance, Davy Jones, the embodiment of the sea, decided to keep his most vital organ on the LAND he can’t step foot on save once a decade is beyond me. Why he would even let it out of his sight is a bit confusing as well.

Other gripes include: not enough screen time for Captain Jack, barely any character development for Will Turner (well, I suppose he had to deal with his dad suddenly showing up), lots of unnecessary footage (why put a dress floating in water on screen for so long), overdone computer graphics (look, we can make a guy look like a crusty barnacle or a hammerhead shark OR a ship’s hull), and no ending. Elizabeth was also all over the place with her love for Captain Jack and Will Turner (go figure – girl has to choose between shiny Good Guy (think Cyclops) and Hunky Bad Boy (think Wolverine).

At least Johnny Depp was still at his best, with even more sauntering and slurred speech.

Perhaps the final installment of this series will tie all the loose ends together. This movie ended with ::gasp:: the return of a Curse of the Black Pearl character and the possibility of finding dear Captain Jack, so I suppose I have something to look forward to.

I write my thought as a rather uninformed viewer. I don’t read comics, and I don’t really remember the original Superman movies that well (the first came out in 1978 — almost 30 years ago). But I do know this one is supposed to take place after the events of Superman II.

Anyway, although there were apparantly a lot of homages paid to the previous version of Superman, I really felt like there was absolutely no real chemistry between any of the characters. Frankly, Lois was whiny and surly the entire movie. She barely pays any sort of attention to Clark, and they seem to have no relationship to speak of work or otherwise. I’m a bit disillusioned because I always thought she fell in love with Clark. After all, Clark always considers himself Clark first, and Superman second (see the Clark Kent subsection of the Wikipedia Superman article).

Lois also seems to be dumb as bricks. When investigating a strange yacht that could have potentially been the starting point of an unusual blackout, she decided to take her five year old kid along. Go figure that Lex Luther was hanging out on board.

Although Kevin Spacey did a good job as Lex Luther, what was the point of his minions? I agree Kitty was there for semi-comic relief, but the other three guys (one of which was Kumar from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle) barely did anything and said even less. In fact, their only parts were just to exchange meaningful glances with each other, give menacing stares to Lois or Superman, or kick and punch Superman when he’s feeling low. Lame.

The special effects were fantastic, though. At least the shaky plot was coupled with some really neat scenes with lots of flying, explosions, and Superman looking cool in his outfit and perfectly placed lock of hair on his forehead.

The last thing that stood out to me was the retro-style opening credits. Very similar to how the new King Kong opened up. I guess the new-school way of opening a movie is the old-school way. Maybe it gives you more credibility? Or was it just another homage?

Basic plot is as follows: Andy (Andrea), as recent Northwestern grad, takes a job at Runway magaznie as the second assistant to the editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly. Even though Andy knows nothing of fashion or of doing the catty-woman-thing, she takes the job hoping that it will cement her place in the journalism industry.

My first thought was Anne Hathaway has huge eyes. My second thought was, boy these poeple are skinny. Andy actually describes herself as fat because she’s a size 6 (rather than a 4 or 2). Well, that’s lame. I certainly hope she wasn’t being serious. Miranda even calls her fat but smart. Blech. The movie certain reminded me why I don’t work for or read fashion magazines.

Ok, so in the end she learns that being a size 4 isn’t everything and that performing her job has cost her her boyfriend, her free time, and most importantly, her morals. Yadda yadda yadda she ends up quitting her job and pursuing a more down to earth career with a New York newspaper. Well, I’m sure we could all see that coming a mile away.

Meryl Streep is the only reason Miranda really comes to life, otherwise this movie would not have packed a punch at all in the character development department. Well, at least it was fun to watch. You can’t ask for much more from a summer chick flick.

But how could Pixar, the hero of all animation studios, possibly disappoint me? Of course they didn’t. Aaron had mentioned that perhaps the animation wasn’t up to par after viewing the first few trailers, and I have to admit, the trailers were pretty bare-boned. But I remained confident til the end, and I was rewarded with a great movie, the first to make me all sniffly in a while.

The plot wasn’t the most original in the world. A character starts out arrogant, is humbled, and gains morality and a rich spirit. He has to learn a number of life lessons. But Pixar does everything with such inherent cleverness that the “typical” plot can be accepted. Lightning McQueen, the hot shot racecar voiced by Owen Wilson, develops real heart. Unlike the characters in other movies such as Shark Tale and Over the Hedge, his character is not tied exclusively to the actor. How refreshing to see animated objects brought to life by voice talent, not but actor/actress reputation. Mater was by far the cutest character, even though he is basically a sloppy redneck. He has a lot of great lines, and also is brutally honest.

The animation was lovely, and I didn’t mind the super shiny-ness of all of the cars. The animation world has come a long way in terms of trees and water, so of course those looked great. How many hours did those scenes take to render?

I was also really amused by the popularity of NASCAR, evident in this movie. Attention was given to a lot of race details, which I only managed to catch because Aaron’s dad watches a lot of NASCAR. Who knew that knowledge would come in handy? And of course, cameos from Mario Andretti, Richard Petty, and Dale Jr.

I guess the biggest con was the somewhat generic plot. Even though this movie was really clean and clever, it didn’t come up to the standards set by Toy Story, The Incredibles and Monsters Inc. That’s ok. The other con was the trailer reel before the movie. Blech. Practically every movie featured smart-mouth asinine animal characters who are crude, generic, or representitive of some ethnic group. Ugh. We’ve reverted to the crows found in Dumbo.

Stay for the end credits, though. Definitely.

As the title suggests, this is the last of the X-Men trilogy, but if you’ve seen, you know they just have to put in hints for a sequel, in case some studio coughs up the cash later on down the line. My overall impression of the movie was … it made me sad. Magneto in the park, playing chess by himself?! That was so sad! I told Chris that it was like Geri’s Game, but not funny. Anyway. I thought there was a lot of pointless death and the dark Phoenix thing was “eh.” It sounded really cool at the end of X Men 2, but what happened in this one that was so cool? Jean Grey didn’t learn how to control herself, and she randomly tried to kill five or so people. Hmph. Cyclops showed up for about five seconds, and the other more seasoned X-Men were kind of pushed aside for the younger crowd. And, Mystique as a human? That is so unexciting. Angel had some potential, but really, character development was at an all time low.

What I also found kind of silly was all this talk about the “class 3″ versus “class 5″ mutants. I’ve never read the comics, but on the big screen it sounded hilarious. Sort of like a role playing game.

Did I mention a lot of meaningless death happened?

Overall, this is what one would expect from a summer blockbuster. There was one glitch in the special effects — when Magneto is moving the Golden Gate Bridge (he couldn’t find a better way?) it went from dusk to pitch-black-night in roughly 5 seconds. Anyway, I’ll have to say this makes me look forward to what Bryan Singer decided to work on instead of X-Men 3 — Superman Returns. My summer lineup has been rather disappointing thus far, and I don’t have high hopes for the Da Vinci code. The only saving grace for next month will be Cars. Pixar, don’t let me down.