Big Screen: 3:10 to Yuma

Really a funny movie. Very entertaining but very silly, and a lot of holes that can be poked in the plot afterward. Weirdly my parents went to see it the same night (600 miles away) and said the same thing: entertaining and satisfying but very silly. Dad says it made him remember how some Elmore Leonard stories just go overboard into crazy silliness.

Russell Crowe is quite saucy and fun, and Christian Bale is so earnest and moral that you kinda want to slap him upside the head, or upside his weird, stereotypically English, filed to the exact same length across the top row, gray teeth. Yes I have a thing about teeth and his drive me nuts.

And for you Serenity/Firefly fans, Wash has a pretty big part and he’s great in it! Yay! [And the dude who played Sam Phillips in “Walk the Line” is in this as well. He has a somewhat creepy resemblance to John Ritter in this role….]

Big Screen: Transformers

I really enjoyed about the first hour of this. Then I started to get bored, and the robots started to get preachy (thank you, humans, for working with us), and I started to want it to be over.

Despite me losing interest before the end, one can’t really argue the fact that Josh Duhamel is one tall drink of water, even if I had to break up with him a long time ago as you may remember. And Shia LaBeouf plays self deprecating quite well, I can imagine him having a long future in Hollywood.

DVD: Premonition

Other than the last five minutes, which I thought were total cheeseball (and UCK not necessary!!), I thought this was a totally satisfying (and mentally quite torturously terrifying) movie. Sandra Bullock was completely convincing and I don’t know why no one went to this movie. Although, as I said, it should have ended five minutes earlier.

Such a nice treat to see Julian McMahon (yum!) in something other than Nip/Tuck which has just gotten way too icky and weird for me. He’s delish.

Thumbs up from me, yo.

Netflix: Attack of the Gryphon

Although this movie was cheesy to a truly ridiculous degree, I think I could have been fine with the cheese had the special effects not been so very, very bad. It’s hard to believe it was made in 2007, although I realize the Sci Fi Channel does not have a big-movie-house budget.

Amber Benson = good in a badly written role. Jonathan LaPaglia = not as good. The only person in the movie whose accent (natural, in this case, I believe) just seemed too modern to fit in with the rest.

Big Screen: Sunshine

Very much in the tradition of the Alien movies…except for there not being an alien. Or not really. More about how you don’t NEED for there to be an alien for everything to fall apart; that long journeys and close quarters and just being human can be enough to make things go bad. That’s mostly what the movie is about. Although there was a bit at the end that I really had to wonder why it was even there. Didn’t seem like it helped the storyline / may even have hurt it.

Cillian Murphy always freaks me out, no less here; he’s got a weird Albino-esque-ness to him for a darkhaired dude, doesn’t he? The main girl from 28 Weeks Later is here also, as well as “Flame on!” from the Fantastic 4, Michelle Yeoh, and a couple other sort-of recognizable but I can’t really place them dudes.

Good acting, pretty enjoyable stuff. Except for the bit I mentioned before.

Cable: Blown Away.

I forgot all about this flick!!! It must be years since I’d last seen it…

Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones are two Irish dudes who spent their early days doing bombings for the IRA. It’s many years later and while Jeff Bridges has moved on to defusing bombs instead of building them and having a new happy family and posing as an American, Tommy Lee Jones has done a) none of those things and is b) seeking vengeance. Papa Lloyd Bridges is also in this and fun as a sort of wacky tough-old Irishman, and Forest Whittaker, back in the day, before all his (justly earned) fame, is great as a cocky young’un on the bomb squad.

There are lots of cheesball things about this movie, and I honestly start totally laughing when Tommy Lee Jones starts scampering around karaoke-ing to U2 while planting bombs everywhere, but I still really like this movie. All kinds of tension. Very entertaining!

Multiple Viewings: Training Day

As I’m sure any of you other multiple view movie watchers can appreciate, after watching one OK but not great Antoine Fuqua movie, you must IMMEDIATELY watch a great Antoine Fuqua movie.

Denzel Washington gets his swagger on in such a truly GREAT and unbelievable way in this movie and not only that but he’s BAAAAD. I mean normally he’s all getting his swagger on in a hot AND good guy hero type way. To see him go the evil route…it’s just breathtaking and breathtakingly good.

Ethan Hawke is really just a sidekick here, but he does a good job of being almost painfully morally upright.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop watching this movie. Soooooo good.