Recent Releases  -

Not much singing and dancing in this one but some pretty nifty animation and a decent story.  Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius  is about everything you wanted when you were a kid, assuming you were a geek child who liked scientists and rockets.  This film appeals to both adults and children and possibly adults who have children.  Jimmy and his gang must save the universe using only things they are able to cobble together in the back yard with their imagination.  Much fun ensues and you can watch it while shaving your Llama or Alpaca.

Martin Short must get tired of playing dorks.  Unless, of course he’s not playing but just being himself.  Innerspace is a recent release of an old movie.  Short plays a guy who gets injected with an experimental miniature sub and who must come to grips with having an internaut driving around inside him.  The flick has some cute moments but is otherwise a waste of time. Not funny enough to be a great comedy and not special enough in the effects arena to be good sf.  Simply another mediocre hollyworld flick.

The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick is a broken attempt at video biography in which the focus is set as much on the times as it is on Dick himself.  What the effort lacks is any sense of who Dick was as a person, instead presenting him as nothing more than another geek writer seeking enlightenment through drugs.  The flick ignores Dick’s inherent paranoia, distrust of government and championing of the little ignorant man.  Get this only if it’s the sole remaining dvd left after the meteor hits the rental store.

What do you do when you get old and cranky and still want to be in movies?  Check out Space Cowboys for the answer as four over the hill actors come together to show everyone that they still got the right stuff.  The movie’s actually not half bad although there are some plot holes and bad writing.  Entertaining enough though for those hot summer nights when the butter comes pre-melted in the box.

If I was able to travel through time I’d go to the future, make millions and then spend my time remaking old hollywood classics, one after the other.  The Time Machine is a weak remake of the George Pal classic flick.  What were they thinking?  Oops, I forgot, thinking and Hollywood just don’t go together.  A waste of time to watch this, time which would be much better searching for equatorial Java on the map.

I was in the B-movie section of the dvd store the other day and had to choose between Bikini Academy and Battle Queen 2020.  I’m afraid I made the wrong choice.  Julie Strain (her greatest acting ability is taking her clothes off in front of a camera) stars as the Battle Queen of the title.  Unfortunately there’s not much battling going on.  Lot’s of talking about really stupid plot devices though and meandering about post-apocalyptic scenery (which means they shot this in the desert on the cheap.)  Worse than leftover Siberian reindeer pudding.

It’s really only a matter of time until Holloworld realizes that they can just lift video from games and flesh it out with a few digital effects and actors and make some cash.  Resident Evil  is a great example of exactly that.  This first person shooter game transferred to film keeps all the gore and guts of the game but ads nothing of any intelligence or mystery or adventure.  If you like watching people get killed and shooting up zombies then this is definitely the flick for you.  If you expect dialogue and story and plot then you need to avoid this like a corporate lackey slipping off for the long weekend to Aruba.

Classics -