Men in Black III

Men in Black III

Rating 6 out of 10

I have to admit first off that I liked Men in Black I in 1997.  I just didn't love it like many people did.  Didn't care for Men in Black II at all.  Happy to say MIB III is much closer to the first one than the second.  Once again I liked it, but didn't love it.

It's been ten years since MIB II.  The miles show on Agent K's face (Tommy Lee Jones).  Agent K and his now now so young partner Agent J (Will Smith) are doing a fine job keeping earth safe from the bad aliens and flashing their memory erasing super pen.  A really bad guy that Agent K put away forty years ago breaks out of a super prison on the Moon determine to make K pay.  He takes a secret time machine and goes back to 1969 before K arrested him and kills him.  Thus no way he can arrest him or set up the earth saving force field that keeps the bad aliens away.  With K gone now in 2012 the bad aliens are taking over and Earth as we know it is about to be gone.

Agent J must go back in time with the same secret time machine to the day before the bad guy kills Agent K and save him from the bad guy.  Clearly it is a thinking persons movie!

Will Smith is funny as he always is.  Tommy Lee Jones will be great forever.  Josh Brolin does a good job playing the young Agent K.

If you REALLY liked the first MIB you will enjoy this one.  It's entertaining.  The effects are obviously better than 1997.  I liked it.  I just didn't love it.  Rocky liked it more than i did.  He gave it a rating of 8.

Battleship

Battleship

Rating 7 out of 10

There are movies that are very good and there are movies that are entertaining.  I couldn't honestly classify Battleship in the very good category, but I can say I was entertained.  Over the years movies have been made about books.  Then children books.  Then big movies made on comic books.  I guess it was only a matter of time before movies would be made on board games.  I'm guessing most of the kids seeing this movie have never played the game.

In Battleship we have likable loser Alex Hopper played by the movie hunk of the month Taylor Kitsch (who starred in the box office flop John Carter earlier this year).  He has no direction in his life and is pressured into joining the Navy with is mostly perfect brother.  Somehow in a couple years he shoots himself to Lieutenant and is dating the very hot daughter of the Admiral.  The hot daughter is played by the hot Brooklyn Decker and Admiral Shane is played by the always good Liam Neeson.

NASA has been sending welcoming messages to a planet in another galaxy that is similar to Earth.  Problem is when the aliens come to visit they are not here to swap recipes.  They want to take over the planet.

You can probably guess the rest and it doesn't matter.  This is a park your brain at the door type of movie. Go to watch the above average effects and decent acting.  Some good rah-rah proud to be an American type of moments.  If you watch the trailer and it looks interesting you will probably enjoy the film.  I did.

Top of the Rock- Book

Top of the Rock: Inside the Rise and Fall of Must See Tv
by Warren Littlefield

During my high school years in VERY rural Louisiana there were two tv stations available using our antenna.  We got NBC and NBC.  No kidding.  My closest neighbor (1/2 mi away) had a deluxe tv antenna that after dark could pick up CBS.  So all those tv shows in the late 70s that didn't come on NBC (Dukes of Hazard, Charlie's Angels, ect) I never even heard of.

What does this have to do with the book?  Well, I was kinda forced to be partial to NBC and the tv shows on it.  Lucky for me NBC was just starting a twenty plus year run of exceptional tv shows.  Back then it was Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere.  In the 80s it was LA Law and Miami Vice.

In 1993 NBC's ratings were starting to fall as the once big hits were getting long in the tooth the reins of the Network were passed to Warren Littlefield.  The president of a network has the final say on what tv shows make it to air and much say on casting and suggestions on plots or characters.  Littlefield had a knack for picking tv hits and also lucked into having some dropped into his lap.

This book chronicles Littlefields ten year run of exceptional tv shows that in a time before all the cable channels took off and ate into the Networks viewership.  At one time the Thursday nights lineup of Must See Tv was generating more income than all of CBS or ABC.  Shows like Seinfeld, Friends, the Cosby Show, Cheers and ER ruled the roost.

The good part of the book is the telling of so many behind the scenes stories on all these popular tv shows.  On Cheers Sam Malone was first going to be a retired football player staring ex-NFL player Fred Dryer (Who instead went on to star in the show Hunter a few years later).  When they changed him to a baseball player they ended up with Ted Danson. It was hardly a huge success right off the bat.  After Cheer's first season it was dead last of all tv shows in the ratings.  The only reason NBC didn't cancel it was because they had nothing better to add.  Several bigger named actors were thought about for Friends.  Amazingly the hardest to sign on was David Schwimmer who didn't really want to be a tv actor.  On the tv show Mad About You many NBC exits wanted Valerie Bertinelli but she just didn't test well. Nicollette Sheridan of Desperate Housewives was considered for Grace of Will and Grace.  There was no confidence in Seinfeld as it was thought too Jewish.  NBC only gave the green light for four episodes.  There was only the three guys.  Elaine was added at the last minute to try to get females to watch.

On a down side it's a little stiffly written. You can tell Littlefield handed a bunch of notes to real writers and they did what they could.  He also still has bitter feelings of being dumped by NBC after ten years of record profits and does not mind whining about it in the last chapter.

With it's small warts I liked this book alot.  I enjoyed all the behind the scenes stuff on tv shows I spent alot of time parked in the recliner watching.

Dark Shadows

Dark Shadows

Rating 3 out of 10

There was a tv show way back in the 1960s called Dark Shadows.  I barely remember it as a little kid.  I can only guess the tv show was far better than this movie or no one would have remembered it.  This movie is just a mess.

Again I don't know what the tv show was about.  In the movie we start off in the 1700's when the ultra rich Collins family come to Maine and start a fishing dynasty.  Young Barnabas watches the empire grow as he does.  In his early 20's he falls for a young local girl much to the dismay of one of the young maids at the Collins mansion.  The problem is this maid is a witch who casts evil spells on the whole family.  Killing his parents and somehow turning Barnabas into a vampire and then locking him into a lead coffin and planting him in the ground for nearly 200 years.

Now we flash forward to 1972 when a construction crew stumbles upon Barnabas coffin and makes the mistake to open it.  He finds the Collins empire on it's last leg and the evil witch in charge of the town that once belonged to his family.

The biggest problem here (besides the bad writing and wondering who ever thought this was a good idea to start with) is it's gross in parts but not scary and it's a farce that is not funny.  Attempts at humor go with blank stares and groans.  An hour into the film the wife was asking me if it were almost over.  Unfortunately we still had 53 more minutes to sit thru.

Can't really blame the acting.  I'm not a huge fan of Johnny Depp, but he gives it his all as Barnabas Collins.  Eva Green does what she can as the witch and looks quite fetching in the process.  Michelle Pfeiffer is okay as Elizabeth what is left of the Collins clan.

It's just poor writing and a bad idea.  Lots of cliche jokes about the early 70's (bell bottoms, hippies, VW Buses, ect) are stale and predictable.  This is just a bad movie.  Don't even bother to rent this one.

The Avengers

The Avengers

Rating 9 out of 10

I have enough kid left in me that I like most all super hero movies.  Always have.  I have seen most if not all of the super hero movies released.  Some were very good, some not so much.  I would say the Avengers is hands down the best movie of this genre and one of the best movies of any genre I have seen in a while.

If you saw last years Thor movie you will remember the evil brother Loki who wanted to conquer their planet before Thor banishes him to a place far, far away.  Turns out it wasn't far, far enough.  Loki is back  and determined to take over Earth.  He has brought some very mean friends with him.  This many bad guys would be too much for one super hero to handle.  Lucky for us on Earth Nick Fury (played by the always great Samuel L. Jackson) saw this coming and has put together a group of the super heroes.  Besides the heroes every one has heard of (Captain America, Hulk, Ironman and Thor) there are a couple you may not know as well (Black Widow and Hawkeye)

The first half of the movie moves at a slower pace as they assemble the team.  Slow compared to the second half of the movie.  Once the action starts hold on to your hat because you are in for a ride.  The casting is near perfect.  The effects are very good also.  As I said lots of action and also several laugh out loud funny parts.

I think even if you are not generally into these type of movies you should give the Avengers a try.  If you like hero movies you should run to the theater and see this one.  It delivers the goods and then some.