How should you train a dragon?  Apparently you shoot it down from the sky into a crater.  Then you feed it fish until it likes you.  As long as you don’t get eaten that is.

This movie is the latest flick from Dreamworks Animation and it was one that made me say, “Okay I’m buying that when it comes out on DVD!”  This statement is usually reserved for films from studios with names like ‘Pixar’ and ‘Universal’.

It’s weird, these dreamwork folks.  Their movies are either hit or miss.  It’s almost as if there are two different studios working to crank out the 3D animated films.  One half produces Kung Fu Panda, Chicken Run and How to Train your dragon, while the other half is silently cranking out films like Monsters Vs Aliens, Shark Tale, and Over the Hedge.  It doesn’t look like there is an end in sight either if ‘Over the Hedge’ can return over three times the $100,000,000 spent to make it.

Now this has little to do with the actual film of Vikings and Dragons, so I’ll get back to that.  Here is the basic synopsis of the movie…

“A Viking teenager named Hiccup lives on the island of Berk, where fighting dragons is a way of life. The teen’s smarts and offbeat sense of humor don’t sit too well with his tribe or its chief… who just happens to be Hiccup’s father. However, when Hiccup is included in Dragon Training with the other Viking teens, he sees his chance to prove he has what it takes to be a fighter. But when he encounters (and ultimately befriends) an injured dragon, his world is flipped upside down, and what started out as Hiccup’s one shot to prove himself turns into an opportunity to set a new course for the future of the entire tribe.”

This movie is great!  It did have me wondering at points where exactly the audience was being led.  At times I was having a little trouble trying to figure out where the movie was taking me as the story’s twists and hooks kept darting around my expectations.

This movie is a lot of fun.  The author Cressida Cowell has apparently created a whole slew of books featuring hiccup.  It looks like I’ve got a couple to pickup!

There was one character who kept giving stats of different dragons including type of breath weapon, range, and movement speed.  Clearly it was making fun of Dungeons and Dragons, but it could make a neat world setting for a simple role playing system.  They did keep referencing a book with all of the dragons and their powers.  Being curious about this, I did a google search for ‘How to Train Your Dragon RPG’  It looks like I wasn’t the only one to make this obvious connection.  Hopefully I won’t be coming across as dorky as some of the results I have found!

This is one to see on the big screen, you won’t be disappointed.

[edit: Boy Do I look dumb, Crash came out second.  But in MY WORLD...]

Today it’s all about the movie ‘Love Actually’  If you haven’t seen it, but you have seen the movie ‘Crash’ then you really don’t need to watch this one.  Just make all of the story threads end on a festive Christmas happy note and it is essentially the same movie.

Although going from Love Actually to Crash is a little more difficult.  You have to replace Santa with a rapist and then replace the children’s Christmas pageant with kidnaping and decisions about if you want to sell a van full of people into slavery or not.  And add running over people, explosions, and massive amounts of racism.

Okay, so the comparison is only a one way street.  If you have seen Crash, you have seen Love Actually.  If you have seen Love Actually, you haven’t seen Crash unless you are really twisted and demented.  I’ll let you decide which one that is for yourself.

So the movie, the one in question (not the one that accidentally tripped and won Best Picture), is all about a bunch of people in their little lives going towards Christmas.  The people have some connection to one another, either by being second cousins to the Prime Minister or by being his brother in law’s secretary or perhaps by being his sister’s friend’s child who is in love with an American girl.  In case you couldn’t tell, the movie takes place in England.  Just like Crash…mostly.

There is one part of the movie where this guy falls in love with a Portuguese woman who speaks no English.  She is his maid while he works on his bad novel in the south of France.  She also falls in love with him, but he doesn’t really know it.  Also he doesn’t know a lick of Portuguese.  Really who does?  They talk, but they have no idea wtf the other is saying.

Soon after he leaves he gets sad and decides it would be a good idea to go marry her.  He runs off to do so, stopping only to take a two week course on Portuguese.  When he finally finds her, she is working as a waitress in a restaurant.  He impresses her by asking to be married and confessing his love in broken bits and pieces of Portuguese that he scrambled together.

Then comes the real tear jerker.  Knowing it ahead of time by reading the rest of this paragraph won’t even take away it’s potency.  She responds to him in English.  The grammar is messy and not structured, but it is in English.  She had been studying his language for the exact reason he was learning hers.

It reminds me of the Christmas story where the guy sells his pocket-watch to buy his wife a sweet comb.  Then she runs off and gets her hair made into a wig so she can buy a chain for his pocket-watch.  Both of the two sacrificed something they cherished for the one they love.  In the pocket-watch and hair story it turns out to suck for both of them.  But in Love Actually, it turns out to be very beautiful.

Some of the other stories that go along with the movie are also pretty good too.  There are about six storylines in total running through the movie.  One turns out to be a real downer.  Another illustrates how sad and lonely one guy is.  Another is neutral, like eating a sandwich.  But the remaining three are happy and heartwarming.

Hate to say it, but I liked this movie.  So I suppose that makes it nothing like Crash.

It’s been twenty five years since the move This is Spinal Tap was released into the world.  Today I just saw it for the first time.

It isn’t that it has been quoted a billion times, that’s certainly not the case at all.  In my opinion there were not a lot of great lines in the flick.  But the movie is widely known enough to be claim cult pseudo-classic.  I’m not quite sure if it is one or not.  People talk about it existing, I think just for the sake of it being a novel idea.  A documentary (or rocumentary as it calls itself) about a band that actually doesn’t exist?  Brilliant!

I am not convinced that I liked the movie.  I am convinced that I like the idea of the movie.  This movie had the same flaws as Napoleon Dynamite and Borat for me.  That is that everyone talked them up and claimed they were the greatest thing since the invention of cake.

Like any cake loving warm blooded human I rushed out to see this films.  Although after viewing them and hearing any moderately funny jokes repeated trillions of times, the movies didn’t seem to do it.  While there were some jokes in the movie I certainly wasn’t impressed to any significant degree.

The whole ‘existence of the band’ thing is somewhat confusing because apparently they decided after making the movie that they should make the band for real and put on a couple shows.  In it’s time I understand that a lot of people thought of the band as real.  Except for a couple moments in the movie, it does seem like it very well could be a real band.

The annoying thing about the ‘band/movie’ is looking through wikipedia about it.  One of the guys in the band actually does the voice for hard rocking Otto in the Simpsons. (As well as Mr. Burns, Smithers and Flanders to round things out!)

Aside from being a goofy movie, if you haven’t made up your mind on if you should watch it here is one thing to push you off of the fence (although I don’t know which way) :   Fran Drescher is in it.

I have recently spent hundreds of dollars going to the theater to watch an informing new show called “The Informant!” staring Matt Damon.

Damon’s character, the borderline schizophrenic compulsive serial liar Mark Whitacre  runs around giving the FBI all kinds of information about his company’s price fixing schemes.  Also he tells them all kinds of weird things that may or may not be true, which leaves the FBI thugs with mixed feelings.

During the whole movie, Whitacre is narrating the whole thing with his random wandering thoughts. It is a little weird at first as many of them have absolutely nothing to with the plotline or any of the characters in it.

Although without the inner narration the movie would be a lot more serious.  You are never sure what to believe, and you want to think that Whitacre is telling the truth.  Eventually you have to stop believing him completely or risk having him betray the trust that you need as an audience member.

Matt Damon did a very good job with the character and transforming into a part that would normally go to seasoned nervous paranoid schizophrenic acting master Nicolas Cage.  Damon took the roll and made it his own.  While Damon isn’t exactly type-casted as an actor, this role was outside of many of his previous flicks.  And he did a great job at it.

When the ten nominations arrive for best picture, don’t look for this one.  Although if the movie was released later in the year there is a chance that Damon would be able to get a best actor nomination.

It’s interesting to watch older movies just to see what things used to be like back in the day.  Of course when I say ‘older movie’ I’m talking about 2003.  I recently re-watched Matchstick Men staring Nicolas Cage and directed by Ridley Scott.

I have seen this movie once before, back when it was in theaters, so I knew about the twist that it contains.  (And if you keep reading, you’ll know it too!)

It was much harder to watch knowing that it was all a setup.  Everything was so painfully obvious, but if you weren’t looking for it like poor old Nicolas Cage then you will feel really duped. (Not quite as duped as his character though!)

This really is the roll that he can play well.  A neurotic weirdo with no self esteem and multiple crippling social disorders.

It is a good movie and Cage plays his part soo well!  I’m somewhat shocked that he was looked over completly for any awards for the part.

The movie is great.  It is hard to watch twice.  Unless you are completly devoid of emotions and empathy and really like to watch people get suckered and stomped on.  Then you can laugh at Roy all you want as his heart is torn out in slow motion.