• People are paying more to see movies now.

• Families are cutting expenses due to higher gas prices.
• Many people wait for DVDs to come out later in the year, as opposed to 10 - 20 years ago when VHS movies might not be released for 18 - 24 months.  Plus people can have the theater experience at home.
• Shorter lifespan at the theaters, probably due to the point above.
  
• Movie piracy, I am not saying that it did not exist 10 - 20 years ago.  But it is a tad more wide spread than it was.

I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith the Monday before Batman Begins.  It was good, but at this point if you had to choose, go see Batman Begins and wait for the Smith's to come to PPV. 

I been watching Beauty and the Geek on the WB.  What a silly, dumb, completely screwed up reality show.  The chicks are hot, the geeks are funny.  I love the show.

I caught the first episode of The Real World Austin.  Melinda is too fine, and her voice is so pretty.  The other cast mates are pretty hot as well... I guess, if you are into that sorto of thing.  Man, that dude got his cheek bone busted in the first episode.  It can only go down hill from herre.  Just like with the Surreal World with Mini Me... he pissed himself the first episode, then it was so-so the rest of the series.

Peace up, A-town down byatch....

Went to see Batman Begins again tonight.  That makes twice in 24 hours.  I went to the IMAX showing, and I am glad I did.  It was awesome, truly awesome.  Again, I can not stress enough how much you should see this movie.  Even if you are not a Batman fan.  After some coaxing, I took some friends yesterday to the opening day show.  They all left the movie saying it was a good film.  And none of them really could care less about the comic book version of Batman.  Nuff said as far as I am concerned.

Wow, where do I begin with this movie.  First off, I would like to just say that Christopher Nolan has made an exceptional movie period.  Not just a comic book movie.  You could remove any reference to the Batman Universe.  Bruce Wayne could be Tony Anderson from Miami and this movie would kick ass.  The tone of the movie is right on with that depicted in the comics for the past 10 - 15 years.

Let me start this with comparing the differences between the comic and the movie, which there were vary few.  In the comic, Gordon is a cop who moves to Gotham City after getting transferred from Chicago.  In this movie, Gordon is showed consoling a young Bruce after his parents are slain. They are shot after coming out of some show about Satan or something; I will need to watch it again.  But in the comic cannon, they have always watched The Mask of Zorro which provides some sort of symmetry of Bruce Wayne's life.  And the biggest difference I noticed was that Bruce and Ras meet before Bruce was Batman.  In fact in this movie, it is Ras' organization that completes Bruce’s training.  In the comics, Dick Grayson was in college before Ras was introduced.  But I can look past those small details.  On to the movie itself.

The story is fantastic, explaining away how Bruce travels the world after his parents death to learn about the psycy of a criminal.  After words, he meets Ras.  By this point Bruce has already been training for years.  While they do not go into detail about what he trained himself on, he is already a gifted fighter knowing many forms of martial arts.  I can only assume he did his other training that would benefit the worlds greatest detective.  He completes his training while he is a guest of Ras, then he heads back to Gothem.  There he finds the cave, gets the suit, and at some point saves Gothem.  They way he acquires his equipment is awesomely told.  And of course, its a movie so someone needs to know who he is.  The people who know he is Batman and the reason they know are also excellently told.  Not like the first few Batman flicks.  I mean come on, why would Alfred let some skirt in the damn cave.  Hope that is not too much of a spoiler for you.  if it is, I apologize.  But honestly, if you have not seen it by now, your bad.

To the actors, Christian Bale plays his three roles to perfection.  Three?   Yep, he plays Batman, which he is great playing.  He got the tone of Batman down to a T.  He also plays the public face and the private face of Bruce Wayne.  The public face is something that he does not want to do, but Alfred pushes him to accept that he must carry on his father's name even though Bruce just wants to suit up.  The millionaire playboy is his public face.  His private face is what Alfred and Rachel see.  The man who wants justice for his parents; the man who wants to save Gotham.  Bale finds the perfect balance of theses three different characters in the same character.

Michael Caine plays Alfred very well.  He captures the Servant/Master and Father/Son role that he and Bruce shares down to a T.  It is Alfred that practically raises Bruce.  The flashbacks where you see a young Bruce and Alfred, as well as an older Bruce shows this relationship perfectly. 

James Gordon, played by Gary Oldman, was also portrayed perfectly.  They actually show Gordon as a hero as opposed to an older officer that was there for the fact that he was Commissioner Gordon.  Gordon's relationship with Batman was also portrayed well.  You see them interact, with Gordon warming up to Bats slowly when he realizes Batman wants to help.

Henri Ducard, played by Liam Neeson, was an awesome character.  Neeson has this character type down.  Give him a lightsaber and a Whig and you got Qui Gonn.  Neeson has the mentor role down to a T.  Great casting.

Ken Watanabee played Ras pretty well for the screen time he got.  Since most of the time Bruce was his guest, he was being trained by Ducard.

Cillian Murphy played Jonathan Crane very well.  In the comics they portray him more scraggly, but who possibly actually looks like that.  No back story on how Crane decided to become the Scarecrow.  But its call Batman Begins, not Scarecrow Starts, so deal byatch.

Morgan Freeman is usually awesome.  This is no exception.  I love the way his character is written and how he ends up as the head of Wayne Enterprises.  His relationship with Bruce is completely believable and does not vary much from the comic as far as I have read.

The rest of the crime lords and supporting cast were also great.  Nice when you have an awesome cast to work with.  Katie Holmes did a decent job.  No Harvey Dent appearance as was rumored.  But what you gonna do.

The gadgets were well done as well.  The Tumbler rocked.  All the stuff on the Tumbler actually works as opposed for show.  The suits origin was well told as well as the need for the cape.

All in all everything was explained fantastically.  David Goyer wrote a fantastic script.  The actors acted fantastically.  And Chris Nolan visualized it perfectly.  This is the best movie I have seen since The Borne Identity if not the best period.

I could say more, but this movie is worth a million words.  Don’t believe me, go and check it out.

Just got back from an early showing of "The Longest Yard".  This was a good film, very entertaining.  The cast worked well off each other.   Being a prison movie, you miss out on a lot of eye candy.  But this movie makes up for it by having Courtney Cox in the beginning.  And there are a few other hot bods you see here and there.  There are a few surprises in my opinion in the movie.  Just some things are out of place in this comedy.  Seems to me that it bounced between The Waterboy and the original "The Longest Yard" which had a much more serious tone.  Either way, I recommend it. 

This weekend I plan on seeing The Longest Yard... this movie looks funny as hell.  I really want to see the original.  Also maybe if I am lucky, I can catch The Amittyville Horror or House of Wax before the end of the week as well.

The Batman Begins preview was on last night.  And it just added the fuel to the fire that burns that makes me desire to see this movie.  The sceens were awsome, the look and feel is that of the comic book world I have in my head.  And everything seemed to be in the real world, no crazy stuff.  Anyhow I am tired, later.

I may edit this later after I have had a chance to wake up a bit.  But let me say this, Episode III is awsome.  The story, the acting, how it leads in to the original trilogy... everything is perfect.  The dark tone of the movie is expected, I mean this is the beginning of the Empire.  Though I will never look at the original trilogy the same way.  I will never look at Darth Vador the same way.  With out giving anything away, I recommend that you call in sick, or do what ever you have to do and go see this movie as soon as possible.  People that don't appriciate the first two movies should realize that you need the events of the first two to set this movie up.  Don't get me wrong, I didn't care for Jar Jar, and I thoght the pod racing scene was long.  But we need those movies to tell the complete story of Anakin's life.  Lucas said that Star Wars was originally supposed to be about the tragady of Darth Vador, but Luke and Leia took more center stage in the first 3.  With the help of the new trilogy, in my opinion, the focus of the entire story episode I - VI is that story.  I can not say it enough, as good as the first two were, this movie blows away any preconcived notion of what I was hoping for or expecting.  Check it out.

Let me start off by mentioning the movies that I would like to see from the trailers.  Mr. and Mrs. Smith is looking more and more appealing to me.  Disney has a movie called The Greatest Game Ever Played that looks great.  Star Wars, nuff said!!!  Some other movies that looked good but I can't remember the titles.  Some good movies are due to come out soon.

Kindom of Heaven in my opinion rocked.  I am a huge sucker for these types of movies.  Ridley Scott first brought the epic back to the forefront with Gladiator.  Then came Troy which I though was very well done.  The Alexander which many thought sucked, but I liked it.  Not as much as Gladiator or Troy, but I felt that it held its own.  Now Ridley Scott returns to the big epic with Kingdom of Heaven.  This movie sees Orlando Bloom play the main charactor who travels to Jeruselam to be with the father he never knew.  Shit happens and he eventually becomes the protector of the people.  Some things were added or modified from true history to make the movie more "hollywood".  But I was not too up on the true history, so the story presented to me was fantastic.  I definatly recommend seeing this movie.  Later.

Well I am back, not that most would even notice, but I am now 95.8% recovered from a 2 1/2 week illness.  And let me tell you how much fun it is being sick as heck, working, and finishing you Senior Project while you want to be distracted by MXO.  Anyhow after recovering I had a chance to see xXx: State of the Union over the weekend.  And after being hesitant to see it at first, I was glad I did.

Lets start of by saying that Ice Cube did a good job with his role.  He was funny in Friday, but I never though of him breaking out from a urban comedy market.  But the story he was given, which wasn't great but better than the first, and supporting cast made this film very enjoyable.  With out going into too much detail as not to spoil the movie for those who have no had a chance to see it yet.  I will say this, the plot is a large exaggeration of anything that could possibly happen.  Not to say it couldn't, happen but it is far from realistic.  If you could look past that small detail, the story is great.  Though you will have to make that decision on your own.  A few of the action sequences are also require leaps in logic.  Dwain and I were scratching our heads when a car was driven fast enough to blow its tires out on a train track.  Much beyond that, the action sequences were fantastic and kept you in the movie.

As far as the supporting cast, William Defoe, Samuel Jackson... ‘Nuff said.  These are two of my favorites and very good at what they bring to each role they are involved in.  And the chick that played Charlie... Dang! that woman is fine!

In either case I recommend seeing xXx: State of the Union.  Even if you have not seen the first since beyond the fact that Gibions runs the xXx program, the two stories have nothing to do with each other.

I don't really have the time to write reviews on all the movies I recommend seeing right now, but here is a quick list.

• Sin City
• Be Cool
• The Pacifier (for the kids)

The movies that are coming soon that I really are looking to see are:

• Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
• Batman Begins
• xXx: State of the Union
• the Amityville Horror
• Kingdom of Heaven

Be on the lookout for those reviews.  Later