Movies

In Boston I got the chance to see the awesomeness that is my Dads home theater system. Since he installs this stuff for a living you might expect his personal rig to have mighty powers. And you would be right. We watched Kingdom of Heaven and it was like sitting right in a theater, except with really comfy seats. Now I learn that Ridley Scotts film originally had about an hour more footage and Fox made him cut. This footage explained all kinds of plot elements that didn;t quite gel in the released version, (such as how a blacksmith knows how to defend against a siege). An enthusiastic geek got to see this full version and you can read about how cool it could have been here. Alas, it was re-released on ONE goddamn screen and i don;t anticipate it getting any kind of wide play. Maybe we will be lucky and get an extended edition DVD in a year. One can always hope.

We also saw Syriana in the theater and I enjoyed it a lot. Great performances and it did not pull punches or dumb down the material. What it did not do is shock or surprise me. At the end I felt I had watched a well acted dramatic portrayal of how the US has run foreign policy in the Middle East over the last 30 years or so.

Lastly we saw King Kong in Philly and I will say that it did not in ANY way dissapoint. It rocked and it rocked HARD. Amazing visuals but also a good story. Scarier than I though it could be. And certainly a tear jerker. Just try to watch the 70's version after seeing this, you will vomit in your own Lederhosen. Andy Serkis (who was Gollem) is the actor behind Kong and they say that he's the actor behind Kong. I don't know, Kong is so damn real, so alive that you don't see Andy there at all. It like they found the Laurance Olivier of Gorrillas and just filmed him doing his thing. It's THAT real. Go see this in a theater, it just won't look as good on the small screen.