Jesse Ortega (underwearsoup)

Chocolate R

Pretty good movie with a god-awful plot full of melodrama and hokey moments. Then again, martial arts movies are hardly judged on their plots, but it's still pretty bad by this standard. Thankfully the movie's complete and utter strangeness, and strong action, help carry all of the movie. The action isn't exactly mind-blowing, like the first time I saw Ong Bak or some of the scenes in the first Ip Man, but it is entertaining and there's a certain kind of quirkiness to the movie that just adds to the charm. That's it really...the action really saves this movie.

Time Bandits PG

Ultimately this is a pretty good movie that should've been better given the people involved. I'm a big fan of Monty Python and a fan of Terry Gilliam's work as a director and his willingness to try new things. But this movie has a terrible identity crisis. It doesn't know if it wants to be a sci-fi or a comedy and instead of trying to find a way to mix comedy with sci-fi/fantasy, they're done separately. One segment of the movie might be comedic, but the next might be fantasy with no comedic elements involved. This is fine if you're doing a sketch movie but this isn't a sketch movie. And that's, ultimately, the movie's undoing. It never finds a consistent tone whatsoever. In fact I'd almost say it was one of the worst movies, as far as consistency goes, that I've seen. But the movie is never bad, and it has its funny moments (mostly provided by Evil and the supreme being). And the movie does sort of grow on you and in a small (no pun) way you end up caring for these characters and it ends up becoming a good movie, eventually, thanks to the last 20 or so minutes where the comedy is cranked up. But it's just good and nothing more, and it pains me to say that.

Oldboy R

Absolutely amazing movie, don't know whether I'd still want to be a filmmaker were it not for this movie. It features some great acting by everybody involved, but Mink Sik just shines as Oh Dae Su. Quite frankly the best foreign movie I've seen and that's saying a lot

The Dark Knight PG-13

Last month I said that Wall-E was probably the best movie of the summer so far (I also said that it was among one of the best movies of the year). This is by FAR the best movie of the summer (sorry Wall-E) and one of the best movies of the year. I'll even go as far to say it's one of the best movies to come out in a couple of years. To put it into perspective...the imdb.com site has the top 250 movies of all time as voted by the users. The number one movie of all time (according to the users) is The Dark Knight with an average score of 9.5 and it's an even more amazing feat considering that the #2 movie on that list is The Godfather 2 (who had a stranglehold on that #1 spot for years before The Dark Knight). This film improves on almost every flaw that plagued Batman Begins, the main flaw being that you didn't really know who the 'real' villain was until 2 hours in the film so Batman Begins didn't have the traditional structure of a hero vs. a villain. This movie fixes all of that with the inclusion of the Joker, and to an extent, Harvey Dent. The writing, the cinematography, the action, the acting, etc...again everything that was flawed about Batman Begins was fixed here and Batman Begins was an EXCELLENT film so there really wasn't a lot to fix. Christian Bale does a great job as usual, I liked how he felt more comfortable as Bruce Wayne and he added a depth to the character that was not seen in previous Batman films. I love how Bruce struggles with the fact that Harvey Dent is the hero that Gotham deserves and that Batman is not up to Harvey's standard of heroism. That internal conflict within Bruce was one of the best things about the film. Maggie Gyllenhaal, while she did a much better job than Katie Holmes, wasn't used that much and I felt that a lot more could have been done with her character. Aaron Eckhart was excellent as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. I, originally, was worried about the Two Face character because you already had the Joker who was going to be the main villain of the film, but by hook or by crook this character was excellent and his turn into Two Face was written with such expertise it's not even funny. The end of the movie was left open as there's the possibility of the return of Two Face in a future Batman film (if there are any planned). Now onto the performance that everyone is talking about. Heath Ledger as the Joker, my god he was amazing as the joker. His character was so twisted, disturbing and sick that everytime the Joker is on screen you're instantly drawn to him and his charisma. My aunt made the comment that Heath Ledger's accent as the joker was trying to be TOO much like Jack Nicholson's joker and while I can see the comparison I say that if Heath had used his normal voice for the role, the darkly comedic style of the Joker would have been lost so. While there's room for comparison betwen the two Jokers they're still two very different versions of the same character...Jack's was cartoony, Heath's was more realistically gritty and disturbing. I, personally, enjoyed Heath's joker more cause his delivery and the sheer insanity he added to the joker is amazing and he's definitely the main reason a lot of people are gonna see this movie, and I really can't blame them as Heath was seriously one of the best villains of the decade. Again the end of the film left a lot of questions unanswered for the joker character as he never really died nor did he have a final battle with Batman. I personally think that the joker character should be left off of the sequel, and give people time to get used to the idea of someone else other than Heath playing the joker (due to unfortunate circumstances). The Dark Knight is proof that you don't need to sacrifice the story in order for it to be entertaining (Transformers I'm looking at you), which is why I hate the Transformers even more so now than I did last year, well technically I don't hate it as it had some entertaining parts what I hate about it is that it represents everything that's wrong about summer movies. Stories are sacrificed for entertainment and films like Wall-E and The Dark Knight do a perfect job of combing both great stories and great entertainment. I'm sure that's the reason why there'll be some people who hate this movie, because it's not mindless Michael Bay entertainment. This film is the measuring stick for future superhero movies to follow. I seriously recommend this movie to everyone, I really cannot say good things about it. I'm getting the 2 disc special edition dvd DAY ONE godamnit!!!!