3DD!3

I felt like I was on a roller coaster. Excellent and funny scenes alternate with truly weird and kitsch moments. Even so, I have mainly positive impressions from watching The Ugly Truth. Someone who bears great responsibility for that is Gerard Butler who led the movie to a satisfying conclusion, despite his strange, but predictable character development. On closer consideration, I was forced to reduce the stars to just 2.

A cheesy B-movie made according to a screenplay that a fan must have found in the drawer he hadn’t opened since the 80s. Bum-style Robert Carlyle is nicely complemented by the foxy Kelly Hu (at last she gets a leading role) and mega-killer Harlow played by Ving Rhames. It’s full of perfect moments with sometimes completely original ideas. Scenes like the one in the bar must bring out a smile on the lips of every action B-movie fan. Otherwise, the screenplay stinks, but we all expected that, didn’t we? P.S.: Ian Somerhalder gives the performance of his career here. I haven’t seen such a crazy, twisted and goddamn nice psycho since Brad Pitt in Kalifornia, and that was a long time ago. A very much enjoyed 3*.

If you’re goin’ to San Francisco... Another classic that Stephen King definitely inspired Stephen King when writing Shawshank (and the Mile) (the story is different, but the yard is absolutely the same). Of course, everybody roots for Clint from the moment he arrives at the prison. The atmosphere starts really getting under your skin as the end nears and doesn’t leave you until during the credits.

A brilliantly well-thought through war movie that plays around nicely with the viewer in the story. The action is effective and polished to the final detail (during the final escape from Eagle’s Nest you gradually realize how well it was all planned). Richard Burton as a tough first in command who knows everything and Clint Eastwood as the ultimate killing machine who, for safety’s sake, knows nothing form a great team with excellent snappy lines. The atmosphere is completed by the excellent military music of Ron Goodwin.

Excellent. Now I understand why this movie caused such a stir at the end of the millennium. It answers, shows and shocks. Unlike some of the last episodes (of season five) of the series, it grabs the viewer at the very beginning and doesn’t let go until the very end. Powerful locations, an excellent plot, excellent actors in the leading roles. I got precisely what I had hoped for.

It looks like somebody was real pissed that Mike Bay wouldn’t do Transformers for them. ;-) Bruckheimer knows exactly what the audience wants these days and so he packed it all into G-Force. There’s always something happening, wisecracks, shooting and chasing all centered around a gang of guinea pigs or hamsters or whatever they were. A very high 3 and definitely movie of the year for younger kids. I’ve hear coffee’s bad for you, but this is ridiculous!

A life in darkness has always been my worst nightmare (maybe also because I have had to look at the world through two pieces of glass in a metal frame for many, many years) and Pacino’s performance of Lt. Col. Slade embodied my idea of how I would look at the world if I went blind. What’s the point of life if I can’t see it? Even so, Scent of a Woman is all about life, what little things can influence it and about how to live it. A very nice story. P.S.: Another perfect rendition from Pacino.

These boys are still really good at this, David Belle is a fight master and Cyril Raffaeli is his skilled secondant. The story is a different matter. It’s really far-fetched with a hackneyed message that there’s strength in unity and when there’s no fighting going on, the picture is jam packed full of dead spots. Now it clearly shows what a blessing Morel was for part one.

Pilot/AIR: The first thing that got to me in SGU was the music. Exotic, electronic and intense. One of Goldsmith’s best works. In comparison with the original series, this new one is filmed more aggressively and more experimentally, similarly to my favorite, Lost. The idea with the ninth symbol is superb and the O'Neill, Jackson and Carter cameos were nice to see. But now we get to the most important aspect and that’s the actors. Robert Carlyle and his Machiavellian Dr. Rush is excellent, balanced between a positive hero and a cold-blooded swine who is interested in nothing else but his research. I was pleasantly surprised by nice-guy David Blue, typical soldier boy prototype, Brian J. Smith and the fatherly Justin Louis. I’m very happy with it so far. I hope it lasts. Season one: This really is a different gate than we were used to and you can see that the creators are only slowly getting used to it themselves. The camerawork still bothers me a little, inside the ship it should have been more static, you don’t have to stuff dynamic camera into everything, it should be balanced and everything will be fine. The casting is really superb and some characters are beginning to show their colors nicely (while others lose them). I don’t want to get into how excellent Carlyle is as Rush, but I really wasn’t expecting much from the new boy David Blue, but in fact his Eli has become one of my favorites on the ship. The conflict with Rush is making Young and Greer is becoming the ultimate hardman who is building a pretty large fanbase for himself in my home. Scott and Chloe and the other main characters are a disappointed. Although they have their bright moments, most of the time they are there to make up numbers. It’s nice to see guest stars from SG-1, and the same applies for Lou Diamond Phillips who crops up here and there. The stories are more or less constant, and I think the only episode that stands out is Time and the really sweet half-season finale peaking in the episode titled Space. SGUhas potential and I hope the creators make good use of him in season two and won’t just keep running on the spot. Season two: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. In season two, Stargate Universe fulfilled the potential that I saw in it and has become one of the highest quality and most consistent Stargates of them all. Revealing the Destiny’s mission was something the creators should have done straight away in season one. It was a mistake that had proved fatal. But from that moment on, there was almost nothing to criticize about the Gate. Before that there had been too much running on the spot and character introductions. What we have now is a dark, flinty sci-fi with excellent acting performances. Bobby Carlyle rules as Rush, but in places Young and Eli (even the superfluous Chloe rocks) are equally impressive. Thanks to those three, I was near tears in the last episode, but in fact it’s an excellent ending if you don’t know if there will be a next season or not (dipshits, canceling a show just as it’s starting to get going properly). But the ending is as it is, so there exists a chance for a return (what about in 3 years’ time?) and I certainly hope it happens. Because this was the Gate I was hoping for (when I grew up a little O’Neill’s jokes began not to be enough). A Gate with ETs who don’t look like people and with blue stars, tense confrontations on alien spaceships and planets that look... different. While in season one I had trouble finding any episodes that were excellent, now I almost all of them can be described excellent. And Goldsmith’s music is genius. And to conclude? Just that I not gonna miss just Stargate, I’m gonna miss the Universe. See you on the other side.

A deathly evil in the form of a devil goat strikes a girl who did not renew her grandmother's mortgage. And thanks to the Raimi brothers, it strikes an innovative, disgusting and hellishly scary note.